Lover Claimed

Lover Claimed

Dark Wolf Enterprises Series

A.M. Griffin

Lover Claimed © 2014 A.M.
Griffin

A Smashwords
Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of
the copyright owners.

Editing services were provided by Anya
Richards,
http://grammargoggles.blogspot.com/

Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.,
http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/

Formatting by Stacey Price
[email protected]

As always this book is dedicated to my
wonderful family. Kisses and hugs.

Acknowledgements

A big thank you to a wonderful group of
authors who have taken a crazy ride with me, Amy Ruttan, Anya
Richards and Danica Avet. You all have given me strength when I
faltered, have talked me from the ledge more times than I can count
and have offered to help me in make-believe rumbles. I don’t know
what I’d do without any of you. May we have many more crazy
journeys in our future. And to Tina Reiter, thank you for beta
reading Lover Claimed for me and loving the characters just as much
as I do. Readers like you are the reason why I write.

Dark Wolf Enterprises
Series

Lover Claimed

When Meisha comes home and finds a strange
man in her kitchen, she does what any sensible person would do. She
beats the crap out of him first, then asks questions after. When he
explains her best friend is in mortal danger, Meisha knows the
whole mess—including a recent murder and the threats on her
friend’s life—may be her fault, and she’s determined to get to the
bottom of it. And no sexy stranger is going to stop her.

Lajos Farkas isn’t expecting to meet a
spitfire, martial artist when he’s on a mission to figure out who’s
stealing from Dark Wolf Enterprises, and he certainly doesn’t
expect her to insist on butting in on his investigation. But
getting rid of Meisha is seemingly impossible, and when his wolf
decides she’s his life-mate, suddenly he realizes he’ll do anything
to keep her close and grow old with her.

If they can just stay alive long enough to
make that possible.

Chapter One

Lajos Farkas stood next to his big brother,
Kristof. Even though Kristof appeared cool, calm and collected on
the outside, Lajos knew on the inside he was anything but. Kristof
stood on his own as if by sheer determination, but Lajos stuck by
his side just in case Kristof got weak again, like he’d done not
too long ago.

“How are you holding up?” Lajos whispered to
him. He didn’t know why he was whispering since the only human
around, Trudy, was collecting her toiletries from the bathroom and
wasn’t interested in anything they were talking about.

“I’m fine,” Kristof said, but Lajos doubted
he was telling the truth because his voice was strained, as if he’d
lose it any minute.

Lajos could feel Kristof’s wolf battling for
control. The undercurrent of electricity telling of an impending
shift was in the air. Lajos didn’t blame the wolf, since he had, in
fact, just imprinted on his life-mate, the human and unsuspecting
Trudy Hollander.

They both stood in Trudy’s bedroom while
Kristof pushed his thoughts to her, but doing that while trying to
keep his wolf at bay was draining him of most of his energy. Lajos
was so close to Kristof that their arms touched. He would need to
grab him when and if Kristof fell again. The last time Kristof
fell, it had been outside of Trudy’s house when Kristof’s wolf
first imprinted on her. Lajos knew an imprinting could happen
anywhere, but neither him nor Kristof expected it to happen in the
middle the fucking street.

Lajos had never witnessed an imprinting
before and only heard stories that couples regaled others with
after the fact. They talked about how magical it had been, the
instant attraction. They also talked about how relieving it was to
finally find a life-mate. To Lajos, it always sounded too
fairytale-ish. As far as he was concerned, he’d be perfectly happy
if he never found his mate. There were a lot of shifters who were
unmated and they were happy just the same. But no one had ever
mentioned imprinting on a human or the feelings that Kristof was
experiencing, which ranged from sick to his stomach and disgust for
imprinting on a human to weakness.

If the thought of his brother being stuck
with a human for the rest of his life wasn’t so horrifying, Lajos
would find Kristof’s imprinting almost comical.

It all started so innocently. There they
were, on an assignment, trying to find out who had targeted the
outside firm Kristof had hired to audit their company, Dark Wolf
Enterprises. The first night Kristof had met Trudy Hollander, the
owner of Hollander Accounting, the accounting firm he’d hired, he
imprinted on her.

Boom! Out of fucking nowhere.

Kristof’s plan to terminate the contract
between Dark Wolf Enterprises and Hollander Accounting went down
the drain.

“Well you don’t look like you’re fine,” Lajos
said. Kristof looked like shit on a wet stick.

Kristof shook his head. Lajos couldn’t tell
if he was trying to communicate that he wasn’t okay or if Kristof
was having some kind of internal battle with his wolf. “I can’t
believe this just happened,” Kristof ground out.

“You and me both. What the hell? I didn’t
even know we could imprint on humans or I would’ve stayed clear of
them.”

Kristof huffed. It was strained and sounded
more like a painful grunt. “Yeah right. You like fucking the humans
too much to stay away from them.”

Lajos smiled. It’s not like he preferred
humans over his own kind. It was that when he fucked a human the
odds of seeing her again were slim, while fucking a wolf meant he
would eventually run into her again. Despite multitudes of shifter
packs and clans, their community often felt small and alliances
were always being tested. There was no point in having a dispute
between the packs because of a jealous lover. He didn’t have to
worry about that with humans. “Right, but maybe from now on I’ll
wear shades while I’m doing it.”

Kristof shook his head again.

“Was that for me or for your wolf?” Lajos
asked, concern lacing his voice.

“For you, you idiot. My wolf is beyond
reasoning with. He wants Trudy. End of story.”

“Tell me this,” Lajos asked. “Did you have
any indication this would happen? Even a little bit?”

Kristof ran a hand through what had once been
his perfectly styled hair. “None, or I wouldn’t have come. When I
spoke with her on the phone my wolf was interested…curious, but
nothing more.”

“So now what? This isn’t going to be as cut
and dried as you thought.”

“You’re right. My plan to come down here and
dissolve our contract will need a little reworking. It seems the
wolves that sliced up her employee want to do the same to her.”

Lajos looked around the small bedroom, and if
he didn’t know better he would’ve thought a hurricane had passed
through. From what he knew, two wolves had come through the side
window from another bedroom. When Trudy saw them coming down the
hall she tried to keep safe by closing and barricading her bedroom
door. She had then taken her Beagle and jumped out her bedroom
window. That’s when Kristof had his first encounter with her.
Mistaking him for one of her pursuers, she’d kneed Kristof in the
nuts and ran to a neighbor’s house.

While Kristof lay writhing in pain on the
dirt, Lajos had chased the wolves. Unfortunately the wolves shifted
and got away. Even though his wolf wanted to do the same and follow
them, Lajos held back. He and Kristof were from Marquette, Michigan
and knew nothing about Jacksonville, Florida. He couldn’t risk
getting caught with his pants down—literally.

“And you’re sure you didn’t recognize their
scent?” Kristof asked.

Lajos and his brothers had built Dark Wolf
Enterprises from the ground up. While his brothers had a knack for
business, he didn’t. Kristof was good with numbers and was the
Chief Financial Officer, and Andras, the head of the pack, was the
Chief Executive Officer. Lajos couldn’t imagine being trapped in an
office for hours on end, looking at computers, talking on the phone
or conducting business meetings. His wolf would drive him crazy
even if he tried.

When his brothers first thought of the idea
of Dark Wolf Enterprises, mainly as a way to funnel the money
they’d accumulated over the one hundred plus years of being on
their own, both Andras and Kristof had come to him, hoping he’d
partner with them. Hell no, had been Lajos’ answer. Lajos even
remembered shuddering at the very thought. But when Andras said he
could be head of security and wouldn’t be confined to an office, he
relented. Andras knew no one had a nose that was better than
his.

Lajos had the ability to walk into a room and
sniff out any shifter in the area, wolf or not. Most wolves could
sniff out another, but Lajos was the only one in their pack who
could not only sniff out others, but place them in a pack. Lajos
found that all shifters carried the scent of their family. If he
met one member, he could identify any subsequent members.
Unfortunately, finding out what pack or clan a shifter was from
meant he would’ve had to have dealt with that particular pack or
clan before. Which wasn’t the case for the two wolves they’d
encountered tonight.

“Not at all.”

“So, we don’t know them. Or at least you
don’t know them.” Kristof frowned and stroked his chin. “I just
don’t get why a shifter pack is going through this much trouble to
bankrupt us. Embezzlement and murder? That’s excessive. And the
bigger question is how they’re able to pull it off right under our
noses.”

Trudy had finished packing her overnight bag
and come to stand next to Kristof, watching him with faraway eyes.
She hadn’t wanted to go with Kristof to his hotel room for the
night, and she’d vigorously declined his offer of protection. But
it was too dangerous for her to stay at home, since the wolves
would probably return. So Kristof had no other choice but to push
thoughts into her mind in order to make her leave with him. Lajos
knew Kristof was telling Trudy that she wanted to go to the hotel
with him and she wanted Kristof to protect her.

Lajos inclined his head toward Trudy.
“Hopefully your new mate can help answer that question. She said
she found something in the records,”
Lajos pushed his thoughts
to Kristof.

Kristof narrowed his eyes on Lajos.

Lajos put up his hands.
“What? What did I
say wrong?”

Trudy looked at Lajos’ raised hands and
frowned. After a few seconds she looked away, uninterested. If she
wanted to ask him what he was doing, she didn’t. Lajos figured that
with Kristof in her mind, muddling it, the thought of asking Lajos
why he’d raised his hands for no apparent reason had come and
gone.

“
Just don’t say anything more about her
being my mate. Let me handle Trudy and you handle the dog.”

Lajos looked down at the Beagle. Trudy said
the dog couldn’t go with her to the hotel so, while Trudy and
Kristof went to work on the audit, Lajos was tasked with dropping
the dog off at the house of Trudy’s best friend, Meisha. After that
he would go to Hollander Accounting to look for any clues. The cops
have already been through the crime scene looking for clues, Lajos
only hoped there was something left behind—anything that the cops
might’ve thought was unimportant, but could be of use to him. He
needed to go tonight because by tomorrow Trudy’s business would be
thoroughly cleaned by a cleaning crew. Lajos had to get there
before they arrived, otherwise he would smell nothing but
bleach.

“What’s the dog’s name?” Lajos asked
Trudy.

“Piper.” Her voice was monotone.

Lajos picked up the elderly dog, noting to
himself that she could stand to lose about fifteen pounds. “I don’t
expect any trouble out of you,” he said, talking to Piper.

Piper looked up at him with innocent
eyes.

Like all animals, Piper could sense the wolf
inside of him and would feel a kindred spirit.

Piper wagged her tail, as if she didn’t have
any plans to run away as soon as he put her down and opened the
door. But he could sense the excitement building in her old bones.
She planned to break for freedom and not look back.