Free First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series) by Dani Harper

phones, vehicles, credit cards, you name it. And in Travis’s case, it also depended on staying clear of other Changelings. He wished he knew if the creature that was following them was after Neva.
    Or after him.
    It was dawn before Travis let them stop for more than a few minutes. They settled into a stand of brush near a highway. Neva’s paws were raw and sore, and she was starving again, but she had to admit they’d covered a lot of ground.
    Almost forty miles.
    She made a derisive noise in her throat.
I’m not falling for that. I might be new, but I’m not gullible. No way did we run that far.
    Have it your way. I guess the highway sign is just plain wrong, then.
    What sign? She stuck her head up and looked around. A green sign in the distance spelled out Idaho Falls—153 Miles in big white letters.
    We drove about two-thirds of the distance before we lost the truck. We ran overland the rest of the way.
    Yeah, but forty miles?
    Look it up. Natural wolves can cover fifty miles or more in a day while they’re just looking for food. Changelings can go farther and faster—and we had a lot more motivation.
    Four-legged motivation, she thought, and automatically looked behind her.
Do you think he’s gone?
She hadn’t sensed the werewolf that was following them for hours.
    I don’t know. Did you recognize the scent at all?
    No.
    Then maybe we blundered into someone else’s territory and they were just checking us out.
    Someone else’s territory. Neva hadn’t given much thought to the existence of other werewolves, other packs. But here was Travis, and somewhere in the miles behind them was another creature like themselves. A
Changeling
. She’d never heard that word outside of storybooks, where it usually referred to the creature left behind when a fairy stole a human child.
    One word can have many meanings.
Travis rolled in the dewy grass, jaws grinning, tongue lolling. Changeling
is the closest human word to our name for ourselves, our people. Our kind.
    Your kind, not mine.
Neva looked away from him.
I didn’t sign on for this.
    That might be, but you’re one of us now.
    I’m not! I’m nothing like you!
She jumped to her feet, baring her teeth at him and growling low in her throat.
I’m not a mindless slave, and I’m not a murderer.
    Travis rolled over and regarded her coolly.
Do I seem like a mindless slave to you? Do you see anyone pulling my strings?
    She didn’t know how to respond to that. Sure, Travis seemed independent, a rebel, a real lone wolf—and she nearly groaned at the pun—but what if it was just a very good act? Maybe he was really a hit man or some kind of enforcer, someone the packs hired to handle troublemakers. Like herself.
    A hit man? Really?
Travis rolled his eyes.
    Actually, more like a goon or a thug
, she thought at him deliberately. Of course, if he was really out to kill her, why save her from herself? Why not just let things run their course? She thought briefly of the battered Toyota in the alley. If she’d found it just a little bit faster, she wouldn’t be here.
    You didn’t really want to die.
    So what?
She furrowed her wolfen brow, hoping that created a frown. Travis certainly seemed to frown as much in lupine form as he did as a human, so she knew it was possible.
Sometimes what you want and what you have to do are two different things.
    For the briefest of seconds, surprise flashed in his eyes. It was shut down almost immediately, however, and his frown deepened into a glower.
    Why are you by yourself?
she asked suddenly.
    What the hell kind of question is that?
    You seem to know all about packs and sires and the whole werewolf-slash-Changeling routine, yet here you are all by yourself. Where’s your pack?
    Maybe I like being by myself.
    She snorted.
If that was true, you wouldn’t be grouchy all the time.
    I am
not
grouchy
. He was silent for a long time after that, resting his chin on his paws with his eyes closed. Neva didn’t believe for a moment that Travis