Read Online Hunter's Heart: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 5) by Kimber White - Free Book Online Page A

and fire I felt
when I pressed my palm against his naked chest. I breathed when he did. I hurt
when he did.
    And now, I felt his pulse quicken with rage and a
layer of fear.
    “Shit.” I froze, then turned to Grammy.
    We spoke in unison. “Tinker’s going to shoot him.”
    I shoved the screen door open and ran toward the
pole barn as fast as my legs would carry me.
    Air stabbed my lungs. Red clouded my vision. No, not
my vision. Preternatural rage poured out of Derek. He was losing control. I
don’t know how I knew. But I knew. It could only mean one thing. He was
cornered and fighting for his life. In the space of a heartbeat . . . his
heartbeat, I knew what he was capable of. If my father really did pull that
trigger, Derek wouldn’t just stand there and wait to die. Shift or no shift, he
might burst through those cage bars and wring the life out of my father to save
himself. And I would lose both of my men.
    I burst through the door, hearing shouting. My
father. Derek was beyond words. He gripped the cage bars, fangs out, eyes
blazing gold. Still though, his wolf stayed trapped inside. This time, I felt the pain of that with him. The weight of an anvil against his chest,
holding him down. Smothering. Unnatural. God. I don’t know how he could
withstand the pain of it.
    “Dad!” I shouted. My father held his gun trained on
Derek. I don’t know what set him off. Or why he’d managed to hold back this
long. My father was a wolf killer. Derek was a wolf.
    “Better listen to her,” Derek said, his voice
strained. The wound in his chest had closed, leaving behind an angry pink welt.
And yet, he still couldn’t shift.
    “Stop!” I said. I wasn’t foolish enough to put my
body between Dad’s gun and Derek, but I put a steadying hand on my father’s
upper arm and pulled him backward.
    “I’ll kill him,” Dad raged, breathing hard through flared
nostrils.
    “Not right now,” I said. “There’s more going on than
either of us understand yet. I just had a long talk with Grammy. I don’t
understand all of it, but I understand enough. You can’t kill Derek. I won’t
let you.”
    My father reared back as if I’d slapped him. But, he
finally lowered his weapon. The instant he did it, Derek’s pulse slowed to an
almost human rhythm.
    “And why the hell not?”
    This time, I did put my body between my father’s and
Derek’s. I felt Derek behind me. Tethered. That’s the word Grammy used, and
that’s what I felt. With my back turned, I felt drawn to him.
    “Dad,” I said, keeping my voice level and calm. “I
need you to go outside and wait for me. Derek and I need to talk. Alone.”
    My father opened and closed his mouth, reminding me
of a beached fish gasping for air. But, when my grandmother whistled for him
from the yard, my father narrowed his eyes at me, slung his weapon over his
shoulder, and turned to go.
    I turned around and faced Derek.

 
    Chapter Eight
    He gripped the bars of the cage; muscles rippled in
his chest as I took a step closer. The air grew thick between us. Hot. His eyes
flashed, this time not from the threat of danger, but because I was close. I
took another step, my chest rising and falling with measured breaths as I tried
to shut out the maddening, summoning rhythm of his heart. One more step and I
would put myself within arm’s reach of him. I took that last step.
    Had Derek grabbed me then, I might have tried to
pull away. I’d been this close to him before. Closer. Yet this time, it
mattered more. Grammy told me what he was to me. I didn’t understand it, but I
couldn’t lie to myself. Not anymore. Though I didn’t know what it meant, I knew
it was true, somehow. I was . . . his. Somehow.
    But, Derek didn’t grab me. Instead, he took a step
back, giving me space. I curled my fingers around the bars and looked at him.
Really looked at him. Not as prey. Not as the demon I’d been raised to believe
he was. But as a man.
    He was beautiful. Every muscle sculpted to