Untamed: an Alpha's Love (Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance) Read Online Free PDF

caravan of ambulances had already taken several children to the hospital, and paramedics were treating more minor injuries on-site. He had never witnessed such devastation: grown men weeping like babies, children's eyes hollowed by shock, grimly focused paramedics weaving through the crowd to administer care and comfort. He cursed himself for bringing Charmaine to this mayhem, but he hadn't even tried to dissuade her from coming with him. It would have been pointless.
     
    They scanned the teeming mass of people and vehicles scattered throughout the adjacent field, searching for any sign of Maddie. Several towing crews strained and swore in chorus, trying to raise the battered bus up the side of the hill to a waiting flatbed carrier.
     
    "What a mess." His voice didn't even sound like his own. Charmaine trembled next to him, her hand over her mouth as if she was ready to be sick. I've got to find Maddie and get them both out of here. The knot in his gut tightened. Where the hell is my sister? And then her familiar voice cried out and he turned blindly in the direction of his name. In a second Maddie hurled herself into Parker's arms, a flash of pink fleece and long hair.
     
    He lifted her as if she were still the little girl he'd carried piggyback for years, before she stopped begging for his attention and company. Despite the fact that she was almost as tall as Charmaine, her petite frame was feather-light in his arms. Her entire existence flashed in his brain: the bawling bundle in his mother's arms, Maddie's first tentative steps in the grass after his baseball game, her bloody grin after a lost tooth, her serious face when she asked him if middle school was scary.
     
    "Parker, it was like some crazy movie!" she wept, clinging to his neck. "We went right over..." she looked tearfully back at the bus and around at the people still spread across the field. "The other car just like, disappeared." She grabbed for Charmaine's hand over Parker's shoulder. "I was so scared, you guys."
     
    The paramedic, who introduced herself as Lauren, gave them a report of Maddie's injuries: bruising, some lacerations, and a mildly sprained wrist. "She was one of the lucky ones," the woman said, shaking her head as she stripped off her gloves. Maddie wriggled out of Parker's embrace and cuddled up against Charmaine. Lauren patted Maddie on the back before adding, "I don't know who in their right mind would run a school bus full of kids off the road and keep driving. Sometimes mankind makes me so ashamed."
     
    She turned to Parker. "I don't want to alarm you, but these types of accidents can have lasting effects. We're asking that everyone speak to the counselor. You might want to do that privately." Her eyes flickered to Maddie and Charmaine just as a second, older woman approached him.
     
    Suddenly he was back in the oncologist's office with Dominic, hearing those terrible words: maybe three months . He couldn't stand for Maddie's last weeks with their father to be anxiety-ridden. He hoped to God that the social worker had some practical advice, something he could do . I can't be powerless against one more thing , he thought.
     
    "Sir?" the woman ventured, and he handed Charmaine the keys. "Go ahead and take Maddie to the car. I'll be there in a second."
     
    As the counselor explained some of the typical after-effects of trauma, he grew uneasy. Dizziness, cold sweats, racing thoughts, a persistent lump in the throat, tightness in the chest, knot in the stomach—he'd been experiencing all of those symptoms, sometimes in pairs or threes and sometimes all of them in one day—since he found out Charmaine was carrying his child.
     
    Not because he didn't want the baby. Not because he didn't want a baby with her . But because it was becoming increasingly more difficult to keep everyone he loved safe, and it had never been more apparent than now that he was failing miserably.
     
    He mumbled hasty thanks to the woman, took her assortment of