by Cathryn Fox
He has no idea how they were first found and recognized as shifters by men in America, and doesn’t suppose he’ll ever know. All he knows is he wants to keep the others in his pride safe, and the best way he knows how is by staying on American soil and stopping the hunters before they set out to trap another.
As I think about that, and all that has happened over the last month, my lids slip shut. With Logan beside me, keeping watch over me, I allow myself to drift off until we reach my father’s estate.
Once we’re sure there are no other panthers stalking the compound, we make our way up the winding path. With the plan to spend one more night here to rest up before we take off to Richmond’s Village in the Jasper Mountains, we all climb from the car. Once inside the house, I talk quietly to the guards about my father as everyone makes their way to their rooms.
After speaking with the guards, I walk to the kitchen while the others prepare for bed. That’s when I see a manila envelope on the table, addressed to me.
My pulse leaps as I pick it up. I carefully peel it open and when I glance inside to see a stack of pictures, emotions bombard me, because deep in my heart I know. I know my father left this because he never expected to come back.
Logan steps up behind me, “You okay?”
“I’m okay,” I answer and while I can’t bear to look at the photos, there is a part of me that takes great comfort in knowing my father was watching over me all these years, the best way he knew how.
I draw in a breath, and when I pull in the estate’s aroma and a different, yet familiar scent fills my senses, a new calmness comes over me. As Logan stands with his back to my chest, and my skin begins to prickle, I know my fight is not quite over.
I put the envelope down, and turn to Logan. “I need to be alone for a minute, okay?” While it’s not a lie, it’s not entirely true either. But I need him to walk away, because the fight I’m about to face is my fight and mine alone.
Logan hesitates for a moment, and I feel tension ripple through his body. “Okay,” he says, and when he steps away, a chill moves through me, partly from the loss of his heat, and partly from the scent that is souring my stomach.
I feel Logan hovering on the outer edges of my thoughts. He’s an alpha. A protector. I know it’s not easy for him to step back and let me do what I have to do, but I love the faith he has in my abilities, and love even more that while he’s walked away, he’s still staying close.
With movements that are swift and purposeful, I head straight to the kitchen drawer, and pull it open. When I find what I’m looking for, what I’d discovered days earlier, I spin around and come face to face with the man from my nightmares.
“Pride,” he greets me, flecks of pewter puncturing his cruel eyes. Then he gives me a brutal grin and I watch his bones shift, his body preparing to morph, to kill the young pup who has given him nothing but trouble. “I should have known I could never take you by surprise.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice hard, my wolf waiting for the signal, but I don’t need my wolf for this battle. No. The girl in me is going to take this fight on. “Why did you force Sandy to change you?”
He grunts deep in his throat. “Come on, Pride. You’re smarter than that.”
I stare at his face and note how much he’s aged over the last few weeks and the sight of his tired eyes has me thinking of my father. That’s when the pieces of the puzzle come together. “You were sick,” I say. “You were dying.”
His grin is dark, menacing. “And now I’m not.”
“We can get sick and die, just like humans,” I challenge.
“Wolves live for centuries before old age kicks in, and with these new regenerative abilities, I’m as healthy as ever.” Looking a bit bored by the whole conversation he says, “Okay, let’s make this quick, shall we. I have things to do, and a few wolves to claim.”
When his eyes meet mine, I know what he’s thinking, that he’s more powerful than me now, and while I know better than to ever underestimate him, I know he’s still underestimating me.
That’s his first mistake.
I hold my ground. “Of course, old age and sickness isn’t the only way wolves can die. You of all people know that.”
Eyes unafraid as they stare at me, he lets loose a bark of laughter, and I know he sees me as no challenge. But when I take my hand out from behind my back, and he sees what I have, his laughter dies an abrupt death. I keep my wolf settled as he drops to the floor and calls on his wolf.
That’s his second mistake.
Because before he can complete his transformation, I rush at him and knowing I never should have left anything to chance, never should have assumed those panthers had killed him, I do the one thing I should have done in the first place.
I slap a collar around his neck.
His bark echoes off the walls around me, but his tortured cries are short lived. Because he’s too inexperienced to know how to leash his wild side in the midst of transformation, and there is nothing he can do to halt the shift from man to wolf, nothing he can do to prevent the collar from snapping his neck.
As I look at him, I let loose a long, piercing howl and think of all those I’ve loved and lost, all those who were tortured and abused by his hands.
All those I vowed to avenge.
I take in the unnatural angle of his head, and know in my heart that justice has finally been served.
When I look up and see Logan in the doorway, his body, heart and soul reaching out to me, I draw a deep breath, let it out ever so slowly and say, “Now it’s over.”
Epilogue
Five years later.
Pacific Ocean
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I squish the glorious white sand between my toes, my body completely warm and content as I blink against the bright sun glistening on the pacific waters. Logan waves to me from the shore, then leans down to grab the small chubby hand reaching up for him.
Using slow, careful steps they move toward me. As I watch them, my heart gives a little putter against my chest, and I grab my camera from my bag to take a picture of two of the most important people in my life.
Water drips from Logan’s beautiful, athletic body as he tosses the little blonde bundle of energy over his shoulder. He looks back at me and his smile is warm and tender when I snap the picture. I twist to put the camera away, and when I open the bag and see the stack of pictures that have been sitting there in a manila envelope untouched for five long years, I draw a deep breath, deciding today is the day. It’s time to finally face the past, and keep good on the promise I once made, one I was never sure I could keep. My shoulders stiffen, and I blow out a long slow breath as a riot of emotions moves through me.
“Hey,” Logan says when he picks up on my anxiety, speaking to me telepathically so the astute little bundle on his shoulders isn’t privy to my worries. His eyes narrow in concern. “Everything okay?”
I pat the blanket beside me. “Come sit down,” I say to him. After removing sweet little Abigail Stone from his shoulders, named after the woman who gave birth to me, and one of the alphas responsible for my life today, Logan drops down onto the blanket.
The most beautiful two year old in the world settles herself on my lap, and I hand her a juice box while I dig out the pictures.
Logan smiles at me, and brushes my hair from my shoulders. “You sure?”
I nod. “It’s time.”
“Momma.” Bright blue eyes that remind me of the ocean—remind me of freedom—blink up at me.
“Look Abby,” I say and show her the picture of me when I wasn’t much older than her.
“Abby,” she says and I smile because, except for having her father’s eyes, the similarities between mother and daughter are uncanny.
“No, it’s momma,” I correct.
“Momma,” she repeats.
We flip through a few more pictures until I come across one where I’m standing on my father’s lawn at his California mansion. It was the day we stood outside and scented the pa
nthers, the same day my father pulled grass from my hair. I think back to that moment and remember when he walked away, saying he had some last minute things to take care of. This is what he’d been up to, pulling and printing images from the security camera.
When I consider the rest of the horrible events of that day, I remember what he asked of me, and all he taught me in the short time we managed to spend together. There was a purpose to his every action, a reason for his every word. And that purpose was to prepare me.
As my heart races faster, emotions bombard me and I continue to flip through the pile. The next picture is another one of us standing together. It was only later that day that I knew why he wanted a photo of us together, united. He wanted to leave me with at least one good memory before he died.
I think about his death. All the senseless deaths from that day. I’m not proud of the killing I did. I never wanted to be an assassin. But I had to protect my family, had to let my wolf do what she needed to. Like my father once told me I would. Like he did for me.
I think about Stone, and what he, too, did for me. I used to feel him watching, but no longer do. I can only hope he’s found his path and that some girl will love him as much as I do. When I think about the kind of girl he needs, it brings a smile to my face. I know true love will happen for him one day and I also know it will be one heck of a roller coaster ride when it does.
Pulling my thoughts back, I point to my father in the picture. “This is your grand-papa.”
As I think about what my father asked of me tears cling to my lashes, and I can feel Logan inside my head, there to support me. Always there to pick me up when I’ve fallen down.
“Abby,” I begin, then go quiet for a minute, remembering how Logan once told me love was about forgiveness. “We’ve all made mistakes at one time or another. But he really loved me. Just like your papa and your momma really love you.”
“Papa,” she says this time.
I tip her chin until she’s looking up at me. “And your grand-papa would have loved you, too, Abby.”
Abby points a chubby finger at the picture, and says, “Grand-papa.”
I look past her shoulder and as I stare at the ocean I think back to five years ago when I set out on a journey to change the world so I could live a normal life. At the time I thought normal meant going to school, hanging at the mall, wearing fashionable clothes, and suppressing the primal side of me until each shift night.
I quickly learned that wasn’t my normal, and never would be. My father tried to teach me that. To prepare me for the world and to warn that if I lose my wolf, I lose the purpose of my life.
The purpose of a shifter, which is much different from the purpose of a human, is to survive, to find happiness and to protect our packs in a world that wants us all dead. In order to do that we must learn from the elders and pass on our knowledge to the youth. My father forgot his purpose, and before he died he wanted to make sure I knew mine. He followed me back to California, to confront the PTF, so I could learn those hard truths myself.
What I learned was that my purpose isn’t about going to school, working alongside humans while pretending we’re no different. Because the truth is we are different, and while I know humans will never accept us, I also understand our differences aren’t a bad thing. It’s those differences that make me who I am today, and thanks to three very important men in my life, I like the person I’ve become.
I once thought I wanted to be more human than wolf, to let that side of me die and only come out on shift night. But I was wrong. My father taught me that I can never forget the primal side of me. He was right.
I can’t allow the human side, or even the wolf side to ever overpower the other. It’s only when a happy medium is met, when I embrace and accept both sides equally that I can serve my purpose, and look to my future.
The future of my family.
Logan’s pack knew that. While they went to school, were productive members of society, and took to the woods on shift nights, they never once forgot who they were. I always thought they suppressed their primal side in order to become more human, but I was wrong about that. I was wrong about a lot of things.
But I was right about a lot of things, too.
Logan takes Abby off my lap, and pulls her to him, then he drags me into a three way embrace. As Abby spills her juice all over us and squirms her way out we both laugh, because we both know that she’s so much like me and is undoubtedly going to grow up to be a handful.
Logan’s pacific blue eyes meet mine, and my chest clenches so tightly with the love I feel for him, that I can barely fill my lungs. While I might not have lived the life of a typical teenager, when I look at my mate, my daughter, and think about all the things we’ve yet to learn, yet to teach, I know this is my normal, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Afterword
Thank You!
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Thank you so much for reading Pride’s Pursuit, book three in my Pride series. I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I loved writing it. Read on for an excerpt of Crashing Down, book one in my Stone Cliff series.
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Interested in leaving a review? Please do! Reviews help readers connect with books that work for them. I appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.
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Happy Reading,
Cathryn
Crashing Down
“You reek of sex.”
Noah Ryan grinned at his buddy Jared, a guy he’d gotten to know over the last couple of years while living and working at Stone Cliff Resort in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Taking his friend’s ribbing in stride, Noah scrubbed his hands through his disheveled hair, and sank down onto the driftwood next to him, setting his motorcycle helmet at his feet. He let his glance surf over the crowd gathered around the nightly, beachside bonfire. He zeroed in on a cute blonde with big tits and gave Jared a wry smirk. “Not yet I don’t.”
Jared reached into the cooler, pulled out a cold brew, and handed it to Noah. “Yeah, well that’s a matter of opinion.”
“Fuck you.” Noah laughed and twisted off the cap, the taste of weed and smoke scratching his dry throat like coarse sandpaper. “How the hell can I reek of sex when I just crawled out of bed, alone?”
Jared shrugged. “Well your bed smells like sex, then.”
Okay, so that was probably true. His bed likely did smell like sex. Sometimes a hard, mindless fuck chased away the chills that had taken up residency inside him since the accident a little over three years ago. Then again, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the demons managed to tunnel their way past the wall he’d built despite a warm body lying next to him.
Noah took a long pull from the bottle, and washed the grit from his throat. Too bad the alcohol did little to drown the pain that blackened his soul. Then again, did he really deserve for it to?
He worked to push all dark thoughts aside, and tried to keep things light. He nudged his friend with his elbow. “Ah, come on, Jared. Don’t be jealous ’cause I’m getting all the play and you’re not.”
Jared waved to Ryan and Bobbie, a couple of locals who had just rolled in, before he flicked his beer cap at Noah. “Yeah, well, fuck you. I get all the play I need, or I would be if you weren’t always hovering around.” Two well-built, dark-haired hotties moved in front of them, smiling flirtatiously at Noah. “Christ, Noah, what the hell is it about you?” He clucked his tongue and added, “You’re like nectar to the honey bee, my man.”
Laughing, Noah took another swig from the bottle as the cute blonde he’d been eying glanced his way. He caught the mischief in her gaze and pegged her as a local, a rich townie who’d just returned home from university. He knew her type all too well. She’d spend her days lounging on the water with her friends and her nights here at the beach, otherwise known as the Cave, where many of the resort staff and locals alike gathered for a little action. Not that he was judging her. He wasn’t. After all, unlike him she was getting an education and going pla
ces.
With exhaustion pulling at him, Noah stretched his arms over his head and stifled a yawn. He hadn’t planned on hanging out with Jared tonight, but since he couldn’t take staring at his ceiling for one more minute, he’d decided if he couldn’t sleep, he might as well get laid. The little townie gave him a look that said, come get some and his cock twitched, but before he made his move on the blonde, he shifted closer to his friend. He pulled an envelope from his back pocket and slipped it to him, wanting to do this exchange off resort and away from their manager, Donald Brake’s, watchful eye.
“Noah...” Jared looked down at the envelope and shook his head. “Shit.” He stole a quick glance around before he shoved the bills into his pocket. “But you were saving...you can’t afford—”
“And you can’t afford not to.” He looked pointedly at the swelling beneath Jared’s bruised eye. Even though he claimed the injury had happened when he fell off the raft during yesterday’s rough, white-water ride down Canyon Run, Noah knew better. Noah pitched his voice low, his words for Jared’s ears only. “You keep fucking with these guys and you’ll lose more than just your job. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jared said gravely, dark eyes cast downward in worry as he rubbed his temples with his thumbs. “Christ, I had a straight flush. I never thought I could lose.” He fisted his short-cropped hair and gave a tug. “I mean come on, what are the fucking odds that the other guy beat me with a royal flush?”
“A trillion to one,” Noah said. He didn’t need to do the mental math that came so easily to him as he finished off his beer and reached for another, handing one to Jared as well. Even though Jared was as big a fuck up as he was, the guy was a damn hard worker, and in a few short years had climbed his way up from bellboy to concierge. That job was his life, and Noah wasn’t about to stand around and see it get taken from him.