Read Healed: True Mates Book 3 (Wolf Shifter) (A Craggstone Paranormal Romance) for Free Online Page B

locket! I mentally slapped myself, trying to figure out my next move. She wanted me, but she wouldn’t admit it. I could make her lose control, but that wouldn’t be fair. So, all that left was trying to figure out her reluctance and seeing if I could reason with her.
    Which left me with…nothing.
    Sighing, I let the shift come, my bones cracking and realigning, fur sprouting. My wolf still thought he was a pup, young at heart, I liked to say. Large and rambunctious, he liked to play, especially with the one he’d decided we should have claimed already.
    Maybe he could break through Amanda’s shell? I decided to give him free reign, retreating back a little to watch through his eyes.
    Shaking out my fur, I stretched out the last of the shift, wagging my tail. My mate still had her eyes shut, her fingers still stroking the locket in a way that implied that she drew comfort from it.
    Tilting my head, I eyed the object carefully. Hanging on a long chain, it had hidden beneath her clothes until she’d pulled it out. I made a mental note to investigate further once back in human form, then gave control back to my wolf.
    With a delighted yip, I bounded toward the woman and licked my tongue up the side of her face, nearly knocking her over in the process. Her eyes flew open in surprise, and I danced around her, circling and rubbing against her, my tongue lolling out of my mouth in a wide doggy grin.
    Her hands flew out, grabbing the scruff of my neck and halting my playful antics. I nudged her with my large head, wet nose snuffling into her throat, drinking in her scent.
    “What are you playing at?” she said, laughing, as I nudged her again, then licked her jaw. Digging her fingers into my neck, she pulled us away, pulling an expression of mock disgust. “Ewww, doggy breath!” But she was still laughing, the sadness I had glimpsed earlier gone.
    Deciding my work was done, I curled up on the floor next to her, my head resting on her lap.
    “Pushing it a bit, aren’t you, you big oaf,” she murmured, but she didn’t push me off, her fingers tickling at my ears, smoothing across my head as she petted me.
    Wolves were pack creatures for a reason. We loved contact, human or wolf, and the feel of her hands on me soothed that part of my soul. I could only hope it was soothing hers.
    “Are you going to shift back?”
    I ignored her, instead leaning into her firm fingers, which were digging into a particularly nice spot behind my ears.
    She chuckled softly, sounding much more carefree than I had ever heard her. “Hmmm, I’ll take that as a no. I take it your shoulder is feeling better?” It wasn’t really a question, but I huffed in reply.
    “Your wolf, he’s the playful type, isn’t he? Is that why you are so…easy going? Because you share your soul with him?”
    She was right. It was hard to be as dominant at James, as moody as Sean, as aloof as Oliver, when you shared your soul with a pup that refused to grow up, but I liked it. Rather than fighting my animal all the time like some of the others, we got on great. He was also fun, preferring to joke around than mope and whine. An optimist, something that rubbed off on me. He was still adjusting to having found his mate, though, and I could tell he was considering the fact that he might just have to grow up—not sure if he liked the idea or not.
    It’s time, friend. You had to grow up sometime, I whispered inside his head, and he chuffed into Amanda’s lap. His way of telling me that he would think about it.
    Leaving her to interpret my wolf’s reaction in any way she wanted, I closed my eyes, determined to enjoy having my mate’s attention for once.
    “Do you think Sean will find his dad?”
    Amanda’s words drifted to me, jerking me from the sleep I had been drifting toward. Sean’s dad, Bert, was a first class jerk. Having beaten his child within an inch of his life, just to make him a real man, he now appeared to have a vendetta against the Colstone Pack,