Alpha's Howling Desire (BBW Paranormal Romance) by Meg Ripley Page A

they both jumped. Natalie’s eyebrows raised, and Charlie caught the scent of fear briefly before she reigned in her pulse.
    “They’re early,” she muttered as she stood up from the mattress. Her red tunic dress hid a great deal of her stomach, but she held the bottom of her bump and outlined it as she walked to pull open the door. Charlie felt love sweep over him, and his heart was suddenly very happy to be witnessing this moment. I’m a lucky man.
    As the door opened, the black partition to his left side blocked part of the view, but Charlie could tell immediately that whoever had arrived wasn’t Evan or Ariel. Natalie’s face contorted with rage, and she gasped and threw one hand in front of her defensively. Charlie saw thick, razor sharp claws slide from her partially-shifted hands as she swung her other arm in a graceful, powerful upward arc, and the sound of her claws slicing through flesh rung out through the room. A spray of warm blood rained down from the body, and Charlie tried to stand, but his legs felt strangely like they were filled with lead; he couldn’t move a single muscle below his waist, now that he was actually trying to move.
    Nat! he shouted, but she didn’t acknowledge him—then he realized his mouth hadn’t really moved. I’m drugged, he realized, and his mind flashed back to the water the human driver had given him in the van. That’s why he was so nervous, the bastard.
    Charlies groaned and tried to pull himself from the bed with his hands. His shoulders jerked stiffly in the space around him, but they were far too rigid and refused to obey his commands; all he could move was head and neck. His eyes were wide with terror as he watched Natalie swing her hands—which were now completely shifted into huge sable paws, bloodied and alien at the end of her sinewy human arms—toward whoever was trying to advance into the room. She was screaming wordlessly, her beautiful face a portrait of defiance and bloodlust, her hair flecked with the scarlet rain from her assailant’s neck. She jerked back as they struck her upper body, but immediately after, she sank her paws into flesh somewhere around the other person’s stomach, and Charlie watched her lead a tall, heavily muscled man to the floor, jerking her claws back to show they were covered in his entrails. His body twitched and he tried to shift to heal the damage, but he never got far enough before his form stilled and flowed back to his human shape. Charlie still couldn’t move, so he blinked his panic to Natalie as she staggered toward him, clutching her bloody chest.
    “Charlie…” she wheezed. “Char…” she sank to her knees a foot away from the bed and held her reddened palm upward, and Charlie could see through that the lion had ripped out part of her shoulder and neck. She needed to shift and heal, soon.
    Natalie! Charlie wailed internally.
    Her eyes sparkled for a second after he screamed her name in his mind, and she cocked her head to one side as though she had heard him. The confusion was plain on her face, and he shouted her name again. Nat!
    “Charlie,” she answered, smiling beatifically. She’d heard him! How?
    The sound of footsteps sapped the short-lived happiness from the moment, and Charlie snapped his eyes toward the door. A figure rounded the partition and stood behind Natalie, looking between the two of them with a kind of detached interest. The woman was tall and willowy, with dark brown skin and a high, dark ponytail thrown over one shoulder. She smiled, and Charlie realized it was the woman from the airport—the one who had been affectionately ruffling the strange man’s hair.
    “Hello,” she said, and her voice was low and cool. “Just in time. Your friend is smaller, so he froze up a lot sooner than you. His wife was easy to take out. Oh, don’t worry!” she said at the look of terror on their faces, and a smile light up her angular face. “They’re still alive, for now.”
    She pressed her