Rachel's Totem

by Marie Harte

  Rachel comes to realize she’s inherited much more than just property. She has also inherited a destiny to protect her newfound home.

  For the Ac-Taw aren’t just legend-they’re real.

  Warning, this title contains the following: graphic language, ménage a trois, growling, and hot, steamy sex between shifters in love :)

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Rachel’s Totem:

  “I’m not sure.” Gerald frowned and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Rachel. Not exactly polite to discuss other matters when you’re here for Charlotte’s will.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m in no rush.”

  Well I am. Burke took a seat next to Rachel across from Gerald, who sat in a huge leather chair behind his desk. Let’s find that totem and get back to the important things in life. Like how I’m going to seduce Rachel before she turns all prickly again.

  “It’s just that my assistant, Julia, is always a rock, always here and helping. And something came up with her family in Washington so she had to leave yesterday—”

  “Gerald, can we please get on with this?” Burke sighed.

  Gerald cleared his throat and smiled apologetically. “Right, well. Before we begin, is there anything I can get you, Rachel? A glass of water, a soda, or maybe some coffee?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Thanks, but Burke’s right. Since we’re here, no sense putting it off any longer. You might as well tell me what Aunt Charlotte wanted done with her things.”

  “Of course.”

  Nice how the SOB completely ignored Burke, who could have used something to drink. In a steady drone, Gerald read through most of the generalities of the will. All of Charlotte’s personal possessions and money, investments and the like, went to Rachel.

  “And as the only relative Charlotte truly cared about since your father passed away, you’ve inherited everything she considered dear to her. Including the house.”

  Shit.

  “The property, however…” Gerald paused, and Burke wanted to punch him for drawing this out. “The property is divided between you and the Chastells.” Gerald turned to Burke. “You’ve been wanting to buy from Charlotte forever. Well, Burke, now’s your chance. If Rachel decides to sell, everything on the property, to include the house and the material within it, becomes yours.” The totem, he meant but didn’t say. With the totem back in the hands of protectors who both understood and respected the ancient relic, peace would surely return to Cougar Falls. No more clan wars, and no more threats of strangers having a hold on something as valuable as the totem.

  Rachel stared at Gerald, her gaze narrowing with suspicion as it lit on Burke. “Are you saying Mr. Chastell wants my aunt’s property? And that she steadily refused to sell it?”

  Burke had a sudden ache in the pit of his belly, a feeling that often preceded something bad about to happen.

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Gerald stacked his papers and squared them. “Charlotte’s property and the Chastells’ border one another. They’ve always been friendly, don’t get me wrong. But it’s no secret Burke and his brothers want to reclaim the land that their great-great grandfather gave to one of your relatives so many years ago.”

  “I see.” She glared at Burke, and he stared back, confused.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she snapped. Turning back to Gerald, she pasted a sugary-sweet smile on her face. “So the house is mine, and the property is split how?”

  “It’s a bit complicated. I’ll drive you out to the property so I can show you both. Charlotte was very clear about this.” Gerald turned sharp eyes on Burke, as if willing him to listen.

  Burke, however, didn’t understand what the hell had crawled up Rachel’s ass. He couldn’t deny her fury made him hot, but he didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Was she suddenly blaming him for their time together in the alley? It wasn’t as if he’d staged that fight with those knuckle-dragging wolf Shifters. And he sure as hell hadn’t planned to come in his jeans while dry-fucking her against a dirty brick wall.

  “Burke, I said I’ll drive Rachel out to the property now. Perhaps you’d care to follow, so I only have to do this once?”

  Burke nodded. “Fine, sure. Look, why don’t you go file your papers or something? I need a word with Rachel.”

  “Yes, Mr. Winter. I’d like a word with Mr. Chastell as well.” Rachel’s glare could have cut steel.

  Gerald glanced from Rachel to Burke and unsuccessfully masked a grin. “Fine. I’ll be waiting outside when you’re through.” Grabbing his papers and shoving them in his briefcase, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  The minute he left, Rachel stood ramrod straight and glared down her sexy little nose at Burke. “You arrogant asshole.”

  “What’s your problem?” Burke honestly had no idea why she’d grown so upset.

  “You thought screwing me would sway me into selling my aunt’s place to you?”

  Burke scowled. “Now wait a minute, Rachel. I—”

  She leaned down and poked him in the chest, hard, stirring his instincts to fight back. Or perhaps, to turn their tussle into something more…intimate. “You wait a minute, Chastell. If you wanted to buy the place, all you had to do was ask. That scene in the alley was totally unnecessary. And not that good to boot.”

  He launched himself out of his chair to glare down at her. “Not that good, Miss Penny? First of all, that ‘scene’ in the alley, as you put it, was not staged. Second, that was anything but a real fuck. We had all our clothes on, for Christ’s sake. And third.” He paused to close what little distance remained between them. Staring directly into her eyes, nose to nose, he growled his last words. “The orgasm we shared was more than good, it was explosive. Lie to yourself if you want to, but you came hard, like a shot.” He licked his lips, unable to help how turned on she made him in her anger. “And I can still smell your come creaming your panties. Hell, right now you want nothing more than a hard fuck right on Gerald’s desk, isn’t that right?”

  Her pupils dilated with lust, and her scent filled the room. Pure, unadulterated sex.

  “Fuck. You.”

  “Sure thing, honey. You just name the time and place.”

  He watched in amazement as her pupils began to elongate. He could smell the familiar scent of feline musk flooding the room and waited, his breath held, as Rachel amazingly began to turn.

  Her hair began to rise as her body was covered in a field of static energy, and her teeth grew sharp as she hissed at him in anger. God, she made him burn. The mixture of mountain lion and woman was almost more than he could take. Glancing at Gerald’s desk, Burke figured he could have it cleared in one swipe of his arm. He’d bend her over the solid oak on her belly and yank those jeans and panties off her legs. Within seconds he’d lower his own clothes, just enough to spring his cock free before he’d shove it hard and deep into that honeyed, wet pussy.

  Rachel’s hands fisted into paws as she raised one arm as if to strike.

  Do it. Please, touch me and I swear I’ll mark you as one of mine in a heartbeat. The choice, even unknowingly made, had to be hers.

  Gerald, damn his ass, chose that minute to knock at the door. “Hey, is everything all right in there?”

  Son of a bitch. Burke knew Gerald could smell the passion raging in the room, the scent of a female in heat overpowering enough to easily reach the lawyer outside the office.

  Rachel blinked, and that suddenly her shift vanished as if it had never been. She swayed and righted herself, still miffed enough not to want Burke’s touch. “Come near me again and I’ll geld you.” Sniffing, she turned on her heel and stalked out the door, nearly knocking over Gerald, who waited impatiently on the other side.

  Gerald watched Rachel go with amusement, his lips quirked in an aggravating smirk.

  “Not one word.” Burke stormed through the door, knocking Gerald into the wall as he passed, heading for the bathroom to finally clean up. “Not one fucking word.”

  Red-hot
animal attraction.

  Claiming Their Mate

  © 2008 Paige McKellan

  A Feral Attraction story.

  Jules Kingston is a WereLion destined to be the next Lioness of the White Sands Pride. Her fathers, having decided to step down as Leos, have put out a call for a pair of lions to mate with their daughter. Before settling down with mates and a litter of cubs, though, Jules wants to spread her wings.

  Of all the Lions in the Pride, Gabriel and Lucas Beckett are the only two who make her panties wet-and the last two she would ever take on as mates. When the brothers stake their claim, she runs, cursing her hormones for reacting to such prime specimens of her species.

  Gabe and Luke have known for years that Jules is meant to be their mate. The trick will be to convince their woman she belongs to them. As expected, Jules leads them on a merry chase.

  Then a mate fight and hunt is called by a rival pair. To win Jules as their own, Gabe and Luke must prove their dominance over the Pride-and their woman.

  Warning: Contains explicit sex, graphic language, stubborn men, an independent woman and red hot romance.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Claiming Their Mate:

  There were so many parts of this mess that made her angry she didn’t know what to scream about first, but that would have to wait until she was on the road. Jules grabbed the duffle and slung her laptop case over her shoulder then opened the double French windows overlooking the back of the driveway and the pastures beyond. The last time she had snuck out of the house through this window was during her senior year in high school to meet a boyfriend her fathers had not thought highly of. It was ironic this trip out the window was to get away from two men her fathers expected her to get involved with.

  Somehow she thought the irony would be lost on them.

  A quick look out the window told her the coast was clear. For her sake she hoped all the people she was trying to get away from were still in the dining room, on the other side of the house. Jules dropped the duffle to the ground, and reached through the open window, latching on to the ivy trellis. It was only a twenty-foot drop, one her body could handle, but she opted to climb down halfway and not risk an injury she’d have to shift to heal.

  She felt ridiculous sneaking out; she was twenty-three, not thirteen. She should be able to hold her head high and walk through the front door like an adult. And she would have if Gabe and Luke weren’t downstairs. Seeing them again was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. For so many, many reasons.

  Hitching her computer case higher, Jules put one leg out the window, found a foothold on the trellis, then pulled the rest of her body through and started down. Midway between the window and the ground she let go and jumped.

  Into the strong arms of one very pissed-off Lion.

  ***

  Luke heard them before he saw them and when they finally came into view he laughed as his brother came around the corner of the house, or rather limped around the corner of the house, with a very angry, very loud mate, ass end up over his shoulder.

  “Put me down you rotten, no good—” Jules demanded, her words punctuated by the blows she rained over Gabe’s back but cut short by the hard smack of his hand on her ass. “Ow! Damn you! You have no right—”

  “I have every right, Jules. Settle down!” When she failed to comply he smacked her ass again, this time harder, which only made her fight him more. “Damn it, I said stop!” he yelled when her fist connected with his kidney; she was no match for a Lion in his prime but her blows packed enough punch to bruise. “That’s enough. As soon as we get you home I’m going to paddle your bare ass until it’s bright red if you don’t stop acting like this.”

  “Home?” she screeched. “I’m not going home with you. I’m not going anywhere with you. Let me go!”

  “Need some help, Gabe?” The smile in Luke’s voice was as big as the one on his face.

  “Take her bags,” he grunted, tossing his brother her duffle and computer case. “What are you so damn happy about?”

  “That she decided to sneak out the back instead of coming out the front.” Luke caught the bags with one hand, reaching out to tug on Jules’ hair hanging over his brother’s ass with the other as Gabe came up next to him. Luke laughed again as Jules swatted blindly at him, letting out another screech. “If she had come my way I’d be the one limping, not you.”

  “Luke, make him put me down. He can’t do this.” Jules arched her neck, raising her head to look at Luke. She had always thought of him as the more reasonable brother and hoped to find help in his quarter. The smug smile creasing his handsome face had her back to cursing instead of asking for help. “This isn’t right. I don’t want to go with you.”

  “If I were you I’d listen to Gabe and calm down.”

  “What is it going to take to get you jerks to understand that I don’t want you? I am not going to mate with you.”

  “You’re already our mate, Jules. Once we get you back to the ranch and claim you, you’ll understand that.” This edict came from Gabe as he yanked open the passenger door of their pick-up truck.

  Claiming? Back to their ranch? No. No, no, no. “There is no way I’m going to your ranch with you so you two can fuck me. I decide who I fuck and you can damn well bank on it not being you two.”

  Smack, another hard swat on her ass from Gabe before he lifted her off his shoulder and pushed her into the truck. “Don’t talk like that, Jules. That kind of language doesn’t suit you.”

  “How do you know what suits me or not? You don’t know me.” In the truck she was pulled onto Gabe’s lap, his arms wrapped around her, keeping her hands trapped from doing any damage. She ignored the dark look Luke sent her way as he got behind the wheel. Neither one of these men were listening. “My parents will not put up with you taking me.” She hoped that was true but their complete lack of concern cut that line of reasoning short.

  “Your fathers know we’re taking you to the Roaring Lion. This is a done deal, Jules. Start accepting it.” Luke started the truck then headed down the long drive to the main road. “Your body already has, Jules. Open your mind to what your body already knows and this will be easier for you.”

  The casual mention of her attraction and resulting arousal to the brothers filled the truck cab like humidity filled the late summer air, making it hard to breathe and her body uncomfortably warm. Gabe’s erection pressing into the curve of her ass showed her she wasn’t the only one affected by Luke’s comments. The fight didn’t go out of her, instead it shifted from thoughts of escaping these two to controlling her reaction to them.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. Yourselves. What you think is attraction to you is nothing more than my having a normal, healthy sex drive.”

  “How many other pairs have you let know about your healthy sex drive?”

  Jules snapped her mouth closed. That was the whole problem, why these two worried her more than all the others combined. No other pair affected her the way Gabe and Luke did. If she thought she could get away with it Jules would have lied through her teeth, claimed she’d had a similar reaction to another man or men, but she didn’t. She kept her mouth shut. If she wasn’t able to believe the lie how would they?

  The remainder of the short ride to the Roaring Lion was completed in silence. No one was talking but that didn’t mean nothing was going on. Jules sat stiffly on Gabe’s lap, trying her damnedest but failing miserably at ignoring his hard-on. The sexual tension inside the cab was stifling. The Beckett brothers were determined to take what they wanted and Jules was silently scrambling to think of a way to stop it.

  From exile to queen-whom can she trust?

  Tiger by the Tail

  © 2008 Kaye Chambers

  An On the Prowl story.

  Alexandra “Sasha” DeStephano has long been exiled from her own kind, thanks to parents who had no wish for her to grow up in the “tiger mafia”. Now that she’s been issued an engraved invitation to appear before the society elders, she finds herself
plunged into a dangerous battle for power, urged on every side to give up her birthright to make room for a new regime.

  On every side, that is, except Colton Reyes, a rogue alpha. Cole plants the idea in her mind that, under the current leadership, the tiger society is headed down a one-way street to disaster. And she is their only hope.

  Spurred on by a man who flips all her sexual switches, Sasha steps up to the plate-and finds herself promoted from Tiger Princess to Queen. The resulting consequences are far more than she ever imagined.

  In this game of danger and intrigue, almost no one can be trusted. Cole’s best chance to protect her? Pretend to claim her as his mate.

  Except pretending is the last thing on Sasha’s mind.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Tiger by the Tail:

  “Thank you, all. I understand I’m allowed to choose some advisors to help me?”

  “You are, madam.”

  Lord DeLuca was entirely too smug for my liking and I wondered how much of a dissention factor was running in the crowd tonight. If this went to hell in a hand basket, I was blaming him, personally. I hoped he understood that. I read the house badges on the young men who were edging to the top of the crowd. Blinking, I realized the nagging little detail that had bugged me when I’d arrived. Cole had been announced as a lord, but his coat was lacking the golden embroidered badge that signified his status. In fact, his coat was lacking any adornment, at all. He wore a plain black tux in lieu of the formal dinner jackets around him. Of course, that made him stand out like a sore thumb.

  “Lord Reyes, please step forward for the honor.”

  Why did I give him what he wanted? Simple. I didn’t know anyone else there and I could always disappoint him, later. Besides, he was part of the reason I was in this mess, so he might as well be part of the solution. Power was a wonderful thing. If I’d not appointed anyone, the speculation would have been that I was going to try to muscle my way through things or that I was ignorant of the ways things were run. I wasn’t brave or hungry enough to want to muscle my way through anything tonight, and I couldn’t afford the weakness of assumed ignorance. I knew enough to get me killed. I was going to trust Cole not to let that happen.