Wolf Fur Hire (Bears Fur Hire 4) by T. S. Joyce Read Free Book Online Page B

throwing the jacket away from her onto the ground at what it could mean. She knew that scent. It was Link. Shaking her head back and forth, she tried to piece together any explanation that made sense.
    A lone howl lifted on the breeze, freezing her into place. With a terrified noise, she stumbled backward, almost losing her balance completely.
    Link with the voices in his head. The wolf with the bright eyes, always visiting, always taking care of her in his own way. Nicole bolted for the cabin, feeling hunted. Link with the growl in his throat. She hadn’t understood the sound at first, but now it made horrifying sense. Link always hiding behind his sunglasses. Link and his superhuman strength.
    With a fearful sound, Nicole ran as fast as she could through the crunching snow, sure at any moment the wolf would leap onto her back and rip her throat out. She was too scared to look behind her to see her death coming.
    She jumped up the porch stairs two at a time, skidded inside, slammed the door behind her, and leaned her full weight against it. Gasping for oxygen, she stared at the snowy wilderness through the window across the cabin as her thoughts raced in circles.
    She didn’t know everything yet, but she was sure of one thing.
    Lincoln McCall wasn’t a man at all.
    He was a monster.

Chapter Seven
     
    Nicole shouldn’t be doing this, but she had to know.
    She squinted at the map Hardware Jack had drawn up for her and cursed his name for the billionth time. He’d labeled every damned tree with a nickname and hadn’t used any road names. She was pretty sure this was the turnoff, directly after her own, but somehow, it had taken her half an hour to decipher Hardware Jack’s encrypted map.
    There was a set of fresh tire prints on the snowy road, and with a deep inhalation, she pushed on the gas and turned in past an old fence with a No Trespassing sign. The drive was long and winding, and towering pines lined it on both sides. It would’ve struck her as quite beautiful if she wasn’t so angry and scared.
    Link’s cabin was small, but perfectly kept with a new roof that looked eerily similar to Buck’s, new cedar logs, a large picture window, and a sturdy looking shed that looked like a miniature of the cabin in the back. She pulled the massive truck around the circle drive to give herself an easy escape and cut the engine.
    Link had apparently been expecting her because he sat on the porch stairs, impervious to the falling snow, bare of his sunglasses. He was looking down at the ground, hands clasped under his chin, elbows resting on his knees. This was the first time she’d seen him without a jacket. A maroon sweater clung tightly to his cut physique, and his wide shoulders strained against the thin material. His dark blue jeans fell over the work boots she’d found on her property. The ones he must’ve retrieved sometime last night while she was cowering inside, terrified he would come after her.
    Nicole pulled the shotgun from the gun rack in the back window of the truck and slid out. She aimed at him and tried to steady her voice as she approached. It would do no good to look scared right now. She needed answers.
    “I know what you are.”
    When Link lifted his silver gaze to hers, she gasped and startled violently at the blazing color there. She’d only seen that shade on one other creature. She wasn’t crazy. He and the wolf were the same creature.
    “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying to fix your generator. There is a storm coming, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you not having a backup energy source if you got snowed in.”
    “You’re a man, and you’re a wolf, aren’t you?” she asked. “I’ve read loads of paranormal romance books, Link. I’m a reader! I thought you were a myth, or just something writers made up to battle vampires. But you’re not a myth. I thought I would come here and you would prove to me that I was just imagining things, but you have fucking wolf eyes! Tell