The Shifter's Choice Read Online Free Page B

with a mocking sarcasm that twisted him into an angry knot. “Oh, so you already know how to sign!”
    * * *
    Johnny tore through the undergrowth using his claws as his own personal machete against anything unlucky enough to get in his way. He could slice through metal as easily as he used to tear through paper so the foliage stood no chance.
    What the hell was that? Furball? Run along? The woman must be suicidal or crazy. Maybe both. Where did Mac find these people?
    Johnny slowed as he thought there might not be a waiting list of people willing to tutor a surly werewolf. He swung at a tall fern and greenery fell about him in tiny bits.
    Beside him the dense, wet jungle clung to a cliff so steep that even he had trouble holding on. On more than one occasion he’d imagined just letting go.
    “Johnny!”
    He recognized the voice. It was Mac heading up the hill to collect his tutor. He sounded pissed.
    Johnny took another step in the direction he had been going.
    “I can hear you, damn it! Turn around or, so help me, I will take a chunk out of that tough hide.”
    Johnny knew Mac could do it, because his captain was also a werewolf. Bitten the same night as Johnny and in the same fight. Neither of them had known what they were up against, but their commander had.
    Johnny turned back toward his captain. He turned for the same reason his friend hadn’t given up on him—duty. Duty to each other, duty to the Corps, duty to himself, duty to his departed father, his struggling mother and the little sister he swore would go to college. He was so damned tired of doing his duty—but still he held on.
    Nobody but Mac could keep up with him when he climbed this volcanic rock. Was it Johnny’s fault that his new set of playmates couldn’t keep up? Not that it was their fault. They were good guys. But they were still human and slow as shit.
    Johnny crawled from the undergrowth a moment later. Mac met him, wearing a frown. You’d think being a newlywed living on a lovely tropical island would make his former squad leader happy. Johnny knew, if not for him, Mac would be.
    Mac exhaled heavily as he rummaged in his pack withdrawing a black slate. Johnny snarled and Mac met his eyes and then scowled. Johnny didn’t like writing because he couldn’t really control the pen. It made him feel stupid, so he revealed his three-inch canines to no visible effect. Mac was one of the very few who could meet his gaze without turning away. That was saying something because Johnny knew what he looked like. In his werewolf form, he was nine feet of hideousness that could easily step into any number of horror flicks or out of every child’s nightmare.
    So Johnny avoided looking at himself. His long snout and black wolfish nose disturbed him nearly as much as the deadly claws and the thick canine pads on his feet. His eyes were no longer soft brown. Now they were as yellow as the rising moon. He still had black hair, but it covered his entire body, right up to his pointed ears and the knuckles of his distended fingers. Once upon a time in that old life, he’d kept his nails trimmed short. But he’d given up on that along with other things. So many other things.
    Mac had gray fur when in werewolf form and his eyes were blue. Johnny wished Mac would run with him instead of sending his substitutions. His captain withdrew a broken nub of chalk from the depths of his pack. The bag and its contents had been his new wife’s idea. Brianna knew that her husband transformed naked from wolf to man and that he and Johnny had an ongoing communication problem. So she’d modified a bag so it would fit around his wolfish neck. Then when he reached his destination he could transform and get dressed which explained why his clothes were often wrinkled.
    Bri said she would make Johnny the same pack one day. But so far he didn’t need it. They’d been here six months. A year and four months since the attack and still Johnny had to use shampoo on his entire body