I'm Not Afraid of Wolves (The Cotton Candy Quintet Book 4) by Erin Hayes Page A

along the floor, aiming for the area with the bathrooms.
    I was expecting that.
    I shifted into a mountain lion as I moved to intercept her. She came up short in front of me, and I saw the confusion on her wolf-face. She hadn’t been expecting another were in her presence.
    Too late for that now.
    I growled at her, barring her path. The she-wolf howled unhappily and paced. As a human, Colton closed the gap between us, effectively closing her in. She was trapped, and we all knew it. Her eyes went wild and she acted like a caged animal, glaring at me with those unnerving eyes.
    I knew that if I let off an inch, she’d go all over me. I tried looking as intimidating as possible in front of her. Maybe she was smart enough to get the hint. I doubted it though.
    “Connie Sue, transform back into a human,” Colton said tiredly. “Christine can’t understand you when you’re both different animals.”
    Connie Sue snapped at him once, but he stepped towards her threateningly and she cowered, her tail between her legs. A second later, she shifted back into a human, and quickly moved to the souvenir stand to put on a huge, oversized shirt that said, “Georgia on my mind.”
    The woman looked flustered, terrified out of her mind. I didn’t blame her. But she started speaking, to my relief.
    “Speak,” Colton commanded. I felt the authority in his voice at that moment, and I realized why he was the alpha of his pack. He commanded the wolves with an iron fist when he needed to.
    Connie Sue nodded, her eyes darting between him and me, as if debating who to speak to. “They contacted me about a week ago.” Her voice was soft, almost ashamed. “They said that a wanted wolf-to-be was going to come through here with two other women and a fellow werewolf. They said that I was to alert them when that happened.”
    “Why’d you help them?” Colton asked, his voice low and dangerous.
    She blanched. “I wanted to get away from here.” Her eyes shot daggers at him. “I wanted to get out of this hell hole. And they offered me a place in their Atlanta pack. One where I’m not working at a gas station because some big guy tells me to.”
    “You were excited to take it,” Colton said.
    “Yeah, well, I hate it.”
    She must have been the world’s greatest actress. I thought she liked her job from earlier. Her cheeriness, her smile…they felt genuine.
    Colton’s face went very neutral before he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, cursing under his breath. “You could have just asked, Connie Sue. There are no laws keeping you here.”
    “Except the pack,” she shot back.
    “And I make the laws of the pack.”
    She scoffed. “You wouldn’t have let me leave.”
    “Don’t tell me what I would and wouldn’t have done,” Colton growled.
    She shrank back underneath his gaze, and if she wasn’t partly responsible for Sara’s and Emily’s disappearance, I would have felt bad for her. As it was…I felt nothing towards her.
    “You know that in other packs, treason is punishable by death.” Colton kept his eyes on her as he spoke, using that power to intimidate her. “You’re not getting off to a good start by betraying this one.”
    She shivered. “What are you going to do?”
    He considered his answer, his eyes flicking to me for a response. I didn’t know what to say, as this wasn’t in my wheelhouse—not to mention that I was still in mountain lion form and he wouldn’t be able to understand me. Even if he did, I didn’t know what their pack rules were. If treason was punishable by death, I’d have been killed by my fellow werecats when I divorced Shane. I hurt him badly. But then again, he hurt me back.
    Still though, she ratted Sara out. Sara, who had done nothing wrong. Sara, who meant well, even when she messed everything up.
    But we needed to know where they were. That thought dampened the rising anger in my body.
    Colton nodded, as if reading my thoughts. “Tell us where they went, and there’ll be