Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter by Jessica Sims Read Free Book Online Page A

privacy from Connor, this was a pretty good start. Was the guesthouse just as bad? I shuddered to think.
    Well, wreck of a house or not, I was completely wrung out. I lay back on the bed and tucked my hands behind my head, gazing up at the purpling skies. No stars yet.
    Exactly how long was I going to have to pretend to be in love with Ramsey?

Chapter Five
    R oy’s arm grabbed mine and bent it back at an impossible angle. “I thought I told you to come home right away.”
    I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. Roy didn’t like a show of weakness—it made him meaner. “I did. I came straight home—”
    “Liar.” He backhanded me across the face. “Do I need to punish you again? Show you the wolf?”
    Terror shot through my veins and I tried to pull away from him. The wolf was savage, horrible. The wolf kept biting even when I’d given up, long past the screams in my throat dried to hoarse rasps of pain. “No, Roy. Please. I’ll be good. I’ll do whatever you want.”
    “Were you late because you were with another man? Is that what it was?” The anger in his voice turned into a low, inhuman growl, his eyes reflecting the low light inside the dark house. He always waited for me in the darkness, even when it was pitch black outside. He liked to scare me, to force me to go inside and wait for him to grab me and throw me to the ground . . .
    “No, Roy, I—”
    His fist connected with my face, and I felt my jaw explode in pain, felt the teeth loosen. I fell to the floor, weeping. My hand went to my cheek and it felt wet, and I realized that he’d cut me with his claws.
    The wolf was coming out.
    “You need to learn. Maybe after you’ve had a few fingers bitten off, you’ll learn that you can’t look at any man but me.”
    “No, please,” I sobbed, crouching into a ball and huddling against the wall. “I wasn’t looking at anyone. I promise.”
    His eyes went red in the darkness, his mouth turning into nothing but fangs as he loomed over me.
    “Time to teach you a lesson, girl . . .”

    Big, warm hands grasped my shoulders. A large, heavy body pressed over my own. “Sara.”
    I yelped, coming instantly awake. The wolf in me—so close to the surface—snarled in fear, and I lashed out. Someone was pinning me down. I had to break free, had to escape—
    A hand stroked my hair off the side of my face, and the body over mine shifted, adjusting the weight. “Sara.”
    The deep voice rumbling through the darkness jarred me out of my wild fear, and I stopped scratching and clawing, gasping as if I couldn’t draw enough oxygen. “R-R-Roy—”
    “Ramsey,” said the soft, low voice. A thumbbrushed across my chin, my cheek. “Not Roy. Not wolf. Smell me.”
    I inhaled sharply, my wildly hammering senses still a mass of confusion. The scent that met my nostrils was not the thick beer-and-wolf scent that I associated with Roy. The scent was clean and warm, and smelled of hints of sunshine . . . and of thick fur and the forest. Bear.
    Ramsey.
    “I . . . I . . . sorry,” I wheezed, my heart pounding as I tried to calm from the nightmare. “Did I wake you up?”
    “You were screaming,” he said in a low voice. “Listen to me very carefully.” His voice was deep, slow, and even. “Relax your body. Think of me and my voice, and I want you to relax your muscles. Unclench them and just relax. Understand?”
    I blinked in the darkness. “I think I’m okay now, really—”
    “Listen to my voice,” he repeated. His form was immense; when he moved, his big shoulders hid the moonlight from the hole in the roof, blotting out the world in the darkness. He leaned in, so close I could feel the whisper of his breath on my cheek and neck. “I want you to think about me. Focus on my voice and my heartbeat. Can you do that?”
    I stared at him, confused. “I—”
    “Get away from her,” a male voice roared. The door to the bedroom crashed open with a massive scrape on the