A shimmering gold pendant set with a glossy black stone hung from his fingers on a slender chain. My fingers curled with desire to snatch the bauble and examine it. When he coiled it in my palm and folded my hand closed over it, my covetous heart fluttered despite the blow he had dealt it.
My first treasure—the first spoils earned during my journey—warmed my hand.
“This is yours.” He tapped my clenched fist. “Or it can be if you earn it.”
“A net is all you want?” I wanted to be very sure. “I can weave a large one in two days.”
Appearing to consider my question, he finally said, “A net is all I require.”
Aware of the thin line I tread, unsure why I did so, I nudged him. “Is that all you want?”
“Would you give me more?” His voice took on a rugged quality that gave me chills.
“It depends.” I laughed to loosen the knot in my chest. “What else is in that cache of yours?”
The grin spreading across his face made him dangerously handsome. “Perhaps I’ll show you sometime.” He stepped back and exposed an intricate metal trap set in the stone wall with silvery metal teeth and serrated jaws. I watched him slide five pins into the hinged joints before looking away. His tone was apologetic. “In case you’re tempted to double back and treasure hunt alone.”
“Put your mind at ease.” I wiggled my fingers. “I value my hands too much to risk them.”
He captured my wrist and brought my hand to his mouth, where he kissed my pointer finger.
The gesture was so tender, so unexpected, it shattered me. “Tell me about your wife.”
“We should leave.” He swept past me without a backward glance. “It’s getting late.”
Knowing I should let it go, doubting he would answer me, I caught his arm. “One question.”
His head fell back, and his eyes drank in the sky over our heads. “One.”
“Did you love her?” It was the most important thing I could think to ask.
“Yes.” He shrugged free of me, and I was left alone with the fruits of my curiosity.
Sometimes a secret goes to the grave. Sometimes Secret puts you there.
Grave Secret
© 2013 Sierra Dean
Secret McQueen, Book 5
It’s been a hell of a year for Secret McQueen, and the last thing in the world she wants is to get caught up in werewolf drama. But when her former fiancé Lucas Rain shows up asking for her help, she knows there’s no easy way out.
After making it known she wants nothing to do with him, Secret agrees to help find Lucas’s wayward sister Kellen. After all, how much trouble could one socialite get into in the city that never sleeps?
Unless that socialite has been spirited away by fairies.
Trying to track down a missing girl in an alternate reality is just the start of Secret’s problems, though. Someone appears to be killing teenagers, and the MO looks eerily similar to something for which the half-fairy oracle, Calliope, might be responsible. Throw in a rogue wolf pack claiming allegiance to Secret’s mother, Mercy, and she’ll have miles to go before she rests.
Warning: This book contains a promise fulfilled, sex that’s out of this world, and more heartache than one hybrid assassin can handle.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Grave Secret:
Stepping into the cool night, I was on edge.
I was also expecting the attack.
Expectation didn’t make the punch across my face hurt any less.
The werewolf had at least been smart enough to wait until I was away from the small line of businesses and had crossed the street towards a darker area where nothing was open. I’d smelled dirt before he hit me, but the punch landed square on my jaw, knocking my head to the side and making me see stars.
This bugger was strong.
I staggered and regained my footing, but he was already on the move. I tried to get a fix on his scent. Having met all the wolves in both Lucas’s and Callum’s packs, I was certain I’d be able to tell if he belonged to one or the other. He smelled completely foreign.
Ducking, I avoided the next swing and darted a fist into the meat of his belly. He swore and stumbled backwards. I reached for my gun, but he’d righted himself and dove at me, knocking me back into the wall, smacking my skull against the brick.
“Who are you?” I demanded before head-butting him.
He took two steps back, and I unholstered my weapon, training the armed gun on him in lightning speed before he decided to make another jump at me.
“Answer my question or lose the top of your head.”
He laughed. Well, this brought back memories. It had been a long time since someone had laughed while they were fighting me. “I don’t need to answer to you,” he replied.
“Mr. SIG P226 would like to suggest otherwise.”
The werewolf chuckled again, but between the two of us, I had a gun and he had a bloody nose.
“I’m going to ask one more time, and I’d really appreciate if we could bypass the whole I’m a scary werewolf and you’re Little Red Riding Hood bullshit, okay? Who are you?”
“A loyalist.”
“Loyal to what?”
“The true queen.”
In spite of the general warmth of the night air, I was suddenly freezing. “What did you say?”
“The true queen.” This time he spit at the ground in front of my feet.
I’d heard this before, the delusional ramblings about rightful queens. A lot of people didn’t believe I deserved to wear a werewolf crown, and I wasn’t disagreeing with them. But two had gone to great lengths to see me lose my head rather than have it be the one wearing a tiara. One of them was in Siberia.
Morgan Scott wasn’t the werewolf I was worried about when faced with this wild-eyed stranger.
“Do you mean Mercy McQueen?”
“The queen,” he corrected.
Oh sweet merciful crap. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate right now.
“My mother sent you?”
That stopped his laughter. “Your mother?” He must not have been too bright if he hadn’t sorted the connection out on his own.
“Secret,” I replied, pointing to myself. “McQueen.”
“The pretender.”
“Oh for the love of God,” I groaned.
The wolf advanced, trying to punch me again. His strike glanced off my shoulder, and I replied by cold-cocking him with the gun. “Stop that.”
He was slumped against the brick wall, glaring up at me. His expression said, When I stop being concussed, I’m going to get you really good.
“What bullshit line is she feeding you now to make you believe she’s the rightful queen of anything?”
“Ian, don’t answer her.” A few feet away a trio of men had arrived to join our party. Awesome, so Mercy had more than one lackey believing her lies now. And me with only the one gun. The three new wolves drew closer, and much to my chagrin I recognized one of them. The scrawny, racist asshole I’d met in Callum’s compound the previous month. I’d enjoyed meeting him so much I’d introduced him to my fist.
“Hank,” I growled.
“Princess.”
“You in charge of this charade?”
The man in the middle of the group, whose dark hair was pulled into a ponytail and looked like he hadn’t shaved in days, laughed at my question. “We answer to the queen.”
“I’m no expert in werewolf politics, boys, but I know whose territory you’re in, and the only queen here is not the one giving you orders.” None of these wolves had been part of Marcus’s hostile takeover attempts, so where were they getting this queen garbage from?
“Our queen has been misplaced from her territory,” Pony-boy replied, casting a glance to Hank. “So she’s looking for a new throne. Yours.”
“Mine isn’t currently available.”
“That can be changed.” Ian, the werewolf I’d knocked to the ground, made a grab for my ankle, and I kicked him in the head.
>
“Do you understand the hell you’ve just invited on yourselves?” My tone wasn’t threatening, it didn’t need to be. Given my history, they should have known it would take more than a few rogue wolves to get me out of Mercy’s way.
“We’ll see.”
Between Callum and Lucas, they’d signed their own death warrants. The implication, as I understood it, was that Mercy believed she was the rightful heir to the Southern kingdom. And if Callum wouldn’t give it up to her—which he wouldn’t—she was going to come east and try to lay claim to my pack.
To Lucas’s pack.
And she was doing it right when he was at his weakest.
Which meant if Kellen wasn’t sunning herself on a beach somewhere, my mother might be behind her disappearance. The thought that Kellen might be in trouble because of me made me sick. I couldn’t bring this kind of darkness on the people in my life anymore.
At least I knew now what Mercy had been up to since the last time she’d tried to kill me: building her own little werewolf cult.
“She should have told you it wouldn’t be that easy to get rid of me.”
Pony-boy gave me a wry smile. “She did.”
“You should have listened.”
Running Free
Jorrie Spencer
She is the one wolf who can tame his feral spirit.
A Northern Shifters Story
A year and a half ago, if someone had told Zach that he’d be guardian to the creature he distrusts most—a wolf shifter—he’d have laughed. A half-broken horse shifter as father figure? No way.
Now, he’d kill to protect the pup he found lost in the woods—and he has. Which, unfortunately, has attracted the attention of Wolf Town’s alpha.
Sally prefers to keep a low profile among her fellow shifters in Wolf Town. Yet when she’s asked to investigate a pup living outside the safety of the pack, she can’t bring herself to refuse.
From the moment Zach meets the new piano teacher, his world tilts. Her scent gets under his skin. Her touch retrieves missing pieces of his memory. But even as their blazing attraction flares out of control, trust is the hardest to give, and the one thing they both need if they’re to save the boy from another attack.
Warning: This book contains violence and sex, though not at the same time. Be advised, the protective shifters may cause you to want to move to Wolf Town.
eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Running Free
Copyright © 2013 by Jorrie Spencer
ISBN: 978-1-61921-157-5
Edited by Sasha Knight
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2013
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Look for these titles by Jorrie Spencer
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Copyright Page
Running Free (Northern Shifters) Page 18