Chained To The Alpha: A Paranormal Shifter Romance Standalone by JJ Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

society going.
    We mated for life. It was the way that it had always been and every tale that I had heard was about a mated pair. Still, I wondered what it would be like to live that kind of life. I had heard and seen humans marry, but it wasn’t the same. Mating couldn’t be taken lightly, it was something to carefully explore and test. It was something full of ritual and making sure that the pair is compatible. It is fair and compassionate. It is something that isn’t ended with something as simple as divorce. Many wolves never mate. They don’t find themselves compatible with anyone and able to remember the tests.
    I tried to remember the tests involved but for some reason it was all fuzzy. I remembered that things would go slowly, there would be tests, but what were the tests and why couldn’t I remember? If I was to be honest about it, I hadn’t always paid much attention. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would never have to find a mate.
    I had enjoyed my freedom. I still enjoyed my freedom, but lately I had been getting lonelier and lonelier. Something had been missing. I was still unwilling to admit I needed a companion for life. After all, I was a strong, confident woman. I can’t say that I would have been against it if I had found a mate through a natural means. If I had found a man and slowly found myself falling in love with him, I would have considered it. I wasn’t entirely against the concept of mating. I just hadn’t been actively seeking it.
    I followed him through the woods until the snow began to fall. We had to get some shelter built and a fire roaring before it got too cold and too wet. He changed back to his human form and he dressed. We were still avoiding conversation, still too nervous to find ourselves in a conversation. We worked in silence and we knew our parts.
    I searched for firewood and he began to build a shelter for the night. We would be spending another night in the wilderness, surrounded by the drifting white snowflakes. I held out my hands and felt the cold wetness as it melted on my palm. I finished my job in a hurry, heading back to start the fire. I used a stone that we had found earlier, a bit of flint that we had used to start the previous fire, and the manacles that we had used to start the spark. It was getting wetter, and deeper snow forming over us as time went by.
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    We had set up the camp in relative silence, but we were going to have a cold night in the woods. I wondered if we were going to make it through this without a blanket, nothing to hold warmth. Devin had extended the shelter to cover the fire, a way to hold the warmth inside. There was a hole above the fire that allowed the smoke to escape from the small, temporary home that we had made.
    We were going to have to cuddle together for the night. The snow was starting to fall harder and harder. It was going to be a cold night. Somehow, in the time that I had gathered the wood and started the fire, he had made a nice little bed in the tent. It was actually rather comfortable as we settled in for the night.
    “Should someone keep an eye out, in case the shifters come around?” he asked. He was chewing on his lip.
    I almost laughed at how cute he looked when he was nervous. “I think we’ll be fine, but if you’re more comfortable that way, you can go out into the snow.”
    “The snow doesn’t look very comfortable. It’s starting to get kind of warm in here.”
    “I just wish that the cold hadn’t gotten into my bones.” I groaned.
    Now that we had found a way to start the conversation, it was easy to talk to him. It felt like nothing had really changed between us. We were quite possibly closer than we had been before the strained admissions that we had made. I wrapped my arm around him.
    “Can I borrow some of that body heat?” I knew what I was actually asking, but didn’t know if I wanted him to be able to translate my question or