Read Online Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) by Tarrah Betts - Free Book Online

crazy until I taught them how to tone it down.
    But I never worried much about it. Male, female, young, old, it didn’t matter. I could handle them all and I’m sure this new male was no exception and I’d be back in Spruce Hollow within a month.
    That was my expectation, at least.
    The Alpha hadn’t said anything, but I knew what he was doing by passing these tasks onto me.
    He was grooming me to take over for him.
    Slade had been Alpha when my grandfather was a boy and I think he was finally tired and ready to submit to a younger Were.
    He had served our Pack well over the years and I loved him like a father. He had taken me in as an unruly prepubescent teen, after my father died and my human mother had run off and left the acreage.
    She couldn’t accept living out the rest of her life in Spruce Hollow without my father. He was the only thing that kept her here, in my opinion.
    Never mind that she had a son who still needed her around.
    But that was a long time ago now and even though I’d never spoken to her once since the day she’d left, I’d long since forgiven my mother and moved on with my life.
    However, my mother abandoning me had left me with a hefty dose of mistrust for women though. I kind of regarded them like ticking time bombs, just waiting for them to explode and wreak havoc on everything in their path.
    Truth is, I didn’t think my mother ever really liked living within the confines of the pack because Spruce Hollow was pretty secluded and cut off from the rest of the world. The closest city was almost three hours away.
    For a human that type of life might not sound great but for a Were, it was ideal.

Chapter 6
                     ***

    A rriving at the Big house first, I sat at the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the front entryway.
    I could hear my brothers off in the distance, jockeying for position. They would be here soon.
    I sniffed the air and inhaled the familiar scents of my wolf pack members. I could sense that most of the others had arrived before us and were already inside waiting for us to arrive.
    The Alpha must have sensed my arrival too, as he opened the door shortly after I sat down on the front steps and looked at me quizzically.
    “Where are the others?” he said in his deep, easy drawl. 
    “They’re coming,” I looked up at him and grinned. 
    “Left them behind in the dust did you?” 
    “Yep.” 
    “Caver is going to be pretty upset, as you well know. He’s got a hot head that boy. I worry about him,” he said thoughtfully.
    “Don’t worry, I’ll look out for him,” I said as I looked out towards the woods. 
    “I know you will son. Roan?” 
    “Hm?” 
    “You’re a good man and a strong leader. Don’t ever forget that.” 
    “Thank you Alpha,” I said as I smiled off into the darkness.
    I had so much respect and admiration for this man. He had taken me in when I had no one else and I would always be loyal to him.
    “Come inside after you’re done gloating. We’ll be in the downstairs meeting area. Everyone else has arrived already. We have much to talk about.” 
    “Will do.”
    I heard Griff and Caver burst out of the woods before I saw them. They were neck and neck and running like their tails were on fire. I knew whoever got here first between the two of them would be ribbing the other for at least the next week.
    For a second, I almost hoped it was Caver, just to spare me having to listen to him all week at work if he lost. Caver and Griff both worked for me, at my auto body repair shop. My Dad had been a mechanic and had opened Sabre’s Auto body back when he had first settled in Spruce Hollow, well before I was born.
    When he died, he left the shop to me in his will, but I was only a kid at the time. So, the building was held in trust for me until I was old enough to decide what I wanted to do with it. There was never any doubt in my mind and as soon as I turned nineteen and was considered an adult, I set up the shop again,