New Species 03 Valiant

Valiant

Laurann Dohner

Book 3 in the New Species series.

Tammy has always tried to be prepared for any

calamity life might send her way but she never imagined

a sexy, lion man-beast in her future. He’s huge, got the

most exotic, golden cat-eyes she’s ever seen, and she’s so

terrified she’s speechless for the first time in her life. He’s

stalking closer, growling at her, and she’s too terrified to

even flee.

Valiant hates humans. But when he gets a whiff of

the adorable human female who has invaded his

territory, he starts rethinking. Her fear scents of pure,

sweet temptation and the closer he gets, the more

appealing she becomes. Once he’s got his hands on her,

he isn’t about to let her go. One thought will change his

life. MINE!

Before Tammy can regain her senses, she’s flat on

her back in Valiant’s bed. Now he just has to use every

inch of his big, buff body to convince her that she should

stay with him forever.

El ora’s Cave Publishing

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Valiant

ISBN 9781419936005

ALL RIGHT S RESERVED

Valiant Copyright © 2011 Laurann Dohner

Edit ed by Pamela Campbel

Cover design and phot ography by Syneca

Model: Nick

Elect ronic book publicat ion Sept ember 2011

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VALIANT

Laurann Dohner

Thank you to Mr. Laurann for always understanding

those late nights I kept while writing. His love has taught

me anything is possible. I’d also like to say thank you to

Kele Moon. She’s an amazing person, a wonderful friend

and a fantastic critique partner. A lso, last but not least,

special thanks go to my lovely editor, Pamela Campbell,

for teaching me so much and keeping up with this write-

aholic. She’s a saint!

Tammy Shasta had experienced fear plenty of times

in her twenty-eight years of life but this made all those

other times pale in comparison. She’d known her job

might be dangerous. Everything these days held a bit of

risk. Driving on the highway could be perilous, someone

crossing a street could be struck by a car, and even

cleaning windows could be hazardous. A fter all,

someone, somewhere, had accidentally broken a

window, ended up badly cut, and had bled to death while

on the job.

Shit happens. It had become her motto in life. She’d

just never believed her job would really be treacherous.

Not really. What really bad thing could happen, serving

food and drinks? She had mentally gone over the list.

She could slip and fall or get burned if she spilled hot

food. The worst case scenario she’d ever thought up was

perhaps being shot at if she ever catered a party for the

mob but the chances of them ending up living in a small

town in Northern California were slim to none. Yet…here

she faced the kind of terror she never thought she’d

experience in real life. Not in a million years had she seen

this kind of situation coming, even with her wild

imagination working overtime.

She stood frozen, no matter how loudly she inwardly

screamed at her body to turn and run for her life. Nope.

Not happening for me. Her body refused to respond. A ll

her best-laid plans of being tough, prepared for anything,

had fled with her courage. She wasn’t superhero tough.

She mimicked a lawn statue instead or a mime locked in

horror.

Her mouth hung open but the scream wasn’t

forthcoming. She couldn’t even muster a whimper.

Nothing. Her heart beat so rapidly she wondered if it

could take flight right out of her chest and still no sound

passed her lips. She couldn’t even breathe and she really

needed air. Maybe sucking some in would promote a

scream but…no. This sucks!

She’d always heard that someone’s life passed before

their eyes when they knew they were about to die. She

wasn’t seeing images of her past flashing through her

mind. Nope. Her wide-eyed gaze remained fixed on the

huge man-beast who growled at her.

He was a man but not quite since no regular guy had

sharp teeth or could scare her nearly to death with that

horrible sound that rumbled from deep within his throat,

mimicking a vicious animal. He appeared both beautiful

and ferocious at the same time.

If a guy pumped up on steroids he’d resemble the

massive man who terrified her. He had to be about six-

and-a-half-feet tall. His arms were extremely muscular

and his wide chest reminded her of a mountain. His skin

had tanned to a golden tone but it was his hair that made

him beautiful. It was the color of an autumn leaf—

reddish-orange with thick strands of blond streaks

running through it. It hung shoulder-length and parted

slightly to the side of his face.

One really scary part about him had to be his face

because he almost looked human but not quite. His eyes

were the color of melted gold and they were shaped like

a cat’s, only with super-long eyelashes. His nose flared

wide and flatter than anyone she’d ever seen. His

cheekbones were prominent and dominated his face but

they complemented his strong, square chin. That brought

her attention to his really full, nearly pouty lips, and at

the moment, they were parted, revealing some extremely

white, pointed teeth. A gain, not the kind of teeth normal

people had.

“Back up, Tammy.” It was her boss, Ted A rmstrong,

who yelled at her. “Don’t make any sudden movements

and come toward me. Do it now.”

Back up? He expects me to move? She realized she

had started breathing again when her lungs stopped

hurting from lack of oxygen. She had the urge to turn

her head and glance at Ted to give him an are-you-

kidding-me look but she couldn’t. She also couldn’t force

her terrified gaze away the huge man-beast slowly

stalking closer, glaring at her with those large, oddly

beautiful catlike eyes. His face was scary-angry and he

growled at her again.

“Damn it, Tammy. Back up slowly right now. Just

look down at the ground and come to me. You can do

it.”

She wished that were true but her body still refused

to listen as she silently screamed at it to follow orders.

Nothing moved but her chest as her heart hammered and

air passed between her parted lips. She blinked, which

was progress, but that was it.

“Valiant!” another man called out loudly. “Calm down

and back away from the female. She isn’t challenging

you. She’s just scared shitless.” The new voice had a

strong, deep pitch and he sounded angry.

The man-beast growled again when he took another

step closer to Tammy. She wanted to run but her legs

seemed rooted to the ground. She tried to tear her gaze

from the golden eyes staring back at her but just couldn’t

break the connection.

Everyone had heard about the New Species. A nyone

would have to never have read a newspaper or owned a

television not to know they were humans who’d been

secretly experimented on by Mercile Industries. The

pharmaceutical company had funded secret testing facility

for decades for some messed up research supposedly

done to find cures for diseases. The story had broken

when countless numbers of survivors from those testing

facilities had been freed.

Shit, she thought. This is obviously a New Species.

She knew they’d titled themselves that, those surviving

men and women who had been physically altered with

animal DNA inside those places.

The man-beast stalking closer was obviously one and

they’d really done a number on him since he sure didn’t

appear normal in any way. Tammy had never seen

anything similar to him before and didn’t want to ever

see it again. He looked like a man…but not. That made

her wonder just how much of his animalistic traits ruled

him.

“Someone get a tranquilizer gun.” It was a woman

and she sounded scared. “Now. Move it.”

“Valiant?” It was the man again with the deep voice.

“Listen to me, man. She didn’t mean to trespass into your