Read Online Untamed (Wolf Lake) by Jennifer Kohout - Free Book Online

everything she saw belonging to Nafarius.  
    It could have been hers. Not that she really wanted it, or the male that came with it, but her life was to have started here. Instead, a part of her had died in this territory, something inside of her simply ceasing to exist.  
    Natasha wanted it back.
    Taking a deep breath, she tipped her face to the sky and screamed. The sound echoed long and loud across the valley. Startled, nearby birds took flight, bursting from the trees amidst her howl of pain.
    Natasha kept screaming as the weight of her grief bent her body forward, slowly curling in on itself. She kept screaming as her vision dimmed, and spots danced before her eyes, until her scream became a plaintive wail, her legs finally buckling as she fell to her knees, sobbing.
    Roland watched as pain drove Natasha to her knees. He didn't know her well, but everything he did know told him she wasn't easily bowed.  
    Slowly, knowing that he approached a wounded animal, Roland knelt behind her. Enfolding her in his embrace, he held her while she cried, gut wrenching sobs that wracked her body and threatened to dislodge him.  
    Slowly, her sobs subsided, her body growing heavy in his arms as she rested her head against his chest.
    "I tried to kill my father," she told him quietly.
    "I know," Roland said, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. He couldn't remember the last time he'd held a female simply to offer her comfort.
    "I failed and he nearly killed me for it." She spoke softly, the horror of it eased a bit with the sharing. "He broke..."  
    She stumbled over the memory of her arm breaking, the bone snapping like kindling. Her father's face had been a twisted mix of wolf and man as he stood over her. Rage had turned his eyes yellow and spittle had dripped from his chin, landing on her face.
    "That wasn't your father," Roland said. "Not anymore."
    "I know," Natasha said, quietly. "But..."
    "But what?" Roland asked, when she grew quiet.
    "That just makes it more tragic," she said. "And so much harder to hate him."
    "No one expects you to hate him," Roland said. "What's happening to your father is tragic. No male should be left to suffer like that."
    "It has to be quick and painless," she demanded, thinking of Nafarius' offer to put her father down. "I know I have no right to ask, but he's still my father...even if I'm no longer pack," Natasha whispered, saying the words, trying them out for the first time.
    "You can't cut yourself off from your pack," Roland admonished gently. "After your father is gone - "
    "I didn't cut myself off," Natasha told him. "My father severed the pack bond, they're all just...gone."
    "Shit," Roland swore and held her tighter. Dimitri really had gone over if he'd severed the bond with his young. A weaker wolf would have already gone feral at being cut loose like that. "But that doesn't mean you can't go back. When this is all over - "
    "It won't be the same," Natasha said with all of the sadness of a child realizing that life wasn't fair, that parents make mistakes and Santa Claus didn't exist. "Nothing will ever be the same again."
    No, Roland thought, it wouldn't and there were sometimes when you just couldn't go back.
    ****
    Sam found Maddie inside talking with a few of the other females, all of them young and single. She paused, watching as Maddie laughed at something one of the others said. She's starting to blossom.  
    Young, shy and submissive, Maddie hadn't had many friends. Then Sam came along and the two of them had connected, quickly becoming inseparable. If anyone thought it strange, the most submissive pack member and the alpha female as friends, they were smart enough to keep their muzzles shut.
    Watching Maddie laugh with the others, feeling her friend's happiness along the pack bond, Sam felt a fissure of unease.   Maddie is mine , she glowered at the group.
    Ours , her wolf corrected, surprising Sam.
    Heeding the need to reassure herself, Sam slipped up behind Maddie and