“Watch the attitude. No one is coming to save you. We’ve been watching those pathetic mates of yours and they can’t even find a trail of you. That’s how good we are.”
I tried not to show emotion over his words, but my chin quivered, betraying me.
“Oh, no. She’s going to cry.”
One of the men, the one nearest to me, bent down. His teeth were littered with plaque, brown between his teeth like he had chewed on a pan of brownies. His breath smelled like ripe sewage and his clothes were as filthy.
Another man stepped forward with a needle. “No, her real tears are about to start. I bet you’ll remember this, female.”
I fought against the chair and the restraints, screaming, hoping for someone to hear me, but it was no use.
No one could hear me here.
As he pushed the needle into my vein, the faint memory of my old medication took hold. My legs got weaker and tingled and the sleepiness took me under.
Bonus Chapter
Escher
“No, I can’t stop. I won’t stop,” I pushed Brandon away. I knew he was trying to help, but his efforts were pissing me of more than anything else.
“For her, Escher. Think about it. If you rest and eat, you’ll have more energy. Tell me where you’ve searched, and Cash and I will take the rest.”
I ground my jaw together, the rage and absolutely sickness of worry plaguing my every cell. “I covered ten miles west and south. I was about to do the east and north.”
“I’ve got it,” Cash barreled up the back stairs, naked from shifting.
“What?” I barked out.
“There, in the forest. It’s faint because it rained right after she was taken, but it’s there. You can barely smell it, but it’s our mate. Come with me. Fucking right now. Come on.”
He never cussed.
I should’ve known he would find something. He had been as ruthless as me the last twelve hours since she had vanished. Cashel was the best tracker I knew. He could hunt down anything, no matter how old the scent was. When we first shifted as kids, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he turned into a hound dog instead of a wolf.
We walked down, on his heels and into the forest, all four of us about two miles in. “There. A part of her must’ve touched the tree.”
I strode over to the tree and pushed my nose against it, letting my wolf senses take over. He was dead on. It was all her. All sunshine and hope. Only a touch of it, but what was there, was undeniable. I looked back toward the pack lands and then out in the direction where they must’ve gone.
“Let’s shift and see what else we can find.”
They all looked at me. “No, you rest. When we find more, I swear to the Goddess we will come and get you. At least eat, Escher. We can all feel your hunger. Fuel up so when we find her, we can slaughter them all.”
I grunted and tapped my foot while making a decision. “Fine. I’m going in to eat, but that’s all. No fucking naps while she’s…”
“I know,” Cash said, slapping my biceps. “We all know.”
I turned while they shifted and went back to the house, not happy at all about it, but understanding the logic. My mate was gone. We’d turned our backs for one second and that was all it took. I blamed myself. I was the last one to see her with that girl, the one who smelled off.
I knew better.
Was she cold? Hungry? Were they hitting her…or worse?
I smacked the side of my head, trying to make all the horrible situations go away. Inside, I swallowed three sandwiches whole and went on a search for sugar to fuel me even more.
I opened a plastic container and completely broke in half when I saw what was inside.
Rocky-road brownies. My mate had baked them for me. I was the only one of us who liked them and she made me a batch once a week if not more.
The scent of her was all over them. I crumpled to the floor, a heap of frustration and into the depths of despair I hadn’t felt since my ray of a mate had come into my life.
My Wendi.
I would find her if it killed me.
They would regret the day they touched my mate-my love.
The breath they took when I discovered them would be their last.
Thank you for reading Triumph. Next in series is Dominion.
Next in Series: Dominion
Available Here
No one can save me. I have to save myself.
My mates can’t find me. My wolf doesn’t sense them anywhere near. Rattlecreek finally got what they wanted, the healer right in their hands. And they aren’t planning to let me go alive. If they can’t have me, nobody can. They’ve already robbed me of the ability to walk—again.
Not for long.
They’ve underestimated me, though, and soon they will know by how much.
Because my mates, my house, my great-grandmother, and my life are all waiting for me outside. A future. With or without the ability to run. And I won’t let them or myself down. I am more than my legs. More than my gift even, but I owe the use of that gift to my pack. It, and I, will not be held for long.
Two of my mates have yet to mate and mark me. I will not be denied the life that is my destiny.
Now if I could just wake up.
Dominion is the 4th book in a paranormal reverse harem shifter series featuring a badly injured female wolf shifter, her healing, and the four male wolf shifters who all want to be her fated mate. It is a why choose werewolf romance with a slow burn buildup sure to make your toes curl. Relationships develop over the course of this supernatural series and, of course, Mazzy guarantees an HEA.
An Excerpt from Survivor
Available Here
Chapter One
“Little lady, your phone has been beeping for quite a while. Might want to tend to that.” The man’s gruff voice broke through my thoughts and slammed me back into reality. Great. Time for my pills. Again. Shit, didn’t I just take them? I pressed the button at the side of the watch and made it stop beeping. The man with the Mario mustache and tan jumpsuit took it as proof I’d heard him and grumbled something about kids these days.
Didn’t consider eighteen a kid, but I guessed to him it was.
I pushed the wheels of my chair forward a little until I could lean sideways and reach my purse without splaying myself all over the carpet in front of the movers. That kind of thing was generally avoided in my life, but it tended to happen when I least expected or wanted it.
As if I ever really wanted it.
My purse rattled with the sound of capsules in a glass bottle and I fished the green and white speckled one out of the bottle and popped it into my mouth, no water required.
I had been taking them for so long. They went down with no help whatsoever.
Another man, one with the name Charlie embroidered into his jumpsuit, crouched down in front of me with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. His fingernails were dirty underneath, and when he smiled, his chapped lips cracked a little. “That’s it for us. Are you sure you don’t want help getting the few things from the car? It would be no charge and wouldn’t take more than a minute.”
I sighed and signed the bill for the movers without answering. What he was really saying was he wouldn’t mind getting the stuff out of my car since I was ill-equipped for the job. Probably make him sleep better tonight knowing my belongings weren’t stranded in the car.
The thing was, even if it took me seven times as long to get everything out, I liked to do as much for myself as I possibly could. “No, thank you. I’ve got the necessities right here. I'll handle it. But thank you. I know it was a lot of books to haul around.”
He chuckled and took the clipboard back, glancing over it to make sure everything was in order then tapping the pen against it with a brisk nod. “Heaviest boxes are always books. Always. You take care now, Wendi.” He had to reference the clipboard to get my name right, but fine. At least he’d tried.
The movers filed out, waving at me as they got in their trucks
. I listened to the sounds of rustling gravel as they pulled out of the driveway and then onto the almost deserted road. After closing the door, I wheeled myself into the center of the room and braced myself for what came next. The moving part.
Somehow, I had to managed to pack all of this stuff on my own. Suddenly, I was wishing I had been more of a minimalist. The movers had put the furniture where it belonged and gone so far as to put my bed together, but that was as much as I would allow them to help. I had to do this on my own.
Part of being a big girl and all.
It wasn’t as if I couldn’t move. No, I’d been blessed in that way. It was more that it took me a thousand years to do things it took average people only seconds to do. Like moving from this chair, my ever-present friend and foe, to the couch placed right where I wanted it, the larger-than-life window in the living room facing the forest beyond. I’d picked this place for the view. Tree branches bowed to each other in the distance, and I could see the sloping and elevation of the land.
After eyeing the transition and mapping it out in my head, I put one hand on the arm of the couch and the other on one arm of the chair. With a great groan, I hoisted myself to standing and took a few steps forward, so when I collapsed into the couch, and I would, my ass would land first. My legs shook from the weight. I couldn't stand more than five minutes at a time. Any more and my muscles would just give out.
It didn’t help that I’d been up at the butt crack of dawn, all kinds of nervous about moving.
Still, it was better than falling over.
I’d been in situations where my ass hit anything but the place I’d wanted it to. Like the floor, the side of the toilet, and my personal, painful favorite, the edge of the bathtub. That bruise lasted for a month.
This time, however, my ass hit the softness of my couch, and I gave myself a second to catch my breath. Yeah, just that little movement made me feel like I’d run a marathon.
I scoffed, hearing the sound echo off the walls. “Marathon my ass. You can’t even walk all the way to the kitchen.”
Okay, so I was a smidge bitter. Sue me.
I reached out for the lightest box I could see, put it in my lap, and lifted things out. These were my office supplies. I didn’t work from home, per se, but I had a book blog and often planned out what books I would read for the month and logged them. Pens and pencils and highlighters could stay where they were for the time being.
Scanning the room for something more pressing than my office stuff, I spotted a box with kitchen scribbled in black permanent marker in someone else’s handwriting.
I leaned with a groan before scrubbing my hands over my face.
I couldn’t reach it. All the boxes marked kitchen were right in front of the small island, another thing that had caught my eye when the realtor showed me the place. The house had an open floor plan, with an island lower than most, giving me a place to do my chopping and prep work. Already, I’d lined up several recipes I wanted to try out.
“Back to the chair,” I grumbled but got in it before I ran out of energy. Which tended to happen fast.
I wheeled over to the boxes, opened the flaps of the first one, and smiled at the stack of cookbooks inside. From five-minute bread to Southern cooking and everything in between. I’d found them all at thrift stores or used book stores and cherished them all.
They were books.
About food.
How could you go wrong?
I pulled out the books one by one and stacked them on the built-in bookshelves separating the kitchen area from the dining room. I was almost done with three boxes when a loud knock at the front door made me squeal and almost leap from the chair.
After putting the rest of the books on the island, I rolled over and flung open the door, needing to know who had scared the shit out of me.
A man stood there, hands on his hips. His eyes were targeted above me because probably he'd expected someone standing—as everyone did. Very little surprised me anymore.
“Can I help you?” I asked, and he stepped back, his gaze dropping to my level.
“Oh…um, yes.” He squared off his shoulders and pretended not to be shocked. I rolled my eyes while he did. He wasn’t very smooth about it. “I’m Brandon Graves, brother of the alpha of the Midnight Alder pack. It is requested all new shifters in the area report to the alpha for registry and to review the pack rules. You actually should’ve reported before you moved here…ma’am.”
Being called ma’am was a first.
I crossed my arms over my chest as his golden eyes did their best not to focus on my legs or the chair. It wasn’t like I was going to claw his eyes out if he looked. Sometimes, people went out of their way not to stare at me and ended up seeming to ignore my very existence.
I wished he would look at me like he probably did a normal girl. I mean, let’s face it. He was six foot six of raw muscle, though his full cheeks and belly made it apparent he never turned down a meal, it didn’t detract from his overall boy-next-door charm.
I swallowed as I begged the heat to retreat from my cheeks in his presence.
Sexy didn’t begin to cover him, but he was one of those shifters, all pack and alphas and betas. That life wasn’t for me.
I’d buried the mate and other wolf shifter bullshit a long time ago. I might’ve been born with the beast in my blood, but, fate had other plans for me.
He sounded so businesslike, but I could tell it wasn’t his true nature. He shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable with being the messenger.
“Is there a website I can register on? Or a 1-800shifter hotline to call? I’m not sure what you’re expecting from me.” Oops, I showed my sarcasm.
After running his fingers through his sandy-brown hair, he looked at me and smiled a little but schooled it immediately. What a damned shame. That grin was meant to get girls to kiss him.
“You need to come with me now.”
Table of Contents
Academy Books from Decadent Publishing You Might Enjoy
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Threes’
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bonus Chapter
Next in Series: Dominion
An Excerpt from Survivor
Triumph Page 11