Czytaj książkę: «Awakened By The Wolf»

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Naked and wet, Brice Walker crouched on the back porch of his grandmother’s log cabin. The splintered grooves of the weathered boards bit sharply into his sore hands and feet, intensifying the throb in his right leg.

He focused his better-than-human night vision and tuned his ears to any movement along the forest’s dark tree line. Every muscle clenched in fight-or-flight readiness, though he was too tired for either. The three-day trek in wolf form and subsequent swim up the Chatuge River had overstretched his endurance.

If things were different, he would’ve driven from Atlanta to his grandmother’s home. His present situation being what it was, he no longer enjoyed that freedom.

He’d fucked up. Colossally.

One careless mistake and he’d lost his family, his friends, his home.

Regret flared inside him like a backdraft. He tried to swallow the burning ache, but its fiery fingers fastened around his throat and squeezed until his mouth prickled from the embers.

His banishment was well deserved and if he got caught slinking into the territory, the sentinels would waste no time hauling his bare ass in front of the Alpha.

All things considered, Brice would’ve preferred catching rabies to facing his father. Distance didn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes it fostered bitterness.

A faint August breeze stroked his skin like a lover grown cold and distant. Out of habit, he sniffed the night air. The familiar scents of pine and honeysuckle eluded him. Once his nose had been his pride. Now he depended on his eyes, ears and gut instinct to compensate for his lost sense of smell.

The evening symphony of crickets calling their mates salted the wound of his loss. Scent triggered a Wahya’s mating urge. Despite the heightened acuity of his other senses, only his nose could lead him to his true mate.

With a heavy humph, he shook. The water droplets that had pebbled on his heated body thwacked against the deck. A silver-coated house key fastened around his biceps with corded silver—the only substance that wouldn’t disintegrate during a shift—slapped against his arm. Each time it struck, electric shocks pinched his skin.

He untied the key and rubbed it between his fingers to dispel the residual shift energy, wondering if he wasn’t about to make the second biggest mistake of his life.

When his uncle, Adam Foster, had whisked Brice to Atlanta after his first epic fail, he didn’t have time to say goodbye to his beloved grandmother. Of course, he hadn’t known that his uncle’s offer of respite disguised a permanent relocation.

Brice unlocked the back door. His heart paused at the click. For the past five years, the Walker’s Run pack had considered him wolfan non grata.

Trusting that Margaret Walker wouldn’t disown her only surviving grandson, Brice clamped down on his nerves and limped into the kitchen. The dim light above the stove softly illuminated the pie on the counter.

First his heart swelled. During his college days, Granny always had a fresh-baked pie for him on his weekend visits.

Next Brice’s gut clenched, his stomach bellowed and his mouth watered, putting him in serious danger of drooling. Despite the ample game he’d encountered on his journey, he hadn’t eaten in days. The thought of killing again triggered nauseating sweats—if he was lucky. God-awful flashbacks if he wasn’t.

Silently he snagged a small saucer from the cabinet, a spoon from the drawer, a knife from the wood block. Then he cut a large wedge out of the pie. The first bite of sweet-tart deliciousness slid down his throat, slow and easy.

Mmm, cherry! His entire body sighed.

One piece wasn’t enough. He had to have two. A chug of milk washed down the third. Abandoning all etiquette, he scarfed down the rest and licked the pie pan clean. At long last, a warm, cozy satisfaction ebbed from his belly.

God, it’s good to be home.

The snazzy penthouse apartment above his uncle’s law offices served as a place to eat and sleep. Brice felt no more connection to the space than he would a hotel room. His heart and soul resided here, in this simple cabin. Always would.

He hobbled through the dark house. Each right step shot pain through his calf.

“Granny?” He rapped a soft knock against the bedroom door. A few seconds later, Brice slipped into her unlit room.

Nothing seemed amiss or out of place, so he assumed she’d spent the night with his parents. She often stayed in the family’s private quarters adjacent to the Walker’s Run Resort whenever they hosted a social event. Granny never missed a good party.

Vacillating between disappointment and relief, he wanted his grandmother’s welcoming embrace and assurance that all would be well between them again, but he was too weary to face the alternative. He headed down the narrow hallway to his old room, each gimping footstep heavier than the last. At the door, his senses tingled even before he set eyes on the small lump in his bed.

The mixed feelings Brice had about his homecoming knotted into concern. Granny knew wolfan law forbade adult males and females of blood relation to share bedding, so why had she fallen asleep in his room?

“Granny?” He eased onto the edge of the mattress and touched her leg.

An unfamiliar feminine gasp prickled the skin along his spine.

“Who the hell are you?” Brice didn’t mean to sound so rough and angry, but pain and exhaustion made him edgy and terse.

“Stay away from me!” The woman kicked out of bed and grappled with the bedside lamp.

“Fuck!” The sudden brightness stung like a fistful of sand slung in his face. Shielding his light-sensitive eyes behind his arm, Brice tuned into his other senses. The air thickened. He could almost taste the sharp tang of her fear. Her breaths came hard and fast.

“Get out before I call the cops,” she demanded.

“With what? Telepathy?” To his knowledge, Granny had one telephone. A landline in the kitchen.

“I have a cell phone.” The uncertainty in the woman’s voice said she didn’t.

“Nice try.” Swiping his eyes, Brice sensed a change in the air pressure, heard a hitch in her breathing. His instinct warned that she had inched to her right.

“I don’t need my eyes to track you.” He pointed to where he knew she stood.

The woman stopped moving and quite possibly stopped breathing. Nothing but howling silence filled the space between them. Any second she would hit the floor in a dead faint. Brice forced his eyes to open.

Not that he had any doubts, but the fragile-looking young woman pressed against the wall was definitely not his grandmother. Wild spirals of red hair gave her a sexy bed-head look regardless of the cornered animal glint in her cinnamon eyes.

She wore an old Maico High baseball jersey. Wait. That was his old baseball jersey.

His bed, his clothes. What else had she claimed that belonged to him?

And why?

She was human and likely unaware of the implications of marking a male Wahya’s belongings with her scent.

As if he could smell her anyway.

Still, that this small slip of a woman had claimed his discarded clothes and his abandoned bed sparked a possessive thump in his chest. His gaze prowled the small swell of her breasts and the narrow curve of her hips cloaked beneath his shirt.

She sported the longest legs he’d ever seen on someone so petite. Soft, toned legs that inspired steamy visions of them tangled around his hips as he moved inside her until she shattered in ecstasy, breaking him with her.

The full moon had passed, so his attraction was real. Not something prompted by primitive hormones riddling him to fuck the nearest willing female.

That this one didn’t look so willing was like an ice dump on his stiffening cock.

“You need to leave.” A pink flush rose from her slender throat to color her face. She anchored her arms over her chest, her fingers tightening around her flesh in a vise grip that would leave marks on her porcelain skin if she didn’t relax.

“What I need is a good night’s sleep.” Brice watched her cute little toes curl in the shag of the small white rug in front of his dresser.

The rug was definitely not his. Neither were the feminine touches on the dresser.

A tightness squeezed Brice’s chest. His grandmother had been forced to take in a boarder because he wasn’t around to help out.

“Are you drunk?” Condescension hardened the woman’s delicate features.

“No. Why?” He flexed his foot. The pain stabbing his leg would scale his entire body if he didn’t lie down soon.

“Because you’re in the wrong cabin and you’re naked.” Her voice thinned on the last word.

“You’re only half-right. I am naked.” Although nudity was second nature to Wahyas, Brice pulled the rumpled bed covers over his lap. The tattered comforter’s hideous color scheme caused an unpleasant twitch to crinkle his nose.

Whack!

“What the hell was that for?” He rubbed the sore spot where the can of hair mousse smacked his head. “I covered up.”

“This is a private residence. The resort’s rentals are down the road.” Her voice sounded tight and her words were clipped. “Now, get out, frat boy.”

Boy? She thinks I’m a boy?

“Wait—” He barely had time to block the candle she lobbed at his face. “Hey! Take it easy, lady.”

She stood battle-ready, shoulders squared, feet spread apart, a hardcover book gripped in each hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Brice Walker, for chrissakes!”

Okay, maybe his tone was a little too patronizing, but he didn’t deserve the wallop to the chest from the book she flung at him like a ninja star.

“Freaking perv, get out.” The woman wasn’t simply frightened. She was downright mad.

“I’m not—” he dodged the second book “—a pervert.”

Projectiles of various sizes targeted him with the precision of heat-seeking missiles. Who knew a woman’s hair and beauty products did double duty as a weapons arsenal?

He slid to the floor, using the bed as a shield. “I can explain.”

“Not interested.”

A wolf doll dressed in a tiny Maico High jersey bounced on the floor next to him. Either the woman had been an athlete in school or she had dated one. Since she looked too small and fragile to have played sports, Brice assumed the latter.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he grumbled, holding the stuffed animal to his nose. After a few futile sniffs, he tossed the toy aside and peeked over the mattress.

Her impromptu armament depleted, the woman’s gaze ricocheted around the room. “Just leave and I’ll forget you were here.”

Guilt plagued Brice’s conscience. He knew from experience how helpless she felt being trapped. Tomorrow, after he and Granny talked, Brice would issue the frightened woman profuse apologies for what he was about to do.

In the territory without permission, sleep-deprived and beyond exhaustion, he couldn’t risk anyone else discovering his presence. Tying her to the bed so he could get some sleep seemed like his best option.

An unexpected thrill electrified his body, temporarily numbing Brice’s pain. Another time, another place, he would have had an entirely different motivation for tying her up. He almost smiled.

“Easy, sweetheart.” He stood, hands lifted in mock surrender.

“I am not your sweetheart.”

For some illogical reason, Brice felt the distinct need to disagree. However, the critical way she assessed him down to his bare toes made him think that she found him lacking.

Or not.

Before he could cover himself again, she jerked the ugly comforter off the bed and stashed it behind her.

“Like what you see?” He straightened to his full six-foot-four height.

“Hardly.” She swept a mass of curls from her heart-shaped face. “What I’d like to see is your ass walking out the front door.”

“Not going to happen.” Brice smirked. He liked that the woman had spunk in spades. “Look, darlin’. All I want is a good night’s sleep. Preferably with you next to me, all sweet and cuddly.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, either.” She stuffed her small feet into a pair of worn sneakers. Her gaze teetered between him and the bedroom door.

His predatory senses sparked. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”

“It’s a good thing you aren’t me.” Her chin tilted and one eyebrow arched as if upping his challenge. She snatched the lamp from the nightstand and yanked the plug from the outlet.

If the little spitfire thought dousing the light gave her the advantage, she was oh-so-wrong. In milliseconds, Brice’s eyes adapted to the darkness.

The lamp shattered near his unprotected feet. Shards of glass skittered across the wood floor. She dashed past him and he couldn’t intercept. Not without slicing his soles.

Damn.

The woman was smart. Cunning. Fast.

And the chase was on.

Chapter 2

Adrenaline shot through Brice’s body like rocket fuel burning through his veins. His heart pounded to near rupture. Using the bed as a springboard, he leaped over the broken lamp pieces and landed solidly on his good leg.

“You can’t outrun me.” Even with his handicap, in his wolf form Brice could outpace a human.

“Watch me.” The lithe woman dodged him around the living room furniture.

His mouth did not have permission to spread into a ridiculous smile. It did anyway. Growing broader and more outrageous by the second.

She sprinted to the front door. He heard the lock click and the door swung open. He lunged to capture her. His chest slammed into her shoulder, forcing his breath out with a harsh oomph!

Brice turned her during the tackle so that he took the brunt of their fall. God, it was good to feel playful again. And she was the best kind of playmate. Soft and warm, with just the right amount of pluck.

“Let. Me. Go.” She shoved him with more strength than he expected. He struggled to maintain his hold.

“Take it easy,” he grunted. “I won’t hurt you.”

She head-butted his shoulder. Every time her hair swept his skin, desire—hot and demanding—tore through him. Totally inappropriate and ill-timed considering the circumstances.

His wolf nature didn’t care. This woman wore his clothes, slept in his bed and wrestled him with the strength of a she-wolf in heat. To a Wahya male, her behavior was an open invitation.

However, fear marked her scent, not desire. Brice needed to tamp down the carnal thoughts before his primal instinct overruled his intellect and he gave her a real reason to be frightened.

Finally he flipped her onto her back.

“Get off me!” She landed a solid punch against his nose.

Brice’s head jerked.

“Damn, that hurt.” Hurt like hell.

Before she could do further damage, he latched onto her hands, pinning them over her head. She kicked his shin. Thankfully it wasn’t his bad leg or his instinct would have been to retaliate rather than to restrain.

“Calm down before you get hurt,” he snarled, using his body to flatten her to the porch.

He gave in to the instinct to snuffle her hair. In one long, indulgent breath, he inhaled without expectation, though he desperately wanted to smell something. Anything. Even dirty dandruff was preferable to nothing.

To his utter disbelief, a soft, feminine fragrance teased his nose. Convinced he imagined the scent, he sniffed a second time to be sure, moving from her provocative red curls to the dimpled spot just behind her ear. As he breathed in, her sweet, luscious musk filtered through his body, warming him like beams of sunshine.

“God, you smell good,” he gushed like an eager pubescent boy trying to get to second base.

“Get away from me.” The woman bucked, and the rub of her pelvis against his crotch ignited a craving that would culminate in an all-out home run if she didn’t stop.

“Be still,” he rasped. “I only want to smell you. But if you continue thrusting your hips at me, I’ll lose what control I have and do more than scent you.”

She went limp, although the daggers in her eyes remained unsheathed.

Tired, horny and more than a little confused, Brice appreciated the reprieve. He wanted to gorge on her intoxicating scent without battling her and his super-charged libido. “Don’t be frightened, Sunshine. I won’t hurt you.”

He rubbed against her. She was soft, spirited, with a mouth-watering scent—a combo like that could bring a wolfan to his knees. “You have no idea how happy I am to smell you.”

A droning thud in his head joined the possessive thump in his chest. Resonating one beat, one word. Over and over and over again. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Oh, no. No, no, no. Fuck no.

“This isn’t happening,” he mumbled.

“You got that right.” She jammed her knee against his crotch.

Excruciating pain screamed through Brice’s groin. The air swooshed out of his lungs. His body curled into a fetal ball.

The house was dark. His vision grew darker. Still, he saw the triumphant gleam in her eyes a second before she escaped.

* * *

Brice Walker, my ass!

Cassidy Albright jumped down the front porch steps. She had no idea who that dirt-streaked hobo was, but he certainly wasn’t the Brice Walker she knew.

Well, had known from a distance.

She sailed past her car. The old clunker wouldn’t have started on the first crank anyway, and she’d have been a sitting duck if the naked imposter turned out to be a dangerous intruder instead of a drunken resort guest.

Shoes crunching the gravel driveway, she sprinted toward the Walker’s Run Resort a mile and a half down the mountain. An easy stretch for Cassie, who’d earned medals in track. Each time she ran, she simply imagined herself running until the layers of her mother’s bad luck and bad reputation peeled away, leaving Cassie free and clear.

She had a way to go before that happened. Only one more semester of college and Cassie could start over. In a town where Imogene Struthers’s past wouldn’t wreck her daughter’s future.

She rounded the first curve of a hairpin turn. A creepy vibe spiderwebbed across Cassie’s skin. She glanced back at where she’d been. The waning three-quarter moon provided enough light to see a man wasn’t behind her, but a very large, very hungry-looking wolf.

Cassie’s heart slammed against her chest before spiraling to her feet. She could outrun a man on a dirt road. Outrunning an animal presented an entirely different race.

She veered into the woods. Zigzagged through the trees. Zipped around bushes. Leaped over a fallen pine. Sweat coated her skin. Her breaths grew hard, laborious. A stitch gnawed at her side. Her leg muscles began to burn.

Another downed tree lay ahead. Slightly larger than the last, though not so big that Cassie couldn’t clear it. She sailed over it with ease.

The landing was harder.

Her foot slipped on a patch of moss. The belly flop to the ground unleashed an explosion of pain in her chest. Her lungs, shriveling into two tight balls, squeezed out every molecule of air and then some. She couldn’t catch her breath, cough or even wheeze.

Cassie didn’t want to die, not with a new life finally within her meager grasp. She forced her chest to expand. The muscle beneath her breastbone gave one final spasm and relaxed. Whereas she’d had no breaths before, they now came in rapid-fire succession. In zero to five, she went from starving for oxygen to drowning in it.

Wolf drool on the back of her neck was imminent if she didn’t get moving. She swallowed two giant mouthfuls of air, the way she did when plagued by hiccups, and locked her elbows to push up. All the adrenaline that helped her run had tanked.

“No, no, no.” Frantic, she patted the ground, searching for a rock, a branch. Anything.

Out of luck and out of time, Cassie faced the wolf with the only weapons she had. Her hands and sheer grit.

He approached, head hunched lower than his shoulders. His thin black lips mocked her with a menacing grin.

“Nice wolfy,” Cassie panted over her heart’s rampant beat.

His ears perked up and he tilted his head, taking his sweet-ass time to assess the most delectable spot to munch first.

A low rumble rolled through the woods. His hungry gaze lifted and a snarl drew back his snout, revealing very large, very pointy teeth.

Cassie had no hope of winning an outright wrestling match with an animal of his size and bulk. Gouging his eyes might give her a slim chance of survival, and slim was much preferable to none.

Before his nerve-numbing growl chased all her bravado into the pit of her stomach, Cassie steeled her thumbs.

The wolf sprang.

Cassie screamed. She didn’t mean to, but some invisible force seized her vocal cords and wrenched loose the armor-piercing shriek. Apparently the same malevolent force also screwed her eyes shut, because she had to pry them open to see.

The wolf now paced behind her. Ears flat against his head, he snapped at the woods. A strip of fur bristled along his spine, and the fluff of his tail stretched behind him, arrow-straight.

With his attention diverted, Cassie scooted backward to get away from the wolf. Her heart pounded so hard and loud that she feared the drum would draw the wolf’s attention from the rustle in the woods.

The wolf hunched forward, ready to pounce at whatever emerged from the forest.

It was now or never. As she labored to stand, an ear-shattering squeal sliced through the night.

She jerked toward the commotion. A huge blur barreled past the snarling wolf and skidded to a halt at her feet. Hot breath steamed her bare legs.

Cassie didn’t move.

Neither did the angry sow.

The wolf, however, plopped on his haunches, and the tips of his fur shimmered with silvery light.

Poof!

Just that quick, the wolf vanished. Hunched in his place appeared a fully-grown naked man.

Not just any naked man.

The naked man whose balls she’d coldcocked.

This isn’t happening.

Obviously she’d whacked her head and was suffering from a massive delusion. That was good news, right? Delusions couldn’t hurt her. They weren’t real. Just figments of her imagination.

Well, um, her naked delusion stood. Displaying all his glory.

Cassie squinched her eyelids shut. He isn’t real. He isn’t real. He isn’t real.

Satisfied her temporary insanity had passed, she drew in a calming breath and opened her eyes.

The naked delusion limped toward her.

Whether he was real no longer mattered. Cassie sprang to her feet. The startled sow danced around her legs. The lack of traction on the soft, damp earth caused Cassie to lose her balance. She landed on her hands and knees, face to snout with the hog.

Cassie sucked in deep, measured breaths to slow her erratic pulse. Unfortunately, her heart and lungs were running a marathon. She swayed from a wave of lightheadedness.

“Leave her alone, Cybil.” The soft, tantalizing command of the wolfman’s Southern baritone hummed through Cassie’s body with the hypnotic power of the Pied Piper. That fairy tale hadn’t ended so well. Cassie didn’t want to share a similar fate.

The hog pivoted toward the wolfman. A twitch of her curly tail, a determined squeal, and she charged with the gusto of a matador’s bull.

Wolfy wasn’t as quick on two legs as he had been on four furry ones. He thudded to the ground.

“Dammit, Cybil. How long are you going to hold a grudge?” Shoving the sow aside, he lumbered to his feet. Undeterred, she circled around and plowed into him again.

Transfixed, Cassie watched them tussle. Crazy as it seemed, she found herself rooting for the wolfman, who was trying not to hurt the disgruntled pig. Cybil wasn’t as careful.

In the scuffle, she stomped his leg. A silent scream of pain twisted the wolfman’s face. Cassie’s chest tightened in sympathy, though she couldn’t fathom why.

Cybil backed away, allowing him to sit up and rub his calf. After a few long-drawn breaths, he opened his palm. The sow shuffled close enough for him to scratch beneath her chin. Then he murmured in her ear.

Cassie wasn’t one to ascribe human attributes to animals, but the hog’s expression appeared contrite. Cybil snorted, flicked her tail and trotted back into the woods.

A werewolf pig-whisperer. Imagine that.

Cassie rubbed her temples. She didn’t want to imagine anything of the sort. She wanted her sanity to return.

The wolfman peered at her with the same stark expression the wolf had given her. He—whatever he was—crawled toward her, his movements smooth, stealthy. Deadly.

Cassie jumped up and ran. For all of ten feet before she was falling.

Oh, no. Not again!

The wolfman cradled her as they hit the ground.

“Damn, you’re fast.” Rolling Cassie onto her stomach, he immobilized her with the full length of his hot, hard body.

“Get off me.” The more she squirmed, the more a wicked heat licked her skin. Fear was supposed to be cold and clammy, so what the heck had ignited those fiery flashes?

“Easy there, Sunshine.” His deep, rich voice dripped like sickly sweet sorghum.

Suddenly Cassie remembered a spilled bottle of syrup. Tasted the sticky sweetness on her fingers. Smelled the gingerbread cookies baking in the oven. Heard her mother’s tinkling laughter in the sunny kitchen of the run-down apartment where they had lived when Cassie was seven.

Is this what it means to have your life flash before your eyes when you’re about to die?

“Are you listening?” The wolfman’s insistent growl dispelled the memory. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened on the porch.”

Cassie’s survival skills abandoned her. She tried to buck him off, but her body was too busy mooning over his mesmerizing accent to respond.

“I’ll release you on two conditions. First, don’t run. The woods are too dangerous for you. Second, keep your knees away from my groin. They’re too dangerous for me. Agreed?”

Considering her position, did she have a choice?

Though she couldn’t bring herself to verbalize consent, Cassie nodded. His weight lifted, yet the heat from the intimate contact remained. She sat up, rubbing her arms.

He squatted just beyond her reach, yet close enough to catch her before she could make it to her feet if she tried to run. Twice he’d caught her and not harmed her. Three times might break her luck.

Moonbeams filtered through the trees, giving just enough soft light to make out the concern etched in his features.

“Are you hurt?” His polished tone contradicted his appearance. Bits of leaves and pine needles stuck out of the waves of his thick black hair. A scruff of dark whiskers framed his determined jaw. Dirt smudges accented the sharp angle of his cheeks. A smear of blood crusted beneath his nose.