Read Online Quest (Shifter Island Book 4) by Carol Davis - Free Book Online Page A

yours. He’s always been yours. But he’s just… he’s like walking sex, for crying out loud. I think Matt sees that too. That’s why they’re looking at each other that way. And why Matt’s so bent out of shape about Ernie all of a sudden. He’s so jealous.” She grimaced, as if she was actually in pain. “He’s never been jealous before.”
    “He’s just nervous, Jules.”
    “I guess. It just seems so weird.” Shaking her head, Julie turned to look at herself in the mirror. “Oh my God, look at me. Look what I did.” With the help of a little water, she repaired her makeup as best she could. Then, with a grimace, she told Allison, “You ought to keep that wolf of yours on a leash.”
    “My… what?”
    Julie blinked. “What?”
    “Keep my… what did you say?”
    “He’s a wild animal. I told you: sex on two legs. I won’t do anything, but that’s not saying someone else won’t.” Julie took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Okay. I’m going back out there and making sure they haven’t torn each other to pieces. I need to keep everybody in one piece for three more days.”
    And she was gone. The rest room door squeaked a little as it swung closed behind her.
    At first, Allison intended to follow her—but something held her back. It made her take a long look at herself in the mirror. She knew she hadn’t done anything to mar her own makeup, but she felt odd.
    Embarrassed? No, that wasn’t it.
    Keep my…
    For a moment, everything was all right.
    Then the world started to swirl around her, and her mind filled with pictures. Sounds. Bits of conversations she’d had back home with her neighbors, Helene and Russell. Conversations she’d never even once connected with Luca—but she couldn’t help connecting all of it with him now, because of the way she felt about him. The way they’d found each other after all this time.
    The way she couldn’t bear to be separated from him.
    There’s a bond between us, you see. Something that ties us together. Very powerful. Hard to describe.
    Even when we’re apart, we know what’s happening to the other one.
    She’d met Helene and Russell a little more than a year ago, after she’d moved out to her little house in the mountains. Then, on a brightly moonlit night a couple of months later, she’d happened to look out the window… and the next day, Helene had confessed to her.
    Helene and Russell were shifters. Wolves.
    She realized now… so was Luca.

Nine
     
    This, too, Luca remembered from four years ago: how sometimes human males would confront him when he had done nothing to provoke it. Nothing deliberate, at least. It was uncomfortable to deal with now, so soon after Micah—in a fit of jealous rage—had attacked him in the woods and left him for dead. He doubted that a human man would be able to best him the way Micah had, but that didn’t make sitting alone in the corner with Matt any easier to endure.
    Matt was tearing apart one of the dinner rolls, turning it into scraps on the tablecloth.
    The wolf didn’t care much for that.
    Calm down , Luca told the animal. He has no interest in our mate. He’s just trying to defend his own mate.
    And there was no need for that. He had no interest in Julie, nor did the wolf. Julie was simply reacting to what was in the air. If Matt had understood that, he would have known that the best response would be to take his mate somewhere private, where they could couple.
    Instead, Matt was attacking a helpless piece of bread.
    “I have no objection to Allison accompanying your cousin to your sealing ceremony,” Luca said.
    That was only partly true. He did object to some degree, because it meant several hours of being separated from Allison, a very long stretch of time as far as the wolf was concerned. Now that they had found each other again, and had spent so much time mating, stretching the bond between them might actually be painful. He would have to find a way to soothe the wolf so that it