- One Year Later -Kiera stood watching a group of lone wolves returning to a pack. Many were raised for generations outside of pack life. But things change, situations change. These wolves are literally come in out of the cold, unprotected woods and their pack was opening their arms to them.It divided humans as always on what they thought about supernatural creatures. If nothing else, there were very few humans that didn’t care one way or the other.These wolves were coming in from other places in the world where the humans made it impossible for them to live. Now they were picking up everything they can and leaving everything they knew for a chance at a future.Their lycan members were now well established members, and the pack looked to them as the public faces of the pack. It wasn’t unusual to see one or more on the news as they work as a security team for various celebrities and figures of note. The pack now ran a small but lucrative security firm, because several of the lycans
The Rocking Horse Saloon was rocking, and Kiera Samuels could watch the action for once. She worked as a member of the waitstaff here, being run ragged serving and cleaning up.She’d left the Fort Granger Pack she’d worked there since then. Everyone knew why Kiera left. Some were happy when she’d isolated herself to the buffer zone between the Fort Granger Pack and the Jasper Sounds Pack Territory.They allowed her to work at the Rocking Horse because it wasn’t in town or in either of the packs’ territories. Partly because the locals couldn’t control what happened in the buffer area. As long as no one broke the law, they couldn’t enforce anything.Other locals like the surrounding girls celebrating her best friend’s birthday. There weren’t many who would give Kiera the time of day. But these three did, and the birthday girl, Patricia Jonas, was the best. Also known as, Trisha by friends and family.“So, April here’s been seeing Jerome Caine for a week! Can you believe it? At least she
“Oh, nothing really. We were just speculating about what my brother was up to. Has he come to his senses yet?” “That again? I told you we’re here for you and to have fun. Let’s not talk about my pity party. You still haven’t told us what you wished for. Come to think of it, you’ve not told us about much of anything. I think you’re holding out on us.” “You buy the next round of drinks, and I’ll see if I can squeeze a few interesting stories before we have to leave.” Trisha looked down at her watch and frowned. Kiera sighed she’d been ordering the drinks all night because she received a discount on them. “Maybe one story. Dean’s insisting on hosting a weekend gather for other pack to come here and mingle. You know the whole talk politics and find a little action. If a few matings happen along the way, it’s a bonus. The problem is, he can’t host it. He and James have the two packs fighting each other.” Trisha realized the time and how late it was getting. She mad
Kiera sat there and drank every drop of alcohol that her friends left behind and drank a couple more before it was closing just to rub it into Dean’s face. After all, he sat there watching the entire time. What annoyed her the most was that she caught him speaking to Don, the owner and current bartender. He didn’t hide the fact he was talking to him about her. The two wolves kept looking at her. She felt like she was missing some important detail here. After a minute or two of that confusion, she gave up on thinking about solving that problem and went back to figuring out what she should do about her friends. Since she moved to the cottage down the road from here, she’d been seeing less and less of them. Kiera knew it wasn’t their fault. If she hadn’t taken the job in town, her kidnappers would never have caught her. Elder Evans made that quite clear to her when she recovered enough to hear her spew the venom about no longer being graced by the moon
“Hey, Kiera, where are you going? I think you’re going in the wrong direction, sweetheart. My truck is that way. Let me take you home.” Dean hated every single word he uttered. He tried to threaten her earlier to go with him. Why? Why was he screwing with her again? She’d been through enough already and she was drunk. Talk about kicking her when she’s down. “Alpha Duncan, would you kindly shove it up you’re ass? I’m tipsy, not stupid. Take me home.” Kiera snorted at that. “I work here to remember. I’ve heard the pickup lines. That one has the girl asking, ‘Yours or mine?’ Screw that. I’m walking home. Please get out of my way.” Dean was thankful she at least kept her manners while drunk, even if she was still rude about it. He had to admit it was interesting to see James’ reaction to being shot down. The two alphas could be mistaken for brothers they were so close in colouring and size. They were a year apart in age as well. So they ended up in the
Dean went to bed as soon as he got home and slept until morning when the enforcers he left to watch Kiera reported that she’d run them off close to dawn. They saw nothing that would lead them to believe anyone other than her was out there. Kiera lived alone in a cottage that shared a road with the Rocking Horse Saloon. It originally was used by the first owner of the Rocking Horse, but the current one preferred to live in town. Kiera often opened and closed the bar for him when he wasn’t there or needed to leave early. No other buildings were near there and the town was a good twenty minutes away by car. She was alone out there. “Fine, go get some rest. I’ll go see her again this morning when I can.” “Dean, you have things to do for the pack. You can’t be running around after a Lycan through the neutral zone. Your presence threatens the denizens.” “Oli, that is probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard you say, and you have a few
Now Dean couldn’t reach Trisha. What was it with these women? He didn’t have time for this. Oli stayed right beside his alpha, and had prudently kept his mouth shut. He didn’t know half of what was going on, and what he knew he couldn’t be sure what was lying. Oli still thought that Kiera was a Lycan now and she should stay with her people. When he’d posed that to Dean, he’d reminded Oli that her people were far and few. None of them were secure. No one could point to a place and say that’s Lycan territory. Just because they are the first shifters to possess a third form didn’t mean they weren’t a form of shifter. They even spoke of the violent streak the Lycan appeared to have as well. Dean’s views were definitely food for the thought Oli needed. They traumatized the Lycans in those labs. They knew wolves and many other shifters had a strong fight-or-flight response. With that viewpoint in consideration, fighting could be the first response because the lab tried
Dean stood there in the damaged cottage that belonged to Kiera. He held the phone out to Oli, completely distracted by his thoughts after he’d heard James make his demands. The land or Kiera, it should be a straightforward decision but his mind rebelled. There was no way he would give up the land. That would give James the last thing he needed to drive Dean and his pack from his territory. No one could live without water. So, the other possibility was Kiera. Find her and hand her over to James. His mind hated this idea. In a protective and possibly territorial way. Why? He thought his attraction to her died the day that they returned her to them changed. How could he feel the hollowness in his soul now, after all this time? There was no way he could explain it. No way he could give into this either. The backlash of mating with a monster was impossible to contemplate with several pack members opposed to her living within pack territory. “Oli,