Read Online Savage by Nancy Holder - Free Book Online Page B

for this. “I’m back home. I started running and I wound up on this road. A trucker pulled over and I-I tried to call you but I guess it didn’t go through. I went to your house but no one was there. So I came back to my cabin.”
    “Huh,” he said, and she realized he’d bought it. “There’s a power vacuum now, with Lee gone. It’s making everyone insane and folks are gearing up to issue challenges for dominance. You best stay away.”
    “No problem,” she said tartly, and he chuckled.
    “Kat McBride, respectful as always.”
    “Don’t start. Please. Sir ,” she added in the same acidic tone.
    “You’re right. Now’s not the time for an etiquette class. We’re in crisis. Let me tell you what’s going on. I sent Lucy and Jesse away to a hunting cabin way up in the hills to keep them both safe and out of things. I don’t know how Jesse will take Lee’s death. He loved that man.”
    He wasn’t a man , Katelyn thought. Then she had a sickening thought: that Jesse may have already found out, and broken someone’s neck in his rage. That he might have transformed — he was older than Justin, and physical maturity determined when you could will yourself to change — and killed the Inner Wolf attendee.
    That the hunting party might find him.
    “Are you sure they reached the cabin?” she asked.
    “What’s this? Concern for the welfare of fellow pack members?” he asked softly. “Are you finally getting it?”
    “These being the same pack members who stood by while Lucy nearly killed me in a challenge,” she retorted. “The same ones you’ve sent Lucy and Jesse away from, because you’re all running amok without someone to tell you what to do. The same werewolves who were cheering her on when she was trying to kill me could turn on her at any second.”
    “Kat, I’ll excuse that because you’re scared. You’re new at this,” he said.
    “I don’t care. I never want to get used to this. It’s sick and you’re all crazy. I hate this. I hate you!”
    “It doesn’t matter. You’re stuck with us. And with me .”
    “No,” she said, and before she could stop herself, she disconnected the call. For a moment she was breathless, realizing how disrespectful it had been, and then she was fiercely, exuberantly glad she’d done it. She was immune to silver. He wasn’t. The Hounds of God had come to her, not to him. And she had a garage filled with silver bullets, and another gun that shot them. She wasn’t going to be some wimpy little coward sniveling at his feet.
    “Bring it, Fenner,” she sneered at the phone.
    Then she shook a little, because she wasn’t stupid. Justin might become the new alpha, which meant that she might have just pissed off the most powerful werewolf in Wolf Springs. She might have a gun with silver bullets, but he would have an entire pack of werewolves to do his bidding.
    And he had her other gun. He had only been able to hold it for a couple of minutes, but it had been long enough to take down Luc Gaudin.
    “Yeah, with what, three bullets?” she muttered, and got herself another handful. But he would never actually hurt her, would he?
    Once everything was back in place, she crept out of the garage and was heading for the porch when she noticed a shadow stretched against the wall. She sucked in her breath and flattened herself against a darker section of the wood siding as she tried to force her werewolf senses to kick in. Adrenaline seemed to activate the change. But nothing happened.
    It’s just a tree , she told herself, but the same feeling of dread that she’d experienced when the Hounds of God had formed a line earlier stole over her. Ice pellets slapped at her cheeks and wind buffeted her ears. Then a metallic creaking noise jerked her attention to the right, to the porch. The wind was pushing on the front door, which was open.
    A butterfly lodged itself at the base of her throat.
    I shut it, didn’t I? Is there someone in our cabin?
    She scrutinized the