Weremones by Buffi BeCraft-Woodall Read Free Book Online

parent a litter of unruly pups, not alpha to a pack of wolven.
    He didn’t understand why Paul wouldn’t accept the pups into the Tarrant Pack.
    They needed help that Adam couldn’t give them. They needed an alpha female. Or better yet, a pack mother, a Matra Canis.
    Oh yeah, this was shaping up to be one hell of a day. Guilt at his selfishness hung like a monkey on his back, combining with the ache in his nuts.
    In the kitchen, Adam found Mark bouncing on the toes of his basketball shoes.
    The blond boy’s face was smeared with blood and tight with worry. Behind him, Seth, naked as the day he’d been birthed and probably just as bloody, mirrored Mark’s expression. Looking for a snack to tide over a growing wolven’s high metabolism, Rick’s skinny bare butt stuck out of the open refrigerator. He looked up at Adam and shut the door, leaning against it with solemn expectancy.
    Mingled scents of fear and guilt permeated the room.
    Adam knew Brandon hid, silent and still as a mouse, under the table. He ignored the boy, knowing from experience that Brandon lived in terror of drawing his alpha’s attention. Poor kid. Garrick, the former alpha, brutalized and molested the kid. Another very good reason that the bastard was dead by Adam’s hand.
    He didn’t blame the boy for his fear. He wished he knew how to reach past the victim to the wolf inside. Adam had his own fear of doing more harm than good to the already damaged boy.
    He felt every bit of the weight from those brown eyes today as he did that first time, finding Brandon bloody and broken in that locked basement after Garrick had done with him. The grisly trophy of Amanda’s pelt was nailed to the wall. More than a year later, Adam still had trouble distancing from the images. It made him physically ill. Fury rolled into his gut and he wanted to kill the bastard again. A lot slower this time around.
    Bradley crossed Adam’s path to stand in front of and almost between the table and the two bloody boys. He faced his alpha with a healthy dose of subordinate respect and a tinge of fear. The fear, Adam would have happily done without.
    Adam rubbed a hand over his face. He hated this. Instinct, to show no weakness to the others, had him channeling his own doubts into aggravation. And he was more than a little aggravated. At everything.
    Pack members did not cringe in terror in front of his old Canis, Paul Sheppard, waiting for the alpha to tear into them with teeth and claws. Well, not without good reason. Over the years there had been a few occasions where heavy discipline was necessary. Yet within the Tarrant Pack, there was more love than fear for the Canis.
    Adam pinned Bradley with a stern gaze.
    “I left you in charge. Go wait in my office and we’ll talk about what happened here.”
    The boy’s shoulders wilted but straightened again. He turned and marched out of the kitchen, a condemned prisoner on his way to the electric chair.
    Adam followed. He paused in the doorway. The scent of fear rising in the room, as the boys waited for him to blow his top, pissed him off more.
    When would they get it? He wasn’t their old Alpha. He didn’t hurt children. Until they learned, though, Adam was going to pay for the sins of his predecessor.
    Adam sighed. He leaned a forearm against the doorjamb without looking back.
    “Brandon, get out from under the table. You’re not a dog.”
    Ignoring the scramble of action behind his turned back, Adam straightened his shoulders and headed for his office to hear Bradley’s confession.
    ———
    “Sooo, wha-da-ya think? Is Mr. Weis hot or what?”
    Diana’s reprieve was over once Karen slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She leaned against the robe draped door, fanning her face with a hand.
    There was a law somewhere that automatically revoked a woman’s privacy once she had a daughter, especially once that daughter turned into a teenager. Diana watched Karen slide down and park her butt on the