Shifter’s Surrender Read Online Free Page B

instinct to mate hurt to her very soul.
    “Whatever,” she slashed a trembling hand through the air in front of her in a false show of indifference. “No longer matters. Your constant rejection has forced me to look in another direction. And Pete is more than willing to act as a … substitute.”
    With that parting shot, she turned on her heels, but his harsh tone had her glancing back over her shoulder. “Pete?”
    She faced Dean once again, noting his clenched hands with no small measure of dark satisfaction. “Peter Everett? Real estate agent for Woodcliff, family owns Everett Tours? Also captain of the softball team.” Lowering her voice to what she hoped was a husky tone, she added, “He’s quite talented.” Then she lifted the two plastic bags. “And hungry”
    Dean’s eyes never moved from her face, the small tendrils of amber that had begun to bleed into the now furious green unmistakable. “You’re feeding him?”
    Kaylie knew she was on dangerous ground, baiting an obviously angry animal in this manner, but at the moment, Kaylie didn’t care. Enough was enough. If he didn’t want her, he needed to know that someone else did. Granted, Pete saw her as a friend only, and she was a little sorry at using him like that, but common sense had fled the instant Dean had taken that first step away from her. And though some small part of her was urging her to just shut the hell up and walk away, she lifted a brow and twisted the knife. “He needs to keep his strength up. I expect it will be a very … energetic night for him.”

Chapter Four
    A red haze filled Dean’s vision even as he saw Kaylie walk away from him. Saunter away was more like it, her lusciously curved hips swinging with that hypnotic sway. But at the moment, Dean was too furious to feel anything but a possessive rage at the idea of another man sliding inside Kaylie’s delectable body.
    He knew Pete Everett, and though he considered the guy a friendly acquaintance, Dean wanted nothing better than to slice his now extended claws across the handsome younger man’s throat.
    Controlling his beast was becoming harder with each passing month, and while he allowed the animal out for a short time period every full moon, it wasn’t enough. His obligations as Alpha, such as watching over his pack members each month at the Moon Haven—the shifter community center and retreat—curtailed his own shifting time. Truthfully, the so-called obligation was self-enforced, as any of the other eight co-leaders of the pack could easily handle the task, and had in fact brought that issue up to him on more than one occasion.
    But ever since his animal came back to life with a roaring vengeance over three years ago, Dean had become diligent about controlling the time he shifted into wolf form. It struck him as ironic, that for years he’d struggled to bring his sleeping animal to life, and now that he had, he fought to keep it caged, because every time he did shift, the beast seem to gain a bit more control over his human form.
    Niggling at the back of his mind was the idea that if he permitted two instinctual things to happen: if he allowed the animal to run its full freedom for a night and to claim its mate, the ever increasing and unsettling fits of rage would ebb. Not to mention what it would do to ease the black hole that seemed to eat at his soul. But this thought he dismissed as the self-interested influence of his wolf.
    Now, though, all Dean could think about was killing the male who dared to touch Kaylie. Yeah, it was illogical considering he had no right to claim her himself as a mate because of his past. But his wolf only understood that its mate was right there , and the man was doing nothing about it.
    Caught up in his internal struggle Dean didn’t notice the approach of another shifter until a hand clapped down on his shoulder from behind. Swiveling, Dean threw up one clawed hand to attack. When it was trapped in a large unbreakable hold at his