Free Wolf Unbound: Aspen Valley Wolf Pack by Amber Ella Monroe

you’re honest,” she said.
    “I’m honest when it matters the most.” He winked. “I don’t go around telling all women that I’m a shifter and that if they have sex with me, they’ll have the urge to fuck me day and night for days afterwards.”
    “Okay,” she said, and then pressed her lips together cautiously. “But that would probably be icing on the cake for some women.”
    “Yeah, it probably would be, but I doubt they’d want a wolf outlaw,” he replied. “And quite frankly, I don’t know if I ever want to put any woman through the commitment and stress that my job requires. Being away from home most of the time. That sort of stuff. I don’t want to hurt anyone again.”
    “Again?”
    Garrett shifted in his seat, realizing how easy it was to talk to Autumn, even with the dozens of questions she’d asked him so far. He didn’t know whether he should see this as an advantage or disadvantage. He was more propelled to tell her the truth about himself than any other woman he’d met before. It was strange. Her signature scent of nutmeg and cinnamon continued to fuck with his reasoning and his judgment. And that scared the shit out of him. He had an important job to do with a deadline, but all he could think about was getting Autumn to safety.
    “I had a long term relationship before.”
    “What happened?”
    “I put my work before her. I admit it now, but I couldn’t before. She wanted to settle down. She wanted me to give up my lifestyle, along with my profession, because it was too stressful for her. I met her when I was twenty-one and we spent a year and a half together while I trained to become an Enforcer for my Pack. At the time, dozens of shifters were in competition for only a handful of Enforcer positions. Needless to say, I didn’t take the Enforcer job I was offered. Neither did my brothers. We made a pact with each other that we’d defend from the outside of our Pack versus the inside. I joined them with one universal mission of seeking justice for all shifters, whether it involved humans conspiring against us or our own kind threatening our existence and going against our customs. We were, and are still, known as wolf outlaws to those humans that know about us. We’re also mistaken for lone wolves most of the time.”
    “When you say that you’re protecting your own kind from threats to your existence and going against customs, do you mean like what Simon's doing?”
    “Yes.”
    “Melisandra used to say the same thing about Simon. She stopped going to the pack meetings a long time ago when Simon became the Beta.”
    “His actions ignore the rules that have been in place to protect us. He’s being accused of murdering his Alpha. That’s the same thing as a vice president conspiring to murder the president. It’s just not done. If we fail to govern ourselves, others will step in and try to take that privilege from us. Based on history, humans with power have been known to strip our rights from us under the assumption that we’re all wild animals and uncontrollable.”
    “You know what I think? I think you’re one of kind and that you’re brave for doing something for your Pack that not everyone can or will do,” she said, her eyes lighting up with compassion. “To risk your happiness for something like this takes a whole lot of courage.”
    He smiled. “I’m happy doing it, so I’m not risking too much.”
    “Just your time and your life…your love life,” she replied.
    He nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
    “Was she your true mate?”
    “Who? Donna?”
    “Donna?” she inquired. “Was that her name?”
    “She wasn’t. And if she were, there would’ve been nothing, not even my choice of job that could’ve prevented us from being together. It’s different for true mates. It’s like we’re preprogrammed for this special person that completes us. Dane says it feels like she’s your other half. You can’t live without her. Nothing will stop you from