Read Online Lone Wolf Dawn (Alpha Underground Book 2) by Aimee Easterling - Free Book Online Page B

change your tune once you have a little more time to think about it,” the cop said grimly. Then, without checking to make sure my limbs were all safely clear, he slammed the door shut with far more force than was really necessary and walked away without a backwards glance.
    Yep, I was officially persona non grata in the small town of Arborville.
     
    ***
     
    “So it wasn’t a bomb?” The edge of terror that my mother had hidden so well from her audience earlier on now trembled through her voice as she interrogated her interrogators inside the house-for-sale.
    I had to strain my human ears to their utmost and nearly relinquish my body to the wolf in order to hear what she had to say from my point of incarceration within the cop car. But the effort was well worth it for the insights provided into my mother’s character.
    Celia had seemed so spineless when I was a child. Long angry silences, explosive bouts of tears, even her screaming fits had been as impotent as they were tempestuous.
    Now, in contrast, the one-body’s fear was barely audible as she tamped the emotion down in consideration for the people around her. Celia hadn’t raised her voice once, I noticed, and I had a feeling the reason was found among the families still milling about in the backyard. From the sounds of happily playing children in the distance, it seemed that the realtor’s force of will had paid off.
    “No, ma’am,” the older cop answered. “But there was a written threat in the box. Perhaps you could tell us who might have wanted to roll up the welcome mat and drive you out of town?”
    I heard nothing for a long moment as my mother presumably read the same words I had. And the lull gave me time to assess my own situation.
    Although I was handcuffed inside a police car, the situation was actually far from grim. I’d enjoyed enough recovery time since this morning’s transformations to ensure that I could now shift to fur form and wriggle out of the restraints easily enough. Then, if my beast and I both worked together to our utmost, we could probably regain two legs in a timely enough manner to open the door of the uncaged cop car before Officer Lambert came back to rough me up again.
    Eluding pursuit would be tougher, of course. But that reservation wouldn’t have been enough to hold me back from escape. Instead, it was the words that came out of my mother’s mouth next that stilled my forward momentum.
    “I’m not sure who wants me gone. But this isn’t the first threat,” Celia said so softly I almost couldn’t hear her speak.
    “Celia, why didn’t you tell me?” Recognizing the younger cop’s voice, I could almost see him running a troubled hand through his spiky hair. At least Officer Lambert seemed to honestly care about my mother, even if he wasn’t the most open to alternative explanations from out-of-towners.
    “I don’t know, Paul,” Celia answered. “Maybe I didn’t want to make it any more real than it had to be? I thought it was just some kind of prank....”
    Her voice trailed off and I was almost tempted to shift and escape just so I could creep closer to the house and peer through a window. Was the one-body about to descend back into the tremulous damsel-in-distress mode that I remembered so vividly from childhood? Or would she remain a member of the stiff-upper-lip club?
    “Paul, give her a little space,” the older cop said gently. I could imagine the nameless policeman sitting my mother down in one of the plush armchairs that encircled the home’s ornamental fireplace. Patting her hands. Soothing her out of her jitters.
    Or at least I hoped the cops were offering the victim that level of attention. You never could tell with one-bodies and my ears weren’t good enough to pick up on the rustle of movement from this far afield.
    “Do you need something to eat? Something to drink?” the older cop asked.
    “No, really, I’m fine.” My mother attempted a strained laugh, which I suspect fooled no