Free Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) by Mandy Rosko

This was totally her fault.
    Pearl laughed a little. “I only wished to have a snack before continuing my search. I never would have thought to find you holed up with another being like this.”
    Michael took another step into the cabin, this one slower, less threatening. “This is between you and me. Let her go and we can talk. Come to an agreement.”
    Enough feeling returned to Shelley’s body for her to feel Pearl pull her tighter against her flat chest, like a shield. “Unless that agreement involves you peeling the skin from your body and handing it over to me, there shall be no such talk.”
    Shelley’s eyes widened. Peel the skin…? Was this woman crazy?
    “Your woman is curious, monster,” Pearl said. “Will you explain why she is to be my feast, or shall I?”
    Michael pursed his lips. “You’re not going to be anyone’s feast, Shelley. I’ll get you out of here, and nothing like this will ever happen to you again.”
    Warm breath touched Shelley’s cheek. She brought her hand up to slap the woman’s face away, but her arm was still so weak that her palm didn’t get halfway to its target.
    “Your mate should have sent you away, but since he was so eager to keep you,” Pearl kicked the chain still attached to Shelley’s ankle, “you shall feed me and make me strong for the skinning.”
    Shelley’s eyes widened. She screamed inside her head.
    Pearl chuckled. “Not you, pet, him. He is a very rare specimen. A werewolf with true silver hair. My father is the king of all vampires, and he demands only the best. He wishes to wear the coat of your mate.”
    Pearl talked about it like she was discussing buying a fur coat or something. She fingered the heart locket at Shelley’s neck. There must have been a few hairs poking out because she laughed. “Even you acknowledge its beauty. Even you wish to have it, to wear it.”
    Shelley wasn’t shocked. She hadn’t known, but the news that Michael’s fur was real silver didn’t stun her either, not after everything she’d seen and heard. Michael had told her he wasn’t allergic to silver, and she did see how shiny his coat was. So his hair being real silver wasn’t such a stretch.
    Pearl brought her back to the present by planting a kiss on the bare side of Shelley’s neck, then a tender lick to scoop up the collecting blood from where she’d bitten. Shelley shivered.
    “The king sent his half-breed daughter to hunt me down and collect what’s in your locket,” Michael snarled, eyes furious at the sight of Pearl’s lips on his mate’s neck. “Only he wants all of it.”
    Pearl hissed back at him, literally hissed at him, her hand tightening over Shelley’s bandage. She winced at the sting but could do nothing else.
    “When I deliver your skin to him, he shall acknowledge me as his. I’ll be a true princess, and you will be dead.”
    “You can only skin me if I’m a wolf, otherwise there’s no fur.” Michael fisted his long sandy hair, completely void of any silver. “Worthless. No praise from Daddy .”
    Pearl growled again, and while her body became tight with rage, she seemed to forget she was holding onto Shelley.
    He was goading her, Shelley realized. Teasing Pearl into letting her guard down.
    “That’s why he sends you out, right? To earn your keep?”
    Pearl threw Shelley to the floor. She had barely enough strength in her arms to catch herself, and she couldn’t crawl away.
    “Silence!”
    “Not the youngest or the oldest, but you’re the only one of your siblings that was sent out to find me. Do you have to bow to your little sister even though she doesn’t bow to you?”
    Pearl flew at him. Had the door been shut they would have crashed through it. Instead they landed on dirt ground outside, kicking up a comet trail as they rolled and fought.
    Shelley tried to get her body to move. She lifted her head, trying to keep Michael in her vision, as though if she could see him that would somehow keep him safe.
    She blinked