One Last Try
Page 14
“Oh?” The bubble of laughter that worked from my chest surprised me. “I do, huh?”
“Yes, you do.” A husky rumble vibrated the wall of his chest, pressed close to my ear. “You’re here, giving me—us—one last try.”
The moon squatted low in the sky, a super moon according to the news reports that had streamed into Asa’s phone earlier that morning. My tongue lolled from my snout as I studied it through leaves washed silver by its light. Didn’t look super to me. The moon was the moon. Constant in its endless variety, from the feeble gleam of the first quarter fingernail crescent to the solid white orb that glowed as bright as a second sun to my wolf’s eyes.
I sniffed in contempt. Super moons? Must be a human thing.
My ears peaked to take in an explosion of yips and barks in the distance, echoing from the valley over the next ridge if my sense of direction wasn’t wrong, and after years of practicing what sounds to avoid, I knew I wasn’t. The pack gathered there in celebration. A pack alpha didn’t often win his mate. My scent and Dio’s had finally blended, proving our two had become one. I’d relented about sleeping in his bed. Well, on Dio’s mattresses, at least for a little while. I’d accepted his offer to create a pyre of the chipboard travesty of his old bed, having hauled the sleigh bed I’d built as a replacement and my gift to him—to us—only that evening. Next project up for me was the cured walnut I’d selected to make Dr. Bennet an acceptable desk for his office at Westfield, but tomorrow would be soon enough. Tonight wasn’t for work. Tonight honored mates and the bonds of love.
Though Dio waited in the clearing just ahead, more than my mate offered such precious treasure to me there. My pack cared for me too. I was slowly learning to accept that.
A single joyous howl cracked the cacophony of giddy yipping to tickle my sensitive ears and my paws scratched the dirt. I would recognize that voice, man or shifter, anywhere. Asa. Few in the pack were happier for me than my friend. The others rejoiced, pranced, and played. Before the moon sank below the horizon, they’d hunt as a group to take down a deer that would be the center of my and Dio’s mating feast. The glee in Asa’s howl, quickly joined by our pack, told the tale, though. Asa, who knew me better than anyone outside Dio, was delirious in his gladness at welcoming me home.
And I was home. My heart claimed Asa as my brother, more and better than Joth had ever been to me. Love included Maise in my family too. Odday and Veradek. All of them. I was theirs and they were mine. Imperfect. Flawed. A little different and sometimes lost, but together again. Pack, again.
Dio was mine too.
My paws turned toward the glad noises of the others, instead of away. An answering eager hunger for my mate and my people lit me up brighter than the super moon shining down and burned more fiercely than any sun. I raced through the woods, scaring forest animals into the brush as I sped by.
Running. Forever running.
This time, heart happy, I ran to where I belonged.
THE END
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Other shifter stories by Kari Gregg…
STRAY
With a lycan father, a human mother, and the human side of his genetic makeup dominant, Luke left his birth pack to try living among humans, but he felt awkward and uncomfortable isolated from the culture that raised him. He’s still searching for where he fits in.
After losing his family in a vicious attack, Dean rebuilt his pack by accepting loners, rejects, other survivors, and even ferals. He and his ragtag group of strays made a warm and welcoming home.
Luke believes he’s finally found where he belongs. Meddling parents and a neighbor who isn’t as human as he seems won’t sway him. Luke wants Dean to take in one last stray… him.
Content Warning: Shifter knotting/tying, mating heats (yes, plural), and jerky!
PRETTY POISON
Deadly poison… or exquisite cure?
Noah fell from an eighth story balcony as a toddler, cracking open his skull and shattering his body. The accident would've killed a human, but even shifter blood can't heal some damage. After the pack recommended a mercy killing, Noah's family ran. But there's no outrunning the mating pact formed before Noah's birth.
Wade, the new alpha, chooses an adult Noah to fulfill the pact. Wade believes the previous alpha was a fool to reject Noah as a weak and inferior wolf, but Noah's family was wrong to hide him and starve his wolf, too. Human doctors with human medicines are poison to shifter physiology. Now that Noah is fully grown, halting his shift to retain the pins, plates, and bars holding him together hurts rather than helps him, and for Wade, more than Noah's recovery is at stake.
Noah's family sacrificed everything to keep him alive. Noah will do whatever it takes to save them--including mate with the alpha who is determined to correct past mistakes and defeat old prejudices contaminating the shifter community.
Too bad some still believe Noah is the true poison… and should be culled from the pack for good.
Content Warnings: Dubious consent, shifter knotting/tying, and Nerf gun assassination attempts. Ereaders (and you) may spontaneously combust--Don't say I didn't warn you.
TAME A WILD HUMAN
Drugged, bound, and left as bait on the cusp of the lunar cycle, Wyatt Redding is faced with a terrifying set of no-win scenarios. Best case: he survives the coming days as a werewolf pack’s plaything and returns to the city as a second-class citizen with the mark — and protection — of the pack. Worst case: the wolves sate their lusts with Wyatt’s body, then send him home without their protection, condemning him to live out the rest of his short life as a slave to the worst of humanity’s scorn and abuse.
Wyatt’s only chance is to swallow every ounce of pride, bury his fear, and meekly comply with every wicked desire and carnal demand the wolf pack makes of him. He expects three days of sex and humiliation. What he doesn’t expect is to start enjoying it. Or to grow attached to his captor and pack Alpha, Cole.
As the lunar cycle ends, Wyatt begins to realize that the only thing to fear more than being sent home without the pack’s protection is being sent home at all.
READER DISCRETION ADVISED.
I, OMEGA
After one mind-shattering night with a stranger at a local leather bar leaves him forever changed, Gabriel lives on the streets as a vagrant to elude the master who hunts him, but the shifter is a fierce, stubborn predator who reclaims him soon enough. Gabriel is carried away to the pack’s home territory where his instruction on what it means to be the pet of an alpha begins. Gabriel isn’t just any pet, though. He is the rarest among their kind: a human omega.
Treasured? Or cursed?
As Gabriel’s father, the Distinguished Gentleman from Pennsylvania and stalwart of the conservative party, pushes the considerable resources at his disposal to locate his missing son, Gabriel explores who and what he is under his master’s careful protection. Gabriel falls for the shifter who is lover and destroyer, owner and… friend?
Content Warnings: Dubious consent, lotsa kink, and an embarrassment of riches in hormonal anarchy – RAWR!
Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. When Kari’s not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked mud-wrestling (not really), and…coffee! If you would like to catch up with Kari, caffeinate yourself and head to KariGregg.com.
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Also by Kari Gregg:
Lovely Wicked
Spoils of War
Plunder (Spoils of War #2)
“You Melted Me”
What Rough Beast (Out of
Print)
“The Importance of Being Denny”
I, Omega
Collared
In the Red
“Foreshock”
I Don’t: A Christmas Wish
Half a Million Dead Cannibals
An Unauthorized Field Guide to the Hunt
“Mating Season,” Bump in the Night
Pretty Poison
Tame a Wild Human
Act One: Safe Travels (For Whom the Heart Stone Burns)
Act Two: New Beginnings (For Whom the Heart Stone Burns)
“Sightings”
Stray