Free Unchained (Dark Shifter Romance) by Sophia Wren Page B

being lifted cleanly from her human body and dropped into the body of a wolf, not... this . New senses were creeping into her, anchoring themselves in her flesh-- the feeling that told her which way to go, and that sensation of another heartbeat beating strongly alongside hers…
    The strange magnetic pull that was buried deep inside her chest let her straight to Jack. She caught sight of him first, his back turned towards her as he regarded something on the ground ahead of him, tension etched into every hard line of his body. He looked almost scared, and she crept closer, her feet moving silently through the leaf litter even in the heavy ill-fitting boots she was wearing.
    As she watched the scene ahead of her, Jack took a slow step forward, almost staggering. He crossed the small clearing in which he was standing, and then all at once, dropped to his knees. Lacey stifled a sound of surprise. He may have been yards away from her, with his back to her even, but it was still the most emotion she'd seen in the man, even overpowering that warm, shy smile given her in the backyard of the house they'd pillaged.
    She moved forward, and finally saw what it was that he had spotted.
    In the leaf litter ahead of him laid a wolf. Her body tensed, ready to run or fight, but then she saw the stillness, and knew that it was no threat. Even from this distance she could tell that it was in no mood to fight. The wind changed, and she caught the sharp metallic tang of blood in the air, telling her all that she needed to know. It was wounded— badly.
    Jack said something, the words muffled by the distance between the two of them, and reached out a hand. He touched the wolf, sliding his strong hands through its fur, as if embracing a friend. Lacey felt the urge to look away, like she'd invaded something deeply intimate that she had no right to lay eyes on.
    Suddenly, the wolf twitched. Lacey let out a gasp, too keyed up to prevent it tearing itself out of her. She knew that Jack must've heard her, the sound of her voice unmistakable to normal human hearing, let alone his enhanced wolf senses, but he paid no attention to her. He leant down sharply, burying both hands in the wolf's fur, bending his head to its own. "Mark," he she heard him say, his voice tinged with longing and desperation and, strikingly, fear. "Mark, it's me. Get up! Get up, damn you!"
    The wolf let out a thin whine, little more than a whimper. Jack redoubled his efforts, pressing his forehead against the wolf, his hands knotting pleadingly in its thick, bloodied fur. "Get up," he snarled. "I'm here, it's me, and I'm ordering you to get up!"
    The injured wolf let out another whine, and Lacey heard Jack make a small, broken sound. There was one strange moment of flesh moving, two forms blending together, and then where Jack had knelt, stood another wolf. Jack's wolf nuzzled his injured friends, and finally, Lacey saw the other wolf slide an eye open, meeting Jack's pleading gaze with a tired yellow stare.
    Slowly, being urged along by body contact with Jack's wolf, the new wolf slowly got to its feet. Lacey winced as the full extent of its injuries became apparent. She wasn't familiar with dogs, let alone diagnosing any injuries they might suffer, but she was fairly certain that the large ragged wound that crippled its hind leg hadn't been the product of being hit by a car. Small wounds seem to pepper the wolf's body, bite marks thick around its neck, rusty dried blood staining the silvery white of its fur.
    The wolf took another step, and the pleading fear radiating from Jack's body turned to a sort of hope. A moment later, the wolf collapsed back down to the ground in a heap. Lacey wanted nothing more than to cross the small clearing and to be there for Jack, soothing him with her touch, but he didn't seem interested in giving up on the wolf just yet.
    With another one of those strange shifting movements, the likes of which Lacey doubted she would ever get used to, Jack was