Lone Wolf Dawn (Alpha Underground Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

sensation roused me and eased me in equal measure, and I forgot I was even waiting on an answer by the time Hunter spoke again.
    “Star had climbed out of the tub and onto the toilet seat. Remind me to keep the lid down,” Hunter murmured.
    It was too dark to make out the expression on his face, but it didn’t matter. In my mind’s eye, I could see the smile my mate was trying to hide behind feigned sternness, and my lips curled upward in reply. “Mmm,” I responded eloquently.
    “I thought I might take them to Haven tomorrow,” he continued, referring to the current home of the pack I’d lived with for most of my life. Hunter didn’t have to elaborate on his thought processes because the solution was obvious. Haven’s leader was a bloodling himself and his pack consisted of a mismatched—but happy—band of oddballs. The orphaned pups would have a better chance of growing into fully functioning shifters there than anywhere else.
    Still, the thought of being parted from the youngsters—and especially from Star—gave me a sharp pang of loss. I must have twitched beneath my companion’s gentle massage because his fingers paused as he asked, “Unless you want to keep them with us?”
    Raise three traumatized bloodling puppies on our own when Hunter and I were still having trouble defining our own relationship? Rationally, I knew we weren’t up to the task, so I shook my head in negation. “No, we’ll take them to Haven.”
    Now it was Hunter’s turn to hum noncommittally, and I regretfully raised myself up on one elbow so I could attempt to peer into his face. Unfortunately, my human eyes couldn’t make out so much as the outline of his body since my mate preferred pitch darkness for sleeping—another aspect of his bloodling nature that I simply accepted since it did no one any harm.
    With no visual clues to go on, though, I was forced to ask my question out loud. “What’s wrong?”
    “ I can take the pups to Haven, but you need to go talk to your mother,” Hunter answered. Then, before I could argue, he pulled me closer and began stroking me into submission again.
    It was hard to disagree while the bliss of my mate’s warm fingers roamed across tense muscles. So I lay back, figuring I could argue the point in the morning.
    But Hunter wasn’t done speaking. I could count on one hand the number of times he’d mentioned anything about his past. Still, something about the anonymity of darkness must have called up his inner storyteller because Hunter’s deep rumble once again filled the air as I slid toward sleep.
    “You might have guessed by now that my mother was a halfie,” my mate murmured. I would have thought I was dreaming if I hadn’t felt his breath teasing tendrils of hair around my ear. “Her pack put up with her,” he continued, “reluctantly. Even that acceptance stopped when she admitted she was pregnant with a human’s child.”
    Once upon a time, there was a poor girl whose family treated her badly, I thought, Hunter’s mother turning into Cinderella in my drowsy mind. I only realized I’d murmured the words aloud when my mate chuckled, smoothing down my mussed hair as he carried on with his tale.
    “That’s exactly right, darling,” Hunter agreed. “But in this case, there was no fairy godmother. Instead, the young woman’s pack cast her out before her child was born. She turned wolf in order to survive.”
    Visions drifted through my mind like dreams. A pack of mangy mutts, a stick-thin but glorious Mother Wolf, the acceptance and joy of group hunts. I was too relaxed to question how I could see the world through a young Hunter’s eyes, so I simply released myself into the experience.
    Then an abrupt shift, literally and figuratively. Hairless human legs, the confusion of changing forms after a lupine life. A long run through pitch blackness at Mother Wolf’s heels, bare feet aching in a way lupine paws never had.
    A strange two-legger opening a door, her aroma