Read Changeling Winds: Episode Two (The Bachelor Battles Book 2) for Free Online Page A

you together might be very hard to resist, even for a Changeling.”
    Satisfied from their reactions that they would figure out the new defense I’d given them, I slid my chair back and stood up.
    Need flared from both sides of the table as they stared at my nearly naked body and I returned their looks with a desperate longing that all but two of the bachelors shied from. I let the huntress out again, scenting.
    That chocolate over hot coals aroma drifted into my brain again and started to burn. I inhaled deeper. It was intoxicating.
    “Good night, Bachelors.”
      “Have a nice evening, Angelica.”
    Even with all their voices together, hearing my name from a man took me straight into hell and I narrowed in on that scent again, breathing deeper. Which one was layered in that delicious odor? Was it natural or a spray? It was powerful enough to twist my brain into complete confusion.
    “No cologne next time I come.”
    “I’ll see to it,” a Den Mother, orange hair this time, appeased me from the darkness.
    My eyes went over them one last time, counting those I hadn’t mentally marked off the list, …lingering on gray eyes and silken black hair. I liked that one. I’d be sure to make him speak to me next time, so that I could judge the level of heat he brought out. Whichever drew me the hardest, was the one I would chose.
    It was hard to make my feet turn, but I did, proud that I could. One of those bachelors would be mine - after I executed more women who were suffering like I was.
    I lingered outside the cell door, seeing my guards, but still searching for threats while I regained complete control. I’d known it would be hard, but it was…
    I grunted bitterly. It was like sitting at a buffet and not being allowed to eat anything. Damn the old ones who’d caused this!
     
     
    Jason
    “She’s the one.”
    “Oh, yeah. She’s gonna win it all.”
    “Remember, whatever it takes to get her to go to the rebels - even if the Pruetts aren’t helping them.”
    “Right. We know how to service them and the Network gives full medical care to bounty hunters. Get listed as a member of the crew, be friendly, and find Baker.”
    Standing in the shadows of the doorway, I didn’t add a comment to the talk of the other bachelors, still thinking about how controlled Angelica had been. We’d agreed to try to warn the rebels as soon as we heard there was a Pruett listed, but with this one, I sensed that wouldn’t be an easy task.
    We hoped to manipulate our new owner into doing what we needed or even run away to accomplish our goal, but I didn’t think this one would let a mate out of her sight long enough to escape. She was burning too fast, which meant a lot of service time… and then there was the clear feeling that once bonded, a man might not want to leave her and that infamous family. It was an impression I was instantly terrified of. I already had one ghost that rarely left my mind. I didn’t want a new one. I also didn’t want the old one, but on my own, there was only one thing I could do - run and hope the odds fell on my side.
    The other males in this lot wanted to be free, to fight in the growing rebellion with Baker. I did too, but there was another reason I had to get out. I was turning 25 in a month. If males in these Games didn’t get chosen by then, they were put into the renters program or sold - usually to a brothel. Those were the same thing in my mind, but I had something worse hanging over my head.
    Katherine Rankin, the Network’s new Head Defender, wanted me and it wasn’t casual. I’d been surviving her visits before she’d been more than a lowly Games guard and each time, her rage grew worse. Nearly all of the scattered, drop-shaped scars on my legs and back had come from her fondness for screams, for blood under her nails. Some nights, I hadn’t been sure I would survive.
    Despite the Network’s unforgiving hold on my body, my life, they’d been unable to erase the images I had of