Free Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) by Lauren Dawes

eyes seemed brighter than they ever had before,
bordering on glowing. She smiled at herself, seeing the flash of fang.
    ‘Indi?’ Rhett
called through the door. ‘Are you ready yet?’
    Letting out a
deep breath, she called back. ‘Yeah. Give me five.’ Whatever had happened was
just a passing thing, and with any luck, Rhett would never have to find out
about it.

Chapter
4
     
     
     
     
     
    Leona was already awake when her
alarm went off, having got little to no sleep the night before. She turned the
alarm off and sat on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands. In the
corner of her room lay her clothes from the night before, reeking of cigarette
smoke and humans.
    Her head jerked
up when someone pounded on her door, rattling it on its hinges.
    ‘Le-on-a!’
Connall called in a sing-song voice from the other side of the wood. Standing
up cautiously, she palmed her Browning Hi-Power from her bedside table, and
edged towards the door.
    ‘What?’ she
barked back.
    ‘Marcus wants to
see you,’ Connall replied. She could hear him pressing closer to the door. ‘Are
you naked, Lover?’ he asked in a whispered breath.
    She cursed under
her breath. ‘I’m not your lover,’ she snarled, retreating from the door and
throwing her gun into the tangle of black cotton sheets on her bed.
    The tiled
bathroom was clean and stocked only with the essentials; none of that fluffy
female shit that adorned most other females’ bathrooms. Turning on the
four-head shower, she waited until steam billowed out from behind the glass
screen before getting under the spray. She was in the middle of rinsing her
hair when an unwelcome voice echoed through her bathroom.
    ‘Need some help,
Lover?’
    Leona spun
around to find Connall standing in the doorway with a smug expression on his
face.
    ‘How’d you get
in here?’ she asked flatly, not bothering to hide her naked body from him.
She’d known him ever since she’d been Bitten and welcomed into the pack. ‘I had
the door locked.’
    The corner of
his mouth tilted up, revealing his wolf’s sharp canines. He could never shift
them all the way back, or didn’t want to shift them all the way back. ‘I’m not
going to let a silly, little locked door stand in my way,’ he drawled slowly;
that small smile still in place.
    He leaned
against the doorframe, his ankles crossed over one another, his arms over his
broad chest. His phosphorescent pale green eyes blinked to yellow then back
again. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in? I could wash your back for you?’ His
voice was a silky purr.
    ‘No. I was just
finishing up.’ Leona cut the water, and looked around for a fresh towel.
    ‘Here,’ Connall
said, holding out a fluffy white towel under her nose. She growled at him,
snatching the towel from his hands. ‘You’re welcome,’ he simpered smugly.
    She pushed past
him, rubbing the towel carefully along her cornrows. She could feel his eyes on
her ass, but that was nothing new. He stared at her every chance that he got.
    ‘Did you come in
here for a reason?’ she snapped without looking back at him. She looked at her
gun—still in the tangle of bed sheets—wondering whether she could reach it in
time. Probably not. Her attention went to the drawer of clean clothes in front
of her.
    ‘Marcus told me
to make you hurry up,’ Connall said softly into her ear. Leona jumped,
automatically lunging for her Browning. He grabbed her wrist, squeezing it
tightly until the bones began to grind against each other.
    ‘Let me go,’ she
hissed, glaring into Connall’s wolf’s yellow eyes. His top lip peeled away from
his canines.
    ‘Why won’t you
give me a chance, Leona?’ Connall’s warm, fetid breath brushed against her
cheek as he pulled her closer. She felt repulsed by the caress of his lips
against her skin, but made no attempts to pull away from him. He was still a
higher ranking wolf than she was, and Connall had to remind her of that
constantly.
    Instead, she
closed