Read Claimed by the Mate, Volume 1 for Free Online Page B

the bathroom. After she’d changed and brushed her teeth, she stepped back into the main part of the cabin.
    Both wolves were curled up on the braided rug beside the bed, almost as if they planned to spend the night. She sat on the rug between them and looped her arms over their backs. “Boys, I would love to have you stay with me, but I know you’d probably want out in the middle of the night, and I’m tired.”
    The russet wolf whimpered and rested his chin on her knee so he could stare at her. It was unnerving, to say the least. His eyes were dark brown, darker than the chocolate she and Brad had tonight, just as dark as Brad’s beautiful eyes.
    She glanced at the silver and gray wolf. His eyes were green. The same color as Cain’s.
    No. She was just tired, and these were merely wolves. Beautiful wolves. Wolves who, somehow, reminded her of two very sexy men.
    It had definitely been a long day. Cherry stood and walked to the open door. The wolves watched every step she took. When she stood by the door, she could have sworn they glanced at each other, but then both of them slowly stood.
    Cherry held the door open. “Time for bed, fellas. You two need to go out.”
    Tails and heads down, the two of them slowly walked out the door.
    The russet one glanced her way as he stepped onto the front porch. She heard him sigh. The other wolf was right behind him. Cherry waited, watching as they faded into the forest.
    She closed and locked the door but left the porch light burning and crawled into the big comfortable bed. The big lonely bed. But she couldn’t get her mind off the wolves. That was just too weird for words. The feeling they were more than they appeared would not leave her.
    She picked up the romance she’d been reading. Dying Room Only —not a sexy title, but the werewolf and vampire heroes in the story were two of her favorites. Actually, the werewolf was her favorite, but she loved the ménage fantasy. Funny, how she loved stories where two sexy men fell in love with the woman. She didn’t even have one.
    She stared at the cover for a moment, at the wolf standing beside a woman with his amber eyes glowing, and thought of her two wolves. Yawning, she set the book aside. It had been a very long day. Dreams were about all the excitement she could handle tonight.
    They did not disappoint. Dreams so graphic, so real, that when she awoke she was actually surprised she didn’t have four legs and a tail. She’d spent the night racing through dark forests and moonlit meadows with the two wolves—wolves her dream self knew as Brad and Cain in their human form.
    It might have been a bizarre night of crazy dreams, but the sense of running beneath a full moon with the granite mountaintops gleaming silvery beneath its light, the steady thunder of wolven feet racing beside her along the hard-packed, shadowed trails, had felt so real.
    They’d even howled, all of them standing on a hilltop, howling at the moon. She’d awakened with tears on her cheeks, overcome by a sense of belonging.
    She’d come awake a number of times throughout the night, sometimes breathing hard, as if she’d truly been part of a small pack of three, the two familiar wolves on either side. The last time before dreamless sleep finally claimed her, Cherry awoke sprawled crosswise on the big bed with pale moonlight slanting across her body.
    It was only a quarter moon. In her dreams, the moon had been full, hanging directly overhead. That slice of moon left her sighing in relief. She hadn’t run as a wolf. No, that had all been the result of an overactive imagination, thank goodness.
    Relieved, yet oddly disappointed, Cherry straightened out on her bed, punched the pillow a couple of times for effect, and finally rolled over and went back to sleep.

Chapter 5
    Monday
    Cherry was actually disappointed when she finally crawled out of bed, dressed, and realized she’d be walking to