STORY EXCERPT

Jackson paced on the roof of the abandoned warehouse, his cat edgy and tense as he surveyed the church grounds. Something was happening inside the church tonight, he could feel it. Several cars had arrived just after he’d relieved Ares at twenty-three hundred hours. All the cars belonged to the church elders they’d had under surveillance for the last three weeks. They’d never seen them assemble at midnight, however.

They’d all been excited, too, their scents reaching him easily in the cool night air. It was disturbing and he couldn’t pinpoint why. He looked down at his watch. Ares would have relieved Spenser, and Spenser would be at their apartment on his sleep break.

Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he hesitated, looking back at the churchyard. No one had come out. There was nothing to report other than that all ten elders and the leader of the so-called church, John Thomas, had gathered at the church.

“Fuck it.” He shoved his phone back into the pocket of his cargo pants and paced again to the corner of the roof closest to the church. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath.

“Nothing.”

Opening his eyes again, he glared down at the building he’d come to loathe. “What the fuck are you up to?”

There was nothing concrete on which to base his feelings of unease, but that fact failed to soothe him. He’d been working in law enforcement for decades and as a shifter, he possessed enhanced senses. His cat thought something was off. Pulling his phone back out of his pocket, he swiped it open. He hit Spenser’s contact before he could talk himself out of it again.

“Jackson?”

Spenser sounded alert, despite the fact he’d probably just gone to sleep.

“All of the elders are here. They’re inside and I have nothing to explain why, but I feel that something is happening down here.”

“I’ll be there in ten. Do you want me to shift and get Ares to come to you as well?”

Jackson was about to say no, when the storm cellar doors opened at the rear of the church. The dim light from the cellar below illuminated only a small section of the church’s rear grounds but Jackson could see very well in the dark. Two men stepped out into the yard, each holding the arm of what appeared to be a child, dragging it between them.

“Jackson?”

“Wait,” Jackson said softly.

He watched the men walk to the large gardener’s shed and drop the lifeless child onto the snow. One of them unlocked the padlock on the door and the other dragged the child roughly inside.

The child had neither moved nor struggled. Jackson’s stomach clenched as dread settled into his bones. His chest ached and he found he couldn’t breathe. The kid was dead. The bastards had been killing a child while he’d been standing here with his thumb up his ass.

The men emerged from the shed and relocked the door. Jackson took a steadying breath. If they were locking the kid in, then perhaps they weren’t dead. He could sense anxiety, feel it in his core. It was Spenser’s anxiety he sensed, but to his brother’s credit, he maintained his silence.

He waited impatiently as the two men stepped back into the cellar and closed the cellar doors behind them. “Two of the elders, looked to be Weirdoes Number Four and Five, just dragged the naked and unconscious body of a child across the yard and locked them in the shed.”

While they’d identified all of the church elders by name in the first week of their surveillance, until they had, they’d named them Weirdo Numbers One to Ten. Their photographs were on the wall of their apartment, as were their real names. Calling them Weirdo One to Ten had seemed more appropriate, however, and it had stuck.

“Stay put until I can get there and watch your back. We’ll get the kid out of there soon, Jackson.”

Jackson’s hand went slack and the phone slipped from his grasp as an icy gust of wind whipped across the rooftop. It wasn’t the cold that shocked him, it was the scents that gust had bathed him with.

Blood. Pain. Mate.

Jackson didn’t think. He leaped over the low brick wall that bordered the rooftop and dropped four stories through the darkness. He was running the instant his feet hit the tarmac.

“Not a child. Not a child.”

 The ten-foot high fence and its barbed wire top didn’t prove to be more than a moment’s obstacle to a cat that was desperate to discover if its mate was still alive.

“Be alive. Please, God, let her be alive.”

Jackson didn’t stop to finesse the lock, merely ripped it off and threw the door open. Her scent was all he smelled in the large shed. He saw nothing but her crumpled form as it lay pale and bloody at the very back. Discarded on the cold, hard ground like so much garbage. His mate. His life. His future. It all came down to this moment and he’d been up there doing nothing while those bastards had brutalized her.

His cat wanted out and his claws slipped free as he agreed that his cat should tear everyone who’d hurt her into tiny pieces. Make them bleed as she was. Make them suffer as she had. He shook his head and stepped closer, wresting control back from the beast he was about to set loose on the bastards. If she was alive, she would need him.

ADULT EXCERPT

“Am I to be an equal partner in this mating or a decoration you place in a glass case, too afraid of breaking it to ever take it out and play with it?”

His shock was genuine but she didn’t back down. She couldn’t. She felt an inner strength fill her, bolster her, and she accepted the help because this was too important for her future as their mate to let slide.

“I won’t exchange one cage for another, Ares. I can’t.”

His eyes narrowed briefly but he nodded. “How did you end up this incredible and strong, after everything they did to beat you down?”

She softened her hold on his face and stood on tip-toes, trying to reach his full lips. He was still too tall but he leaned down and met her halfway. It felt right and she hoped he recognized the poignancy because she was done explaining things to him. Heat filled her as their lips met. Need was an aching void inside her. Need for him, for all of her mates.

Their lips met and she pressed her hips against him, seeking friction for the ache between her legs. She felt the hard length of his cock against her stomach and she pulled from him, scaring herself as a low growl vibrated from her chest and spilled from her lips.

“Damn, that is one sexy-ass sound, darlin’,” Ares said, sliding his hand into her hair and pulling her back to his lips.

Piper met his fervor and then nipped sharply at his bottom lip, startling him into breaking their kiss. Piper was panting, her body craving him like he was what she needed to sustain life. “I want to taste you.”

His eyes widened, and his irises turned bright amber, illuminating his face and showcasing the hard planes. He swallowed hard, the fingers in her hair tightening.

She knew nothing of men, of sex, of relationships in any form, other than the total subservience to a husband dictated by the church. She’d made a vow, though, she’d sworn to free her wolf, just as she was now free, and that meant trusting her wolf’s instincts.

She dropped to her knees, dragging down his loose sweat pants as she fell. His hand relaxed in her hair but he didn’t release her. She looked up at him, staring into his eyes as she reached for his cock and gently brought it to her lips. His growl was deep, low, and so sexy that she felt moisture leak from her throbbing pussy.

He inhaled sharply and his fingers flexed in her hair. “You smell so fucking good.”

He was trembling, holding on to his control and she knew he did this for her. He smelled good, too. Her mouth watered and she tore her gaze from his to focus on the object of her desire. The head of his cock was red and shiny with his own juices. She leaned closer and licked at the wetness.

Sweet, salty, slightly earthy, and wonderful. Her wolf growled in approval and Piper could only agree. She licked again and ran her hand up his length, marvelling again at how soft the skin was.

“Your touch,” Ares moaned.

“Your taste,” she countered, licking him again and gaining confidence with his response to her actions. He was big, and she knew she’d never get all of his cock in her mouth, but she opened and took in as much of him as she could. His moans grew louder as she stroked her tongue around the head and swallowed the cum leaking from the tip.

Emboldened, she gripped his cock in both hands and moved them up and down gently, massaging his length.

“Grip it harder, sweetheart,” Spenser said, his voice rough and deliciously growly. “You won’t break it.”

She did as he suggested and was rewarded by more cum dripping onto her tongue. She swallowed again.

“You’re killing me.” Ares shuddered, gently rocking his hips. It served to push his cock in and out of her mouth but he never went deep enough to cause her any discomfort. She liked it. Liked pleasuring her mate this way.

“Twist your hands as you stroke him,” Jackson said, caressing down her back and cupping her ass in his big hands.

It felt good. Good to have all of them here, good to be touched and learn how to touch in return.

Ares’s cock grew bigger in her mouth and his thrusting grew jerky. “Piper. I’m going to come. If you don’t want my cum in your mouth, let me go.”

She suddenly wanted that more than anything.

“Argh.”

Ares cried out and she felt the hot jets of his semen squirt onto her tongue, run down her throat. She swallowed convulsively, not wanting to let him go and not wanting to choke as jet after jet pulsed from his throbbing cock.

She was still swallowing the salty cream when Ares pulled free of her mouth and scooped her up. He carried her from the bathroom. “Now you’re mine to taste, darlin’, and I’ll warn you, I’m a starving cougar right now.”

Piper felt joy and arousal flare hotly as he threw her into the air and she bounced onto the bed. He was showing her with his actions that he didn’t consider her a delicate ornament. She loved this wild and crazy man.