Willing Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page A

in place for a reason."
    I smiled sarcastically. "Yes, some of those rules are there for a very good reason, but our Council of Elders hides behind them in order to twist and manipulate the basic concepts of those rules into their own adaptation of them. Power corrupts good men, and at first what begins as a tweaking of the vocabulary of a basic law to suit your current needs, turns into something else and before you know it, everyone who has ever led has tweaked that same law to suit their own needs and in the end it is nothing like it was when it was first developed. We are not ruled by a government of sworn peoples who follow a list of written freedoms and liberties to which they were created. Werewolves never had that option, we are too dangerous but what started out innocent enough has been perverted into a grouping of people who lead for reasons that are their own and they are hardly pure and just. They rule with trepidation and to attain that fear they make examples of those who try and buck their system."
    "So your issue is with the Elders?" He said simply.
    I rolled my eyes and hopped down off the little stool I used for reaching the drying rack. "Yeah, I'm just being paranoid, I guess. It must have been paranoia that killed Jack too."
    I felt him watching me for a long time before he went back to his book and my couch without saying another word.
    After sweeping the floor and adding another log to the fire, I decided to take another nap. Obviously I hadn’t been sleeping very well at night and during the day I did little else. If I wasn’t out running or hunting I was usually sleeping. Gage didn’t ask why I was going to bed at the other end of the couch and I didn’t think he cared so I didn’t bother explaining it to him. Especially since having another person there was the main reason I felt safe enough to sleep. Then I tried to ignore that fun little fact.
    As far as packs went, ours sucked out loud. We both had a whole mess of issues neither of us wanted to talk about and I wasn’t sure but I thought there was more to being a part of a pack than just living together.
    I felt safe though, with him sitting near my feet, reading his book in the warmth from the fire. He was a presence and whether his intentions were selfish or not, I was pretty certain Jack wouldn’t harass me while I slept, not with another person around anyway.
     
     

 
    Chapter Four
     
    It was dark when I opened my eyes and they were so blurry with sleep I couldn’t see anything, but I felt the tingle of goose bumps crawling over my skin. My body knew something my mind didn’t yet and I waited with my breath held to find out what it was while my vision cleared along with my sleep fogged brain.
    There was a thick shadow in the corner watching me. It didn’t move at first, as if it was waiting for me to notice its presence. I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body was frozen stiff with panic. It shifted and that now dreaded feeling of static washed over me, starting with the top of my head and working its way down as if a thousand tiny spiders just hatched in my hair. I gulped little sips of air like a fish out of water. Then I screamed as Jack’s amber eyes blinked out at me from the shadows.
    Gage slammed opened the door and flipped on the light simultaneously.
    "I'm sorry I scared you." He said, thinking it had been him who had woken me.
    I shook my head as I looked into the now empty corner of the room. "Where did you go?" I asked as I swallowed hard against my fear.
    "I went for supper."
    "I was having a nightmare." I said looking around the room again.
    Gage was pasty white standing with his hand still on the light switch; his green eyes were bugged out a little and still locked on me. His strong instinct to protect was still responding to my scream, either that or he was scared of me. I swiped at the after shock tears on my face and got up on shaky legs. “I had a bad dream.” I repeated.
    He noticed my hands shaking and