Rogue Breed (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 2)

by Thea Atkinson

  Contents

  Title Page

  THE THIRTEENTH MANNER OF LOVE

  FLEUR-DE-LIS

  WOLF WRANGLING

  NOT ALL CARTOONS ARE FUNNY

  THE ABHORENCE OF MALFORMATION

  THE BOA OF A CHILL

  ALL'S WELL FOR THE PERFECT LITTLE MAN

  THE SWEET RELIEF OF LETTING GO

  IN WHICH THEA HAS TO WRITE A SEXY SCENE AND...

  THE RUSE OF SANCTUARY

  WHAT HISTORY DOESN'T BEAR REPEATING

  THE DEATH OF CANNED GOODS

  A NAKED RUN

  AND A CHILD WILL LEAD THEM

  OLD BLOOD

  UNDER THE RAIN OF UPHOLSTERY

  PERIPHERAL VISION

  SILVERY STRANDS OF BLOOD

  CLOSING A CIRCUIT

  ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL

  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BE DAMNED

  THE RICHNESS OF SIMPLICITY

  DROWNING IN ECSTASY

  DROPPING THE VEIL

  WHAT'S MINE IS MINE

  EPILOGUE

  Where to Next

  Bonuses

  Rogue Breed

  ROGUE HUNTRESS CHRONICLES

  Book Two

  Copyright 2016 Thea Atkinson

  Published by Thea Atkinson

  Edited by Laura Kingsley

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form electronic or otherwise without permission from the author.

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  THE THIRTEENTH MANNER OF LOVE

  There are dozens of ways to make love to a man if a gal is creative, and hundreds of places to do it if she has a good imagination. Jeb and I had tried out a good deal of locations in the months since I had taken back my pack and revenged my father's murder. The full-out, sometimes twice daily lascivious run at a sometimes deviant search for pleasure came from a need to a celebrate as much as from desire. I'd beaten my foster brother at his own game, saved my brother from execution, and ended up with a mate worthy of any alpha. Besides the heat that the new bond created in me, I wanted Jeb like I wanted no other man in all my centuries, and him a human at that. A girl should blush if she had any shame.

  So far, we had done it in the men's room at the local Denny's with a very noisy self-abuser in the next stall, the next door neighbor's backyard while the cat hissed at us in envy, even the ancient confessional booth inside the abandoned church at the edge of town--although that one took a fair bit of contortionist skill for both of us, I must say. Even with all the myriad pleasure zones we created for ourselves out of necessity or sensual forethought, it was the woods that was my favorite. The place my beast had first peered through the miasma of heat that Caleb's bond had pressed upon me and seen what lay beneath the crystalline gaze of a human man. Seen the truth in his eyes. Known I could trust him.

  Trust was a hard thing for me. Thanks to my mother, it didn't come easily. Jeb changed all that.

  With his hands roaming my skin, bringing gooseflesh to an exquisite and trembling shiver, I felt more connected to my human side than ever, a part of me I'd always let defer to the more feral wolf inside because primitive response was better than the human need to sort through things and rationalize. An assassin had to let the beast defer, lest the human become too overwhelmed with the distasteful duty that kept her pack viable over the centuries. While it was true the beast in me made a ruthless assassin, the human half picked over the duty of killing as though it were lint in a very deep hole. Never mind that I did it for my pack. A life was a life. And so too often, I'd done what many shifters had done over the centuries and let the wolf thinking become predominant.

  So many humans had hunted us for so many centuries that sometimes even our own beasts gave our human halves wary acceptance. Some wolves never fully trusted their mortal selves and they gave over to the beast more than the human, only identifying with what it considered the weaker, mistrustful half in given no choice. We all suffered some bit from lack of harmony in our because of the brutality of the side that saw threat when it should just see natural order.

  One more thing to be grateful for with Jeb. Even the wolf in me responded to his touch because more often than not it was a ferocious one. His need for me was so voracious, both halves of my nature called out to him.

  When I had first caught sight of the man in a dark alley, he'd been wearing an Armani suit. A regular human in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was easy for me to see that suit and believe him no more than businessman in a dark alley who had caught me post execution of a young hunter Caleb had sent after me. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I hadn't expected to see anyone as I crouched over the dead youth, making sure the boy was actually dead. My surprise gave him the advantage and I'd let him live.

  My mistake had led to my father's demise but as it turns out the best mistake. Had I killed Jeb back in that alley, things might have gone very differently for me and my pack. As it was, things unfolded as well as they could have given the situation. I grieved the loss and death of one of my younger brothers, murdered in a coup by my foster brother, but the other was whole and well. My pack was whole and well. I was even happy. Might I say content. Much of that was because of this human man, and I couldn't spend enough time showing my gratitude, relishing in his response to it.

  We had struck out for the woods after the second council meeting I'd ever held and it had gone so well, I couldn't wait to celebrate for the third time that day. We'd passed the ravine where I'd fallen two months earlier. Twenty minutes after entering the woods, we had found the small grotto where we had once lain together beneath the roots of a huge wind-torn oak. We'd come here enough times over the weeks that at some point, he had thought to pad the nest with moss he harvested from the deeper parts of the woods, transported in his backpack and re-sodded in the hollow beneath the tree. It made a soft cushion over time, but I knew he did it for his own guilty pleasure as much as mine. A man couldn't help noticing when his woman got wet just smelling deep woods, and it didn't hurt that it eased the bones a bit when you were lying down.

  I needed his touch now as it made light circles over my navel, teasing me with promise of a more intimate one, taunting me with a finger poked into my belly button rather than thrusting below into the soft and wet folds of skin between my thighs.

  "You're a bastard, you know that?" I growled at him. He was taking too long, denying me as though he didn't want me as badly as I did him. "Do it already."

  He laughed, the sound a gravelly one, choked off by his own lust. "Darlin', You're too greedy."

  He was lying on his side next to me, his leg flung over my knees with his heel hooked beneath one calf. We were both naked, but it had taken agonizing moments for him to undress. I was already impatient by the time he'd taken the greatest of care to unbutton and discard his shirt. It lay neatly over the base of the fallen tree above us. He always wore the best clothes and I'd said so as I peeled mine off my skin and tossed them god knew where. Clothes were just clothes. Nothing special. He was too fastidious, especially for a mercenary. Especially right then when I wanted him. I told him that too for all the good it did me. He'd given me a rational, calm answer when all I wanted was groans and moans and maybe an occasional curse when the pleasure became too much.

  "Just because a man has been a killer in his time," he said. "Doesn't mean he shouldn't look nice."

  I had unzipped his pants for him because he was taking
too damn long. "I prefer you naked."

  "That's because you shifters have an aversion to clothes."

  He grinned at me in that heart stopping way that made my thighs quiver, and so there we were. Naked and lying next to each other with me trying to climb atop him and he exerting his own will--which evidently was not in sync with mine.

  One tug and he could have me snicked in so close, I'd be able to blend my sweat with his. I squirmed my fingers into the hollow between us and gripped his member. He hissed out a gasp as I milked the tip.

  "Greedy and too damned aggressive." His fingers froze at my hairline, then made a little spasm as I squeezed.

  I couldn't help pushing my chin into his neck and breathing over the skin of his throat. "You never complained before."

  "We haven't had the time to savor it before."

  "Liar," I said. "We've had dozens of chances."

  "Okay," he said, tangling his fingers in mine and extracting them from the silk of his erection and planting them safely on his hip. "So we've never bothered to take the time to savor it before."

  "You bonded yourself to a shifter," I said. "Remember?"

  I thought of the impulsive act from weeks earlier, when I'd realized that Jeb was the mate my wolf and my human half both approved of. I had bitten him to cement the bond even before I'd understood what I was doing. That realization came days later, after my young brother was safe and the pack was securely in my leadership, the first female alpha Beo pack ever had--that any pack ever had to my knowledge. While it felt right to me, I was aware that even now, two unorthodox events might be too many for one pack. It was one thing for Beo to accept a female alpha as leader, quite another for them to welcome a human male as one. The pack gave me a sort of wary acceptance, the same way they watched Jeb from the corners of their eyes, and it meant we both lived with the thought that neither of us was quite rooted in our new place.

  I wasn't sure how many of the pack knew that he had lived part of his life earning money hunting down supernatural beings. I just knew I wanted him. I wanted him over and over. It seemed having him was never quite enough.

  "You had to know what you were getting into," I said.

  "And bonding to a shifter means we can't prolong a bit of pleasure?"

  I nipped his throat playfully but with enough insistence, he chuckled low in his throat. "It means I like it wild," I said against the vein that bulged there.

  He tugged at me with his heel and flipped onto his back, pulling me with him, spilling my hair down over his chest. I loved the way it looked like white lace over the tanned skin of his collarbone. A crescent scar ran the length of his right one, a leftover from some wound he must have gained in his previous life. Now any wound he received would be for me and my pack. I felt a thrill tingle at the base of my spine as I thought about it. My pack. My man.

  "I just said I wanted to savor it," he said. "I never said it wouldn't be wild." He dug his fingers into my occipital bone and pulled my mouth down to his. The demand in his kiss was a palpable thing that made me groan into his mouth. I would have mounted him in those seconds, except a faint keening sound lilted its way to my ear. I planted my palm against his ribs. The sound came again though he obviously hadn't heard it. Off in the distance, weaving its way through the leaves above us and through the shrubs that banked off our grotto from prying eyes. I froze. I knew the sound of fear. I knew that in a heartbeat the keening noise would turn shrill, carrying the weight of terror in all of one note.

  "What is it?" he said, feeling me tense. He was already releasing me, letting me ease off him. From the edge of my peripheral vision, I could see him reach for his abandoned pants.

  I pushed myself to a crouch, listening. "A wolf," I said. "Female." Anxiety lit up my muscles as if they were matches to tinder. I was on my feet faster than he was, already inspecting the breeze for smell and direction.

  He stood, shaking the pant legs over his feet and pulling them up.

  "In trouble," he said, cocking his head to listen as he zipped up his trousers.

  I nodded at him, the dread making my beast crowd ever closer to the foreground of my mind. It wanted out. It could discern direction much faster than my human senses. I pushed it back with some bit of stubbornness. I had it.

  "Dara's," he said for me.

  No doubt some spurned mate had come to collect his wayward she-wolf. Dara's homestead presented a sanctuary of sorts to she-wolves all over the country. If what Dara had said was true, they never came alone. Apparently even the weak beta and omega bonds were strong enough to keep a mate from killing the other, and if a wolf wanted his mate back, he brought others to hurt her. I hadn't known much about bonds because I'd never imprinted with another wolf until Caleb had forced it on me during his coup. That experience was enough to inform me she-wolves could not defend themselves against their mates and had to run instead.

  They ran to Dara, much as I had accidentally, and were given sanctuary much as I was without question. That meant they now ran to me because I had sworn that no pack member would suffer violence from their mates ever again.

  I was already shifting by the time Jeb had pushed his hands through the sleeves of his shirt. He pulled a pistol from his ever present backpack and tucked it behind the waistband of his trousers.

  I was off into the woods on all fours long before he was able to follow me. I knew that on his human feet he couldn't possibly make it as far as I did as fast. If the sound had indeed come from Dara's, then I didn't want to waste one instant when that time could allow a spurned mate to lay one more violent hand on his she-wolf. Whoever she was, she was under my protection now, and he best not cross me. I knew Dara had at least a dozen she-wolves there, and I had no doubt that number had grown in the weeks since I had taken her into the pack and news had spread about her kindness. The howl I had caught on the breeze held multitude notes of sheer panic.

  I grew ever more certain we were right about the source as I blundered through the underbrush, making squirrels skitter away from me in terror. The smell of the Moss carpet was heavy in my nostrils, coating my palate and leaking the flavor of another wolf's footprints. Underneath the tinge of Moss came the unmistakable smell of blood wafting on the air. I wasn't far. By the time the keening did finally turn into a full-fledged howl, I knew that it wasn't simply a spurned mate. The smell of gunpowder had filtered in through that of moss and foliage and wild things that ran on the grounds, and there was another scent too. Blood. Both propelled me faster, edged my muscles with anxiety. Dara's was straight ahead of me, just through the branches and passed the herb garden. A scarecrows' arms billowed on the breeze, making the scene look idyllic until I caught sight of the trouble, fanned out like a Roman squadron around a cluster of frightened women.

  I knew even before I saw the troupe of armed men aiming into the cluster that this was no ordinary reclaim mission. The men were armed, yes, but they were also masked. A shifter didn't come to reclaim his mate incognito. He would want her to recognize him and be afraid. He would want her to submit on sight.

  The fact that they were men and that they were armed meant planned attack with intent to kill. A smart gal didn't just run headlong into the fray without assessing the situation first. I pulled up short just behind the herb garden, under cover of the treeline that bordered the property. The half dozen of them were already herding the women into a cluster.

  No one lay on the ground incapacitated yet, so the men hadn't killed anyone. The women huddled together instead, waiting for the guns to go off again. It was obvious the men had fired. No doubt into the air, sending the stink of gunpowder toward me. It still hung heavy on the breeze.

  Some part of my brain detached from itself and followed along a trail of thought I knew would be nothing but an annoyance to the more primal beast that wanted action above everything else. Where was Dara? I didn't see Rena, either, the strangely brooding shifter who acted as a sort of second for Dara. Their absence meant either they were hiding or there were more men,
gathering the shifters into another cluster somewhere on another piece of Dara's property.

  Jeb's hand lay on the back of my shoulders before I knew he was there. I had forgotten how stealthy he could be. How quiet. It came in handy most times, just not when I was already quivering with high alert. I swung my wolf's eyes to his as he crouched next to me and hung his arm over my back.

  "Mercenaries of some sort," he said, and though there was a faint hint of breathlessness in his voice, I knew he was far from fatigued. His fingers burrowed into the fur at my neck. "But for who?" he said, musing out loud and echoing my own thoughts. "We can't assume they know the women are shifters. Maybe Dara's got mixed up with something else."

  I licked my lips in agreement. He was crouched next to me, a pistol resting over one knee as he scanned the grounds. I could see he was sweeping the area with that detached scrutiny of a soldier. If there was anxiety for Dara anywhere in him, he didn't show it. We both knew Dara could easily have taken in a vulnerable creature from any species. Even human. The ancient shifter was a sort of wise woman with a penchant for helping the weak.

  "Human," Jeb said of the mercenaries. "Not military, though. Too fancy with their movements. Not rigid or controlled enough. Definitely trained somehow."

  Definitely. They carried pistols instead of assault rifles. Their clothes were all black and not camouflage or khaki. There was an an insignia on each mans' left sleeve, sort of a squashed red circle with long streaks. Not military at all. I would've nodded in absolute agreement if I had been in my human form. Instead, I whimpered and sat down next to him. What they were, I wasn't sure, but it was obvious these men had come to collect someone.

  "We could go in blazing," he said thoughtfully as he pushed himself to his feet and shoved the pistol into the back waistband of his trousers. "Or we can go in stealthy. I'm guessing blazing would put those women at risk."

  He had a point. Go in stealthy. Pick them out one by one. Find out what the hell was going on. I had started to pad forward, aiming for the last man on the left when I heard him gasp. It was only then the sound of a gun report burst toward us that I understood why.