Bound by Fate (Moon Bound Series Book 1) by Mandy Lou Dowson Read Free Book Online

up her nostrils, sending fight or flight signals to her brain.  Gareth froze a moment later, hackles raising, and growled into the distance.  What is it? she asked him.
    Tall Grass pack wolf, was the swift reply.  Do not stray, Beth.
    I won’t, she confirmed, already regretting her impulse that forced him to use her real name.  It was too much of a grown up thing, and this morning of all mornings, she wanted to remain a juvenile for a little longer.  Mating was just too complicated.
    A rustling ahead, too far to be any immediate danger, alerted her to the location of the other wolf.  He raised his head from a thicket, blood glistening on his muzzle, licking his face.  He growled, hind legs tensing.  He was huge.  A rolling mass of hard-packed muscle, stalking across the small clearing they stood in, his massive red shoulders rising and falling with each step.  An old scar ran length-ways along his sleek side, and Beth would put good money on it being from another wolf.
    Ten yards from Beth and Gareth, he came to a halt, shimmering within seconds to stand before them, as massive in human-form as he was in wolf-form, with the same scar running from his hip to his breastbone.  He snarled, as if not used to his human throat, and afforded them a view of his elongated canines.  Doesn’t spend much time in human-form, Gareth sent to her.  Be very careful.  He could be a rogue.
    She wondered why Gareth didn’t shimmer to speak with this Were.  The only reply she got from him when she pressed the matter was a warning growl.  Oh for the love of…I’ll do it myself, she decided.
    Before her Guardian had an inkling of her hasty decision she shimmered, nodding slightly to the larger were.  “Greetings, stranger,” she said softly, her words carrying easily in the silence of dawn.  “We are of the Loam Floor pack.  Your scent marks you as Tall Grass pack.  May I ask why you have entered our territory?”
    “Didn’t know,” he replied, shock evident on his face.  “Quarry ran here.  I chased.  Didn’t know you were here.”  Beth noticed a quick flash of guilt in his eyes.
    What the hell did that mean?  “Pardon?”
    “I mean,” he paused, considering.  “I didn’t know this was your territory.  Apologies, I did not mean to stray so far from my Den.”  His giant head swiveled to glare at Gareth.  “You want to tell your Bonded to stand down?”
    Bonded?  Huh?   She glanced at Gareth, who was still growling softly, hackles vibrating. Oh, he meant Guardian.   Strange, she’d never heard them be referred to as Bonded before.  “Gareth,” she whispered coaxingly, noting his stance, a fight seeming imminent.  Just what they needed right now.  The Tall Grass wolf could probably tear Gareth’s head off his shoulders and use it as a chew toy.
    With obvious reluctance, Gareth’s hackles smoothed out and his ears perked up.  To look at him you wouldn’t guess he’d been ready to fight to the death seconds before.  “I will take my leave,” the giant Were rumbled in a deep bass like distant thunder.  Beth watched his powerful arms heave the carcass of the fox to settle it dangling over one shoulder as he stalked away, picking up speed as if wishing to be far from here.
    “Well,” she whispered, glaring at Gareth.  “That went well.”
    He stinks of lies, her Guardian’s voice whispered through her mind as soon as she shimmered.
    Why would he lie? she replied.  You think he was here on purpose?  A scouting mission, perhaps?
    I don’t think so, he told her.  He was telling the truth when he said he hadn’t mean to wander here.  The lie only came into play after he said he didn’t know you were here.  
    His confusion was evident in his body language, as he tramped through the undergrowth, uncaring of any who might hear his approach.  Good thing we’re not hunting, she thought, miffed.
    The strange wolf bothered her the whole way home.  What could he have been hiding?  And