Wolf Pact: A Wolf Pact Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

he asked.
    Tala shook her head. “I think we still need to wait. Rafe and Malcolm might not be ready, and Edon’s still sad about Ahri.”
    It was true; the week before had been Ahramin’s eighteenth moon day, and Edon had slipped into a funk that took days for him to shake out of. Lawson had been pretty depressed about it himself. They all knew what it meant. If Ahramin was still alive—and there was no guarantee the hounds had let her live after they escaped—she was surely a hound now, which meant they could never get her back. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “We’ll just have to keep sneaking around.”
    “At least you saved Edon in time,” Tala said. The oldest had made it to eighteen without being turned, and a wolf who managed to gain full form without being turned into a hellhound was said to be free forever. They were planning a surprise party for him that night, when he was no longer expecting it. Lawson had saved up some of his money to buy a small pig from the local butcher, and Rafe and Malcolm had set up a makeshift grill from a barrel and a window grate.
    “We should get home and start dinner,” Lawson said.
    He spentthe afternoon getting their food ready, thankful that the grill didn’t require power. Edon seemed to appreciate the gesture and blew the candles of his homemade cake with a smile. After taking a bite of his slice, Malcolm suddenly announced that he had a stomach-ache. “You don’t like the icing?” Tala joked.
    Malcolm shook his head. He was thin and anemic-looking, his bony ribs poking through his thin T-shirt, and when he bent over, his shoulder blades protruded from his back like two small wings. Lawson had hoped that he’d start growing stronger, and had been slipping him extra food at meals, but nothing seemed to help.
    “It must have been the pig—maybe I took it off the fire too early, it must have been too rare,” Lawson said, blaming himself for Malcolm’s stomach pains.
    Tala helped Malcolm lie on the couch and placed a bowl under his head just as Malcolm vomited up his dinner. “We need a bucket! Now!” she yelled, and everyone scrambled to help.
    Lawson was bringing a plastic bucket into the living room when he heard the knock at the door. Strange—no one had come to the house in the months they’d lived there.
    Anotherknock. Sharper this time, more urgent.
    “Who is it?” Edon asked, coming up beside him. He had a pinched, anxious look on his face, and Lawson knew it was because they didn’t have any neighbors and no one knew they lived there. No one was supposed to know about this house. And now someone had come. But who?
    He felt a growing trepidation in his chest, a tightening, a darkness. Lawson could feel the end coming, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it yet, did not want to think about what it meant. It was nothing, just a stranger at the door, nobody, no one, it didn’t mean anything, he told himself.
    “Probably just the postman or something, I’ll take care of it. Go see how Mac’s doing,” Lawson said. He’d taken on the role of alpha here, was used to giving orders, even to his older brother. Edon did as he was told.
    Lawson’s mind was racing in fear, but he was just nervous, he told himself. He pushed aside the metal shutter that covered the peephole window. It was dark, almost black, and he couldn’t see anything. He wiped the glass with the edge of his shirt, and when he looked through again, he saw that the darkness had coalesced into a tall, thin form. A girl.
    She stoodin a seductive curve, her body sinuous and snakelike, her hand on her hip, jutted out like a fashion model. Her thick dark hair moved with a life of its own, swaying like satin ribbons around her face. Like Medusa, she had a cold and dangerous beauty, the beauty of a cobra or a lioness. She was dressed for battle, her black armor glinting in the twilight.
    Lawson stood motionless at the door, unable to shake her gaze. His heart dropped into his stomach; he