Read Online Chained To The Alpha: A Paranormal Shifter Romance Standalone by JJ Jones - Free Book Online Page A

body and pulled the bullet out of his wound. I didn’t have a choice. He had saved me and now I had to save him. I had to do it. I needed to save this man. He had been there for me during our entire ordeal, patient. We had shared secrets that we would never tell another soul. We had become family and I was starting to realize I had already begun to consider him my mate. I wanted him to live. I needed him to live.
    “Save him.” She was whispering as I reached in and pulled out the bullet. I felt the silver burn at my skin. “Hold it in your hand.”
    I nodded. “I can handle the pain,” I said and I gripped the silver ammunition in my hand, clenching it in my fist.
    It was burning. It hurt as the woman began to chant again. Water was sprinkled on me. It smelled odd, but I wasn’t paying attention to what was in it. She reached for my hand. I held it out to her. I hadn’t even noticed the knife in her other hand and flinched when she cut me, but I didn’t pull away. Devin was starting to draw in his death rattle. He wasn’t going to last much longer. She squeezed a few drops of my blood onto his forehead. It stretched and melded with his blood that covered his body.
    Everything started to melt together. I couldn’t see anything. I was dropping into unconsciousness. I suspected we had been betrayed, but it didn’t’ make sense.
    The last thing that I saw was Devin as I was draped over him, unconscious.
     
     
     

THE FINAL CHAPTER
     
     
    He was looking at me when I woke up. We were in a bed, next to each other and he was staring at me. I don’t know how to explain the relief I felt. I don’t know how anyone could ever understand the intensity of my emotions at that moment. There were tears in his eyes and I knew that one was starting to form in my eye as well. It was my left eye I think. It didn’t really matter.
    I embraced him. “You’re alive.”
    He coughed a little because I hugged him so hard. “Be careful. I’m still kind of sore. They told me what you did for me.”
    “Did that really happen?” I looked at him, not really knowing how to respond to the adventure that we had been on.
    “Yes, unfortunately. Do you remember yet?”
    I closed my eyes and tried to think back. I was starting to remember. We were being tested. Devin and I had been dating for a while and had considered mating permanently.
    “I think I do.” His eyes were watching me. I felt like I was losing my mind as the memories came flooding back. “Was it?”
    “A test. We had agreed to it. They returned the memories to us after it was over.”
    “Were the hunters planned? Did they try to kill you?” I fought against my tears. I didn’t know what I would do if the others were involved in his near death. “You could have died.”
    “They had ambushed them. They were trying to kill me. My people weren’t involved.”
    “How do you know? It could have been a coup.”
    “None of my men and women would do that. I promise you. I’ve known them for years. That isn’t something that they would do.”
    I started to remember meeting the men. I had been dating Devin for almost three months before he had brought me to meet his pack. I didn’t have a pack to introduce him to. I had made the choice to leave my old one. I was a lone wolf. I remember that. I had been alone for a long time before I had run into Devin. I moved away from old pack, leaving with my job and eager to start a new life. There was nothing that I could do about the corruption among the shifters at my old home and my new home was a pleasant change. The shifters of the Pacific Northwest had been a thousand times kinder than the shifters in the Southwest. I was happy there, changing my life with my job.
    It was at one of the local meetings that I had met Devin. We had known each other for a few weeks before he had gotten the nerve up to ask me out. My world shifted that day. There was something between us, a connection between an Alpha and a Lone. It was unusual,