Free The Wolf Prince by Karen Whiddon

about the giant shepherd who runs with a pack of wolves.”
    Ruben chuckled, knowing his father’s words were true. “Are you ready?”
    “I am,” the king answered. Side by side, they strolled out of the castle, both in relatively good humor despite their weariness.
    Walking down the path past the bench where Ruben had rested with Willow, Ruben again wondered where she’d gone. To all outward appearances, she’d disappeared into the same forest they were going to in order to shape-shift into wolves. Maybe as wolf, he could find a clue.
    He didn’t want anything to interfere with this moment so he pushed the thought from his mind and bumped his father with his shoulder. His father bumped him back.
    Both wearing identical faint smiles, they continued, companionably silent, along a well-trod path that wove through the dense woods in a seemingly random pattern. Centuries ago their ancestors had cleared this path and built the small stone temple at the end of it. All for the sole purpose of enabling the royal family to have a private—and beautiful—place to shape-shift from human form to wolf.
    When they rounded the last turn and the ancient temple was no longer hidden, King Leo shook his head and let out a long breath. “I need this, my boy!”
    Then, as Ruben was about to agree, the older man took off running. “Last one to change is a rotten rabbit!”
    After a moment of shock—they both had been up all night, after all—Ruben leaped forward. Taking up the challenge, he tore after his father. They reached the old building roughly at the same time, though the king won by mere inches.
    “Not bad for a man my age,” he huffed.
    Ruben had to agree.
    Still chuckling and slightly out of breath, they stepped inside, shedding their clothes as they went.
    King Leo was the first to change. Ruben had barely gotten undressed when the air around his father began to shimmer, heralding the beginnings of the change. With his own wolf raging to be free, Ruben dropped to the ground and counted to three. Then he let the change rip through him as his wolf rejoiced to be free.
    A moment later, two wolves stood in the spot where before there’d been two men. King Leo was a huge graying beast, while Ruben’s pelt was close to the same sable color of his human hair.
    Muzzle to muzzle, they inhaled each other’s scent. Then, with a glad bark, Ruben took off, aware of his father racing at his side.
    Later, much later, with the hunt completed and their wolves sated happy, and pleasantly worn out, they headed back toward the changing temple, luxuriating in their heightened wolf senses. As a human, Ruben relied primarily on sight. As a wolf, he used his nose. He missed that super sense of smell when he existed as man. He felt its absence with a sort of sharp sorrow.
    It was good to have this experience with his father. These days they didn’t get to spend enough time together.
    As they neared the path that would take them back to the old temple, Ruben felt a disturbance in the air. A shift, a slight breeze, a shiver up his spine. Nothing tangible, at least not by scent or by sight. A quick glance at his father revealed the older wolf felt it, too.
    Instantly, they went low to the ground, seeking cover under vegetation. His sharp lupine hearing picked up a sound and he went still. Footsteps. Human. Uttering a low growl in the back of his throat, he glanced at his father. The other wolf dropped to his belly, well hidden. Ruben did the same.
    He smelled her before he saw her. The scent, tantalizingly familiar. And the instant the woman’s dark head came into view, he knew why.
    Willow .
    His father growled, making Ruben realize he’d moved forward. A foolish and futile move. She wouldn’t know him now, not as wolf. And where had she come from? He’d swear she’d simply appeared from thin air. Whatever she was, she wasn’t Pack, wasn’t Shifter. But she wasn’t human, either. Her scent was off.
    She’d appeared in the middle of the