Read Online Lost (Shifter Island Book 1) by Carol Davis - Free Book Online Page B

blanket might come loose. She’d probably be flustered by the time she reached the clearing, maybe scratched a little, but nothing worse.
    “You’ve upset her,” he told his brother.
    “A human,” Luca said sharply. “You’ve allowed a human onto the island, and the two of you have been—you’ve coupled with her, haven’t you?”
    “As if you haven’t spread your own seed around.”
    “Not with a human .”
    “Why do you insist on using that tone? Granny Sara is a human, and Old Abram, and Jenna,” Aaron reminded him. “The pack has a long history with humans. We’ve always lived near them, among them. We might well have died out long ago without them. And what’s the point of the Involvement if not to learn how to interact with them? We buy goods from them all the time.” He gestured at his brother’s jeans and shirt with a sweeping hand. “Don’t act as if I’ve committed some unpardonable sin. If you’d left us alone, I would have handled things. Now she’s probably curious about who else is here.”
    Luca’s brow furrowed. “Has she been here the whole time?”
    “Of my Separation? No. I found her… a few days ago.”
    “Days?” Luca scoffed. “And you’ve already mated with her. Many times, is my guess. You couldn’t wait until the end of your reflection period and come back to the pack to choose your mate from amongst us?”
    “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
    “Did you mate with humans during your Involvement?”
    “No.”
    “But you thought about it.”
    “We all think about it!” Aaron sputtered. “After you came back, you told me for weeks how beautiful the females were. How rich their scent was. How you could barely keep your cock in your pants.” Then a thought occurred to him. “You didn’t, did you? You’ve bedded a human too. Maybe more than one. And all this time, you’ve told me over and over that you want nothing to do with humans. You stand there and criticize me for–”
    Luca said in a grating tone, “You know what for.”
    “Bathing?”
    “Wanting a bond.”
    “I don’t want anything of the kind.”
    Luca tossed his head. His nose twitched, and Aaron knew he was sniffing the air. “I’ve thought many things about you during our lives, brother, but I never thought you were a liar,” he said with his eyes locked on Aaron. “Do me the courtesy of not starting now. Give me that measure of respect.”
    “When you’ve criticized and belittled me?”
    “I ask that you use good sense. Recognize that I may have traveled this road already and that I’m capable of offering good advice.”
    There was something in Luca’s voice that gave away more than the words did. Aaron almost missed it; he was looking at the path Abby had taken, wondering how far she’d gotten. He had almost stepped away from his brother when what Luca hadn’t said outright flashed into his mind, and it startled him so much that his mouth lolled open.
    “You did more than bed a human,” he said. “There was one who was important to you.”
    Luca closed his eyes for a moment. His expression was so intense that he seemed to be in pain.
    “Brother,” Aaron said.
    “No.”
    “Now who is the liar?”
    “All right,” Luca groaned. “Yes. There was a woman. A girl.”
    “What was her name?”
    Again, Luca grimaced. His shoulders were tense, his head bent a little, as if someone had struck him hard on the back and he expected another blow to follow. “Allison,” he said to the ground at his feet, then turned away to look at the stream. “Her name was Allison. She was very close to her home, her family. I couldn’t ask her to leave them, so I thought about remaining there. Among the humans. I thought about relinquishing my ties to the pack.”
    “You’ve never told me that.”
    “I’ve never told anyone.”
    “But you left? You gave her up and came back to us.”
    Luca heaved his shoulders. “I had to. There was no other way. So I tell you with full knowledge,