Killing the Alpha: Fangs of Anarchy part 1 Read Online Free

declare her his in front of their pack members. The very sight of Gannon made her ill. What would it have been like if she’d been forced to be his wife?
    What if she’d had to endure his beefy paws and breath that smelled like a thousand rotting souls forever?
    What if she told everyone exactly who Gannon Dodd really was? What he was capable of?
    Claire pushed the bathroom door open, grabbing fresh towels from the cabinet and flipped the tap for the hot water. She leaned against the wall, pressing her burning cheek to the tile, swallowing back the bile continually rising in her throat. She needed to keep it together. Hatch a story and stick to it at all costs. Never deviate.
    And Irish—she needed to be sure he stayed out of this from here on out. Rock Cove couldn’t afford to lose one of the only fair enforcers it possessed. Despite his club’s moniker, he’d kept Gannon and the Dogs in line.
    The mere thought of him—and the lengths he’d gone to in order to protect her—made her heart tighten and her gut clench with fear. If Gannon had known how much she wanted Irish, he’d have killed her just for her thoughts alone.
    Now she’d put Irish and his people in jeopardy.
    Gripping the towels, she forced herself to stay in the here and now, breathing in the steam the shower created, letting her newly remodeled bathroom relax her frazzled nerves.
    Whoever had owned this house before being offered something bigger and better by the government in return for leaving their home had taken great pride in the small things. Carved-out nooks in the walls, decorative sills on every window, crown molding, and ivory beadboard on the sides of her kitchen cabinets. When she’d found it and claimed it as her own, she’d kept the tradition of love and care alive, planting roses and verbena along the whitewashed fence out front, hanging pots overflowing with fuchsia and geraniums in the summer on her tiny front porch, planted impatiens in the window boxes, cramming them with color.
    This house was more than she could have afforded on her salary as a librarian back in California. While she was resentful as hell that she’d been forced from her life without so much as a week’s warning, she was grateful she’d landed here when there had been absolutely no choice but to leave or spend the rest of her life in prison.
    She lived where she still heard the ocean, where the waves still crashed against the rocks, and the wind blew soft and rose-scented in the summer. Where there was plenty of land to shift and run.
    Her cell phone rang, stilling her step into the deep-blue-and-green tiled shower. Who was calling her at three in the morning? The strains of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet pulsed in her ears.
    Answer? Don’t answer?
    Claire dropped the towels, turned the tap off, and ran for her phone, scanning the living room until she spotted it in the bowl on the table in her entryway. Her eyes flew open wide when she picked it up—Freya?
    Freya was almost always in bed by eleven, tucked in after a long night of marathon Law and Order reruns.
    Panic seized her. Stay calm, Claire. Breathe. She pressed answer and muttered, “Freya?” Thankful her voice was hoarse from all the screaming she’d done tonight; it lent being fake-awakened from a sound sleep some credibility.
    “Did I wake you? Of course I woke you. It’s after three in the morning. How silly of me.” Freya’s sleepy yet still-sultry voice soothed her.
    “It’s okay,” she offered, pinching her temple. “What’s wrong, Freya?” Something was definitely wrong. She heard it in her friend’s voice.
    Freya paused for a moment, the crackle of the line hissing in Claire’s ear. “Are you sitting down?”
    “I’m lying down. I’m in bed,” she lied, so effortlessly she might have patted herself on the back if not for the gnawing guilt.
    Freya sighed into the phone. “Your intended is missing.”
    Claire paused for a moment, praying some of her fifth-grade acting