STORY EXCERPT

Wade paced outside the tent where Kai and Tucker had just married their mate, their pregnant mate, apparently. He wanted to congratulate them, wanted to be happy, but his wolf was on alert. Something had happened, and it had changed the relaxed and joyous vibe of the reception in a nanosecond. Wade had had a bad feeling all day that something was about to happen, and his feelings were never wrong.

Paxton approached with Angus and Kai. And here it comes. Bad news.

Angus’s face was set in hard lines. His jaw was clenched and his shoulders were stiff. “Jules and Walker have missed two of their scheduled check-ins,” Angus said without preamble.

Two? This meant they were either unconscious, incapacitated…or dead.

“Wade, I want you and Kai to go to Vegas and find my men.”

“Alpha,” Paxton said immediately. “I want…”

“I want my pack safe, all of them, and that means you need to remain here, Paxton.” Angus’s hard expression softened as he put a hand on Paxton’s shoulder. “The pack needs you here. I need you here.”

Wade and Pax had spent years together in the army’s Special Forces, but they didn’t need to be together to be effective. Paxton nodded at Angus in understanding.

“Watch him, Kai,” Paxton said as he gave Wade a hard stare that told him he better not fucking die or Pax was going to come and haunt him in the afterlife. “If you don’t, he’ll have you doing all the work and then thanking him for the privilege.”

Kai barked out a laugh, but Wade embraced his older brother and slapped him on the back. “I’ll be careful, Pax.”

Paxton shrugged from his hold and nodded stiffly. “When you find them, kick their asses for me.”

Wade nodded and turned to follow Kai and Angus to the Alpha’s truck, leaving the wedding and the guests without a backward glance. “Hell of a honeymoon,” Wade muttered as he climbed in beside Kai.

“Bobbi is safe with Tucker and the pack. I’ll have my honeymoon when Jules and Walker are back home with us.”

There was no regret, no censure, in Kai’s softly spoken vow. Kai may not be their brother by blood, but they were pack, and pack was family. As far as Kai was concerned, they were both going to get their brothers back.

“When was your last contact with them?” Kai asked.

“Seventeen-thirty hours. They were following Lawrence Gilchrist after he’d dumped the body of an unknown subject into the trunk of his car.”

“Christ,” Wade said. “We were waiting for him to do something suspicious. That certainly qualifies.”

“They were supposed to call me every hour, but I’ve heard nothing from them since.”

“That was three hours ago,” Kai said. “We can get to the airport in Denver in an hour and a half, two and a half hours flying time—if you have a jet ready and waiting—and then, assuming Boothe has worked his magic and has a bead on one of their cell phones…”

“It’s still too fucking long,” Wade interjected. He growled in frustration as he refused to say out loud what they were all thinking.

“This is not going to be a body retrieval,” Angus ground out. “Remember, we’re not alone in the fight to keep our world hidden from the humans.”

Wade shook his head, despondency refusing to release its grip on his heart. They were simply too far away to help his brothers, assuming they were even still alive.

“You’ve called Finn, the Alpha in Eminence,” Kai said slowly. “I heard they’d acquired a few jets when the Pollocks came home.”

Wade’s gaze shot to Angus, but he didn’t need to see the Alpha’s tight smile as confirmation, he could hear the distinctive roar of a jet engine. “No way…”

“Wes will be landing on my back paddock in less than a minute.”

Wade could now see the lights of the approaching jet shining brightly in the clear night sky. “How soon can he get us to Las Vegas?” His wolf growled inside his head, the hunt taking on a renewed sense of urgency.

 “Where are they?” Wade asked, his mind already formulating scenarios for the upcoming rescue.

“They’re deep in Death Valley National Park. The jet won’t be able to land.”

“Can they drop us off?” Wade asked, his eyes burning hotly with the fire of his excited wolf. They both liked to hunt, and this hunt was more important than anything they’d ever attempted. He was going to bring his brothers home alive. I have to. I won’t live with the alternative.

“I’ve never done a night drop,” Kai said with a smirk. The pack sentinel was never one to back away from a challenge or from a hunt.

“We’ll do a tandem jump,” Wade said. “I’ll need…”

“It’s already on board,” Angus said. The Alpha swung off the highway and tore up the dirt road of his property. “You’ll find you have everything you need. The pride in Eminence has Samson Reed as their quartermaster.”

Wade nodded, a smile twitching at his lips as hope surged through him. He knew Samson Reed well, and also knew he lived up to his reputation as the most lethal warrior in the shifter world. There would be enough equipment on board that jet to fight a small army. Good. “Those cops in Vegas aren’t going to know what hit them.”

Wade refused to let the fear take root and fester. He had a job to do. He had to keep himself and Kai alive through a difficult night incursion and then pull his brother’s asses out of whatever trouble they’d gone and landed themselves in.

Easy.

ADULT EXCERPT

Jules tore his lips from hers and kissed her cheek. “You’re killing me, Evie. Tell me to stop or I’ll be inside you before we reach the bed.”

“Don’t stop.” The husky voice sounded nothing like hers. She meant it, though. She sucked at Jules’s neck, her pussy getting wetter as his steps faltered and he moaned deeply.

“Fuck.”

She was hoisted higher against his body as he supported her with one arm. She released his deliciously spicy skin to protest when she heard fabric tearing. One tug against her own clothing and hot, steely flesh pushed against her opening. She didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, didn’t speak. She pushed down, her leaking juices making him slide deeply and effortlessly inside her.

She clung to him and moaned as pleasure rocked her. She felt her pussy stretch and fill as his cock filled her in one sensuous slide. He sank a little deeper with each of his strides, and she shivered as his cock bumped the entrance to her womb in a sensation that teetered on the very edge of where pleasure morphed to pain. Her Jules was a big man. Big everywhere.

Her head span as she was lowered onto her back, Jules following her down, his arms braced to hold his weight off her.

“Too perfect, Evie. Tell me you want to be my mate?”

His eyes bored into hers, the wolf alive in the dancing red sparks that lit the blue of his irises. She wanted him. Wanted them all. Wanted to be with them.

“I don’t know how it happened so fast, but I love you. I know I love you. All of you.”

Evie heard the soft growls and saw movement around her. Walker, Paxton, and Wade were there. Jules moved inside her, and she felt the tears fill her eyes. It was so good. So much better than anyone had a right to feel.

Paxton wiped away a tear as it ran into her hair. “You didn’t answer his question.”

“I can’t be your mate.”

Jules stopped moving and seemed to have turned to cold, hard stone above her.

“What?” Jules husked.

Evie knew she’d ruined everything. Was making a mess of her explanation. “I have to leave. Have to bury Oscar and be with my parents for as long as they need me.”

Jules’s breath whooshed out as he closed his eyes and sighed. “Fuck, Evie. You nearly killed me.”

Evie took in the deathly white color of Jules’s face and shivered at how cold his body had become. She suspected he wasn’t speaking figuratively when he said she’d nearly killed him. She needed to get this right, make them understand.

“We told you we’d come with you,” Walker said. He knelt by the bed, stroking her leg as his gaze burned her with his need. “We will be wherever you are. Always.”

This was what she didn’t want. “I want you all, but I can’t ask you to leave the pack when they need you. Bobbi, Samantha, little Corey. They need all of you. I will be your mate when I come back.”

Jules went to rise but she clung to him. “Don’t stop,” she begged. “I want you so badly.” She looked at Walker, then Paxton and Wade. “I want to make love to you all, but I can’t bind you to me until I come back.” She swallowed as pain tore at her heart. Even thinking about leaving them was agony. “I can’t do that to your pack.”

“So, you’ll make love to us,” Wade said slowly, his gaze flicking briefly to Walker as Walker growled. “But you don’t want to complete the mating.”

Evie’s eyes slammed shut, and she moaned as Jules thrust deeply inside her. “You will torture us by allowing us to claim this body as ours and mark you with our seed but deny us the bite that will bind our souls.”

Evie felt too much. She was hot, too hot. Her clothes rasped painfully against her skin. She tore at Jules’s shirt, desperate to feel his warm skin beneath her hands. “Yes.”

Jules wrapped his arms around her back and held her snugly as he lifted to kneel on the bed. He sat on his heels and she ended up straddling his lap as he thrust slowly and deeply inside her. 

She ripped his shirt open, sending buttons flying as she smoothed her hands up his perfect chest, delighting in the feel of him as she pushed his ruined shirt down his arms. He was beautiful. Hard, sculpted muscles and caramel skin. Her fingers tingled just from the feel of him.

“Can we do that? Is it allowed?” She whispered the words, dreaded asking in case it was impossible. Jules thrust deeply as he lifted the sweatshirt up over her head, trapping her arms until Walker pulled the garment free.

“It’s allowed,” Wade said, lifting his hand to show her one wickedly curved claw. “It’s not what we want.” She watched as he lowered that claw to her pants. He ran it down her leg, and she gasped as the material parted instantly. “It’s just not the way it’s usually done.”

“Our mate, our rules,” Paxton said, gripping her cheeks softly in his big hands and taking her mouth in a kiss that left her in no doubt that she was being claimed, even if she wasn’t going to allow them to bind themselves to her with their bites.

Evie wanted them. Wanted them so badly she nearly changed her mind when Paxton released her lips and Jules lowered her to the bed. She felt him everywhere, and it was heaven. His hard, hot flesh slid over hers, and her pussy gripped him tightly as her orgasm came rushing up on her.

“Look at me, Evie,” Jules said. She forced her eyes open, her pussy fluttering as Jules thrust faster, harder inside her. His arms were still under her, his hands wrapped around her shoulders, pinning her in place, locking her against him. “You’re mine.”

“Yours.”