The Alpha's Willing Captive (Historical Paranormal Werebear Steamy Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

started to laboriously read the words aloud.  "Our sac...sacrifice is made on this day.  We beg for the forest's con...continued protect...protection as acknowledgment of our tritty."
    "Treaty," I muttered.
    "Be quiet girl.  Show some reverence." The constable darted his eyes quickly into the encroaching woods as if he expected something to jump out and punish me for my insolence.
    I had had enough.  "And why should I do that? I am expected to walk into the woods and face my certain death just to keep the rest of you safe.  This is not reverence, this is murder."
    The deputy gave me a hard shove in the chest, knocking me down to the muddy road. "May the gods forgive you.  Now go."
    I scrambled back to my feet.  "May the gods forgive you," I answered.  Then I turned my back to the stammering men.  I only had a few more minutes to live.  I didn't want to waste them with fools.
    Each step took me further and further away from the only life I had ever known.  In all my nineteen years, I had never been further than the edge of my small village. But I had seen every inch of it, including some haylofts and back rooms that my mother would be scandalized to know I had frequented.  I wasn't the unsullied virgin they all believed me to be.  Living my life knowing I was to be sacrificed gave me a yearning to experience as much as I could before my time was up. 
    I spent much of that time experiencing the stable boys’ cocks.
    I heard a little giggle tear from my throat and soon I was laughing out loud.  The trees swallowed up my laughter, a heavy silence hanging over everything.  But still I walked and as I walked, I laughed. 
    Because this was just so absurd.
    The more I walked, the more I wondered what was stopping me from just continuing down this road and into the great unknown.  There had to be villages out there.  Villages that were not held in thrall by murderous wolves who demanded blood sacrifice at odd intervals.  If I continued down this road, I could just walk out of my life entirely.  There was nothing to do but just put one foot in front of the other.
    And the thought bloomed in my mind; I heard a noise over my shoulder.  I froze, heart pounding, as I stared into the dense trees.
    "Who is there?" I called.
    There was no response, unless you counted the moan of the wind and the creak of bough against bough.
    I shuddered, feeling suddenly colder.  I pulled the blood-red sacrificial cloak more tightly around my shoulders and quickened my step.
    This time the noise was over my other shoulder.  I whirled around and caught the faintest glimpse of a gray shadow in the trees.
    "Who is there?!" I demanded.
    The shapes were so large it seemed that they unwound from the trees themselves.  Two wolves, larger and more powerful than any I had seen before, strode out from the forest. 
    I felt my heart drop to my shoes.  My knees gave out and I sank down into the mud.  "So this is it," I said.  "There is no escaping my sacrifice.  Instead of me going to you, you have come to me."  I closed my eyes tightly.  "Please be quick about it."
    I knelt there, waiting for that first stab of pain, waiting for their teeth to sink into my flesh and devour me.  I waited, feeling nothing except the unfairness of it all.
    I heard a low exhalation.  When I opened my eyes, one of the wolves was sitting in front of me, his posture one of bored indifference.  When he saw that I had opened my eyes, he stood back up and trotted in front of me.   Pausing to look back over his shoulder, he leapt into the trees.
    "Oh," I said, and moved to follow.  The second wolf, gave me a slight nudge with his head and I stepped into the forest.
    "I can't see you!" I called into the trees.  "It's getting dark and your eyes are better than mine."
    I heard that exhalation again.  It truly did sound like a sigh of exasperation.  Then the first wolf came trotting back into view.  He came just to the edge of my vision and sat.
    "I see you