Free Forever (Shifter Island Book 3) by Carol Davis Page A

mostly berating Abby for making him return when the two of them could be at home now, enjoying a good dinner and watching a movie.
    He called her a number of things Aaron knew were demeaning and cruel, vicious enough that Aaron began to think about putting the man in a boat without a motor or oars and letting him die alone out on the ocean.
    Or perhaps, feeding him to the sharks. They’d appreciate that he was bleeding so profusely.
    Aaron didn’t need to give the pack much direction; even the youngest ones knew what their goal was and how best to achieve it. It was thrilling to work this way, running through the trees, jumping from the heaps of rock that formed small cliffs all over the island, then holding back and creeping silently through the shadows.
    As time went on, the man stank more and more of fear, of rage.
    He would have hurt Abby eventually, Aaron decided. Sooner or later, he would have delivered a blow.
    He urged his wolf to creep closer, to come within a few yards of the man. Enough time had gone by that the moon was rising, which gave him enough light to see clearly that the man’s pants leg was soaked with blood and he was limping badly. The man had lost both his little flashlight and his sense of direction—along with most of his common sense, if he’d had any to begin with—and was for the most part moving in circles.
    Aaron nudged his wolf again, and it took a few more steps, to a place where the moonlight would catch its eyes.
    Then he and the wolf waited for the man to turn and see them.
    There.
    The man froze for a moment. Then he crouched down painfully and fumbled around until he had closed his fist around a rock.
    Neither Aaron nor any of the other wolves moved a muscle.
    The rock would do no damage. Even if the man’s aim was true and he put every bit of his strength behind the throw, it would simply bounce off his target. It was too small to do any real harm. But the man held it as if it were the most deadly of weapons. Aaron had to give him a little credit for that; standing tall and acting fierce had gotten him out of a few scrapes during his own childhood, and after all, this man was nothing more than a blustering child.
    Aaron shifted his head, let the light hit his eyes again.
    “Come and get me,” the man said, his breath coming in big heaves. “You think you’re nasty? You’re nothing but an overgrown dog. What are you, the pet of those people?”
    Maybe, Aaron thought, he should approach the man as a dog would, tail wagging, tongue lolling, head rolling cheerfully from side to side. Disarm this foul-mouthed brute with his charm, even though it was likely the man hated dogs.
    When he got close enough, he’d…
    A few paces behind him, Luca’s wolf made a rumbling sound in his throat.
    True; they weren’t here to toy with the man, to stand here and ponder whether the man liked canines.
    The man must have heard the sound, because his body jerked and he grunted in pain. An instant later the rock was flying through the air with an impressive amount of power behind it, but its trajectory was wrong, and all Aaron’s wolf had to do was move its head a few inches to one side.
    The rock grazed its ear—which Aaron had recommended—and that was enough of a victory that the man whooped with satisfaction.
    “There!” he screamed. “There! Take that, you bastard!”
    He fumbled for another rock, this one more jagged than the first, and struggled to stand upright again so he could throw it. He still wasn’t likely to inflict any damage, but allowing him to go on throwing stones would give him time to regain some energy, would give him a sense of victory.
    So the wolves moved forward.
    It didn’t seem possible that the man had thought he was only being pursued by a single wolf, but his eyes popped open with astonishment as more and more pairs of eyes shone golden in the moonlight.
    Dash and Nathan, who’d moved around to flank him and were well within striking distance, crouched and