Free Maggie's Wolves, Part One: A BBW Shifter Romance (Red Mountain Pack Book 1) by Cara Morgan Page B

and then cleaned up, setting the bowl and spoon out to dry on a worn towel beside the porcelain sink. When she stepped off the rag rug onto the wood floor, the cold curled her toes. She turned down the lantern and then curled up on the bed.
    The cramps she’d felt earlier had faded to a dull ache, a sensation that felt not quite so much like pain as it did like hunger. Her wolf had quieted too, though Maggie could still feel her there, watchful and waiting. She still couldn’t shift, but she was trying not to worry too much about that right now.
    The fire ticked and hissed as the damp wood caught and burned. Outside, the wind howled and shook the window panes. Through the old glass window above the bed, she watched as the first fat flakes of snow began to drift down from the sky.
    Maggie closed her eyes to try and get some sleep. When she woke up, her sickness would probably be over, and she’d be able to shift again. There’d be enough of a break in the storm for her to get out. Her car would start up when she turned the key and wouldn’t cost her a fortune to tow out. She’d get back to her apartment in time to be at work Monday morning so she wouldn’t lose her job. It would all work out somehow. It had to. And then she’d forget this awful day had ever happened. Wrapping her arms around her stomach, she burrowed deeper into the blankets.  
    She’d just started to drift off when someone knocked at the door.
     
     

Chapter Two
     
    Maggie sat frozen, trying to decide what to do. She’d never once seen anyone else in the woods surrounding the cabin in all of her years. Last fall, she’d heard the distant sound of a gunshot, but that was as close as anyone had ever come to this place that she knew of. She’d begun to think the land had some kind of magic that kept it separate from the rest of the world. Her own little bubble of safety. She didn’t like the idea of anyone invading her private sanctuary.
    The noise might have just been her imagination, she thought. The wind or maybe a falling branch. She’d almost convinced herself of that when the sound came again, clear and sharp. Two solid raps and then waiting silence.
    She exhaled in a rush. The wolf rose inside of her and inexplicably the ache in her belly began to throb. Cautiously, silently, she crawled out from beneath the blankets and crossed the room. She touched the lock, reassuring herself that it was bolted, and then placed her hand against the door.
    She couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the thick slab of wood except for the howling of the wind, but she knew that someone was there. She could feel a presence. A hand pressed to the wood opposite hers. She leaned closer and inhaled deeply, searching for a scent. When it came to her, her knees went weak and she had to brace herself against the door. Her body trembled. Moisture gathered between her legs, and she groaned softly. A man. There was a man out there, but no one she’d ever met before. A stranger and she wanted him as she’d never wanted anyone in all of her life.
    “Don’t be afraid,” he said softly, the wind catching his words and tearing them away. A human woman might not have heard them at all. “I know you’re in there. I saw the smoke.”
    His voice was a deep rumble of sound that her entire body responded to like a tuning fork. Her fingers curled into a fist against the cold wood. She wanted to back away from the door, but his voice and his scent kept her standing right where she was.
    “What do you want?”
    “To meet you, and talk.” A soft laugh passed through the door and down her arm. “Maybe get out of the storm for a moment.”
    “I don’t know you.”
    “Not yet,” he said. “But you know what I am.”
    She stilled as understanding sunk in. He was a shifter. That scent—dark and wild, strangely familiar, and oh, so very tempting. It had been such a long time since she’d smelled it, she hadn’t even recognized it for what it was. With numb