The Rogue Hunter's Mate [Paranormal Protection Unit 10] (Siren Publishing Classic)

Paranormal Protection Unit 10

The Rogue Hunter's Mate

Love can be found in the strangest of places. Little does Rogue Hunter and general bad ass Zaidu Metzger know he'll find it at the top of a tree. But that's where the little bird he's come to save ends up roosting, and she really doesn't feel like coming down either.

Bethany Parker's life wasn't glamorous but it was going good, could be better admittedly, but it was good. Then she gets herself kidnapped by a pack of wolves who then make her run through the woods at night and get pissy at her for climbing a tree! Seriously?

As a Hunter, Zaidu can't have a bond-mate. It's the unwritten law of their people. But the Goddess Gaia has other plans and links Bethany, sweet, innocent, and very human Bethany, to him. Then, just to make things real interesting, Bethany’s psychotic brother comes looking to play. Can they survive her brother and everything else the world is throwing their way?

Genre:
Contemporary, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

Length:
83,466 words
 

Paranormal Protection Unit 10

Honor James

EROTIC ROMANCE

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

THE ROGUE HUNTER’S MATE

E-book ISBN:
978-1-62242-551-8

First E-book Publication: May 2013

Cover design by Viola Estrella

All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

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The Rogue Hunter’s Mate
by Honor James from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

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This book is for my sisters of choice, not blood, the women who listen to me when I begin to mutter and ramble plots and ideas. Thank you, Rachael and Wendy, for being there for me through it all and pulling me back when my mind starts to jump too far ahead. I love you, my sisters.

THE ROGUE HUNTER’S MATE

Paranormal Protection Unit 10

HONOR JAMES

Copyright © 2013

Life is the strangest thing possible. You are created by a random chance of a sperm swimming and making its way into an egg. From there it is another random sort of electronic responses that creates a division of the fertilized egg until it becomes a zygote, and from there, well from there a human being is created. So with all of this randomness that occurs from copulation to birth, what makes a person what and who they are? Is it nature? A bit of each parent blending seamlessly into one child to create the baby that grows into a child and eventually into an adult? Or is it nurture? Is it how that baby is raised that determines the type of child that it becomes, or is it the genetics that are transferred from parents to child? If it is one or the other, how would one explain the differences between twins? One being so evil, so bad that it is jailed for life where the other is innocent, giving, and pure goodness?

Perhaps instead of it being one or the other it was both. Perhaps one is just better at hiding the monster that they truly are? Maybe that someone is you.

Beth Parker wadded the paper up in her fist and tossed it into the wastebasket. Tears rolled down her face and she shook her head. She couldn’t be held responsible for her twin brother Brian’s monstrosity. He had been so smooth, he had been so suave that no one had ever realized just what a monster he was. Not even her. She had never once dreamed that Brian Parker was the monster he was. Even to her he had been nothing but kind. He had been a loving and caring brother, but then the truth came out and it had shattered her life.

Taking in a deep breath, Beth closed her eyes, leaned so that her head was between her knees, and breathed out. It was hard to keep the panic attack from taking her but she would. She had five years’ worth of practice in it, after all.

* * * *

Five years earlier

Beth had come home early. She normally never left school early but she had felt terrible in her psych class and instead of going on to her trig class she left school early. She could afford it. Beth was carrying a 3.986 GPA in her junior year of college, so she could afford to take a class off. Besides, she wanted to find out where in the world Brian was. Normally they met in the quad for lunch. However, he didn’t show up today and she was worried for him.

Walking into the house, Beth dropped her messenger bag on the foyer table and flipped the lights, lights that didn’t turn on, and frowned. “Brian?” she called out and walked into the dark home, a home that had been their family home all their lives. “Bri? Where are you? Mom, are you home?” she called in the eerily quiet house.

“Brian? Mom?” She was no longer shouting but now her voice was quiet, deadly quiet.

“In the kitchen, sis,” Brian called.

Beth had felt immediately better. Smiling, she placed her hand on the wall and pulled it back with a frown. “What in the world?” she asked and looked at her hand. It just happened that a ray of sunshine made it through the thick drapes when the air conditioner kicked on and Beth saw it then. Her hand was covered in blood. She looked up, admittedly stupidly, and around and screamed. The living room was all but painted in blood. The walls, the carpet was so drenched that it made squishing sounds when she went to backpedal.

Falling onto her ass, she started to crabwalk backward, back toward the front door, and shouted his name. “Brian! Brian! God, please answer me!” She was sobbing by now, unable to stop herself. Grabbing the foyer table, she tried to pull herself up and knocked the table over, her bag falling open, and she fumbled for her phone that fell out on the blood-soaked marble tile. She had pressed 9-1-1 and then send on her phone when she saw him.

“Now, little sister, you weren’t supposed to come home yet.” He had a madness to his voice, a tinge of insanity.

Beth screamed when she saw the butcher knife. It was covered in blood and he was holding…“Oh Jesus.” She started to gag. “Brian, Jesus, is that Mom’s?” Oh God, it was her mother’s arm. She screamed again. The operator on the line was trying to reassure her that units were on the way, but all Beth could see was her brother, her twin, standing there over her with a butcher knife and her mother’s arm in his hands.

“You shouldn’t have come home, sister dear.” He used his mother’s hand and pointed toward Beth. “You were a very bad girl,” he said with a smile. “But you are my sister. You are my twin and I will protect you, always, sister dear. The others.” He gestured around the room and snorted in psychopathic laughter. “The others were complete bitches. Every single one of the whores deserved to die,” he said and looked down at her. “But not you, Bethany darling. You are pure. I’ve made sure of that. I’ve killed all of the bastards that have tried to fuck you over the years. They just simply disappeared.” He shrugged.

She continued to scoot back. When he was distracted she reached for the door and twisted the knob, rolling backward out of the house and screaming as she did so. She continued to roll, even when Brian came out of the house and began to race for her.

She barely heard the sirens, heard the shouts of the officers, but she couldn’t stop screaming, and then when the blade of the butcher knife caught her upper thigh she blacked out. Before she did she heard the sound of bullets, felt Brian falling beside her, but it had been too much. She welcomed the darkness.

When she woke three days later Bethany had learned some terrible truths. First, Brian wasn’t dead but was being diagnosed as clinically insane. He had murdered and dismembered thirty-six people total, including their parents, and had begun to grind them into what he had called “humanburger,” something that instantly turned Beth into a vegetarian.

But she had survived. The cut to her leg with the butcher knife had caused some damage but she was assured that with physical therapy she would fully recover, and she had. She had sat back and watched, testified, and listened as her brother was put into an institute for the criminally insane. It wasn’t justice. It would never be justice because he wasn’t insane. He knew everything that he did. He had planned it all so perfectly, and had only been caught because Beth had come home early from classes. No, he wasn’t insane. He was bloody brilliant and had tricked the system, tricked everyone.

* * * *

Today

Beth had to shake off the vestiges of the ghosts of the past. She lived in today. She worked in the present. She couldn’t and wouldn’t allow the yesterday, the past, to cloud what she was doing now. Rising, she turned off her PC and walked into the gallery. Ensuring that all of the alarms were set on the paintings as well as the master alarm, she took her keys into her hand and headed out the back door of her gallery.