Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) by Nancy Holder Read Free Book Online

supernatural wolf-being who would bring about the death of Odin, king of the gods. He was bound with magical chains and imprisoned in a cave.”
    “Why did you come here? Why not stay in Norway?”
    He moved his shoulders. “We’re people, too, Kat. Lots of people left the Old World for different reasons.” He gave her a look. “I’ve always wondered if someone found out about us.”
    She quickened with anxiety. There was always that threat about spilling the secret. Always the worry that she and her grandfather could be killed to guard it.
    Justin raised his chin. She could tell he was sniffing the air, and she tried to breathe in whatever he had detected. She smelled leather and spice, dirt, and the pungent scent of pine.
    Then he blinked and looked at her, as if he’d realized he’d lost his train of thought.
    “Some folks also said that the cave where Fenris had been bound might be around here.”
    Katelyn’s scalp prickled and she thought of the silver mine that she and Cordelia had been looking for. What better way to trap a werewolf than surrounding him by silver?
    “What?” Justin asked suddenly. “You’re shaking your head.”
    She hesitated. She never knew what she should say, and what she should keep to herself.
    “Tell me,” he said, stopping her with a hand on her wrist.
    “I just thought about the silver mine Cordelia and I were trying to find for our history project, that’s all.”
    She expected him to make fun of her, but he just looked thoughtful. “I suppose anything’s possible,” he said after a moment.
    “So is Fenris good or bad?” Could he be the Hellhound?
    “Legend says that Fenris was just. He dealt swift punishment to those who sinned, and rewarded his good children with plenty of hunting and land. But Odin ruled based on whim. And he was moody.”
    “Like your uncle,” she said before thinking.
    Justin’s eyes widened. He pursed his lips for a couple of moments, and then he just looked sad. “I guess that’s what makes it so hard to take. Uncle Lee was always harsh, but fair. The rules were simple, clear. Now . . . now no one is sure where they stand.”
    When she realized he was including himself in that statement, it sent another rush of fear through her. And she could guess how hard it was for him to live in a world of shifting rules. Of course, everything that Lee did, that all of them did, made no sense to her because she didn’t even know what the rules were supposed to be. But he looked so sad that it made her heart ache for him. His life hadn’t been an easy one, she knew. Just like her, he had lost both his parents, and nothing since then had been easy. She decided to shift the topic away from Lee for a minute.
    “So, if Fenners are direct descendants of the Fenris wolf, shouldn’t all werewolves look up to you?”
    Justin laughed, a bitter, hard sound. “Wouldn’t that make life nice and easy? No. Look at all the religions in the human world. All the special, chosen people.”
    “So . . . other werewolves were created in other ways?” She thought of her attack, the bite. How did all this get started?
    “The Gaudins claim to be descended from the Beast of Gévaudan — a werewolf that terrorized the area of Gévaudan in France in the Middle Ages. It killed more than two hundred people and that’s a source of pride with the Gaudins. They are savages with no honor, no morality.”
    And yet Katelyn knew that her friend Cordelia had had feelings for Dominic Gaudin — the alpha of the Gaudins — who had stood up to Lee Fenner for her on Halloween night. What she had seen of Dom didn’t make him seem any more savage than the werewolves of the Fenner pack.
    “They’ve been spoiling for war for a long time,” Justin went on, and there was a hint of growl in his tone. “It makes no sense. North America is huge, so there’s no need to fight over territory, but they do. They sneak on our land, poach our prey, spy on us.”
    The anger was back, simmering