Read Online Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) by Mandy Rosko - Free Book Online Page B

look like had she been running through the trees. Shelley knew all about that .
    The strange woman still hadn’t answered her. Shelley closed the door just a little. “Hey, hello? Are you lost?”
    The woman’s blue and gray eyes finally met hers. “I am. Would you invite me inside?”
    Shelley didn’t know what to say to that, but all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she was getting goose bumps up and down her arms. That wasn’t how a frightened woman, lost and alone in the woods, should act. “Uh, maybe you should wait outside, at least until my…boyfriend comes back…from getting firewood. He can help you get home,” Shelley said.
    If this was a vampire, then she couldn’t come in until invited.
    The woman pressed her hand to the wooden door and pushed it open against Shelley’s weight and took a step inside.
    “Hey!” Shelley said, trying to push her back out, but she must have been as strong as Michael for all the good it did.
    The woman’s gray eye shined brightly. “I shan’t be long.”
    Shelley didn’t think she’d ever heard anyone use the word shan’t . It wasn’t like she had a foreign accent or anything, suggesting English wasn’t her mother tongue. She sounded pretty much the same as Shelley did. This girl definitely wasn’t normal, and neither was the way she was looking around at the rosaries on the walls, crinkling her little nose at them, and then at Shelley. Then her eyes traveled down to the chain at her ankle.
    Shit, shit, shit. She’d totally forgotten about it.
    Goth-girl actually smiled at it.
    Shelley straightened her back, trying to make herself look as tall as possible next to the open door. This woman may or may not be a vampire, but she could still be a dangerous psycho. “I’d like you to leave, now.”
    The purple-haired woman glanced up at her, creepy smile still in place. Shelley caught the hint of long, pointed teeth through her grin.
    “I believe I’ll stay.” She lunged.
    Shelley barely had time to tense in fear. The woman moved like the wind and had those teeth in Shelley’s neck before she had the chance to gasp for breath. Shelley was treated to the odd sensation of being paralyzed and feeling the blood rush out of her like a river.
    No. That wasn’t right. She wasn’t cut and bleeding all over the place. This woman was sucking the blood out of her.
    “Pearl!”
    The sucking motion abruptly stopped, and for a minute Shelley thought Pearl became paralyzed as well at the sound of Michael’s enraged voice.
    So this was Pearl, the woman Michael was hiding from. But he said she wasn’t a problem. How did she find this place?
    Pearl’s teeth pulled from Shelley’s skin and stared at the man who filled the doorway. Shelley couldn’t turn her head, but he was in her peripheral vision, and her heart leapt at the sight of him.
    He took a menacing step into the cabin, human again, feet and chest bare. He was wearing a pair of jeans. Likely he kept pairs of them in his truck, or even hidden around the forest, should he need them. But being half naked as he was only served to show off his big muscles, clenching with rage.
    “You let her go,” he growled, and although he’d just changed back from wolf to man, Shelley could see his fingernails elongating to claws, the dark hairs on his arms thickening, preparing for another transformation.
    Pearl cupped Shelley’s neck, caressing her skin as her teeth scraped along the already abused flesh. “You should’ve warned your woman. It’s her own fault really.”
    Like there was anything Shelley could have done. She tried to pull away but whimpered when she couldn’t. Oh, God, if only she could move.
    Peal’s nose inhaled long and deep along Shelley’s shoulder and up her neck. “I scented her blood in the forest and followed the trail.”
    Shelley’s eyes went huge. Her foot. Her stupid bleeding foot from when she’d made a run for it and stepped on that twig led this woman right to the cabin.