Read Online Desired By The Pack: Part Three by Emma Storm - Free Book Online

inexplicably shy.
    Cross’s manner hardened as hers softened. “We’ve fucked before, and were still friends after.”
    “You almost bit me.” The memory came back, clear and exhilarating. Her shoulders bunched as if the nerves there recalled the scrape of his teeth.
    “You aren’t mine to bond.”
    “No,” she agreed. “Beck and Anders have claimed that right. But I’ll be yours to want.”
    “When it doesn’t matter that I can’t control myself, we can have this conversation again.”
    She pressed her lips together but nodded. Cross backtracked and helped her off the rock she stood on, then he guided her back to the camp.
    As the first trailer came into view, a long, melancholy howl arced through the trees.
    January shivered uneasily. Beside her, Cross came to a stop and threw his head back. No sound came from him, but his throat worked and his mouth opened wide. It looked like a silent scream.
    As other voices raised to echo the first, she clutched Cross’s hand to her chest. She didn’t need a pack bond to decipher those mournful cries.
    Someone hadn’t survived the night.
    Cross stood there until the last howl faded and he shook his head as if emerging from a trance. He met her wide eyes, looked down at her hands wrapped around his, and scooped her high against his chest.
    Unhampered by her tender feet, he ate up the remaining ground to the trailers. The infirmary was barely standing anymore. One entire side gaped open and the trailer sagged on its cinder blocks.
    The building she’d been assigned was dark but otherwise intact. The door stood wide open. Cross carried her inside and sat her on her feet, then went prowling through the few rooms, rummaging through cabinets.
    Moments later, he returned to her, carrying a battery-powered lantern. The small circle of light showed the grief lines etched at either side of his mouth.
    She closed the door and went to him. “I don’t want to ask but I need to know.”
    “I don’t know.”
    Relief sucked the air from her lungs, deflating her. None of the alpha pack.
    He nodded and stood a moment, looking around the cabin. “You should go to bed.”
    “Are you staying?”
    “Yes. The others have other responsibilities.”
    She could guess what those were but decided not to. “Will you sleep with me?”
    “I should stay awake.”
    “Then stay awake while holding me.”
    The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re more wolf than you let on, Jan. Go get in bed.”
    She took the lantern in and stripped, eyeing the bed. It was still rumpled from the hours she’d spent there with Beck and Anders. Such a short time ago, but so many things had happened since, it seemed like an eternity.
    She changed out of her borrowed clothes and into the thin, silky chemise someone had gathered from her dresser. As she slid into bed, her doubts wavered. This was where she belonged.
     

     
    Mira was dead.
    Smoke had found her headless body inside the mine shaft Beck wanted to use to contain Prince.
    The hunter who had taken her life cowered naked in the face of the wolves surrounding him. Beck stood over the bleeding, shivering man, his alpha will the only thing holding the wolves at bay.
    As dawn crept over the trees, the wolves closed in, their blood thirsty circle begging for a signal. Permission to tear the hunter apart, limb by limb.
     

    Mira was dead.
    The three words knocked around in January’s head as she gathered tiny clothes and diapers from Mira’s trailer. The place was spartan except for the baby’s small room, more like a closet with a bassinet. Cross had already taken the bassinet to January’s cabin per Cleo’s instructions.
    Cleo paced the room, screaming infant stiff and arching in her arms.
    “She’s hungry.” January offered a pacifier but the baby--not even named yet--only screamed louder, open-mouthed around the foreign object that didn’t taste or smell like a mother.
    “I sent Marcus for formula, bottled water, and more diapers. And a car