All We See & Seem (Timber Wolves) by Tammy Blackwell Read Free Book Online Page A

them was only there because they wanted to gain prestige and power it would have been one of the worse things imaginable. For Talley, it would be a relief.
    By the time Walker returned, melancholy had replaced her nervousness.
    She tried to listen as he rattled on about his favorite movies (the Jason Bourne series), favorite music (Mumford and Sons), and the reasons he preferred British TV. When he would ask about what she liked, she gave noncommittal answers before steering the conversation back to him. The truth was, if this had been a normal date she would have probably enjoyed the evening. Walker was interesting and kind, and he was just nerdy enough she felt comfortable around him. He wasn’t the most attractive guy she’d ever seen, but the more he talked, the cuter he got.
    For a moment, Talley allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to believe this was real and could actually go somewhere. What would it be like? Would she let him walk her back to her dorm? Would she let him kiss her goodnight? Was he having a good time? Good enough that he would ask her out again? Would her mother like him? Would her friends? Would Jase?
    Jase.
    And just like that, she knew that even if she’d never heard the words “Shifter” or “Seer”, she and Walker would never work out. Her heart belonged to Jase. He might not want it, but it was his. It would have been cruel to Walker to pretend otherwise.
    Actually, once she thought about it, what she was doing right now was kind of cruel. She had to put an end to this charade before he got the wrong idea.
    “I called Makya,” she said instead of telling him what her favorite class was like he’d asked.
    The quick change in conversation didn’t seem to faze him. “I knew you would.”
    “He confirmed your story.”
    “I didn’t think you would be here otherwise.”
    According to Walker, he had heard about her rise in rank on Facebook. Because apparently there was a Facebook group for Shifters. It seemed wrong to Talley on so many levels, mostly the ones involving putting the privacy and security of Shifters and Seers in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg. After seeing the post about the new Potential, Walker had done a bit of Facebook stalking. At first it was out of curiosity, but the more he read about her, the more interested he grew. Finally, he’d contacted Makya, one of the members of the Hagan Pack who Walker knew from Camp Sk’elep, a summer camp for young Shifters and Seers. Camp Sk’elep (or Camp Coyote as the kids all called it) was supposed to be a place for “the next generation of leaders to form friendships and alliances”. In reality, it was a place for teenage Shifters to brawl with people outside their own pack and teenage Seers to kiss as many Shifters as possible to figure which one they wouldn’t mind marrying someday. Jase, Charlie, and Talley never went. Talley used her allergies as an excuse, Charlie managed to schedule a basketball workshop every summer during that week, and Jase… well, Jase just refused to go. His biological father had died before he was born, and he had been raised by Scout’s biological father, who was a school superintendent and quite possibly the furthest thing from a Shifter in the whole world. Since Toby couldn’t exactly override Jase’s parents, Jase got away with flat out refusing a lot of things the rest of them couldn’t.
    While most of the younger members of the Hagan Pack avoided Camp Coyote at all costs, Makya Hagan counted down the days until he could go every summer. Charlie said it was because he finally got a chance to be more dominant than someone else, but Talley thought it was because he didn’t have to feel like a Scout-substitute with those people like he did at any given pack function. According to Walker, Makya was pretty much the king of the camp. He was one of the most dominant Shifters in his age bracket, which meant all the other Shifters looked up to him and all the Seers wanted to date him.