Contents
Description
Invitation
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Author's Note
Harvest Moon
Tabitha's Books
About the Author
Copyright
From New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Tabitha Conall, an erotic werewolf romance short story in the exciting Mad Wolf's Harem series.
Fate brought the three of them together. A mad wolf may pull them apart.
In an otherwise ordinary world, werewolves mate in threes, hidden in plain sight. When Bethany, Coop and Ro find each other, they’re ecstatic. But they don’t know a mad werewolf has chosen Bethany as his next bride and he’s getting ready to take her for his own.
When the mad wolf grabs Bethany, Coop and Ro battle to save her while Bethany does everything she can to get back to them. But time’s running out and the mad wolf is just getting crazier…
This 12,000+ word short story is a prequel to the Mad Wolf's Harem series, which is set in the same world as Protecting the Pack and the Stonewall Pack Alpha series. HEA included.
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The Mad Wolf’s Harem Series
Hunger Moon
Harvest Moon
Hunter’s Moon
Long Night’s Moon
Wolf Moon
Hunger Moon © 2016 Tabitha Conall
Hunger Moon
by
Tabitha Conall
Chapter 1
She was the one.
The man watched Bethany Hays walk to work, her first day at a new job. Her brown hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders, setting off her pretty face. She’d worn makeup today, and a nice blouse and skirt that showed off her legs. He’d been watching her for a while, and every time he saw her he felt more convinced.
It wasn’t like he needed more wives. But need and want were two different things. And he wanted Bethany Hays with a fervor.
She’d been looking for work for a while, interviewing at different places, and he’d been pleased when he’d heard her get the phone call about getting this job. He might have been worried about such a sweet girl working at a construction site, but he didn’t need to. She wouldn’t be there for long.
A construction site seemed like the ideal place to take her, especially since her roommate was constantly under foot at home. And here, he could wait until the end of the day, when the construction workers had all left and the place was deserted. She’d emerge from the office, alone, and then she’d be his.
He followed her down the street, around two more rights and then stood across the street as she passed through the gate of the chain link fence surrounding the construction site. When he could no longer see her pink skirt swishing against her stocking-covered legs, he turned and left.
Tonight. Tonight she’d be his.
***
Cooper Andreason clocked in at his current construction site in Alder Bay, Canada, and stowed his lunch in the communal fridge before donning his hard hat. Other men—and a handful of women—were arriving and doing the same, all getting ready for their seven o’clock start time.
As Coop greeted his co-workers, he saw Ro—short for Arturo—Kassis dart in the door of the cramped trailer and hurry toward the fridge.
“Late as usual,” Coop said.
Ro laughed. “Bite me.”
As the only two wolves on the construction site, this was an inside joke—anything to do with biting, sniffing, marking their territory or any number of other lupine behaviors got them both in stitches while everyone else looked on and shook their heads, having no clue what was so funny. Humans didn’t know werewolves existed.
Coop might have thought he and Ro got along so well because they were the only two wolves but somehow he didn’t think that was it. He’d worked jobs with other wolves before and never felt the instantaneous connection with them that he had with the swarthy Ro. When they finished this job and moved on, Coop would miss him. Luckily, the project was nowhere near finished, so he didn’t need to think about that for a good long while.
Coop stopped next to where Ro was hurriedly shoving his lunch in the already packed fridge. “Still up for getting a beer tonight?”
Ro slammed the fridge door shut. “Sure am.” He grabbed his hard hat as they headed out the door.
The two of them had agreed to go to a local shifter bar that night and see if they could find some shifter women. Not that there was anything wrong with human women, except they were so fragile. Coop always had to hold back in bed for fear of breaking them.
As they walked across the dry, packed dirt ground near the front of the site, a scent washed over Coop, the smell of sawdust and green grass and home. As his cock grew instantly hard, he stopped short. He knew what this was.
Mates.
***
As Bethany walked to her new job at the construction site, she had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She’d been feeling that way a lot lately. And while she wasn’t usually one to ignore her intuition, this time she could find no evidence that anything was out of the ordinary. She didn’t know why she felt this way, but she wished it would stop.
The feeling faded as she passed through the gate of the chain link fence surrounding the site. She rolled her shoulders as though to shrug off the last of the sensation.
A lot of men and a handful of women walked around the site, all of them looking like they had a purpose. In spite of the nerves fluttering in her stomach, she reminded herself how excited she was to be joining them and to get to play a part in building something real.
She was headed toward the trailer that served as an office when she noticed two men staring at her, their eyes wide. She fought the urge to check her clothes and make sure she didn’t have her skirt tucked into her underpants. On the heels of her mysterious watcher, she didn’t like this one bit.
Then the scent washed over her—newly washed clothes and peppermint and home. In the space of a blink, she understood why they had been staring—and why they were now headed toward her with determination in their steps.
They were her mates.
The butterflies in her stomach doubled while at the same time her muscles turned to mush. Gods, her mates. She’d wanted to find them for so long and yet it felt like it was happening so quickly.
Werewolves mated in threes, always two men to one woman, and they didn’t get to choose. The fates determined who they’d be mated with, and let them know by the delicious scent currently enveloping Bethany. They wouldn’t smell the scent unless all three of them were in close proximity, though, so even though the two men walking toward her looked like they knew each other, they wouldn’t have known they were mates until she appeared.
Luckily, the fates rarely made bad matches. Bethany hoped that would be true in her case, too.
The two men reached her. The taller, broader, blond-haired man stuck his hand out. “I’m Coop.”
As she slipped her hand into his, she had to clear her throat. “Bethany.”
“Bethany.” The other man was only slightly shorter and stockier with darker skin like he was Italian or Greek. He reached out and gripped her wrist right above where Coop still held her hand. “I’m Ro. Arturo. Everyone calls me Ro.”
As soon as his hand closed around her arm, she felt a sharp jolt of lust through her whole body. Coop’s eyes widened and Ro let out a rough laugh. He released her.
“M
aybe we shouldn’t touch while we’re at work,” Ro said.
Coop let her go, too. “Especially not all three of us at once.”
She immediately mourned the loss of their touch.
Coop glanced behind him. “Shit, the time. Sorry—pardon my language.”
“It’s fine,” she said. Did he really think she wouldn’t hear men swearing all day long if she was working here? Then again, he probably didn’t know she was working here.
He wiped his hand over his mouth. “Ro and I have to get to work. I wish we could take the day off—”
“I have to work, too,” Bethany said. “And it’s my first day, so I can’t miss it.”
“Here?” Ro said.
As she nodded, both men’s mouths opened.
“It’s a little rough here,” Coop said.
At the same time, Ro said, “I don’t know if this is a good place for you...”
Oh, for crying out loud. Really? “You two don’t even know me. Don’t think you’re going to tell me where to work.”
“We just want to keep you safe, honey,” Coop said. “But you’re right. We need to get to know you. Can we all have lunch together?” He reached out and almost brushed her arm, letting his hand fall at the last minute.
She wished he’d touched her. “Of course we can.” As long as they understood that they couldn’t push her around, they’d be fine. “What time?”
“Eleven,” Ro said.
Someone called to Coop from across the site and all three of them jumped.
“I’ll see you at eleven,” Bethany said.
Stepping away from them was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Every cell in her body yearned to get closer to them and ached as she got further away. From the looks on their faces, her two mates felt the same pain.
Chapter 2
The moment Coop had been waiting for all day finally arrived. He and Ro grabbed their things and hurried to the office to get Bethany.
They'd met her for lunch, as planned. All three of them had brought sandwiches. As they'd sat on a stack of plywood and compared sandwich innards, Coop couldn't help but study every inch of Bethany, who was sitting between the two men.
Their mate was small. Her petite size made her seem sweet and defenseless, but as she spoke, he realized it would be a mistake to judge her simply on her looks.
They'd learned about her family, her recent struggle to find work, and her love of clothes. They learned that she didn't like cooking but enjoyed good food, at which point they teased her about her peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich.
Still, the whole lunch had been torture. He and Ro had agreed that neither of them should touch her. People would talk as it was, but if they were both seen getting familiar with her, he didn't want to think about what people would call her—and he couldn't have that. Humans could be so short-sighted.
The three of them would have to figure out how to handle things at work. It would be easier if the they weren’t working together—less chance for co-workers to get ideas. And he still didn’t want Bethany working in such a rough environment, no matter how much she protested. So maybe he’d steer her into getting a different job by pointing out how tough it would be for him and Ro to keep their hands off her. It was worth a shot.
But that was later. Now, he and Ro needed to collect their new mate and run home to mark each other.
When Bethany stepped out of the office, all of his thoughts fled. She gazed at them as they walked toward her and only the humans around them kept Coop from racing to her and kissing her the way he’d wanted to all day.
Doing construction work with a hard-on that didn’t want to go away was hell.
Having Ro nearby all day didn’t help. Before they’d found Bethany, working with Ro had been fun. Now, Coop wanted Ro as much as he wanted Bethany, and every time Ro’s scent wafted past his nose, Coop’s cock got a little harder.
It had been a rough day.
But now it was over. Ro and Coop had been silent as they gathered their things and walked across the site to the office where they’d get Bethany. As they neared her, close enough that Coop knew she could hear them, he said to Ro, “We’ll go to my place.”
“Mine is closer,” Ro said.
Coop hesitated a moment. Closer was better. But he wanted to establish early on that he was the alpha of their little trio–and what better way to do that than to claim his mates in his home, his territory? He was just lucky he didn’t live in pack territory, or he wouldn’t be able to take either of his mates there. “My place.”
Ro growled softly but didn’t say anything, so Coop took that as assent. The two men stopped a couple of feet from Bethany.
“All ready?” Coop said.
She nodded, a soft blush spreading across her cheeks. He couldn’t wait to have her spread out beneath him on the bed and to see exactly how far down her chest the pink blush reached. It took all of his control to keep from dragging her into his arms and kissing her.
The three of them hurried out of the site to Coop’s pickup truck. He boosted Bethany into the cab, savoring the feel of her waist and hips under his hands, while Ro slid in the other side. As soon as they had Bethany settled between them, Ro took her hand in his.
“I’m dying,” Ro said.
“Me too.” Her voice shivered across Coop’s skin.
They pulled out of the lot and into traffic. “Just a few minutes and we’ll be at my place. Let’s not get any indecent exposure citations along the way,” Coop said.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ro tugged Bethany’s hand onto his lap. “As soon as we’re clear of the work site, I’m kissing her.”
“Who says you get to kiss her first?” Coop said.
Ro grinned. “You decided that when you insisted we go to your place.” As the truck turned a corner, Ro watched the construction site recede behind a building. Then he reached for Bethany.
Coop bit his tongue to keep from protesting. Ro was right—Coop should have thought about this when he’d insisted on taking them to his place in his truck. He’d have to make the best of it.
As Ro’s dark head lowered toward Bethany’s, Coop reached over and rested his hand on her thigh. He’d be as much a part of their kiss as he could while still keeping the truck on the road.
A soft moan came from Bethany. Coop risked a quick glance to see Ro kissing her, one hand cupping her cheek while the other rested on her hip. His fingers brushed back and forth against her waist.
Coop’s hand tightened on her thigh as he dragged his gaze back to the road. If he crashed, it would take even longer to get his two mates into bed.
Ro and Bethany continued to make out the entire ten minutes it took Coop to drive to his house. Every second of that time, he fought the urge to pull over and join them. But he hadn’t been kidding about indecent exposure citations. Wolves in the middle of the mating urge were fully capable of having a three-way parked at the curb of a busy street, and the police tended to frown on that.
Once the truck was inside the garage and he’d hit the button to close the door, Coop launched himself across the cab of his truck toward his mates. His arms slid around Bethany and he pulled her toward him, back to front. “You should have waited.” His voice came out as a growl.
He brushed the edges of his fangs over her throat then kissed it. Then he pulled her back against him, leaning around her until he could press his lips against hers.
As he drowned in her, he lost track of all else–the truck, the garage—nothing else mattered but the feel of her mouth and the touch of Ro’s hand against Coop’s leg.
But he wasn’t going to mark his mates in the garage. He yanked himself away from Bethany’s kiss. “Inside. Now.” His voice sounded even harsher than before, and he knew his wolf was fighting to come out.
Bethany moaned in protest, but Coop pushed open the driver side door and pulled her out with him.
“We’re doing this in a bed,” he said, teeth grinding against each other.
Ro beat them to the inside door, opening it and walking backward into Coop’s house so he could rest his hands on Bethany’s hips. “Where’s the bedroom?”
The kitchen, hall and stairs flashed by as Coop led his mates to the master bedroom. A king-size bed sat in the middle of the room, sheets and comforter balled up on the edge, just as he’d left it that morning. He knew he should feel chagrined that the bed wasn’t neatly made but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He swept the covers onto the floor to get them out of the way and turned to his mates.
As tempting as Bethany looked, Coop had needed to kiss Ro all day. He put his hands on the sides of Ro’s throat, thumbs against his jaw, and pulled him in for a long, soul-searching kiss.
Ro grabbed him and yanked him against his body, holding him tight with arms well-muscled from work. Their tongues tangled, warring with each other as Coop adjusted his hold and got as good a grip on Ro as he had on him.
Then Bethany touched them, her hands lightly brushing their biceps. What had been explosive became a conflagration. More than anything, Coop wanted to use his claws to quickly remove his mates’ clothes so he could dive into them.
He pulled his mouth away, breathing heavily. “Clothes off.” He could no longer handle full sentences. “Then bed.”
It hurt to let go of his mates, so he practically pushed them away, yanking his shirt and undershirt over his head with one hand, then fumbling at the button and zipper on his jeans. All the while, his eyes devoured his mates as they disrobed, Ro as frantic as Coop, Bethany more slowly, a blush stealing up her neck. She took off her shoes and then her stockings, giving him a teasing look at her legs but not revealing what he really wanted to see.
He fought the urge to go to her, finally conquering his zipper and kicking his pants off. “Don’t be nervous, sweetie.”
Her eyes flickered in his direction, catching his gaze for an instant before she looked away. “I haven’t done this before.”
Hunger Moon Page 1