Moon Shine (Takhini Wolves) (23 page)

About the Author

Vivian Arend in one word:
Adventurous
. In a sentence:
Willing to try just about anything once
. That wide-eyed attitude has taken her around North America, through parts of Europe, and into Central and South America, often with no running water.

Her optimistic outlook also meant that when challenged to write a book, she gave it a shot, and discovered creating worlds to play in was nearly as addictive as traveling the real one. Now a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of both contemporary and paranormal stories, Vivian continues to explore, write and otherwise keep herself well entertained.

Website:
www.vivianarend.com

Twitter:
www.twitter.com/VivianArend

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/VivianArend

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Look for these titles by Vivian Arend

Now Available:

Granite Lake Wolves

Wolf Signs

Wolf Flight

Wolf Games

Wolf Tracks

Wolf Line

Wolf Nip

Takhini Wolves

Black Gold

Silver Mine

Diamond Dust

Six Pack Ranch

Rocky Mountain Heat

Rocky Mountain Haven

Rocky Mountain Desire

Rocky Mountain Angel

Rocky Mountain Rebel

Rocky Mountain Freedom

Thompson & Sons

Baby, Be Mine

Forces of Nature

Tidal Wave

Whirlpool

Turner Twins

Turn It On

Turn It Up

Pacific Passion

Stormchild

Stormy Seduction

Silent Storm

Xtreme Adventures

Falling, Freestyle

Rising, Freestyle

Paradise Found

She can’t shift, but she can shake their world.

Diamond Dust

© 2013 Vivian Arend

Takhini Wolves, Book 3

Caroline Bradley is having one hell of a week. Her wolf lover has sniffed out his mate, making her an instant free agent. Not only that, Takhini territory has been overrun with aggressive bear-shifters electing a clan leader, and the wolf pack is feeling the effects—pushing her diplomatic skills to the limit.

Tyler Harrison is a grizzly on a mission. If he’s going to win the majority of the bears’ votes, he needs one final thing: a female companion. The only woman in town with influence over wolves, humans, and more bears than he’d like to admit, is Caroline.

Despite the sexual pull between them, though, Tyler’s not seeking a permanent relationship. And Caroline isn’t looking to be anyone else’s political pawn. But she should have remembered that when shifters are involved, changes happen in the blink of an eye.

Warning: Billionaire bear hero plus kick-ass human heroine equals a sexually volatile power struggle. Get ready for what might be the naughtiest game of tag that’s ever been played in the great outdoors.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Diamond Dust:

The partially open French doors caught his eye. He dropped his tie, grabbed up an apple from the massive fruit bowl decorating the kitchen counter and ate it as he wandered to the balcony railing. An incredible view greeted him, with the mountains rising behind the city streets. The lack of skyscrapers added to the beauty, and he breathed deep to fill his lungs with fresh air.

A faint scent of human made him turn, but there was no one there. Only the door he’d left open behind him, and at the far side of the deck an open lounging area with a hot tub, the lid strangely askew.

A hand draped over the far edge, just visible from his new position.

Hell.

Tyler raced forward, reached into the water and scooped up the limp body of a blonde woman. Her head had been resting on a drink holder, the only thing that had kept her from becoming completely submerged.

“Wake up, little mermaid.” Tyler cradled her against him. He nudged the door open and brought her inside, dripping wet, examining her face for a reaction. She was breathing, but shallowly. He lowered her onto the couch then pulled a handy throw blanket over her shivering torso. “Can you hear me?”

Her lips moved, eyelashes fluttering. Nothing but slight muttering to his question.

Damn it. He had to call someone, and now. He leaned over her to snatch the phone from the side table. Her arms flailed. In his unprotected position, one hand connected sharply with his nose, and he grunted in pain.

Ignoring the phone for a second, he tucked her in again, holding down her arms to stop her from hurting herself or taking more pot shots at his face. “You don’t need to hit me, I’m trying to help you.”

“
Bear
…”

The word whispered past her lips, and Tyler paused. Leaned in closer and sniffed.

The scent of wolves clung to his waterlogged woman, but she wasn’t wolf. Human through and through, yet the fact she’d just called him a bear?

Something was happening he wanted to get to the bottom of.

“Can you hear me?”

Her lips moved steadily, drawing his attention to them. For the first time he paused long enough to look the rest of her over. Her blonde hair stuck up in spots, the pale colouring all the way to the roots. Her skin was pale as well—whether from soaking in his tub or her natural colour, he wasn’t sure. The deep red of her lips contrasted sharply against her skin, a delicate pout forming on their soft surface as she attempted to speak.

Speaking of bears, his was at full alert. The beast bumped to the surface, keen on him shifting for some reason. While he was the bear and the bear was him, there was one part of his brain that remained independent. His human side reasoning, rational. His animal side more…well, animal. Earthier and more connected to the wilder roots of shifterdom.

He understood why his bear was interested. Pretty face and pretty body, the swells of her breasts rose and fell as her breathing evened out and grew stronger. That was the reason he was staring at her chest, to make sure she was recovering from her ordeal. Not because he could see straight through the wet shirt and the bra underneath it. Not because the lush redness of her lips seemed to be reflected in the tips of those breasts…

Tyler shook his head to make his brains settle back in place.

Damn bear.

His mystery woman sucked in a deep breath, her eyes opening all the way. “Frack.”

He soothed her, attempting to keep her horizontal on the couch without actually forcing her back. “You should stay still.”

Her gaze darted over his face, and this adorable little crease appeared between her brows. “Who are you?”

Caution made him word his answer carefully. If this was someone planted by another bear clan, he wanted to know, so he used the oldest ploy in the book. His friend would understand. “I’m Justin. What’s your name?”

“Caroline.” Her eyes widened. “Why am I soaking wet?”

“I found you in my hot tub. I hoped you could tell me—”

“Oh, shoot.”

She would have surged upward, and this time he made contact, hands to her shoulders, to keep her from jerking to vertical. “Don’t. You nearly drowned. Until you remember what happened, you shouldn’t move.”

The fabric separating his palms and her skin warmed, and the scent of her skin grew stronger. She relaxed onto the overstuffed fabric as she tentatively touched the back of her head.

“I remember. I was finishing cleaning the suite and slipped on the tub.” She moved her fingers slowly but still cringed in pain. “There’s a goose egg to prove it.”

Tyler settled on his heels beside her. Cleaning staff. Okay, that was a possible solution to the question without turning this into some kind of political intrigue.

“Do you mind if I check?”

“Be my guest.” She frowned. “You’re Justin? You’re the security man for Tyler Harrison.”

Cleaning staff who knew details of the room’s occupants? Tyler returned to being suspicious all over again.

He lifted her carefully until he could examine the back of her head. “I’m checking things out in the room. Everything seemed to be in order other than you doing unsupervised synchro.”

“Can you get me out of here before he arrives?”

“You sure you’re okay to move?” Tyler helped her upright, sitting next to her on the couch. He held one arm around her to stop her from shifting from side to side.

Caroline groaned lightly. “I’ll be all right. I’m not nauseous or anything, which is good. I would hate to throw up and ruin the great cleaning job I did.”

Tyler laughed. The conversation was far more blunt than he usually got to hear from people. “Well, yes. Let’s avoid vomiting, shall we?”

It was rather comfortable sitting with her. Far more comfortable than he should be after rescuing a strange woman in a strange place. He wanted to be wary, wanted to remain alert to the potential troubles in the situation, but with her wet body cuddled beside him, his damn bear seemed to have taken control of his mind.

Her shirt had separated from the waistband of her pants, and a sliver of bare skin rested under his fingers. The sheer willpower it took to keep from stroking that soft section of skin shook him.

His human side pushed forward in defense with logic. “I should call a doctor to check you out.”

She frowned. “I’ll go to the clinic. Let’s not have ambulances at the hotel today. It wouldn’t be a great way to start things off. Might set a damper on the meetings.”

Curiousier and curiousier. “You’ve obviously worked at the Moonshine Inn for a while.”

Give her a chance to admit she knew about shifters, and the game would change all over again. A tiny bud of a notion had burst forth in the last minute, probably planted by his bear, but damn if it wasn’t a working idea.

She nodded slowly, wincing. “I’ve been on staff for nearly five years. Since before the Takhini pack bought out the previous owners.”

And there was his answer. “You know about shifters, then.”

She snorted.

His bear was far too charmed by her instant and honest response.

Caroline motioned upward. “Help me to my feet, and we’ll see how I do. Yes, I know about shifters. Half-blood family, actually. My stepdad’s wolf, so I’ve lived with pack most of my life.”

A human who grew up with shifters. This might be the solution to one of his problems during the upcoming conference days.

Not to mention a lovely distraction, as long as she hadn’t injured herself with that crazy fall.

He had her standing, his arms still around her in case she wobbled. Caroline clutched his shoulder momentarily as her knees gave way. He caught her around the waist and pulled her against him for support. She was tall enough to make him not feel quite as enormous as he usually felt around the ladies. Other than that, he was desperately beating back the bear, who had just suggested they should peel her out of her wet clothes to make sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere else.

“I think we should get that doctor in here.”

“No.” Caroline spoke firmly. “Damn, you shifters are all the same, bossy as get out. I’m fine, and I really have to leave before your boss gets here.”

His boss. Oh right, his little name game. They could drop that ploy. “Actually, I’m—”

The door opened, and Justin walked in. His best friend froze in midstep as he took in the entire scenario. From the open door, the trail of water across the carpet, the wet and disheveled woman, and Tyler himself.

Caroline swore and to his great surprise, hid herself against his side, arms curling around his torso.

Surviving will take a miracle. Happily Ever After’s going to take two.

Enigma

© 2014 Moira Rogers

Southern Arcana, Book 6

Anna Lenoir has always fought. First to escape her broken childhood, then to prove a female shapeshifter can stand shoulder to shoulder with the men. Now she fights for money, and her reputation is as legendary as her stone-cold heart. She’s never met a man she couldn’t walk away from.

Until him.

Bounty hunter Patrick McNamara has a scary reputation of his own, along with mysterious powers linked to his many tattoos. On the clock, they’re the perfect supernatural-crime-solving team. After hours, she’s ready to rock his world. But Patrick won’t settle for just her body, and Anna’s better at breaking homes than making them.

When the heir to the Southwest council goes missing, their combined skills are the best chance of averting a territory war. But the hunt will drag them through the most vulnerable parts of their broken pasts. Daring to risk her heart might be the first fight she loses, and the stakes have never been higher.

Because Patrick will sacrifice anything for her. Even his life.

Warning: Contains cheap motel rooms, gas station chili dogs, supernatural politics and a literal flaming sword. Also, sex. Angry sex, dirty sex, sweet sex and thank-god-you’re-alive sex between a tough-as-nails heroine with a fragile woobie heart, and a dangerous hero who will sacrifice anything to love her.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Enigma:

She hated this part.

Anna never bothered to tell anyone how much she disliked hunting because she wasn’t sure they’d believe it. People, as a general rule, wanted to think things were simple. Easily classified. She was good at tracking, even better at eliminating threats. Knowing she hated every moment of it wouldn’t fit with anyone’s expectations of a badass bounty hunter.

She stopped in her tracks as a breeze kicked the scent of iron and cotton into her nose. Anna pushed through the dense foliage of the forest floor and found a torn T-shirt under a pitcher plant, the blood so fresh it could only belong to the man she was tracking.

Wolf.
Forgetting wouldn’t do either of them any good. He wasn’t a man, had tried to be one again and failed because he’d discovered his human body didn’t fit right anymore. That was why he was there.

Why she’d followed.

She picked up the trail and ran, nose to the ground, paws rustling through the moss and ferns. The track ended in a shallow stream, little more than a trickle, and Anna growled.

If she didn’t find him…

Doubts were indulgences—wasn’t that what the Conclave instructors always said? Every moment wasted on second-guesses was a moment someone could die.

One path beyond the stream led farther into the depths of the bayou. The other, back toward the tiny town whose scant lights twinkled through trees heavy with Spanish moss. Intellect told her the darker path was too facile, too obvious. If she were on the run, she’d head toward town, double back and catch her pursuer at his heels.

But the man had come here because his wolf had pushed down everything rational in his mind and let instinct take over. Instinct would tell him to flee from signs of man, to take to the woods and stay there. Live as the animal he was.

If it were that clear-cut, Anna would have been content to leave him be. But the man would always push back, struggle to reassert control over the beast. Sooner or later, the memory of what he’d once been would drive him to seek out humanity—with disastrous, deadly results.

Anna took the dark path and forged deeper into the swamp.

Too much thinking, and it almost got her. She rounded the end of a fallen tree and stumbled into a small clearing—the perfect place for an ambush.

Her paws dug into the earth as she scrambled back, but the sharp snap of a twig heralded the attack. The feral wolf sprang from the cover of the trees to her left and took her down hard. She twisted, barely avoiding the massive jaws aimed at her throat.

Anna came up biting. She wasn’t part of his pack, and they weren’t playing. He’d go straight for the kill, and that gave her an edge. Let him try it, exhaust himself with lunge after lunge. Eventually, he’d tire. He’d make a mistake.

He was strong and he was desperate, and the fight dragged on long enough to worry her. The magic spilling out of him wasn’t dominant, and in other circumstances she’d have tried her best to cow him and end the fight with submission instead of death.

But crazy men didn’t surrender, and that was exactly what he was, only worse.

Finally, he stretched too far as he charged her, baring the vulnerable expanse of his throat for a shade too long. One lucky shot and she took it, sinking her teeth in deep and holding on.

For as long as the fight had lasted, he died quickly, the light seeping from his eyes like his blood into the soil. Anna imagined that he looked grateful in those last moments, but she knew it wasn’t true.

Ken Trumaine of Corpus Christi, Texas, hadn’t wanted to die any more than he’d wanted to be bitten, turned into a wolf and driven insane by the whole fucking experience. He probably wanted to get drunk on Bourbon Street, pay a stripper way too much for a two-minute lap dance and go home with some goddamn hilarious war stories about his long weekend in New Orleans.

He hadn’t wanted to die.

She didn’t realize she’d shifted until she heard her own hoarse, muttered curse. Anna rose and stumbled back, caught herself before breaking into a sprint. She could run, but what was the point? Nothing to run from here, just a dead wolf and a man whose family would never find him.

She could run, but she couldn’t run away.

Anna Lenoir had gotten tattoos.

Crouched against a tree, Patrick let his gaze slide over her naked skin, indulging himself in the few moments he had before this crossed the line from cautious to creepy.

Maybe it already had. Charms masked his scent, little wooden discs etched in runes and blooded with power. They throbbed against his skin under his black T-shirt, their prickling energy a reminder of his own weakness. The last time he’d raced Anna Lenoir for a kill, he hadn’t needed magic. He’d had his own, the power and spells etched into his skin instead of wood.

She’d beaten him then too, without even knowing it.

Any second now, she’d realize he was there. His charms might hide him from most of her senses, but Anna was a wolf, a creature of instinct. She’d feel his gaze soon enough, and then he’d have a damn hard time explaining why he’d crouched in the bushes, admiring her ass, when he should have been making sure she was okay—or throwing her some damn clothes.

But she had
ink
. When he’d last seen her naked, she hadn’t had any. They’d been in the bayou then too, preparing for a battle. It hadn’t stopped him from fixing her surprisingly curvy figure into his mind.

Now he focused on that ink. It stood out against her skin, provided fascinating contrast even though he wasn’t close enough to make out the distinct shapes. He wanted to get closer. Touch her.

Damn, he
was
creepy. Closing his eyes, he whistled sharply. “Lenoir, it’s McNamara.”

Her ragged, indrawn breath carried in the still night. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Showing up late to the party again. You’re fast, woman.”

Her cheeks glistened in the moonlight, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand. “There’s no paycheck attached to this one, so you may as well go home.”

She was crying. Guilt punched through him, and he rocked to his feet, stripped off his T-shirt and tossed it into the clearing before turning his back. “Wasn’t about the paycheck. This is my town now too.”

“Sure.” The word was muffled, and her footsteps rustled out of the clearing. “You can tell Alec it’s done if you want.”

His shirt came down to her knees, covering everything he’d been leering at a few minutes ago. “I wasn’t really thinking. You probably want to change back to get out of here instead of walking barefoot.”

“No,” she said too quickly. “I’m fine like this. Thanks for the shirt.”

“No problem.” He glanced at the wolf—dead, a neat, fast kill. Merciful. “Walk back with me?”

She hesitated, then nodded and fell into step beside him. “I didn’t know you were on this one. No one at council headquarters tells me shit.”

“I volunteered.” Patrick shrugged. “Not that Alec tells me much, but Julio’s always willing to put me to work.”

“It’s not that you’re not handy to have around,” she muttered. “If it sounded that way, it’s not what I meant, okay?”

“You just sounded like you wanted to be in the loop. I don’t blame you.”

She sighed almost inaudibly. “How have you been?”

No one asked that question wanting to know the answer. Not really. “Doing good. Living the posh life in the Southeast council headquarters. I’m surprised Julio and Sera don’t bully you into coming over for family dinners.”

Anna stopped and looked up at him until he met her gaze. “How have you
been
, Patrick?”

Stupid him. Anna wasn’t everyone else. “Still in one piece, more or less. You?”

“Same as ever.” She fidgeted with his shirt, her fingers clenching in the black cotton. “Are you careful?”

The thought that she cared could make a man giddy, but he’d been dancing with Anna for too long to let himself cherish that hope. She blew hot and cold depending on the weather or the phase of the moon or the day of the week.

But she seemed sincere enough, so he bit back the snippy reply he’d given the last person to ask that question. “I’m not out to get myself killed, I promise.”

She frowned, intense and troubled. “I don’t know if I believe you.”