Growl

by Eve Langlais

  They were both on their feet within seconds.

  It wasn’t all that many minutes later and Cherry was definitely screaming their names. Quite clearly.

  EPILOGUE

  Two nights before the summer solstice, at Feral Passions Resort

  The summer solstice wasn’t until Monday, but they held the mating ceremony on a Saturday night when there were no guests at the resort. Instead, the lush meadow was filled with strikingly handsome men, including a few older mated couples who’d made the trip back to the preserve just for this occasion.

  Cherry wore a beautiful white gown and stood between Cain and Brad. Steph and Christa wore white as well, standing proudly between Ronan and Wils. The sisters and Steph had shared so much laughter all day while preparing for tonight, they’d decided ahead of time not to risk even a glance at one another until Trak completed the ceremony.

  They’d all made their first shifts the weekend before, but tonight? Tonight was the real thing, more real even than growing fur and running on four legs. Tonight Cherry stood in front of the pack alpha, promising to love and cherish the two men who promised the same to her and to each other.

  Brad and Cain had never had a ceremony of their own. They told her they’d been waiting all these years to find her. Tonight was significant on every level possible.

  As Christa and Steph repeated their vows beside Ronan and Wils, Cherry tightened her grasp on Cain’s and Brad’s hands. Then Trak stepped back to the middle once again and faced all of them. He’d worn a dark suit for the occasion, and he looked absolutely regal standing before them with silvery moonlight bathing a small meadow beside the lodge. Cherry thought of her dreams that first night, of running beneath a full moon with two wolves by her side, and she felt the power of Trak’s words, as if by speaking them he created something magical out here. The moon, almost full this close to the solstice, was a silver beacon of light bathing the entire group of werewolves gathered for the ceremony.

  Trak raised his hands, encompassing the newly turned wolves and their mates. “You have made your vows to the ones you love and to the pack you serve. Go forth secure in the strength of the pack and the love of your mates. My blessings and those of the pack on each of you for peace, good fortune, and love from this day forward. As Alpha of the Trinity Alps wolves, I pronounce each of you mated for life.”

  Brad and Cain kissed her and then kissed each other, and it was done. Cherry glanced toward her sister and caught Christa’s eye. “Thank you,” Cherry said.

  Christa dragged her three mates with her. “What are you thanking me for?”

  “For dragging me on a vacation I really didn’t want to go on.”

  “You had a good time, right?” Steph slung an arm around Cherry’s shoulders. “I sure hope you did, sweetheart, because it’s too late for a refund on the deposit.”

  The band started to play and drowned out the rest of Steph’s teasing comment, but it was all okay, because Cherry learned something else she hadn’t known about her two wolves.

  They both really knew how to dance.

  * * *

  Two nights later, Cherry ran with her two wolven mates beneath the full moon. Pine needles crunched beneath their paws as they raced through the dark forest, winding their way along a narrow trail to the top of a rocky peak. There, surrounded by their wild brethren, they raised their muzzles to the silvery sky and howled.

  Exactly as she’d dreamed.

  THE ALPHA’S WOMAN

  A. C. Arthur

  PROLOGUE

  The full moon

  She had no choice but to run.

  As a deafening howl ripped through her body, sounding throughout the small room she’d been allotted, Kira’s long sharp black nails ripped through the curtains at the window until they fell to the floor in shreds. In an effort to release the pain burning deep inside she did the only thing she could, lashing out with wide swipes of her arms, deadly nails scraping along every surface they encountered.

  Her lips peeled back from her lycan teeth, elongated and piercing as her mouth opened wide, another grisly growl breaking free. Around her she could hear furniture crashing to the floor, material and papers being torn, and the rapid thump-thumping of her heart. It was there that the pain had originated, beginning with the day her mother died three months ago.

  Kira had believed she could go on even through the daily agony of not knowing for certain who had shot her mother down as she ran through the familiar forest. Kira’s father had told her nothing, keeping his face stoic as he reported Tora’s death to his pack as if it were just another announcement and he were some paid employee from CNN. But he had been Tora’s mate, Kira’s father. He should have felt something, yet he hadn’t. Kira should have known then that something was wrong.

  Instead, she’d tried to do everything her mother had taught her, tried desperately to be the alpha female she was born to be. She’d wanted to stand tall, proud of the extrakeen senses and strength she possessed over other lycan females. Coupled with the strategic planning and leadership skills she’d attained from watching her mother as she stood by Kira’s father leading this pack, she’d had all the components to be a great alpha female. But Kira had failed. Pitifully. Irrevocably. Failed.

  She’d been humiliated and disrespected, and when she’d finally spoken up she’d been betrayed by her own father.

  Another guttural growl and she spun around, this time facing the mirror over her dresser, stopping cold. Staring back at her was the beast that was her counterpart, the lycan with its feral snarl, protruding forehead and nose, eyes glowing light blue. Her hair was wild, sticking out around her face and falling in wild strands over her shoulders and down her back. She would have scared herself if that fear hadn’t been replaced by the sting of lies and deceit. By the hatred she’d harbored for the members of her father’s pack and for Penn himself. He wasn’t a father to her, wasn’t what he was when her mother had been alive. He’d changed in these months, so much so that allowing a member of his pack—his only daughter—to be assaulted the way she had been hadn’t warranted so much as a double take.

  “It’s time you accept your fate, Kira. There will be no others, only them that are willing to take you and be what you need. Do not fight the inevitable,” Penn had told her as she lay in the corner of their living room, her clothes ripped from her shivering body.

  She’d kept her back turned to him, her head tucked low in disgrace as his words slammed into her skin like arrows. There would be no others because no lycan would want a female with her tall and curvy body. In Penn’s eyes she’d appeared more dominant than she should have because she was almost as tall as the males with her five-foot-nine stature, and while she wasn’t as muscular as they were, her body was built broadly. The fact that she was probably smarter than at least three out of the four betas in the pack meant nothing, nor did her abilities regarding the maintaining of the pack residence and the strategic planning skills her mother had taught her where their kind was concerned. She could be an excellent resource to the right alpha, a fact Tora cemented into her mind from the time she was a young girl.

  But it wouldn’t be any member of her father’s pack. She’d realized that with startlingly clarity. They weren’t who she was meant to be with, something Tora had also told her in the days just before her death.

  “I’ve taught you everything I know,” her mother had said, long lashes cloaking her soft brown eyes. “But there’s more for you, Kira. More than I could ever teach you, more than you could have ever imagined. Beyond these walls and this pack, there is something for you. A destiny neither of us could ever have imagined.”

  “What?” Kira had asked, moving to sit next to her mother on the edge of the bed she shared with Penn. Fear and uncertainty had hung in the air like a dark cloud, just hours before they were set to attend Kira’s college graduation. It should have been a time of joy, as she’d finished her courses early and would be receiving her BA in psychology. Tora had been so proud of Kira’s
goal to study the human psyche as well as the desire to probe deeper into the minds of the lycans. Yet today Tora looked so sad.

  “Tell me what else there is?” Kira had insisted.

  But Tora had only shaken her head and managed a shaky smile. “Not today, my child. Today is all for you. It is your beginning.”

  Three days later Tora had been killed and Kira had felt more like it was her end.

  But it hadn’t been. She’d survived in this house with this pack for three months since then. Every day knowing, sensing, that what had mother had said to her had been absolutely true. There was more for her than what was here. And after what had just happened to her, coupled with the fact that her father was condoning one of his beta’s trying to forcibly claim her, Kira knew exactly what she had to do.

  With a fist to the glass Kira broke the mirror, taking a step back from the shattering pieces. Her chest heaved as she struggled to rein in the beast, to yank it inside where it belonged. As an alpha female, she’d been trained and mastered controlling her shifts, so there was no doubt she could pull the beast back, but as the anger continued to rage, the beast was unrelenting in its claim over her. She lifted the mattress from her bed, digging her nails in deep and ripping it apart, tossing the remnants across the room. Next was the dresser that she turned completely over, standing atop it to howl into the night once more. Her pack mates would hear her, they would recognize her cry, but they would not come to her. Not to offer assistance or consolation, none of them, especially not her father.

  That was just fine, because she didn’t need them. Her mother had been the only one to ever give a damn about her. Tora had taught Kira everything she knew, just as she’d told her before her death. There was nothing here for Kira and she’d been a fool to let her father try to convince her otherwise. Her mother had been right, there was more for Kira out there, in the world, she supposed, and Kira was determined to find out what exactly that was. With that thought Kira backed up until she crashed into a wall, sliding down to sit on the floor. With arms propped on her knees, head hanging low, she breathed heavily, until her heart rate slackened, the sharp nails and teeth detracting slowly. She felt more like herself, like the self-assured and independent woman she planned to be.

  Then she stood and she began to pack, because her choice had been made. She would leave this place and these people and she would find what her mother knew was out there for her. She would run toward freedom, toward the life meant for Kira Radney, not the one they’d tried to force on the alpha female.

  And she wouldn’t look back. Ever.

  CHAPTER 1

  Two weeks later

  The more she squirmed the harder his dick became. His arms were wrapped around her tightly, the heavy weight of her breasts resting over them. His mouth watered, incisors biting into the skin of his lower lip, claws threatening to rip free.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Blaez growled into her ear, his mind warring with his body to keep his shift at bay.

  “I was walking,” came her clipped reply. “How about you? Is grabbing strange women a part of your regular routine?”

  No, there was nothing routine about this. Blaez knew that for a fact. He’d been searching the woods, looking for something, following up on the feeling that had plagued him all afternoon. The one that had warned of danger.

  And he’d found her.

  Yet it was something else entirely clenching him at the throat just this second. Something so basic it might have been funny if he weren’t who he was and she weren’t where she should not have been.

  He blinked once more trying to clear his mind of the thick haze of lust that was now blanketed there. He took a breath and almost faltered. Her scent, so potent and intoxicatingly sweet, wafted straight up and into his nostrils, as if it were meant solely for him. Instinctively, his arms tightened around her, the soft globes of her ass like a cushion to his powerful erection.

  If she was afraid she was doing a damned good job of hiding it. As for her arousal, that wasn’t working too well for her. The scent of her dewy folds was what caused him to reach out and grab her close, to have the soft globes of her ass rubbing against his now-raging arousal.

  Blaez held firm, grinding into her when she attempted to break away. The effort had him hissing through his teeth, and when she tilted her head to look back and up at him he almost moaned. Her eyes had glowed when she’d first turned to see him; hints of gold amidst the hazel color were bright and cunning in the seconds before he reached out and grabbed her. If her gaze had been meant to warn him of her anger and annoyance, he ignored it, opting to pull her back against him, enjoying the feel of her body against his for a second longer.

  “You’re not from around here!” he snapped. “It’s dangerous to go traipsing around in someone else’s territory. Didn’t your alpha tell you that?”

  She moved quickly, much faster than Blaez had expected, so that now she was facing him. But his reflexes were faster—much faster than even a lycan’s should be—and he kept hold of her at the waist, her breasts flush against his chest. Her hair was disheveled, long dark strands framing her face to give her a distinctively wild and wicked look. At her sides now his fingers clenched and unclenched as the unfamiliar ache to run them over her scalp, tangling his hands in the dark mass and pulling her head back, threatened to take charge. Her mouth would open as she gasped from shock and he would take her then, his lips on hers, tongue stroking the moist recess of her mouth.

  He shook his head quickly, as kissing was not something that Blaez did often. It wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to do with any other woman, ever. Not in his dreams and certainly not in reality.

  “No. I’m not from around here and I don’t have an alpha. Are you going to report me?” she asked in a voice that was equally husky and sensual, snippy and cheeky.

  “You’re lucky I’m not the type to take and claim you for my own pack,” he replied, the real reason for his anger toward her finally reaching the surface.

  Lycans as a whole were not a domesticated bunch. There was no doctrine of rules or any thoughts of fair play when it came to building the most powerful and lethal pack. The same type of reckless abandon laid the groundwork for their insatiable desires. Next to hunting, their lust was a ruling factor in their lives, especially on the night of the full moon.

  That, most likely, was not the intent of their kind. Then again, when a species was born of a god’s selfish and arrogant rage it was no wonder said species didn’t see life through rose-tinted glasses. Instead, the descendants of Nyktimos who had been lucky enough not to live in the deceptively utopic world of Arcadia now roamed the earth either struggling to find their place or threatening to kill anyone who crossed their paths—namely, their own.

  This too was a result of their unnatural birth into a world that was neither ready nor equipped to deal with them. Had the battle between Zeus and Lykaon not gone to the extremes of the god using his power to turn Lykaon into a wolf and killing all but one of the king of Arcadia’s sons, then maybe, just maybe, they would not be in the predicament they were in now. But Lykaon, angry and feeling hopeless in his newfound form, let jealousy overrule and bit his only remaining child, Nyktimos, turning him into a werewolf. In the vein of the apple not falling far from the tree, Nyktimos had taken his own anger and distress straight to the humans, settling in Seattle with the intent of wreaking havoc there, only to betray himself by falling in love with the most prohibited species—a human female—whom Nyktimos eventually turned into a lycan. From there the hybrid lycan was born and Blaez and his kind were doomed.

  “I don’t give a damn about you or your pack!” Kira snapped back at him, her stance and glare depicting nothing but distaste and disdain.

  Her body, on the other hand, was sending off a totally contradictory vibe. She was aroused—there was no mistake—her body just about vibrated with the need. Her nipples had grown hard, brushing like tiny spikes over his chest, thighs trembling with the urge to be spre
ad.

  He wanted her.

  And Blaez Trekas did not want anyone or anything.

  “You will not be killed on my watch or my land. That’s not the kind of attention I wish to draw. So you’re coming with me,” he said, easily stepping away from the tree she had him backed against. The temporary entrapment had only come at his allowance. The fact that her turn of defiance had only succeeded in bringing her body even closer to his had been his sole reason for allowing it at all. As he had no intention of dropping to the ground and riding her until she begged for his permission to come, Blaez knew it was time to get them out of the open, out of the scenting range of any other pack looking for a bitch.

  “I am not coming with you,” she said to his back, as he’d already begun to walk away. “I’m not a part of your pack, so I don’t obey your commands. I don’t obey anyone’s commands!”

  The last was said with every bit of defiance that lived within that soft, curvaceous body of hers, and it might have been commendable if it were directed at her enemy and she were the alpha bitch of her own pack. But she wasn’t and Blaez was not a lycan to be toyed with or disobeyed.

  Turning on her with the speed and agility only an alpha would possess, he lifted her clear from the ground, tossing her easily over his shoulder, and began his trek back through the woods to the lodge where he and his pack resided.

  She squirmed, pounding her fists into his back, attempting to kick but for his arm wrapped tightly around the backs of her legs.

  “Let me go, you idiot! You don’t own me! I’m not one of yours!” she screamed as he walked, her perfectly rounded ass rubbing against the side of his face.

  On instinct Blaez lifted his free hand to smack that delectable globe. The sound echoed throughout the woods, or was that only in his ears? His body certainly had its own reaction to the sting of his palm against the softest ass he’d ever imagined.