Free Rivals (Shifter Island #2) by Carol Davis

said.
    It was someone she didn’t know, a young woman with dark hair woven into two thick braids. The newcomer didn’t seem either friendly or hostile, but she was the last person Abby wanted to follow anywhere. She had no idea where the girl would take her. To Granny Sara’s? Or to a boat, to be taken off the island?
    Or to be dumped into the middle of the ocean?
    “Why should I?” she asked. “Who are you?”
    “My name is Katrin. I’m Aaron’s friend. Come. You can’t stay here alone.”
    Abby shook her head.
    The young woman frowned at her, nostrils flaring, clearly distressed. Abby wanted to say something to the effect of, You’re not the boss of me! —but she realized that would sound incredibly childish. They had their own rules here. The rules of behavior that she was used to, things like civil liberties and freedom of speech, might not fly here. Being so close to the coast, the island was certainly part of the United States… wasn’t it? But maybe the wolves didn’t see it that way.
    For all she knew, they were allowed to eat her if she broke too many of their rules.
    “I’m supposed to go back to Granny Sara’s,” she said as firmly as she could, hoping that Katrin would believe that was something the elders had said. “I can find my own way back there.”
    Katrin made a face. “Follow me,” she said sharply, then turned on her heel and stalked off through the woods.
    Abby couldn’t have said exactly why she caved in, but she followed.

Ten
     
    “You can’t honestly believe this,” Aaron said.
    They’d brought him to the gathering house, the only place in the settlement with locks. The place that mainlanders would identify as a jail. There, he was surrounded not only by elders, but by a good many of the younger wolves, both male and female. From the way they were looking at him, it was clear that most of them had already convinced themselves that he was guilty.
    “We’ve searched the entire area,” said Angus, one of the younger ones. “There are no signs of another attacker.”
    “Which doesn’t make me guilty!”
    The place was full of strong scents: anger, a sense of betrayal, the need to fight. More than anything, it made Aaron feel a surge of despair, because this was the kind of rush to judgment that was so common among the humans—and almost unheard of among the wolves.
    “You fought with him,” said someone at the rear of the group.
    “It was a quarrel,” Aaron insisted. “Nothing more than a quarrel. I don’t think a moon has gone by since we were born that we haven’t quarreled about something. It’s the way we are.”
    “Then give us another name. Tell us who is guilty.”
    Aaron’s gaze moved a little to the left, to fall on the wolf who’d all but dragged him here. The wolf who’d terrorized Abby, who’d stormed into Aaron’s family home as if he owned the place.
    “Your anger will undo you, Daniel,” he said quietly.
    Before his eyes, Daniel grew taller, wider. His wolf was just below the surface, moving beneath Daniel’s skin. “You dare accuse me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. “You risk a great deal, young wolf.”
    “You’re the only one I’ve seen consumed with rage today.”
    And it was burning white-hot now.
    “Enough of that,” Caleb said. “We will not hear—”
    “You won’t let me criticize the watcher?” Aaron scoffed. “You know his temper, Alpha. These last few months, it’s grown worse and worse. Luca may have done something as simple as ignore him when they crossed paths.”
    “He is the watcher,” Mason announced. “His instructions are to be obeyed without question.”
    “Even if he—”
    The persistent Angus cut Aaron off. “That human has made you stupid. You’re so caught up in the lust of the bond that you’ve lost control of your senses—and your anger. When your brother stood in between you and that female, and said he’d go to the elders, you became enraged.”
    Murmurs threaded through the