Mates: Werewolf BBW Romance (Running With Alphas Book 8) by Viola Rivard Page B

stepped on it, the worn soles of her boots failed to find traction and she slipped.
    The world tilted backwards, and Taylor barely had time to suck in a breath before she landed flat on her back, half of her body inside the cabin and the other half on the porch, staring up at the concrete sky. Something had cracked in her back, and for a moment, she was afraid to move. Her fear was only amplified when she tried to lift her head and found that she was paralyzed.
    Closing her eyes, she let out a long, trembling breath. Her heart was galloping in her chest like a wild horse and she willed herself to be calm. After a long moment, she tried to lift her head again, this time with some success. But as she tried to sit up, bracing herself up on one elbow, pain shot up and down her spine.
    Pain is good , she told herself. When you didn’t feel anything, that was when you had to worry, right?
    She tried to get up again, but to no avail. The pain was just too much. She lay back down and once more focused on her breathing. Something nagged at her, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it. She tried to ignore it, hoping that the pooling warmth was psychosomatic and would go away once she calmed down. Finally, she had to know one way or another.
    With a shaking hand, Taylor reached down between her legs. She let out a soft whimper as her fingertips came in contact with something wet and sticky.
    Blood.

Chapter 2
    H ale took it upon himself to preside over the cleaning of the night’s game. They’d put in an extra effort, hunting enough for three nights’ worth of meals for the pack, as there was no telling when the snow would let up. The harsh winter had nearly depleted their generous stores of food and he was determined to make sure they wouldn’t have to fall back on what was left of the smoked venison, salted fish, and dried tube roots.
    Under his stern gaze, the pack members worked double time to get the animal carcasses cleaned and portioned. Even Lark, who generally spent more time chatting than actually working, kept her head down and her eyes focused on the task at hand.
    Flurries of snow began to fall on his cold, wet nose. He could have left Laurel to watch over the pack. Aside from himself and his brother, the large, no-nonsense beta female was the most intimidating member of the pack. But tonight, Hale wasn’t particularly eager to get to the cabin. In fact, he was outright procrastinating it.
    Hale hated watching over Taylor at night. He hated it, and yet, he couldn’t stop himself. After Caim had disappeared, he’d tasked Fenix with the job of looking after Taylor during the long winter nights. But inevitably, Hale would end up spending the nights outside her window, watching her as she cooked, cleaned, read, and napped. As much as he wanted to put her out of his mind, his instincts refused to allow it.
    What he really wanted was to be inside that cabin with her. He wanted to take advantage of his brother’s absence, and in fact, when Alder had announced he’d be leaving, Hale had been planning on doing just that. He’d envisioned weeks with just himself and Taylor, spending their days and nights together, sharing meals, conversing, and of course, mating copiously. The wolf he’d been a year ago would have hardly believed he could ever have such a domestic fantasy, and Hale would have given anything to be able to flip a switch and revert back to that cold, uninvolved creature.
    But despite his best efforts to put distance between himself and Taylor, he would probably never be that wolf again. He’d taken up monogamy for her. He’d fallen in love with her. He was even beginning to feel the stirrings of something towards the pups.
    And therein laid his biggest problem.
    The pups weren’t his. Not entirely. Sure, he, Taylor and Alder had come to some sort of vague agreement that he would be a part of their lives, and for a while, he’d been okay with that. For a while, he’d been okay with sharing Taylor as