by T. S. Ryder
"Our deepest sympathies go to Crystal Scott and her family," he started. "This is a painful time for us all, but especially for those who loved Crystal. The events of these past few weeks have only strengthened my resolve to see change come to our country. We have seen how the hatred of shifters cost a bright, compassionate young woman to lose her mind. This is why I do what I do. So that shifters will not have to hide, so they will not suppress themselves.
"It is a fact that when shifters does not feel free to be themselves, when they are shamed into thinking there is something wrong with them, when they ignore or, worse, try to cut out that part of them that makes them a shifter, it damages their mental health. The time has come for shifters to stand up and say "I am here. I am proud of who I am, and I will not be silenced." But in order for this to happen, our laws must be changed. Shifters are legally discriminated against in this country that is meant to be the home of the free. I ask you, free for whom?"
Joseph felt a well of pride rise in him as he listened to the senator. Maybe change was possible. It would take voices crying for change, though, and his would be among them. No more hiding his shifter side from his coworkers. Buck would be proud of him, finally taking a stand on his own identity.
After Seth's speech was over, Ana's father nodded. "I always liked Seth, even when he was a little boy. When are you going back to work with him, sweetheart?"
Ana slid down next to Joseph, squeezing his hand. "I'm already back working with him. Just not as much. But Seth has me doing a bunch of research to use in his arguments against the Shifter Registry. We're hopeful that it's not going to pass. A lot of shifter rights groups have gotten more vocal since the news about Crystal broke. She was adopted by anti-shifter parents and when her husband found out she was a shifter, he accused her of raping him. The poor girl never had a chance."
"Hopefully, it works out in our favor," Joseph agreed. It would be all too easy for anti-shifter groups to point to Crystal and claim that she was proof that they needed a shifter registry, but thankfully Seth had seized it right away and was turning it into a cry for shifter rights. "Using her tragedy as a way to better inform the public was a stroke of genius."
"That’s Seth," Ana replied proudly. "He's a master at this sort of thing."
Joseph glanced at her. His mate. His heart swelled with a happiness he never thought he would ever experience. Maybe he was turning into one of those gooey-eyed men who lived for his mate, but he wouldn't trade it for the bland life he had led before. Ana was everything he could ever want.
"And what about you?" Ana's father looked at Joseph. "When are you going back to work?"
"As soon as this knee's fixed up." Joseph tapped the offending joint. "Cap is pairing me with a new recruit. I'm… hopeful we'll get along."
The new guy reminded him of Buck. He had a lot to learn, though.
"I don't like your line of work." Ana's mother frowned. "I don't know how your poor mother sleeps at night, knowing that you are getting shot at every day."
Joseph laughed. "I rarely get shot at, Mrs. Medina. In fact, most of a detective's work is done behind a desk. The movies make it look a lot more glamorous than it actually is."
"Well, you'll have to tell your parents to come over someday soon, anyway," Ana's mother said. "I'd love to meet them. I know this wonderful lawyer that might be able to help your mother get her medical license back."
Joseph inclined his head towards her. "That would be great. I'm sure they'll love to meet you. But right now, I think we had better get home. This knee needs some rest."
"Of course."
They said their goodbyes, including more hugs than Joseph was entirely comfortable with. Soon, however, they were on their way, Ana driving while he stretched out his leg. She kept giving him glances and smiles that had his heart beating faster.
"Ana, I love you," he blurted.
"I know. I love you, too. But I know what you're up to."
Joseph rose a brow.
She parked the car outside the house and gave him a long, slow kiss. What she meant was all too clear, and Joseph grinned. He had to resist the urge to carry her inside–his knee couldn't take it. Ana broke the kiss and slipped away, her eyes twinkling.
"Come and get me, my wild Bear," she whispered and disappeared into the house.
Joseph grinned and followed his mate.
*****
THE END
Bonus Book 4: The Werewolf's Secret Baby
Description
A BBW in danger PLUS a sexy alpha Wolf Shifter who is her ex PLUS a rival alpha and a deadly duel!
Desmond is the top dog in Louisiana and everyone knows it. When he gets an anonymous call about a group of blood enraged wolves attacking a local cabaret, he and his second in command go to investigate immediately.
Unfortunately, the place he’s led to happens to be the very place he’d been trying to avoid for years.
Now he’s being confronted with the love of his life, his ex, Marceline and becomes tangled up in her problems with the rival Louisiana alpha, Ramson.
Will he be able to get Ramson to back off of his mate? Or will Marceline leave his life once and for all?
Chapter One
Marceline’s. There was something off about the cabaret and it wasn’t that it had been ravaged by blood enraged werewolves from the rival North Louisiana pack. There was a draw here, something Desmond could feel deep in both his human soul and his beast spirit. A deep burn that left his stomach in a knot and his heart racing. Unexplained arousal and testosterone surrounded him in a cloud of musk so strong, even his own nose could detect it.
He’d tried to avoid this place ever since his mate had left him. He sure hadn’t expected the punch in the chest that seeing it, even in its ruined state, caused him. His heart ached at the sight of the ruined stage that he had helped to build...
With a rough shake of his head, he tried desperately to shake the thoughts away and focus on the task at hand. He tried hard to push away thoughts of her.
“Desmond,” Arin, his second, called out to him. He didn’t turn around, instead just listened as the other man picked his way past the splintered tables and upturned chairs of the strip club.
“Speak,” he ordered, once his pack mate had reached his side. The rich, iron tang of blood assaulted his nose, serving as a tell-tale sign of the other’s injuries. Not that he was surprised. When Ramson’s rouge wolf tipped him off that some of the rival alpha’s pack were plotting this attack, he’d expected some of his own would have to fight to drive them off.
“The place is cleared of wolves. Corwin and Larson took a few of the new bloods to track down the ones that ran off before we could finish them,” Arin reported. From the steadiness with which he spoke, his injuries couldn’t have been too bad.
“How many?”
“Total? Five. We killed three of them in here, the other two escaped. I just wish we’d have gotten here sooner. There were a few humans still alive when we got here, but...” he trailed off.
Desmond didn’t need him to finish, though. He understood. They hadn’t survived the bites, either because the damage was too great, or their human souls rejected the chance to harbor their beast spirit and accept the change. Most didn’t survive a werewolf attack. Out of the ones that did, many would have to be killed by their alpha after their first moon if they couldn’t get both halves of themselves, both beast and man, to exist in harmony together.
That’s what he suspected had happened to these wolves, though why Ramson hadn’t put them down before they attacked, he didn’t know.
“Did you happen to find any wolf bodies that didn’t belong?” he asked. The question would have sounded offhand, had his voice not cracked with tension and fear. Arin understood the implications behind his question. The shaggy-haired man rested a hand against his alpha’s shoulder.
“We all looked out for her. We didn’t find her. She must not have been here when they attacked.”
Desmond hadn’t realized
he’d been holding his breath until it whooshed out of him in a great sigh of relief. The tension that had coiled his muscles and squared his shoulders released marginally.
As if he knew the alpha wouldn’t want to talk further on the matter, Arin immediately continued on with his report.
“We’ve also called Perrine. She’s going to bring a few supplies from her shop to get this place cleaned up.”
“Good. I’ll wait here for her. Join Larson and Corwin. If you can, bring one of the blood enraged wolves back to me alive. It is best to make sure they just couldn’t handle the change and that there isn’t something bigger going on here,” Desmond ordered.
Arin bowed his head respectfully, then turned to sprint out the broken back door. Before he’d made it ten steps up the alley, his skin rippled, his head elongated and fur sprouted in patches across his skin.
Desmond turned away only when a fully shifted, smoke colored wolf let out a low, drawn out howl and turned the corner onto the main street, tongue lolling as he padded away. Only Arin could get away with running through the middle of town as a wolf without getting an earful from him.
He turned away from the back door with a shake of his head, itching to run with his pack mates, but the strange pull to something in the cabaret kept him there.
Chapter Two
Within moments of Arin leaving, the sound of a pistol being cocked behind him alerted him to the presence of another living creature seconds before an achingly familiar scent hit his nose. The pull that kept him so enthralled, attached and unable to forget, swelled overpoweringly until his entire ribcage seemed to vibrate with the sensation. She was here. Marceline.
“You take one step and I fire. These bullets are silver, you hear?” a distinct, creole accented voice of a female called out to him. His beast surged through him in response to the threat to the point it was hard to contain it.
“Turn around, right now. Go on.”
Desmond did as he was told though his skin had begun to ripple and his eyes shone with the silver of his wolf instead of the blue they should have been.
“I didn’t think you’d forget me so much that you wouldn’t recognize me from behind,” he said, voice low and gravely. As he turned around, his eyes immediately sought out the curvy form of his ex, and his heart all but shattered in his chest at the pain and anger that raged rampant in her dark eyes.
The pull he’d tried so desperately to ignore for years drew him to her and his entire frame flooded with the heat of desire. One look at her dark, satin skin and thick, exposed thighs and his beast spirit went from challenging to aroused. Sparks of longing shot straight to his groin as his mind flooded with the images of passionate nights of making love to the very woman he stared at.
Mine.
Only, she wasn’t his. Not anymore. She’d made that very clear when she stormed from his house, straight out of his life. A full body shudder rolled down his spine and he clenched his eyes shut with a nearly imperceptible whine.
“I’m not taking your crap, Desmond. You’re redhanded in my territory. I knew you were petty and vengeful, but I didn’t think even you would destroy everything I had left to care about!” she snapped, as she lowered her gun at the sight of him and the faintest traces of grief and longing colored her dark eyes. Her dark, beautiful eyes. They still captivated his very soul even after all this time.
She felt it, too. He could see it in the way her hostile stance softened. The pull. Imprinting. He’d thought it’d only been legend and myth, but that was before they’d met. Everything between them was fiery and rough, hot and heavy, full of a passion he hadn’t been able to find with anyone else he’d tried to mate. None of them were as good as her.
“I didn’t do this. Use your nose, sweetheart,” he whispered.
Desmond had to force himself not to move as she moved closer to him and further into the destroyed cabaret. The way her thighs trembled with each step she took was maddening, not to mention her breasts. He wanted to bury his face in them. They were just as perfect as he remembered. She was just as perfect as he remembered.
“You lost your right to call me that, Papa Dog.” Marceline snapped. The causticness of her previous words had faded away significantly, instead being replaced with sadness. “But, you’re right at least. They smell like Ramson and his wolves.”
The other alpha’s name hit him like a freight train.
“You’ve been talking to him?” he growled out, stalking forward with a furious gaze until he stood mere inches from her. The very scent that rolled from her body, spicy, dominant and all too feminine, only fueled his anger that she even knew the other alpha’s name. She was his! She belonged to him and him alone.
A lesser wolf would have backed down from the display of aggression, but she held her ground and met his gaze evenly, not as a lesser, but as an equal. Just serving another reminder of how much he had loved her once. How much he still loved her.
“I belong to no pack. Ramson agreed to leave me alone so long as I provided his wolves with... entertainers here. I don’t give up my freedom for anyone anymore and I wasn’t about to ask for your pack to protect me after I went rogue.”
A low growl rose in Desmond’s throat. She belonged to him no matter what she claimed about her freedom or rogue status. Neither he nor his beast spirit wanted to let her go. And yet, that was the exact attitude and mindset that had driven her away.
Sighing, he deflated his dominant stance and bowed his head, a look of pain scrunching his face together.
“Desmond. I’m happy this way, can’t you see?” Marceline asked. She was so close, he could feel her breath brush against his skin as she spoke and he had to swallow hard to keep himself from pressing their lips together. As it was, he rested a possessive hand against her hip, the touch electrifying every nerve ending in his body.
“We were happy together, too,” he reminded softly.
“We were, I’ll give you that, but Desmond,” she shook her head and rested her hand on top of his. “I couldn’t just lay down and be your bitch. I couldn’t give up my own free will to be the mate of an alpha. I can see the feral look in your eyes and smell your arousal, even now, and I know you still think of me as belonging to you. But I am my own person and I can’t be that as your mate.”
Desmond had to swallow hard to quell the whine that tried to rise in his throat. “Marceline, please... I know I was stifling and that the pack treated you as something fragile and weak instead of as an equal. But sweetheart, we could have fixed it! We can still fix it!”
“Desmond...” Marceline sighed, pain flashing in her dark eyes as she slowly pushed his hand away. “You still haven’t changed... I don’t think you can change and that isn’t a bad thing. If you can seriously change the entire pack’s mind on me being your equal, I might consider, but do you truly believe you can do that?” she asked. Her eyes met his, searchingly as if she thought all the answers might be revealed in his gaze. Apparently she didn’t find what she was looking for though because she sighed and stepped away from him.
“Marceline, I—“
“Get out of my cabaret. I’ve got another alpha to deal with and he isn’t going to be happy that you’ve been here.”
Desmond hesitated. His pain was hardening over into anger at the thought that she’d rather deal with whatever had angered Ramson enough to destroy her home, rather than deal with him. Shuddering, he towered over her, his eyes blazing with a pain-fueled anger and a bestial snarl resonating through his chest. He’d half a mind to put her in her place for trying to get rid of him.
“Don’t be stupid. If Ramson did this to your cabaret, what do you think he’s going to do to you when he finds you?”
Marceline’s dark eyes stared at him evenly, unperturbed by the alpha. She reached out for him, gently stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. He all but melted under her touch and the pull that drew him to her thrummed achingly in both his groin and his heart until his head swam with emotion.
“Come wi
th me,” he ordered, voice pitched low from her intoxicating touch. “I will not leave you here to deal with Ramson. You’re not to speak to him. Ever. You’re mine, Marceline.”
How had Marceline so entwined herself with his heart? Desmond didn’t know, but such was the way of imprinting. It physically pained him to consider separating from Marceline, knowing Ramson would likely return for her.
“Hey now, Papa Dog,” Marceline hummed. For the first time since he’d seen her, a trace of affection colored her voice. Slowly, she moved closer to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, until they stood embracing each other, in the center of the destroyed strip club.
“I’m not yours. You need to remember that. I’ve been on my own for years and have survived without you this long. I’ll be alright, ok? Ramson wouldn’t dare hurt me,” she reasoned. Her words flowed over Desmond soothingly. They were like water to the fire that her touch and his hormones left behind. Yet they left behind a hollow ache that he knew would destroy him later.
As much as he hated to release her so soon after having her in his arms again, he could see he wouldn’t win this. Marceline had gained full control of his heart within seconds of meeting her and had kept that control ever since. He didn’t believe Ramson wouldn’t hurt her, but what was there for him to do?
“I’m coming back for you tomorrow and you better call if he shows up,” he whispered.
“Go on, then. I’ll be fine. I’ve been a rogue long enough without you. I don’t belong to you, Desmond. So calm down, ok?”
Drunk off Marceline’s smell, Desmond sighed and finally picked his way toward the door. His eyes flared between silver and blue as a thousand thoughts raced through his head. If Ramson so much as disturbed a curly hair on Marceline’s head, he’d gut him. It wasn’t until a familiar laugh met his ears that he managed to wrench his thoughts away from the woman.