First Heat

by Jenna Kernan

  First Heat

  Jenna Kernan

  Skinwalker Hunter Ortiz had been forced to leave Lena Coble, the only woman he’s ever wanted since his tumultuous teen years. Now he’s back in time for her first heat—and to claim her before other wolf shifters can take advantage of the unfamiliar desire taking hold of her. But once he saves her, will he be able to walk away from her again?

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter One

  Someone was watching her.

  Evalena Coble set her grande coffee on the condiment station as she scanned the customers of the University Café, where she worked, for the threat she sensed. And saw him again. Damn, her neck was prickling.

  Outside the picture window stood that same guy, the big, intimidating one she’d seen uptown. He stared at her with his dark brows drawn low over his crystal blue eyes. His intent focus made her stomach flip. Had he followed her all the way down here from CCNY?

  His hands were thrust in the pockets of his green army fatigue jacket, hunched as if against the cold, but it didn’t disguise the breadth of his shoulders or the lean musculature of his frame. Suddenly, Evalena had trouble catching her breath. Was he stalking her?

  She noticed that everyone on the busy sidewalk beyond the plate glass gave him a wide berth. She had done the same thing earlier, yet here he was tracking her like some damned bloodhound.

  She didn’t think he was a cop, not with such a lean face and shaggy black hair. Cops usually looked well groomed and well fed, while this one had a hunger in his eyes that she recognized. He appeared as ready to bite your hand off as let you pet him.

  Beside her, a perky coed stood holding the cinnamon shaker poised motionless above her latte.

  “That hot guy is staring at you,” she said.

  At these words, Lena’s familiar surroundings no longer seemed safe. Every nerve ending stood on alert. She glanced at her manager and wondered if she’d find safety behind the counter. Then her eye shifted toward the door, only a few feet to his right. Her instinct was to run.

  “Don’t come in,” Lena breathed to herself.

  But he did, jerking the door open with unnecessary force. Damn, he was heading straight for her. The smell of coffee, cinnamon and nutmeg was overshadowed by his scent —one that seemed familiar and yet new.

  The prickling at her neck snaked down her spine.

  Lena didn’t know why, but this guy made her insides ring like a firehouse during a five-alarm blaze.

  Their eyes met. His were framed with spiky black lashes, set below a prominent brow. The guy’s skin had a golden-brown glow that said he liked tanning or was of mixed race, just like her. He looked young, focused and dangerous.

  Lena followed her instincts and headed the other way, removing her apron and dropping it on an open seat.

  She needed to ditch her pursuer. The guy was as persistent as a bedbug and just as unwelcome. Lena wanted to belong, just not to a man. She knew too many girls who got tangled up with the wrong guy, and she planned to stay clear of such relationships.

  Why couldn’t she be like the self-absorbed coeds around her who had nothing more to do than study and drink beer?

  But she knew why. She didn’t have the safety net that parents provided. Since she’d turned eighteen and was declared an adult by the state of New York, she didn’t even have the group home. Aging out of the foster care system had thrown Lena out on her own. It wasn’t going well. This job kept her fed, two meals a day, mostly carbs, when combined with her job as a cashier at the drug store on 14th Street, she paid most of her expenses but she didn’t have much time to study and the classes were way harder than she’d anticipated. If she failed out, she’d loose her housing, bus card and Medicaid.

  She’d be on the street.

  Later, her mind whispered. Right now she faced a whole week ahead of her with the residence hall locked up tight. Looked like she’d have to try to plead with her fellow employees for help. It was so hard not having a family, parents…a home.

  Lena abandoned her coffee, heading in the opposite direction, retrieving the backpack that contained all the possessions she had until the residence hall reopened next Sunday. Then she skirted the western edge of the park, watching as the crisp autumn day receded to evening. For safety, she stayed close to the waist-high, wrought-iron fence that enclosed the neat three-story brick buildings. The streetlights already hummed a warning of impending darkness, yet she could see everything. At night, objects lost color, but she could make them out in nearly perfect clarity.

  Lena glanced at the wide marble banisters sweeping up elegant staircases, leading to doorways flanked with pillars; the kind of doors that were not opened to the likes of her. One of the little wrought-iron gates was ajar. Her pursuer intercepted her there.

  How had he gotten ahead of her?

  He dragged Lena back behind the tree and shrubs, and pushed her up against the wall.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said. His mouth turned up as if this were all some thrilling game instead of her life. His grip was strong, too strong for her to break unless she landed a lucky blow. The triumph in his eyes pissed her off.

  “I’ll scream,” she promised.

  His brow knit. “Don’t you remember me, Lena?”

  He knew her name. How did he know her name?

  “Hunter Ortiz,” he whispered.

  Lena knew him, or had known him, back in the group home when she was thirteen and he was fifteen. Five years…and a lifetime ago. He was so change she hadn’t recognized him, a man now, with lean angular features and a big, muscular body. She looked at his eyes, still familiar, still haunting. Was the boy she had once trusted still there inside this stranger?

  Back then she had wanted out of school and foster care, but not badly enough to follow a half-wild boy, even if she had loved him wholly and foolishly. Had he, too, spent nights sleeping in cardboard boxes and on doorsteps? After her last court appearance, the one where the State of New York declared her an emancipated adult, she’d secured an independent living counselor, but it was two long summer months before she qualified for housing at CCNY and entered the program that might sustain her until she hit twenty-one, if she didn’t fail out.

  What had he been through? Hunter certainly had a hungry look about him.

  Had he found them?

  He’d been so sure that both of their parents had just made a mistake and couldn’t find them. She’d so wanted to believe him, but she knew the truth, even then.

  Her parents weren’t searching for her.

  She still wanted a family, but not with her parents. She’d given up on them because they’d given up on her. Now she planned to make her own goddamn family. But first she needed a home and a job, because she wasn’t bringing a child into this world until she could take care of herself.

  She scrutinized the man’s angular features and intent eyes, searching for the boy she’d once known. Could it really be him?

  His nod was almost imperceptible. She inhaled his scent and found traces of the familiar. For eight months of her life, she’d had someone she cared about and someone who cared for her.

  “You,” she breathed, feeling again the knife-blade of pain, reliving the hurt of Hunter abandoning her just like everyone else.

  He’d been one of the few people she let get close. She hadn’t expected him to return, just one more promise broken. Her life was littered with them.

  She stared up into his eyes, the boy she once knew, the stranger he had become. Before leaving, he’d asked her to join him. Lena almost had, but she’d been too scared. Then he was gone and she was alone ag
ain. She’d missed him ever since. Served her right for letting him in. Well, she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He couldn’t just pop back into her life and expect her to throw a party.

  He captured her upper arm. “Come with me.”

  She pulled back, refusing to let him hurt her again. She had her life, he had his. No men until she could take care of herself. That included Hunter Ortiz.

  “No.”

  “Lena.” His voice chastened.

  She stiffened her spine. “I have a place to sleep.”

  His forehead wrinkled and he frowned, looking as if she’d hurt him somehow. Then he rallied, setting his mouth in a stubborn line that she recalled was an indication of his fathomless determination. He stroked her jaw with the backs of his index and middle fingers and then captured her neck in a move so quick she didn’t have time to evade. He leaned in, his warm breath fanning her cheek.

  “Choose me,” he said.

  “What? Let go.”

  He didn’t. His mouth turned and grim. “You prefer one of the others?”

  “Prefer? What others? Let go, Hunter. I’ve got to get to class.”

  His laugh was resonant and made her stomach quiver.

  “School’s closed this week. There’s no class. Besides, they can still sense something is wrong with you even without knowing exactly what it is. You belong with your own kind.”

  He was freaking her out. This was definitely not the boy she remembered. He had a raw hunger and dangerous sexuality that sent a shiver skittering up her spine. She tried to jerk away and he didn’t move a millimeter. Once she realized she was his prisoner, he let her go.

  “You want me to challenge them, is that it?” He moved so fast his action seemed a blur. An eye blink later he clasped the hair on the back of her head, controlling her. He leaned close as if he meant to kiss her. When his lips were a mere breath from hers, he whispered to her. “I’ll win. I always win.”

  He released her again and she staggered back.

  “The others are near.” He turned his head and glanced about. “Soon.”

  With those cryptic words he backed up, leaning against the wide marble banister.

  “I’ll be close.” Then he winked.

  Lena stepped forward to watch him cross the street and melt into the park. She knew he was only twenty, yet something about him made him seem much older.

  She tried and failed to shake off the chill brought on by Hunter Ortiz as much as the autumn breeze. She was too unsettled to return to work, so she made her way to the dorm where a coworker lived. These residences didn’t close down like hers. Security called her friend who consented to come escort her in. She planned to sleep in the lounge, but as luck would have it, her friend said she could flop in the bed vacated by her carousing roommate.

  By eleven she was tucked in with a clean foam pillow and a down comforter that smelled of fabric softener and the home Lena had never had.

  But sleep brought her that same damned dream. Now there were six men pursuing her, each one with the same crystal blue eyes. They chased, she ran, until she was chasing as well, running with the pack, taking down the elk, shredding its hamstring and tearing into warm red meat as the elk screamed.

  An echoing scream startled her awake. An unfamiliar woman stood in the open doorway, shrieking and pointing at Lena.

  Behind her, her coworker scrambled to her feet on her twin bed, dragging the blankets with her.

  “Who let that dog in here?” she screeched.

  “That’s no dog,” said the other woman. “It’s a damned wolf.”

  “Get it out!”

  Lena reached for her backpack and saw her furred front paw. She yelped and ran, her toenails clicking on the tile of the hallway, her long white T-shirt flapping about her like a shroud. She reached the open elevator and swept in as a young man in a hooded sweatshirt backed up to admit her.

  He hit the button for the lobby, but did not leave the car.

  “I’m Tyler,” he said. He lowered his hood, revealing chestnut hair and a lean face, punctuated with those clear blue eyes. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  Lena paced like a caged animal.

  “First time?”

  Was this still her nightmare or could this really be happening?

  “Never smelled one so strong. I’m not the first here am I?” He hit the stop button then raised his voice to be heard over the alarm. “Why don’t you shift back so we can take care of business right here?”

  He squatted before her, holding a hand out, and then made a lunge for her. Lena bit his forearm, sinking her long white teeth deep, tasting blood.

  She rose on her hind legs, her forepaws hitting the red button. The alarm ceased and the elevator descended. Tyler slumped in the corner below the hand rail, clutching his bleeding arm to his stomach.

  “Bitch. I’ll see you pay for this. Not going to take you easy.” He pushed himself up and staggered after her like a zombie. Lena pressed back until her tail hit the stainless steel wall.

  Wake up! Wake up!

  The door dinged open and Lena ran. Tyler followed. She skidded to a stop by the revolving doors.

  “No animals in here,” called the security officer at the desk.

  “Fuck off,” called Tyler as he made a grab for her, missed and fell against the panic bar of the emergency exit.

  Outside she could see clearly, well beyond the circular pools cast by streetlights all the way into the dark corners. That’s when she saw two more men, waiting.

  “Back off, fellas,” said Tyler. “I got here first.”

  Lena ran, darting down Third Avenue, past a woman walking a shaggy mop of a dog that leapt from her as if she meant to kill it. She ran on all-fours, low to the ground, fast, terrified. Behind her the men pursued, shouting as they came. She bolted down Sullivan and into an alley, hoping to hide from them.

  What’s happening to me?

  A delivery van blocked her way, filling the narrow gap, the mirrors practically brushing the brickwork on each side. Lena dove under the truck, emerging beneath the front bumper and then slid to a halt. A chain fence thwarted her escape.

  To her right was a battered dumpster. To the left stood Hunter Ortiz, eyes glowing an inhuman reflective green in the shadowy passage.

  The others entered from the street.

  “Looks like you got what you wanted. It’s going to be a flat-out brawl for rights to you. You’ll get the strongest among us. And that will be me.” Hunter stepped past her, his voice low and dangerous. “If someone gets killed, it’s on you.”

  Chapter Two

  Hunter Ortiz stepped out to meet the other males, placing himself between them and the female in heat. There would be no stopping them unless he won. Lena had gone too far. The question now was not if, but who and how.

  One of them would have her, maybe more than one. He prayed to the Great Spirit that it would be him. He’d never before been bested in such a contest. But he’d never taken on five at once, either.

  Since leaving Manhattan, Hunter had stayed out of cities, away from humans and away from she-wolf Skinwalkers when possible. But he knew Lena’s age, knew she’d becoming into her first heat and that this was his last, best chance to find her. So he’d come back, praying to the Great Spirit that she had stayed in the Metro area and not gotten on a bus to somewhere, as so many foster children did. When he’d first scented her the relief had been so deep it had buckled his knees. Lena was here. He had found her, the only girl he’d ever connected with or trusted, the girl from the group home, Starr Otis House, in the Bronx where he had spent the last four hellish years before running, the girl who he had known, even then, was just like him. This was Evalena, the only female he ever wanted, lost and now found. But, to his misery, she did not even remember him.

  He told himself it did not matter. It was his need to mate had brought him to her. But now that he’d seen her, he knew he had deluded himself. It did matter because all this time he had been waiting for this one�
�s call.

  He advanced, facing the others as they stalked forward, still in their human forms.

  Why hadn’t she accepted him when he had offered? Did she need to see their blood? Did it arouse her to know they would all fight to the death for the chance to have her? It was her right to take only the strongest.

  So be it.

  The five glanced from one to the next. If they were wise they’d come at him all at once and then deal with each other afterward. He knew there would be no sharing. No male would tolerate another near her. Hadn’t his own father chased Hunter from his pack the very day his sire perceived his son as a threat? That humiliating defeat had been his last.

  The tallest stepped before him. “Stand aside or die.”

  Short and sweet. Hunter liked that. The others hung back, hopeful that the two of them would kill each other and leave the female to them, or be so injured as to be forced to withdraw.

  In answer to the challenge he motioned with his fingers.

  Did she watch him, judge him? Here was her own private coliseum with him and his fellows serving as her personal gladiators.

  He’d known other she-wolves who became aroused by the spectacle of their male counterparts battling to win them.

  We who are about to die salute you.

  Ah, now that was the trick, to win and still be whole enough to take her. Would Lena bear him a child, or was it true that he was sterile because of his refusal to take women who were not in heat?

  Unnatural, they had called him. Were he able to deny a female’s first heat, he would have walked away from all of them. Except Lena. He couldn’t resist her, could never resist her, even as a boy, damn her to the Circle of Ghosts.

  Were it up to him, he’d not have a child, for he could not face chasing off his son one day, scaring him, hurting him. It was a betrayal so deep, it made him sick. Yet his father had done so, as if Hunter could ever have been so twisted as to seek out his mother.