Wild Game (Wilding Pack Wolves 1) - New Adult Paranormal Romance Read Online Free Page A

of just picking up the goddamn grenade and throwing it out of the car. Jesus, who did that? Who had the presence of mind to actually pull something like that off? If she thought he was hot before, with those broad shoulders and sexy shifter muscles, seeing him in action, literally saving her life, hauling her away to safety, reassuring her with his freakishly sexy body wrapped around her… well, it had been too much for her. She’d folded into him with the willpower of a crack addict. But his overwhelming hotness was a pretty shitty excuse for treating him the way she did afterward. She knew that. But if she kissed him again, she knew herself‌—‌one thing would have led to another, and she’d have been riding that cowboy faster than he could say Thank you, ma’am.
    The only right thing she did in that warehouse was tell him the truth‌—‌that she couldn’t kiss him. The wolves in her father’s pack had been angling to claim her as a mate for years. Since her father’s death, the jostling had only gotten more intense. The pack had no alpha now, and they needed one‌—‌Wylderide needed one‌—‌and she knew eventually she would have to take one of them as a mate. Or pick someone else who could bring the pack together. Right at the funeral, she had put them all on notice‌—‌she wouldn’t be taking a mate until she had properly mourned the passing of her father and given a solid think-through to the future of the company. That held them off, but only barely. And Owen Harding, her sexy bodyguard, wasn’t even close to the right pick. He was hot and brave and sexy as sin… but taking him for a mate would tear the pack apart. And destroy her father’s company. She couldn’t afford to be stupid like that… she had a business to run.
    Nova gazed out the window of her office at the high gloss of sun on Seattle’s downtown. Almost dying tended to put things in a different perspective. Living in the moment‌—‌like that moment when Owen pressed her up against those boxes and kissed the hell out of her‌—‌made sense when you’d just snatched life back from the gaping maw of death.
    But the crazed anti-shifter hate group that killed her father would be very happy if she lived recklessly for today and let her father’s company come crashing down as a result. No matter what, she couldn’t let that happen. They were terrorists, and she’d be damned if she would let them win, not on her watch. She wasn’t a soldier‌—‌not like those brave men she spent the day with, hopefully giving them a little respite from the price they’d paid to defend their country‌—‌but she knew that giving in to this hate group and what they wanted was flat wrong.
    What she, Nova Wilding, wanted didn’t matter. That did.
    Nova tore herself away from the window and sunk down into the oversized leather chair at her desk. She’d locked up her father’s office right after the funeral‌—‌his chair was the only thing she had pulled out before sealing it off. She couldn’t even begin to think about going through his things. As far as she was concerned, they could leave everything as a shrine to the way he had built this company from scratch. The darkened, shade-pulled windows of his office reminded everyone, including her, why they were pressing on with the release of Domination on schedule. The chair she was sitting in reminded her even more, every day, that he was still there in spirit with her, holding her up, encouraging her. She knew he would have released this beta on time if there was any way possible to do it. She was just as sure that he planned for her to pick one of the fine wolves he had collected into his pack over the years as a mate so she could take over his company someday.
    It just wasn’t supposed to be this day. Or any day soon.
    The screen in front of her blurred with sales projections, social media management, advertising budgets, a shitload of other stuff… why couldn’t she just