A Matter of Pride (17 page)

“Down, boy.” Monty snickered and turned on the music.

Jimi Hendrix’s
Foxy Lady
played through Bose speakers, and Gabby stopped in the middle of the room, looking less than pleased. She groaned. “Not again. It’s been three months, guys. Honestly, could you get a little more creative?”

“We could and did.” Dean beamed and pointed to Grady.

He glared at his brother and slowly walked over to meet Gabby, so she could see him make a fool of himself without the table in the way. Trust Dean to include full view of the dance in the bet.

“Go on, boy,” Monty encouraged. “Gabby, to go with your personal theme song, a magnificent serenade.”

The wolf had to have set him up. After his loss, Monty had produced those speakers awfully quick. And really, when had the wolf swallowed a dictionary?
Magnificent
serenade?
He glared at the canine, who lifted a brow and motioned for him to begin.

To his mortification, Grady was forced to shake his feline moneymaker. Talk about a show—a cougar dancing to Hendrix in front of the woman he wanted to make his mate. She started laughing hysterically, which brought the rest of the pride’s sharp-eared women, his older brother and pride leader, Burke, and a few more visiting birds into the room.

Why the hell had they merged movie night with poker night, anyway? So more witnesses could watch him make a giant ass of himself as he grooved to ‘Foxy Lady’? Sure as the good Lord had gifted him with a tail, whiskers and fangs, Grady couldn’t dance a lick.

Everyone was talking and laughing, so Grady shook off the top hat and smoothly separated Gabby from the pack. He nudged her into the kitchen, away from the dining room, before he shifted back.

“Please, Gabby. Marry me and take me away from all this.” He meant every word, but as usual, the stubborn woman refused to take him seriously.

“Thanks, I needed the laugh.” She chuckled and tried to escape, but he pressed forward until he’d backed her against the counter and put his arms on either side of her. “Julia keeps renting these god-awful dramadies. This one is about some woman looking for love with a mannequin who comes to life and leaves her. Ech.”

“Hmm.” He loved the way she smelled. Wild, a mixture of fox and feline his cat found fascinating.

She flushed, and he knew she wasn’t as unaware of him as she seemed. He stepped closer, wanting nothing more than to show her how he really felt.

His brother Burke entered and covered his eyes with his hand. “Jesus, Grady. Stop molesting Gabby in the kitchen. What is it with you? I’m really tired of staring at your lily white ass.”

“So I should molest her in another room?”

Gabby looked anywhere but down. Most Shifters were casual about clothing, so her discomfort gave him hope. He thought he scented the faint perfume of desire and would have pushed her for more, regardless of the others just a room away, when Burke grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back.

“Shift back, now,” Burke growled.

Grady swore but changed back into his cat, frustrated, horny and heartsick that he couldn’t seem to control himself when it came to Gabby.

She glanced at his neck and bit her lip. If her face turned any redder, she might explode.

He meowed his apology, but she shook her head.

Burke touched her shoulder, and Grady wanted to claw the offending hand away. “Gabby, honey, I’m sorry if—”

She burst into laughter, so loud that a few of the poker players drifted into the kitchen to see what was going on,
again
. “I can’t help it,” she gasped. “That bow tie is killing me! I can’t believe he was dancing to ‘Foxy Lady’. A great big cat with no rhythm.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Fucking Monty and his stupid bets. And fuck Dean too. Grady snorted and snapped his tail before slinking away. He walked into the adjoining mudroom and clamped his teeth around the modified door handle specially crafted for them when in shifted form. Exiting into a brisk June night, he morosely wondered where to go from here.

Stretching out his limbs, he decided to run, in the mood to kill something.

Gabby didn’t seem to realize he was courting her. Ever since Burke had mated and married Rachel, Grady had been feeling the urge to settle down. But his animal spirit called out for a kindred soul, a cat. The only pride in Cougar Falls was theirs, made up of the Chastell cats, a bear and his wife, a few foxes, and a wolf. The Catamount Pride were few but tolerant of others. If you were a respectable Shifter, Burke had a home for you.

Grady couldn’t complain. He liked those in the pride. Well, except for Dean and Monty. And lately Burke had become a huge pain in the ass, watching over Gabby like he was her fucking father.

With a snarl, Grady scared a trio of foxes deeper into the woods and clawed a nearby tree to mark his passage.
My territory. My pride. My female
, he wanted to yell.

But no one was out here to listen, and the only woman who needed to hear it didn’t take him seriously. Burke had warned him that heavy-handed wouldn’t work with Gabby. Then he’d overheard Gabby tell her sister how tired she was of all the grabby males in town wanting her now that it was known she could shift into two animals—a trait that gave her celebrity status among their kind. Not wanting to be like all the others, he’d tried the light approach.

Hell, he’d even gone so far as to politely ask her out on an honest-to-God date, but she’d patted him on the head like a dog and told him it wasn’t necessary. A thanks but no thanks he didn’t understand.

He needed to change his strategy with the female before some other hungry Shifter snapped her up. But except for tying her down and forcing her to accept his sincerity, he didn’t know what the hell to do. How could he find a future with her when she sure as hell wasn’t seeing him as anything but a comedian, an embarrassing feline no better than a dancing bear?

Danger prowls on two legs…

Wolf Hills

© 2012 Bianca D’Arc

A
Brotherhood of Blood
Novel

Detective Sally Decker’s Wyoming trip to visit her newlywed friend, Carly, turns into a dangerous adventure into the unknown when she learns Carly’s husband is a master vampire, and there’s a pack of werewolves living just up the road. As if that wasn’t alarming enough, the sexy Alpha wolf has taken a shine to her.

Jason Moore is an Alpha on a mission to make Sally his own. His very public seduction doesn’t sit well with the pack’s available females, but instinct tells him that Sally can handle anything, including any werewolf bitch dumb enough to challenge her.

Romance gives way to a call to arms when the pack’s children come under attack. Their rescue mission turns into a mating dance and the hunt is on in more ways than one. Their attraction is mind-bendingly hot, though startling revelations about his magic and her origins could drive a wedge between them forever. Can love help them bridge the chasm between their worlds?

Warning: This book contains bombs, bullets, bare-knuckled and bare-naked lust, and some serious ass kicking. Please do not feed the frisky furballs, unless you’re willing to risk drawing back a bloody nub.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Wolf Hills:

Jason stopped the bike and waited while she hopped off first. Sally was enthusiastically looking around at the scenery, her breath almost taken away by the natural beauty of the place. A brook leapt over an outcropping of rocks, tinkling merrily as it sped away downhill after collecting in a small pool beneath the waterfall.

“What do you think?” Jason asked in a hushed voice as he came up beside her on silent feet.

“It’s gorgeous,” she replied without taking her eyes off the beauty of nature.

“I’m glad you like it. Thought you might.” She turned at his softly spoken words to catch the look of satisfaction on his face as he watched her watching the waterfall.

“Did you? Take a lot of
chiquitas
up here, eh?” She was suddenly in a playful mood and felt like teasing him.

“Would you believe me if I said you were the first?” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled.

“That innocent look may work on some people, but not on a hardened police detective like me.” She rolled her eyes at his expression, smiling all the while.

“Are you absolutely certain?” He tried one more time for the earnest look, but she wasn’t buying it.

“Sorry.” She shook her head in the negative. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Oh, I can do better. Question is, can you handle it?”

He moved closer to her, dropping the helmets on the soft grass beneath their feet. Suddenly she felt like she was being stalked by a wild predator. A thrill ran down her spine as she thought about avenues of escape. Did she want to run? It might be fun to lead him on a short chase, though ultimately, she really wanted to be caught.

Giving in to temptation, she stood her ground as he reached her. It wouldn’t be right to start this relationship by playing games. She decided she would meet him as an equal or not at all.

Wordlessly, he reached out, one hand just barely touching the sensitive skin of her cheek. When she didn’t move away, he deepened the contact, cupping her cheek in his warm, rough palm. Her pulse rate leapt higher as he moved even closer, right into her personal space.

His head dipped toward hers. She closed the space between them, stretching upward to meet his kiss. And then she was lost.

The kiss the night before was nothing compared to the full, intimate heat of him. His tongue invaded, plundered, staked his claim, and she loved every second of it. She met his challenge and returned it, reaching up to drag him downward, moving her body into his, daring him to take it further.

He didn’t disappoint. His hands roamed her back, sliding downward to cup her ass and lift her into full contact. She could feel the hard rod of his excitement against her belly and it made her want more. More of his kiss. More of him.

She didn’t know how long the kiss lasted. She only knew that when he drew away from her, she tried to follow. She was firmly under his spell and didn’t want to stop. Not for anything.

Somehow—and it shamed her to realize she’d been so far gone—Jason pulled back and cooled things down. His forehead rested against hers, his breathing harsh. That was some consolation, at least. She could feel the trembling of his upper thighs against hers. She knew a little of what it cost him to stop. She felt it too.

“Why?” The word escaped before she could stop it.

“Too fast,” he replied through ragged breaths. “You’re human.” He let her go and stepped back as if forcing himself to do so. “Mostly human, at any rate. Were mating can be…kind of rough on the uninitiated. I’m trying not to scare you off.” He shot her a rueful expression, his grin catching her off guard, but charming her just the same. “Is it working?”

“Why don’t you come back over here and find out?” she challenged.

He stepped back another pace. “Later,” he promised. “First, I want to show you something.” He held one hand out to his side, inviting her to take it.

Like teenagers on a first date, she held his hand as they walked together toward the small waterfall. He stopped for a moment beside it and she listened to the trickling water, appreciating its peaceful bounty as the cool, moist air helped bank the fire he had started within her.

“My mother used to come up here all the time when we were kids. We used to bring a picnic lunch and she’d let us play in the water and in the woods nearby. It was our special place.”

Touched by his words, Sally looked up at him. “She sounds like a special lady.”

“She was.” Sally sensed a wealth of pain in his simple words. “The year I became Alpha, she was killed in the violence. There was a bit of a clan war brewing until I stepped forward to claim leadership and broker peace. It was her death that finally turned me into the Alpha I am today. It was a harsh way to discover my own inner strength, but our world is like that sometimes. You should know this before you get in any deeper.” He turned to her, his expression earnest. “Right now, you’re on the periphery. Your friends are fully in our world, but you might get away with simply being watched by one of the vamp enforcers for the rest of your life. You could go on with your normal, totally human life. Only you would know what really goes on in the dark. And it wouldn’t affect you much, other than having to swear yourself to secrecy about your friends. Those ladies and their mates are powerful enough to allow you that freedom.”

“Carly mentioned something like that last night.”

“Or…” he went on, “…you could choose to fully embrace the small part of you that has always been different. Like your friends, you could become part of the bigger world—the world where shifters and bloodletters and even magic users share the Earth with regular folk. The world where we live in secret among them. You could join my world, Sally. You could join with your wolf.”

His words were so stirring, she felt in that moment, almost anything was possible. For a split second, she was ready to throw caution to the wind. She wanted to be with him, to embrace all that he was, and all that she could be. Then sanity interrupted.

“I’m not sure.”