Uncaging Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 4) by Roxie Noir Page B

through the back yard.
    She dropped a dish and ran to the door, shoving it open, and then she stopped. The wolf was running a little funny, its legs long and its paws big, and it seemed like it hadn’t quite figured out how to make four legs work together yet.
    It’s Tim , she realized. Tim shifted .
    He saw her through the glass and wagged his tail, grinning his first-time wolf grin, and Scarlet felt her eyes fill with tears.
    Then she grabbed Trevor’s big, long Carhart jacket and left it by the back door, for whenever Tim decided to come inside.
    That night, after the kids were in bed, she found Austin, Trevor, and Sloane sitting around the living room. Austin and Trevor were drinking beers.
    “I’m gonna get one too,” Scarlet said to Sloane. “You want a drink?”
    “No thanks,” Sloane said.
    Scarlet came back, sat on the couch, and looked around. As happy as she was for her brother and his mates, she still thought of Chase and Gavin sometimes.
    More than sometimes. All the time.
    “Tim’s a shifter now,” Trevor finally said, breaking the silence.
    Scarlet nodded.
    “He looks like David,” she said. “ Exactly like David.”
    “He really does,” Trevor agreed. “God, I wish he were here sometimes. Him and Papa.”
    “Me too,” said Scarlet, softly. “I can’t believe they grew up so fast. Everything’s changing.”
    Everything but me , she thought. I feel like I’m still that girl who went to prison years ago .
    She felt a tear fall down her cheek, and wiped it away, hoping they hadn’t noticed.
    When she looked up, Sloane and Austin were exchanging a glance. A significant one.
    Scarlet frowned.
    “What’s going on?” she asked.
    Did I fuck something up? She wondered, desperately cataloging everything she’d done in the past week. Are they going to kick me out?
    “I’m pregnant,” Sloane said, her face glowing.

    By May, Scarlet had saved almost enough to get her tattoos covered up, and when Trevor found out what she was trying to do, he donated the last fifty bucks.  
    Sam, the tattoo artist, was a big wolf shifter with a beard and two full-sleeve tattoos and a ring through one eyebrow. He had a sort of quiet gravity, though he was funny when he wanted to be, and his hair always seemed like he needed to get it cut a week ago.
    She still thought of Chase and Gavin all the time, and as she and Sam talked about tattoos, he felt more like a brother than anything. He always seemed slightly sad, like there was something that he’d lost, though she never asked.
    In return, he never asked about the tattoos she was getting covered up. He knew they were from prison, of course, and the first time she went to his shop, he told her that her former artist had put the ink too deep for removal to do much, anyway.
    “That’s why it’s splotchy and uneven,” he said, pointing at the wavy lines of her triple moon.
    He didn’t saythat wavy lines weren’t unusual for tattoos applied in bathroom stalls with ballpoint pen ink, and Scarlet was grateful.
    Toward the end of the month, she was sitting in the tattoo chair, Sam carefully inking a marigold right below her collarbone, where her ugly, snarling wolf had been. Its teeth were turning into petals, its tail into leaves. Rustvale was finally sunny most of the time after a long winter, and Scarlet was starting to feel like she might have a chance again.
    “There are still going to be a couple of odd-looking spots if you look close,” he said. “Places where the lines really bled deep. Hopefully they’ll fade with time.”
    He wiped at her skin very carefully with a tissue, and then sat back, examining the flower. When he looked at her, Scarlet felt like he was looking at a canvas, mostly-blank skin full of possibilities. She liked feeling that way.
    “I think it’s done,” he said, nodding once.
    Scarlet stood up and turned around, looking at herself in the mirror that spanned most of the shop, and she smiled at the orange, red, and yellow