Free Desert Fate (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 3) by Anna Lowe Page B

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    Mine! Mate!
His wolf leaped straight up, practically salivating.
    He could feel the beast trying to break free even after he put some miles between them. Goddamn wolf was already planning the bite, calculating just where to place each fang and how must pressure it would take to puncture her skin—gently, ever so gently. His fangs would bore deep, and then close tight, sealing a clean mating bite that would secure her forever. As his.
    We take her! Now!
    Even his human side was half in agreement.
One bite turns, the second bite mates.
He knew it as well as any other shifter. A mating bite from him would cancel out Ron’s initial claim. Stefanie would be his, and his alone.
    Greed burned in his throat, and it was all he could do to wrestle it back down.
    Claiming her now would make us as low as Ron,
he told the wolf.
She has to want it too.
    She wants it!
Her wolf wants it!
    He shook his head. She had to understand the implications. That it meant forever. With him. With his wolf.
    And Christ, why would she ever say yes to that?
    She’d always seen him as a lost puppy who needed rescuing, nothing more.
    That’s not the vibe I got from her today, man.
    He had to wonder what she was rescuing him from now. He’d pushed away the past, made a decent life for himself. Had a good job and a pack that accepted him. He didn’t need any rescuing now.
    Except maybe from yourself,
the wolf sniffed.
    His soul was a candle burning at both ends, and he knew it. The human side fizzled at one end, lost and lonely as he’d ever been, and his wolf blazed at the other, desperate for acceptance.
    She can fix that candle. Make it burn bright.
    Kyle slammed a door on his wolf and drove on. But even when he merged on to the highway twenty minutes later, the wolf was still whimpering for her. Images of Stef chased him all the way to headquarters and up the stairs, straight past the dispatcher who looked up in surprise.
    “Kyle! What are you doing in today?”
    He grunted something neutral and climbed the stairs in jerky, robotic steps then sat at his desk to shuffle a few reports. Stefanie’s scent clung to his clothes like a burr, and he almost wished for the radio to crackle with a crisis of some kind. Gang activity to crack down on, maybe, or a drug bust. Anything to distract him. But the citizens of central Arizona were behaving themselves and things were quiet. It always was this time of year.
    “Officer Williams.” A familiar voice broke into the room, followed by the clink of keys tossed on the neighboring desk. He looked up to see two of his colleagues coming in, ready to wrap up their shift.
    “Don’t you have something better to do on your day off?” Lee chided.
    “Days off,” the other, Chavez, said. “The man has a week off. Me, I’d be out of here.”
    Kyle responded with his usual line of defense: silence.
    “You’re the only person I know who has to be ordered to take his vacation days.” Chavez shook his head. “Do you even know what a vacation is? Va-ca-tion?”
    Kyle straightened his back but said nothing. He didn’t need a vacation. He’d wandered enough in his life.
    “Aw, come on, leave the guy in peace.” That was Andie—Andrea—another colleague, just coming in the door. Kyle threw her an appreciative nod. She was one of the best officers on the force and one of the few people who left him in peace.
    “What he needs,” Chavez said with a waggle of his bushy eyebrows, “is a woman.” The other two grunted their disapproval, but Chavez went on, waving his hands. “All the man has to do is spend three minutes in a bar and they’re on him like flies on a carcass. Me, I’d be taking them home.”
    Kyle pressed his lips into a tight line. He did have a woman at home. One he didn’t know what to make of.
    I know what to make her,
his wolf hummed smugly.
Mine. Mate.
    If he could have physically cuffed the beast, he would have. He didn’t need a mate. Didn’t need anyone. There was no such thing