Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within) Read Online Free

thought back to the night before. After my wolf had come up with the word for ice, Murphy’s had led us off on a wild chase through the winter woods. We’d had such fun.
    Instead of champagne at midnight, we’d thrashed through fallen leaves, churning up wet cold clumps of them stuck together. We’d tussled in a clearing, ringed around by pine trees forty feet tall. The wind had blown through the pine needles creating a rattling, wintry sound. That’s what we’d heard instead of Auld Lang Syne .
    My wolf had bared her throat to his and he’d taken it in his jaws, exquisitely gentle. My wolf had infinite trust in him. She adored him. I think his wolf adored her. At least I hoped so. He was very, very kind to her and patient as she blundered through lessons most Pack’s wolves had learned the first ten times they’d shifted.
    I’d never learned, had never wanted to learn. My wolf was headstrong and stubborn. Free and innocent. She loved to run and play and exist without much coherent thought.
    Well, she used to. Now she hungered for words, for the names of things. Running and playing were things she did after she taught herself words. Most times now she forgot about running and playing until Murphy’s wolf reminded her.
    She always had been an obsessive creature who fixated on one thing. Before it had been pleasure, now it was knowledge.
    “She taught herself the word for ‘ice’ last night,” I told him with pride. “She’s getting so much smarter thanks to your wolf, Murphy. And you, telling me how to do it before we shift.”
    “She still getting mad at herself when she can’t think of the word right away?” He sounded both indulgently pleased and concerned. He didn’t like her to push herself too hard.
    “She was furious and frustrated for a while last night,” I admitted. I selected a piece of toast and spread it with peanut butter. It was the creamy kind. Damn. I’d meant to pick up chunky.
    “I know.” His eyes were sad for a moment. “She was pawing at her head. You’ve got a scratch on your cheek right now.” He frowned as he looked at it.
    I put a hand up to my cheek and my fingers encountered the thin, rough outline. It stung a little and I made a mental note to put peroxide on it.
    “She was trying to scratch the mad out of her head so she could think,” I said with a rueful smile. “She’s so literal. The mad was taking up all the space in her head and there was no room to think about the word for ice.”
    “Constance,” Murphy said, and I knew he was gearing himself up to lecture me again about pushing too hard.
    “It’s not use talking to me about this.” I raised a protesting hand. “She’s the one who gets that way.”
    “Where does she get it from? Who’s telling her she needs to think so hard to find the words?”
    “Me?” I shook my head. “I’m so far buried in her psyche when we’re shifted that I doubt I have much influence over what she does.”
    “Bullshit.” He dumped a teaspoon of sugar into his coffee and stirred. The spoon hitting the sides of the mug was pure frustration expressed in sound. “You persist in thinking there’s such a separation between you and her and there’s not.”
    “I don’t see it. I am not me when I’m her.” This was a well-worn, frequent discussion between us. He could tell me a hundred million times that I was my wolf and she was me, but I thought of us as distinct entities. While I was inside her and she was inside of me, when I was in human form, she did not influence me and I damn sure didn’t have any influence over her when she was wolf.
    Murphy drummed his fingers on the table top and drank his coffee. He kept his gaze fixed to the cupboards to the side of the table and not on me.
    I took a bite of eggs but I wasn’t hungry anymore. I managed to swallow what I had in my mouth but I knew I was done. I hated to disappoint him, but I couldn’t see it his way and I couldn’t lie to him.
    “I’m sorry,” he