by Dia Cole
Claiming Her Beasts Book One
Dia Cole
Claiming Her Beasts Book One
All rights reserved.
Published by Black Diamond Press LLC.
Copyright © 2020
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction, electronic sharing, or other unauthorized use of this book is prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-946975-26-3
Contents
Author’s Note
Summary
1. Hunter
2. Lee
3. Reed
4. Lee
5. Hunter
6. Lee
7. Reed
8. Lee
9. Hunter
10. Lee
11. Reed
12. Lee
13. Hunter
14. Lee
15. Reed
16. Lee
17. Hunter
18. Lee
19. Lee
20. Hunter
Afterword
About the Author
Books By Dia Cole
Excerpt from Claiming Her Mates: Book One
1. Havana
2. Havana
Thank you
Author’s Note
This story is based on my Heaven in Hell series, originally written in 2015. The series (along with most all of my books) takes place in a world reeling from a global pandemic where the eagerly awaited flu vaccine brings about the apocalypse. Despite what some of my readers have suggested, I’m not clairvoyant (I wish) and the fact that these fictional events mirror current world events is merely a coincidence. My stories are written purely for entertainment and are never intended to be taken as social, political, or medical commentary. That said, if you aren’t ready for the zombies, you might want to make a plan…
Summary
One seeks my heart. One craves my body. And one will stop at nothing to possess my soul.
Family is everything and I’ll do whatever it takes to support what’s left of mine. I’ll work double waitressing shifts seven days a week. I’ll even become the headliner at the local strip club.
But I draw the line at accepting a drug lord’s indecent proposal. I’m not for sale. Unfortunately, the monster isn’t used to taking no for an answer and his ability to manipulate minds makes him a formidable enemy.
Luckily, I’ve got my sexy roommate and a dangerous shifter watching out for me. They’ll protect me from everything… except their dark desires.
If I can survive these beasts, the apocalypse will be a cakewalk.
For the ones who dance in the dark
1
Hunter
The humans in the strip club had no idea their world was ending. I didn’t know whether to pity them or cheer on their impending doom.
The bleach-blonde cocktail waitress who was riding the hard edge of forty slopped a watered-down Jack and Coke on the table in front of me. “This is your fifth, Sly. You aren’t driving anywhere tonight, right?”
I peered at her through the dark sunglasses that hid my inhuman eyes. “Nah, Donna.” I slurred my words and swayed slightly in my seat.
“Good,” she said absently, as if she gave a damn. From what I’d observed the past few weeks, neither Donna nor her fat club owner husband cared much for anything other than cold hard cash.
As long as I paid for the copious amounts of shitty alcohol I drank, they overlooked my shaggy hair, hooded trench coat, and apparent alcoholism.
Tossing back the drink, I sprawled in my chair and played the part of a drunk. Sweat dotted my forehead from the strain of keeping the small human form, but it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to.
All my missions required me to suppress my natural scent and either make myself invisible—something I could only do for a short time—or shrink my normally massive body into an average human-sized one. As a result, bystanders never paid much attention to me.
Case in point. No one in the nearly empty strip club glanced twice at me. Not the beautiful dancer on the stage or the disabled vet that watched over her from the door. Not the former linebacker manning the bar or the jackass in a sweater vest seated at the table in front of me. And certainly not the mixture of human and shifter gang members speaking in low voices at the back of the club.
Those fuckers owed their lives to the chip implanted in my head. If freed from the oversight of my handler, I’d shift into the monstrous beast I was and shred them to pieces.
A magnificent vision of what that would look like had me hissing under my breath.
It’d been thirty-two days, six hours, and twenty-seven minutes since I’d been let off my leash, and bloodlust coiled inside me, dark and hungry.
My current handler often forgot killing was one of my biological imperatives, and she wasted my otherworldly abilities on tracking and spying.
But all work and no play makes Hunter a dull boy…
A low growl rumbled inside my chest. Thankfully, none of the humans could hear it over the sensual beat of the music pulsing through the club.
Javier Diaz, the Alpha I’d been sent to watch, might have detected the inhuman noise, if he’d bothered to tear his attention from the dark-haired female dancing on stage. He, like me, was a shifter with highly developed senses. By his scent, he was some kind of jungle cat. Jaguar. Leopard. Whatever the fuck he was, his slender bones would snap like kindling under my giant paws.
The beast inside me demanded I assert my dominance over him and his enforcers. None of them could come close to me in power and strength, and any territory I was in was mine by default. I ached to punish him and his enforcers for occupying the same space and daring to look at the female I desired.
I glanced briefly at the beautiful creature on the stage. The dancer’s long brown hair fanned over her exquisite face as she twirled around the silver pole.
She’ll be mine. Not his.
I bared my teeth, feeling my aggression rise. The bloodthirsty beast lurking under my skin didn’t care that I was a military operative sent here to gather intel on Javier and his faction. All it cared about was killing and—
An intoxicating odor wafted from the stage, shifting my bloodlust into something else. Heat pooled low in my body and my cock hardened. The dancer’s scent—creamy vanilla and female musk—fogged my mind and awoke long denied instincts.
Suddenly, it was impossible to focus on anything but the dancer. She undulated on stage wearing nothing but a G-string and white wings strapped to her back.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out one of the white feathers I’d found after a previous show. Keeping my face lowered, I brought it to my nose and inhaled deeply. My dancer's scent still clung to the downy fringe.
I groaned, my beast urging me to drop to the floor and roll around in the fragrance.
According to my sources, the owner of the feather was Heaven Lee Walker. Server by day. Exotic dancer by night. Human.
I inhaled deeply, branding her alluring scent into my mind and body. My sources were wrong.
She couldn’t be entirely human if her scent called to me on this level.
What is she?
My highly acute senses detected no shifter blood. Nor was she any of the other abominations genetically engineered by the military. And yet, her scent called to me on a level nothing ever had before.
For the first time in my miserable existence, I wanted
to claim a female. This female.
Weeks of inhaling her pheromones and watching her seductive dance night after night had aroused me to a dangerous level.
Venom pooled in my mouth as I tracked every one of her sinuous movements. Pretty. So very pretty.
Fuck. Pretty was an understatement.
Her curvaceous body was perfection by the standards of any species. Round hips. Heart-shaped ass. Breasts large enough to fill even my enormous hands.
Like me, Javier seemed unable to tear his gaze from her smooth golden skin and long toned legs that wrapped around the pole. The Alpha leaned forward, looking ready to pounce.
A warning growl escaped my lips.
If the other shifter made any move toward my dancer, it would be his last.
My dancer? Fuck. When did I start thinking of her as mine?
I shook my head as if to clear it. This assignment was getting the best of me. Maybe it was a good thing it would soon end.
With the coming apocalypse, the military would have more important things to worry about than the clandestine activities of a rogue shifter’s faction. And they would reassign me to doing what I did best—killing.
But what will happen to my dancer when shit hits the fan?
I clenched the feather tighter in my fist before realizing I was crushing it. Fuck. I gently put the delicate plume back in my pocket.
I’d drawn out this mission for weeks so I could watch over my dancer as long as I could. She had grit, but not the fighting skills she’d need to survive what was coming.
The crippled old man who drove her home each night wasn’t strong enough to protect her. Nor could that cocksucker roommate of hers, unless he grew a pair overnight.
When the end of humanity came, she’d die, like everyone else in this fucking town.
Unless I save her…
My twin brother, Ghost, used to say that opportunity came from chaos. Perhaps I could leverage the upcoming panic and mayhem to break free from my handler.
And maybe pigs can fly.
Sighing, I rubbed the back of my head. Until I figured out a way to remove my implant without killing myself, I was nothing more than a highly trained pet. One wrong move and my handler wouldn’t hesitate to put me down.
But my dancer might be worth dying for…
Visions of my hands and mouth on her delectable body made my cock throb against the suddenly too-tight fabric of my pants.
“Hunter, your vitals are going haywire. What’s going on?” a deep feminine voice asked through the tiny electronic device implanted in my inner ear.
I cursed under my breath. For a moment, I’d forgotten that my handler could sense my emotions and monitor my biometric readings. Jen could also give me orders I was compelled to follow and punish me if I displeased her. It was the military’s way of leashing their most lethal weapon.
“It’s that dancer, isn’t it?” she said with a heavy sigh. The artificial link between us wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the natural bonds I’d had with my brothers or the connection I’d had with my previous handler, but I could still feel echoes of her annoyance and frustration.
I grunted, unable to lie to her.
“You know the rules. Don’t touch the humans,” she warned.
Screw the rules.
Jen sighed again. “Your mating drive is spiking. We’ll… find you a receptive female.” Her voice grew tight and unease pulsed through our bond. She must have remembered what happened to the last breeder they tried to force on me.
“No.” I’d never let that happen again.
“Then focus on the goddamn mission. Find out where Javier is keeping Dr. Hurran.”
The mention of the army scientist who loved inflicting pain on her subjects made me clench my jaw. Javier could have the sadistic bitch.
“Hunter, are you listening? We need to find out where he is keeping her.”
Why does it matter? Especially now, when the countdown to the end of days had begun.
“Surely, he’s said something about her by now.” Her desperation filtered through our bond.
“No. His conversations are all about deliveries and construction projects.” Disappointing, really. You’d think the leader of the biggest cartel in the northern hemisphere would have more interesting things to discuss. “Not once has he mentioned the scientist.”
Jen cursed. “We’re running out of time. The Colonel is about to pull the plug on this operation.”
My breathing went shallow. I knew what that meant. Humanity was running out of time. My dancer was running out of time.
“So, stop dicking around and find out where he is keeping the scientist.”
“By any means necessary?” Excitement thrummed through me as I waited for Jen to respond. If she let me loose, I’d have the information in less than five minutes. Of course, Javier and his crew wouldn’t survive the interrogation, but that was no great loss.
“You know our orders. Do not approach the target or his enforcers,” she said, sounding as tired of this shit as I was.
Which fuck nut desk jockey made that rule? How was I supposed to get critical intel from the leader of a rogue shifter faction without cracking a few skulls?
“Just get the intel and be back at base by zero four hundred hours.”
“Why?” The strip club didn’t close until four.
“Because I said so.” The frost in Jen’s voice made it clear she didn’t owe me an explanation.
“Ten-four.” I tried for a more agreeable tone. It was never a good idea to piss off the person who could unleash gut-wrenching pain with the click of a button.
There was a long pause, as if she was debating telling me something. “The Colonel ordered Dominic’s release,” she finally said in an unnaturally quiet voice.
Air rushed from my lungs. “What the fuck? He was in for life.” My previous handler deserved to die a miserable death in prison for what he’d done. A blowtorch of fury blew through me. My hands shook as the pain-filled screams of my brothers echoed in my mind. “Dom can’t be released.”
“The Colonel wants all hands on deck,” she said, trying to sound calm. Through our bond, I could feel how rattled she was. For some asinine reason, she loved Dom. Not that the ice-cold bastard was capable of returning the sentiment.
I took a deep steadying breath, trying to keep from exploding. It’s a good thing Dom’s out. He’ll be a lot easier to kill.
“The Colonel wants to pair you two again,” Jen added.
“N-no fucking way,” I sputtered. I couldn’t end Dom’s life if they bound me to him.
“So, you’d prefer to stay with me then?”
I grunted, knowing full well the Colonel could give two shits about my preference. My fate was his to fuck with.
“Then I won’t let them re-pair you,” she said with so much conviction, the tension left my body. Jen had pull with the Colonel and although she and I had only been linked a short time, she was a soldier of her word. Unlike Dom…
Betrayer. Liar. Killer.
“I’ll get the location of the scientist,” I promised. I had to at least do that much for her considering I was going to murder her husband the first chance I got.
“Good. Don’t blow your cover and remember the rules. Don’t touch any humans.”
As she severed our connection, it occurred to me the rules didn’t apply to my dancer.
Because Lee’s not entirely human, is she?
As I considered the potential loophole, the jackass at the table in front of me held up several crumpled bills.
My dancer prowled across the stage toward him. Her hips swayed seductively back and forth, and her jeweled navel ring caught the light and shimmered.
A whine caught in the back of my throat. I liked shiny things. A lot…
Fuck. I had to think of a way to complete the mission and get up close and personal with her… at least long enough to explore this hold she had over me.
Is she the one female that can tame my beast, or will i
t destroy her like all the others?
2
Lee
Dance music shook the stage as I spun around the pole in my G-string. A few rogue feathers from the wings strapped to my back floated gently to the body glitter-encrusted floor. Following them down, I crawled on my hands and knees over to the middle-aged man waving dollar bills in the air.
The rumpled off-the-rack tweed vest he wore told me he was likely one of the professors from the Southern Arizona University campus down the street.
Disappointing. He wouldn’t have deep pockets like some of my big tippers. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Especially tonight.
Other than the professor, there were only a handful of other patrons in the strip club—Sly, a regular who came for the booze not the boobs, several dark-haired men talking quietly in the back corner, and Uncle Duncan. Since finding out the club bouncers had been laid off, the cowboy-hat-wearing grizzly old vet had come to every one of my shows. My surrogate uncle, always quick to spot trouble, never took his eyes off the dark-haired men deep in conversation.
The men’s menacing vibe made me glad they sat far from the stage. They’d started meeting at Eros a few weeks ago. Max, my boss, was either too desperate for business or too scared to make them leave.
Truth be told, the guys dressed in black with gang tattoos creeping past their collars didn’t rattle me as much as the elegant man sitting in the center of them. Javier Diaz was rumored to run one of the largest drug cartels in the Southwest. His gang, the Calaveras, was renowned for their violence and brutality.