Steel
Blue Collar Wolves #3
Mating Season #17
Ronin Winters
Romantic Geek Publishing
STEEL (BLUE COLLAR WOLVES #3) (MATING SEASON #17)
Romantic Geek Publishing
Copyright © 2015 Ronin Winters
E-book ISBN 978-1-938593-28-4
Kindle Edition
Publication Date: July 2015
Editor: Sara Lunsford
Cover Design: Croco Designs
To know when the next Ronin Winters book is released, please sign-up for her MAILING LIST.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons – living or dead – is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Books by Ronin Winters
Mating Season – Books Released so Far
What is The Mating Season?
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Note from Ronin Winters
About The Mating Season
About the Author
Social Media Links:
• Like Ronin Winters on Facebook
• Join the Mating Season Fan Group on Facebook
Books by Ronin Winters
The Mating Season
The mating moon is rising…
Blue Collar Wolves
Iron
Brick House
Steel
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FACEBOOK FAN GROUP FOR THE MATING SEASON!
The Mating Season
The mating moon is rising…
Books Currently Released (In Order):
1. Temptation (Grey Wolves Rising #1)
2. Brindle (Winter Valley Wolves #1)
3. Hero (Wolves of Angels Rest #1)
4. Jace (Wolves of the Rising Sun #1)
5. Iron (Blue Collar Wolves #1)
6. Wild (Devils Point Wolves #1)
7. Obsession (Grey Wolves Rising #2)
8. Bosun (Winter Valley Wolves #2)
9. Joker (Wolves of Angels Rest #2)
10. Aiden (Wolves of the Rising Sun #2)
11. Brick House (Blue Collar Wolves #2)
12. Wicked (Devils Point Wolves #2)
13. Salvation (Grey Wolves Rising #3)
14. Berch (Winter Valley Wolves #3)
15. Rogue (Wolves of Angels Rest #3)
16. Luc (Wolves of the Rising Sun #3)
17. Steel (Blue Collar Wolves #3)
What is The Mating Season Collection?
The Mating Season began when six friends (who also happen to be Paranormal Romance Writers) got together and starting talking about how it was funny that authors could take the same premise but make such different stories around it.
A little more talk (and perhaps a little more wine – no telling) and they began to brainstorm about a werewolf world revolving around The Mating Season, a special time of year which would be the only time a werewolf could take a mate. One author suggested she would take a story this way while another laughed and cut her off and said, nope, she’d tell a story like this.
And then they all stopped and thought, Hey, why don’t we write these different stories and release them all together in one collection? So they did.
Six Authors. Six Different Packs. Eighteen Stories. And all of it revolving around One Premise – The Mating Season.
We are proud and excited to have worked on this project together. I hope you enjoy my take and my pack as they navigate The Mating Season, and please check out my friend’s packs and their takes on it as well.
–Ronin
Chapter One
‡
THE GUN SAT heavy in Regan’s hand, unwieldy, mocking her fright in having it so near. Beside her Annabeth began crying, the gun in her hand shaking with the force of her sobs.
“Enough.” Their father’s voice was a crack of thunder, too loud amidst the terror circling the little girls who stood together. “Werewolves don’t care if you cry. They’ll take you into the night as you scream…”
…like what happened to your mother.
The latter was unsaid, but Regan heard it anyway. She’d heard the story enough it was now part of her, etched into her skin as surely as the blue veins that pushed blood through her body. The beasts who had taken away her mother, had left her and her sister with a father whose every word dripped vengeance as the breath that spoke the words reeked of alcohol.
Regan put her hand over Annabeth’s, the gun steady by force. “Shhh, Bethie, I’ll make it okay. Don’t cry.”
Annabeth’s wide blue eyes looked up to her big sister, and taking a sniveling, snorting breath, quieted herself as well as a seven-year-old could.
Pushing the fine blonde hair away from her sister’s blue eyes, Regan then took the gun. “Go sit. I’ll teach you later, just you and me.” Giving a fearful look in their father’s direction, Annabeth did as told and went over to the bench, where her beat-up teddy bear lay and a book on fairies Bethie was only half-finished with.
“What the hell–”
Regan interrupted her father. Stopping him before he could work himself up into a temper was the best way to keep the peace. “Daddy, I’ll teach her while you’re at work. Right now all she’ll do is waste time.”
Her father’s eyes were always half-clouded these days, always containing a sheen of confusion. He seemed to want to argue, but couldn’t quite form an argument why he shouldn’t go along with what she was suggesting. He shook his head, greasy hair flying in his face. “Fine. But she better know how to handle the gun next session, or you’ll be the one getting the belt.”
Regan lifted her chin, not letting the instant fear the words brought color her voice. Showing fear sometimes made Daddy mad, and he’d get the belt for that alone. “She will, promise.”
As she loaded bullets, as she took in the heft and strength of the gun, with every slap her father gave her when she failed, a vow etched itself into her heart. She would hunt them, just as her father was teaching her to do. Every one of them, every wolf who hurt a human, every wolf that destroyed a family, every wolf who took a Mommy away.
She’d hunt them.
She’d kill them.
And she’d move on to the next.
Chapter Two
‡
IT WAS THE sunlight filtering through the window that began bringing Regan out of sleep, the type of crisp light that only existed mid-spring and mid-fall. Eyelids tightened in reflexive action, but the damage was done. Sleep was ebbing away in small strokes, and she stretched her arms overhead, the clink of chains in her ears and the bite of metal against her wrists.
What the…
Eyelids flew open.
“You’re awake.”
The smoky voice came from the corner of the room, with Regan following it to the source.
He had his hands in his pockets and his one shoulder leane
d against the wall, but the brightness of those gold eyes under thick bangs and thick brows and the intensity he exuded belied the casualness of the pose, as did the way weight was distributed in his stance, the way the muscles bunched and relaxed – all telling of a man ready to take on an enemy at any moment.
His black hair was messy, suggesting hands running through it dozens of times. Clothing was rumpled. Nice layer of stubble. Beginnings of dark circles under those eyes.
“From last night. Outside the bar. You’re-”
“The big bad wolf? Yeah.” His voice was husky and appealing, an underlying sharpness to every syllable. His mouth formed twisted up, formed something just shy of a smirk, but overriding it all was the fierceness of gold eyes on her. “Got to say, you pack a hell of a punch, Red. Granny taught you well.”
It was a tangible wrench, but Regan tore herself away from those eyes, going instead to the chains which held her tethered to the bed. The coil was long enough to allow her a full range of motion with her arms, but didn’t allow beyond that. The metal was thick, as were the wood slots he had fitted the cuffs through. Solid and domineering, the chains, the bed, the man himself. She’d pull her bonds later, of course, but she’d do it knowing it was useless. Escaping wasn’t going to be as easy as rusty chains or rotted wood.
“Looking for escape?” The voice wasn’t mocking, but it wasn’t innocent either, and whether he meant to or not, it was hitting all her buttons and making her usually even temper go wild.
That, she couldn’t let happen. She needed to keep it together until she could get out of here. He’d screw up, think her a poor, weak, stupid woman, their meeting be damned.
Soon, he’d underestimate her.
And that’s when he’d be dead.
“Rather handy you having these chains around. Got a BDSM kink?” Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to taunt him, but if something was going to happen, she wanted it done now. The sooner he lost his temper and began to hurt her however he meant to, the sooner she’d be on the path to freedom.
Those gold eyes glowed, a good sign she was getting under his skin. Werewolves only had a few traits that revealed what they were when in human form, the most obvious being their eyes. They took on a slight glow with extreme emotion. It was usually quick enough that, if the person seeing it didn’t know werewolves existed, they’d attribute it to a trick of the light or something in their own eyes.
People could explain anything away when they didn’t want to think on the possibilities of what they were seeing.
His eyes wandered her form, starting at the top of her head and in a slow, unhurried perusal followed the slope of her nose, down to the swell of her chest and the taut length of her stomach. He paused, only a moment, as he took in the cradle of her hips and the juncture between her thighs, before following the long length of her legs still encased in the jeans she wore last night. When his eyes met hers again, they were a molten gold, leaving no doubt he wasn’t human. “Part of me would like nothing more than to have you like this forever, but I guarantee, if I kept you here, chained? You’d beg me never…let you…free.”
The combination of those hot eyes and that smoky voice twisted something in her belly, deep and low, a pleasurable pressure no man – no wolf – had ever set within her before. She swallowed, looked away, refusing to meet those gold eyes anymore.
Reframe. Regroup. Don’t let him turn this on you.
Breathing deep, pushing the unease of how easily this creature set her alight, Regan looked back. “You’re alpha?”
“Are you asking me or telling me, hunter?” His stance changed, became more aggressive as he pushed away from the wall, no longer leaning against it. “I wasn’t expecting to walk out a bar and get shot at. Where are your partners?”
Now she looked away in defiance. The world outside the lacy curtains was only trees from what she could see, no other houses. More importantly, though the window was open, there was no sounds of cars or voices of people. It seemed she was isolated here.
The creak of a floorboard heralded his coming closer, and though she thought she’d prepared herself, her muscles jumped and bunched, awaiting what he was going to do next.
And then he was there, crouching above her, his nose above her ear, following her jaw down to her throat, and she held fast, forbidding herself to arch her neck and show the length to him.
His breath was hot, prickling her skin tight where it settled against her. “Tell me your name,” and the sensual command in his voice had a vision of her turning her head, pressing her mouth against those full lips, feel the dark stubble lining his chin and cheek against her own naked skin.
Everything in her was responding to him. Those glowing gold eyes were beckoning her to look into them, that dark voice had her biting back the vision of pressing those lips against her and letting the deep rumble seep into her skin.
Take you away in the night, as you scream…
This wasn’t her! None of this was her. She didn’t react this way to anyone, period. The wolf was doing something to her, something that she’d never come across in her dealing with his kind. What the…
Calm.
Whatever it was, she’d fight it, she’d end him, and she’d move on to the next werewolf on her list. It’s what she did. This new – trick, whatever – wasn’t going to change that.
But if that’s how he wanted to play…yeah, that she could do. Turning her head back, her gaze meeting his, their mouths inches away, she said “Why do you need a name, wolf? Want to know who’s going to have you on your knees at the end of it all?”
A low rumble sounded from his chest, the vibrations producing electric sparks within her. “Oh Red, you would love me on my knees, and I,” and here he tiled his head down, that golden gaze stroking her body like a physical touch, “can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”
Resisting the urge to swallow hard, she jutted her chin out. “A wolf on his knees? Aren’t you afraid you’d be thought of as a bitch?”
If the jab hit him at all, he didn’t show it. His lip curled on one side, the indent producing the shadow of a dimple near his mouth. His voice was a lazy drawl. “More like the envy of any male with a working dick and an appreciation of the female form. Want me to demonstrate, Red? Want me to show how well I can eat you?”
Like hell he’d see how tempted she was to lay back and let him prove it. “Do you see a basket of goodies? Hate to break it to you, but you don’t do it for me, wolf.”
With the damn reflexes wolves were known for, he twisted away from her and landed on his feet at the side of the bed, but his eyes remained fixed on her face. “Fight it all you want, Red. But as much as you’d like to deny it, I’m one wolf you don’t mind having around.”
Chapter Three
‡
STEEL SHUT THE door, leaning against it for a moment before pushing away, getting needed distance before want overrode reason and he made the mistake of going back in there.
His true mate. His fucking true mate was a hunter. Fuck his life.
She was…God, she was everything he’d hoped. Gorgeous, yeah, just his type, tall and strong and athletic, lean muscle hugging those sumptuous legs that would wrap around his waist and demand he wear her out.
His traitorous dick gave a jump with the thought of those legs, that strength, forcing him to work to keep her under him, waiting for the right moment to toss him on his back and hold him down, taking her time using him out and laughing as she made him beg.
Now in the kitchen, he leaned his head against the cool countertop, reigning in his unruly thoughts.
Fuck, Iron deserved to be alpha if he’d been denying himself while feeling this for twenty years. How the fuck had he’d been so strong? Less than twenty-four hours with his true mate, and Steel was ready to crawl out of his skin with the want of her, his fingers begging to map out every inch of her flesh, his tongue dying to know her taste – the taste of her tongue, the taste of her pussy. He wanted to glut himself on both.
>
Her smell was still buried within his brain, and every inhale he could still pick up the faint edges of it, spicy and strong and sweet…fuck, such a sexy sweetness, begging him to devour her, to drown in her, to wrap that red hair in his fist and pull her head back while he pounded into her, watching her ass bounce with every thrust against her.
In a violent motion, he pushed himself away from the counter, raking both hands through his hair. He couldn’t focus on her anymore, couldn’t keep imagining her – he’d go mad with it.
But it wasn’t only her gorgeousness that was fucking with him. Those green eyes were cunning, intelligent in a way most humans weren’t. There were plans upon plans being formed there, strategies and questions and contingencies. As a hunter, she probably thought he was too stupid to notice, nothing but an animal to her. Fuck’s sake, he he’d have to be blind not to get she was planning something.
On her, she carried the scent of gunpowder and the metallic tang of weapons, and damned if it didn’t harden his dick as much as that lush mouth or those long legs.
She was pissed enough that she’d use those weapons on him right now if she could. He could see it, smell it. She was blindsided by their bond, and fighting hard against the attraction for an enemy.
Hell if he could explain the strength of it. Maybe it had to do with the mating season, or the adrenaline of meeting your true mate while they were trying to kill you. Damned if he knew. Other wolves managed to hold on for months – years – after meeting their true mate, but him, fuck, he was shaking, his entire body vibrating with the need to be around her, to wrap around her and bury himself balls deep.
He needed the Zen Iron was always claiming he possessed to start showing up about now. His true mate was a hunter. How the fuck was he going to convince her werewolves weren’t animals when he was acting like this?
Shit, the need to go back into that room and scent her was a tingle racing up his spine, and no amount of squirming could shake it off.
Maybe a run would help…
Steel: Blue Collar Wolves #3 (Mating Season Collection) Page 1