Free Sorcha's Wolf by Billi Jean

life. The mountains he’d calmly informed her they were going to climb she’d been born on. This, walking, even in the dark, was nothing compared to the last time she’d ventured through the very peaks he so casually believed they’d reach.
    She pushed through the brambles to the end of the fallen tree. The log was at least three feet in girth. It looked newly fallen and not rotten. The hundred-foot drop under it gave her stomach the willies. She hated heights, but she’d be damned if she let him know that.
    “Come, hurry across we don’t have time for this, witch.”
    Her back hurt from tensing every single time he called her ‘witch’. She was a witch, but…she knew a curse when she heard one. Many immortals thought witches were nothing more than hags that would sell their souls to the devil for power. She’d done much in her life she wasn’t proud of, but she’d never harmed an innocent, nor spelled anyone that didn’t either deserve it or ask for it. The way he said ‘witch’ though made it clear how little he thought of her—and her coven.
    Not wanting to hear his voice again for a good long while, she stepped out onto the log. Her boots slipped on the moss and she reached for the branches of a tree, her heart in her throat. She used that bough until she could grab another, carefully placing her feet one in front of the other until she made it to the other side where Alex waited impatiently.
    If she’d expected something from him, perhaps a nod, or recognition that she wasn’t incapable of keeping up with him, she would have been disappointed. He turned before she’d even met his eyes and tackled the side of the steep bank in big, ground eating strides. His longer legs put him ahead of her in seconds.
    Exhaling heavily she sniffed back the frustration and hurt and struggled up the incline. For years, she’d aided anyone that had asked, even those that had not. She’d sat on councils and given her strength to more battles than she could name. Children loved her. The Fay openly welcomed her to their lands. The king of the Lykae even respected her and called her friend. And this towering, sexy hunk of macho wolf—who should be hers—was irritated when she wasn’t fast enough.
    You have to stop thinking like that! He’s not yours. He will never be. This proves that—erases every last doubt.
    She slipped on the layers of leaves and banged her knee painfully against a sharp rock. A hidden tree root caught her toe a few minutes later and she fell, hitting the same leg. Pain and frustration brought tears to her eyes, but she pulled herself up and swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. She would not let this man see her cry. Grumbling to herself, she made it to the top, breathless, scratched and covered in crumbled yellowed leaves and dirt.
    Alex looked like he was out on a Sunday stroll. He eyed her sweater, but she refused to look, instead she turned to the mountains surrounding them. Under any other circumstance, she would have loved being there, in her land, with the sun slowly filling the sky with the familiar brilliant colours of her true home. Instead, all she felt was hollowness as she examined the range of mountains facing them. The distant, dark peaks weren’t even the ones she knew he wanted them to tackle.
    She needed to leave him. Now before he could hurt her further. Possibly kill her with his stupid quest.
    His quest.
    What was it he was after? Could that answer possibly change the way she felt about him? Explain how cold he was to her?
    Without turning from her study, she tried again to reason with him. “I can help, you know. I mean, maybe tell you more about the man. I have studied the lore on mages, warlocks, sorcerers and—”
    “Enough. I will not discuss this with you.”
    She’d thought he’d say that, but she still tried again. Resting a shoulder against the tree behind her, she turned part way to him.
    “Alex, I can help. I’m a witch, it’s what I—”
    “I need nothing