Read Online A Werewolf's Valentine: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant - Free Book Online Page A

honor had been a new stove to replace the fifty-year-old clunker she’d had before. McKenzi no longer had to do her baking in Kesley’s cottage. She pulled out some buttermilk and whipped up a batch of scones. As soon as they were done baking, she switched the laundry to the dryer, set out the scones to cool, then tiptoed back to the bedroom, and was in the process of slipping back into bed when West stirred, turned over, and when his eyes opened, he smiled.
    Her world turned to summer. She slid the rest of the way in, and he kissed her, then said, “The mural. It’s real, isn’t it? I mean, the animals. This town is full of shifters?”
    McKenzi blinked, a lifetime of habit keeping her from answering. Talking about her own family violated no promises, especially given what he’d done for Rolf. But the town secret? “No one has ever asked that,” she said slowly.
    He leaned up on an elbow. “I’ve never found a whole community of shifters before. Or if I did, I didn’t know it. Passed right on through.” After a hesitation, he said, in a cool, light tone, “You don’t have to answer.”
    Just like that, they’d come to one of those turning points that McKenzi had promised herself her easy lifestyle would always avoid. She felt her cat stirring inside her, making her feel itchy inside.
    It’s about trust, she thought. And in a rush, “Jeremiah Upson, who started this town and named it after himself, was a dragon. A nasty one. He collected shifters to work on his estate. He wanted to be a king back then. He got in a dragon fight, and lost. Hoard taken, house burned down. The former bond servants stayed, and kept the name because ‘Downs’ had taken on new meaning when they watched him fall out of the sky, crash into his mansion, and burn up. And, well, it’s been a secret ever since.”
    He said, “I’m sure the town has a mayor, a human. Is there a shifter header?”
    She shook her head, then paused. “Well, Kesley’s new husband is a kind of alpha.”
    “Kind of?”
    “He’s new to the town. Anyway, they’re gone for a few months. It’s not like we’ve gotten used to having him around. Why do you ask?” She drew in a breath. “This is about Rolf, isn’t it?”
    “I never thought of myself as an alpha,” West said. “I lost my pack as a kid—I don’t have a first name because I don’t remember mine. I was just ‘little buddy’ and ‘the cub.’ Not proper names for the authorities.”
    “But you remembered Weston?”
    He shook his head. “It was marked on a label in indelible ink inside the jacket I was wearing when I was found.”
    “No first name?”
    “No first name. So various cities’ Social Services tried to issue me a new first name. Let’s see, I’ve been Jason, Mark, Billy, Lester, Eric. Those are the ones I remember.”
    “You didn’t like any of those names?”
    He shrugged as he took her hand and stroked his rough, callused thumb over her wrist. “None of them stuck because I never stayed long enough anywhere to learn to answer to them. All I knew was, none of ‘em were my name. My family knew my name, and I meant to find them. Spent years looking for them when I finally ran. Got used to being alone.”
    He shook his head and rolled his shoulders, a little like a wolf giving his fur a shake, as if shedding water, or grass, or emotions he didn’t want clinging to him. “So no wolf packs, or dog packs, no alpha I can talk to about him? I don’t have a clue to where to go from here, but I don’t want to abandon the kid, especially one who shifted so late.”
    “I don’t know much about canine shifters. Well, nothing,” McKenzi said. “But this much I know. The older you are when you shift, the tougher it can be.”
    “Yep.” West’s hair in the pure, bright morning light looked like spun silver—like his wolf coat. “That’s what I’ve heard. Where do I go from here? I’m sure as hell not running off with someone’s kid,” he said. “I don’t know