Read Online Wolf and Soul (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3) by Theodora Taylor - Free Book Online

they’d eaten at the local diner, had been awkward at best. Luke and Tu giggling and whispering into each other’s ears, like they were the coolest kids in the place, pretending they didn’t notice the Oklahoma king’s obstinate silence or all the stares they were getting from the handful of kingdom town residents—mostly widowed males and addicts who either couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with putting together their own Thanksgiving dinners.
    Grady hadn’t been much better. Luke had his arm around Tu’s shoulders in a way that meant she wouldn’t have been able to sign comfortably even if she wanted to. And Grady didn’t want to think his brother had initiated their intimate conversation so Grady wouldn’t be able to read their lips as they talked into each other’s ears, but that was how it came across. And so he’d sat there, like an oversized lump in the booth next to his dad, shoveling food into his mouth until the forty-two minute (he tracked it) torture session disguised as a Thanksgiving dinner came to its merciful end.
    But Tu was here now, in his space, without Luke to keep her from signing with him, so once again Grady told her the truth.
    “ Things bad there. Rafe…”
    He didn’t think she had the vocabulary to understand how bad Rafe had gotten since Alisha ran out on him the morning after their mating was complete. How the formerly noble king had been reduced to a shadow of himself. Shambling around his shuttered kingdom mansion, in a whisky-fueled stupor, refusing to perform his role as king.
    He shook his head wearily. “Rafe bad. Want get away for little bit.”
    “Get away?” she repeated these signs as a question. “ To here?”
    “Yes,” he answered. “Small and cold but home.”
    “Okay, but where you pee?”
    A smile came to Grady’s face. “Climb up. Pee next to barn.”
    She laughed. “ Where you pee during Luke party?”
    His smile disappeared. “Leave before Luke party. Can’t be here. Beta.”
    She wiggled her eyebrows, and waved her hands around in a mock simulation of fright. “Yes, you beta king. Almost forgot.”
    Watching her joke about the job he took very seriously made Grady’s mood darken. He signed, “Your parents think you where?”
    Tu shook her head, that laughing smile of hers coming to her face. “ I twenty-one now. Don’t have to tell them where go.”
    He signed again, “Your parents think you where?”
    She looked peeved now, but not in a way that reached her eyes. A mocking peeved, like she was having all the laughs and he was a dweeb for asking.
    “N-E-B-R-A-S-K-A princess house. Her brother single. Mom want me flirt with. Get pledge meeting. His crown very rich.”
    Of course her parents didn’t know about her Thanksgiving date with Luke. Folks from a state as prosperous as Alaska would rather their daughter date a rich nobody than a mange state prince.
    “This sign for N-E-B-R-A-S-K-A…” Then he modeled the state sign for her before asking, “ What say to parents when you go back?”
    “Don’t like Nebraska prince smell,” she signed, easily incorporating the sign he taught her. She was smart, Grady mused, but she was down here in Oklahoma killing all her brain cells with too much alcohol and marijuana. “Same say all princes they try pledge me.”
    He shook his head, finding it hard to believe she was turning down princes to be with his handsome but fucked up brother for Thanksgiving.
    “You love Luke,” he signed in such a way it could have been a statement or a question.
    Her eyes twinkled. “Luke fun.”
    He didn’t understand. “You don’t love him?” And this time he raised his eyebrows, making it no doubt it was a question.
    She seemed to think about his question for a long time before answering, “Love F-R-E-E-D-O-M. Holding long time I can. In future husband boring.”
    Her syntax was atrocious, but he understood. She was trying to tell him she was having fun with Luke, holding on to her freedom as long as she