Alice’s
Alphas
Wolf
Clan Shifters
Book
One
Ann
Gimpel
Dream
Shadow Press
Release
Date: 3/29/16
41K
words
Genre:
Shifter Ménage Romance
One
virgin + three wolf shifters = e-reader ecstasy.
Book
Description:
It’s
1936. Thirty-year-old Alice has given up on finding a husband.
Between civil engineering and mountain climbing, her interests are so
masculine, she scares men away. A poor route choice strands her—lost,
hungry, and scared—next to Lon Chaney’s cabin deep in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains.
Jed
senses a woman stumbling down the steep, inhospitable mountain behind
his borrowed cabin. Her scent tantalizes and excites him. Mates are
scarce these days, and if his nose is right, she’s his fated one.
His and his two pack mates, that is, who are mercifully gone at the
moment. Jed crafts a careful strategy, knowing the mate bond might
not be enough to convince her to stay once she finds out it will link
her to all three of them—forever.
Alice
adds Jed to her list of problems when he melts out of the shadowed
darkness. At first she declines his offer of help, but he keeps
talking until she ends up inside the cozy log cabin in front of a
roaring fire. His skilled hands and a shot of whiskey heat her blood
to molten, and her carefully tended world explodes into desperate
hunger to make love with the man rubbing her weary feet.
As
caught up in lust as Alice, Jed takes a chance. A big one. Will
mating with her before disclosing everything turn out to be a huge
mistake?
Excerpt
from Alice’s Alphas:
Her
breath whistled loud in her ears. Brent had told her to hightail it
for the car, but she had a feeling something bad had happened to him.
No matter how she felt about him running off, it wasn’t right to
just leave him. It had been dark for hours, and she wondered how late
it was. Even if she stumbled the few miles to her car waiting next to
Glacier Lodge, she was too tired to drive anywhere. The lodge wasn’t
any help. It wouldn’t open for the season for another couple of
months. There might be a phone inside, but she’d have to break in.
Alice
considered her options. If she made the lodge, she’d crawl into her
car and fall on her face from exhaustion. It would easily be
mid-morning before she got back up here to even begin searching for
Brent. Survival in the mountains often hung by a thread. She was the
only one who knew where he was.
He
may have abandoned her, but she couldn’t do the same and desert
him. Not and live with herself afterward.
Alice
moved toward where she thought the trail was, intent on setting up a
fireless camp to wait out the night. She had enough food and a full
water bottle. No tent or sleeping bag, but she’d survived worse
conditions. A fire would’ve been welcome, but she couldn’t risk—
“Hey
there. You. Show yourself, man,” a deep voice called from behind
her. Light flared, illuminating the forest. Footsteps crunched over
rocks and twigs as the person approached.
Alice
stiffened. People looked at her build and assumed she was male. It
had happened to her before—and more than once. She considered
running, but burdened with her heavy boots, climbing hardware, and
the moonless night, she didn’t want to chance a headlong flight.
Besides, the man might have a gun.
“Why
should I?” She spun to face him, ready for almost anything.
“What?
You’re a woman?”
Alice
grasped her ice axe in both hands. “Leave me alone,” she grunted
through clenched teeth. “I’m tired and my friend is...lost.”
“Whoa.”
The man held up both hands, one of which gripped a flashlight. “Put
your axe down, sweetheart. I’m not going to hurt you.” He was
tall, maybe six-feet-four, with straight, red-blonde hair. Despite
his height, he had a slender build. A well-defined jaw and sharp
cheekbones suggested Nordic blood. It was tough to tell in the
reflected light, but his eyes looked blue.
“Go
back inside. You can see I’m not any kind of threat. I’d head
down, but I need to be moving at first light to hunt for my friend.”
The
man cocked his head to one side. “Big guy with red hair?”
Terror
gripped her. Her throat narrowed. Breathing became a struggle. Since
she couldn’t manage words, she nodded and steeled herself to hear
the words, he’s dead. Alice bit her lower lip and gazed mutely at
the stranger.
“Look,
I think he’ll be okay. We were out hunting and heard something big
falling. Thought it was the deer we’d shot at. Turned out to be
your friend—”
“Awk!
You shot Brent!”
The
man waved his hands in front of him. “Calm down, woman. Christ,
you’re strung tighter than a fiddle. Take a couple of deep breaths.
No, we didn’t shoot him. Your friend was unconscious because he hit
his head on a rock, so we carried him back here. My two buddies took
the horses and hauled him down to the lodge. We only had three horses
which is why I’m still here. Anyway, they were planning to drive
him to the hospital in Bishop. I don’t expect they’ll be back
much before the middle of tomorrow.”
At
least that explains why there’re no horses here.
Alice
shook her head, digesting the information. “I need to get moving,
then. I can drive to the hospital and meet them.”
The
man held out a hand. “I’m Jed. Jed Starnes. You look beat.
There’re mountain cats on the prowl. Shot one a few hours ago. They
get worse at night. More aggressive. You got a gun?”
She
shook her head and ignored his outstretched hand. He looked chagrined
and dropped it to his side. “Well, then, handshake or no, you need
to come with me. Got a nice warm fire going inside. You look wet
clear through. Nothing you can do tonight, anyway. Get a few shots of
Irish whiskey in you, a little soup, and some sleep. Come morning,
you can go after your friend.”
It
sounded good. Too good. She kept her ice axe poised. “How’d you
get access to Lon Chaney’s cabin?”
Jed
threw back his head and laughed. “That’s easy. Ever since Chaney
senior died in nineteen-thirty, his son’s been letting some of us
who work with him have the keys. All we have to do is ask. Damn shame
the old man died right after he got this place built. It’s a
beauty. You really should take a look inside.”
She
blew out a breath. “What is it you do?”
“I’m
a production manager for Paramount.”
“I
thought they were in receivership.”
He
laughed again. “We are. But we’re still making movies.”
Something
about Jed put her at ease. Or maybe she was just too weary to think
straight. She slowly dropped her hands. Tethered to her wrist, the
ice axe dangled, not quite hitting the ground.
“That’s
better, sweetheart,” he crooned. “Follow me. I promise I don’t
bite.”
She
trailed after him and climbed the broad steps leading to the cabin’s
heavy wooden door. He unlatched it, took the lantern from its hook,
and motioned her through ahead of him. Alice scanned the large room.
One end was an enormous stone fireplace. The other held a kitchen of
sorts with a pump mounted next to a sink. A curtained alcove probably
contained a bedroom. The lower walls were the same large, flat
fieldstones mortared together she’d seen on the outside. The upper
walls were wooden planks. Alice sighed. It was warm. Truly warm. She
didn’t realize how chilled she was. Her face stung from the sudden
temperature shift.
She
took off her headlamp and set it on a table. Next she unbuckled her
waist belt and dropped her pack in a corner, followed by her axe. The
click of a deadbolt falling into its metal hole snapped her to
attention. She made a grab for her axe, but Jed beat her to it.
“Don’t know about you,” he said, hefting the axe over a
shoulder, “but I’m not fond of weapons inside.”
She’d
been right about his eyes. They were a rich midnight blue. Something
about them made her tingle deep inside. Alice pushed the thought
away. She was still a virgin at nearly thirty, and likely to stay
that way at the rate things were going in her life. Almost as if
they’d been listening in on her thoughts, her nipples pebbled into
points of awareness.
What
am I doing?
She
shook herself back to reality. A stranger she’d just met had locked
her into this cabin and taken her only means of defense. Trepidation
trumped lust. “Why’d you lock us in?” Because she tried hard,
her voice only shook a little.
He
flashed the key in front of her and dropped it into his pants pocket.
“Never know who might wander by. I wanted to make certain we’re
safe is all.” He made a huffing sound. “Most women appreciate
that sort of thing.”
“No
one would come up this trail in the middle of the night.”
“Hey,
I’m sort of a city boy. We believe in locking the bad guys out.”
He shrugged. “If you want to hang your jacket, there’re hooks by
the fire. It looks pretty wet to me.”
Alice
crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Jed. He stared back.
Tension sizzled in the air between them. She held out a hand. “My
axe.” She gestured to guns on racks along the walls. “Looks as if
there are plenty of weapons in here. Besides, my ice axe isn’t a
weapon, it’s a climbing aid.”
“Let’s
just say I’m not enamored of watching my back. Look—” he
balanced her ice axe against a wall, stepped away from it, and spread
his hands in front of him “—you’re apprehensive because you
don’t know me. How about if I’m feeling the same way?”
She
sidled past him and tucked her axe behind her pack where it had been
before. “I have no idea how I’m feeling,” she muttered, “other
than tired.”
Jed
moved past her to the sink and pumped water into a glass. Crossing
the cabin, he handed it to her. “Drink this,” he suggested. “Once
you’re done, let me hang your jacket near the fire where it can dry
a little. It’s so wet, steam’s rising from it.”…
My Review
I love this authors books! She has a way with her paranormal romances that just enthrall you. This one is not exception. Set in a historical setting, yet still feeling real, makes it that much cooler. And of course the romance is always steamy! Yep get a fan!
So Alice gets stranded on a mountain and in trying to rescue herself she stumbles to Jed's cabin. Jed knows she his mate but there's a little twist, it's not just him. I loved Alice because she's not your typical submissive female for this time. She's strong, willful, works, and is not feminine. Jed definitely had his hands full.
And while this is a novella sized story, everything is still there and just as good. With drama, romance, twists, supernatural elements and a great story line, there's nothing missing. Overall, I recommend this one to my paranornal romance lovers and I can't wait for book two! 5 PAWS!!
Megan’s
Mates
Wolf
Clan Shifters
Book
Two
Ann
Gimpel
Dream
Shadow Press
55K
words
Release
Date: 4/18/16
Genre:
Shifter Ménage Romance
One
virgin + two wolf shifters = e-reader ecstasy.
Book
Description:
Calgary,
Alberta 1936
After
witnessing what might’ve been a murder, Megan is frantic to escape
the Garden of Eden cult, so she catches the night train north out of
town. Her lifetime commitment to the cult may well be her death
sentence, but she’s not sticking around to let them frame her.
Wolf
shifters, Les and Karl, eke out a primitive existence on the flanks
of the Canadian Rockies. Between Hunters who want to kill them and a
wildfire raging out of control, they’re glad when Jed, their clan
leader, shows up. And even more delighted when they see who’s in
his car.
Jed’s
mate, Alice, spied Megan by the side of the road looking lost and
desperate and offered her a ride. Before Jed’s car even stops
rolling, Les and Karl know she’s their mate. So skittish she’s
barely willing to exit the car, Megan busies herself helping Jed and
his pack mates unload supplies. Can Les and Karl convince her to join
her life to theirs? If she does, will the risks she faced as a cult
member pale in comparison to being mated to shifters?
Excerpt
from Megan’s Mates:
The
phone jangled again. Loud and strident, it made Les’ sensitive
lupine hearing ache. It took him a moment to realize he needed his
human form to make the noise go away. He’d tried to ignore the
damned thing, but whoever was calling wouldn’t give up. Every time
he ventured near the house, it was ringing. With an aggravated growl,
he commanded his body to shift.
As
soon as he had feet rather than paws, he strode through the door of
his cabin deep in the woods, jaw tight with annoyance. The remote
location a few miles outside Rocky Mountain House often lost phone
service for long periods of time.
“Yes
and too bad this isn’t one of them,” he muttered, snatched up the
receiver, and barked, “Yes, I’m here.”
“It’s
about damned time. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.”
Les’
eyes widened. “Jed?”
“Who
the hell else?”
Les
brayed laughter. “Good point. It’s not as if very many people
have this number. What’s up, boss? I thought you were coming my way
months ago. The boys and I wondered what happened.”
“Now
that I have your attention, hang up.” Jed’s voice held a sharp
edge that Les remembered all too well. “We’ll do this a more
private way.”
“You
got it.” Les dropped the black receiver back into place. He kicked
the door shut to keep the cold breeze out. It didn’t bother him as
a wolf, but he was naked, and the air had a chill edge to it. He
trotted into the bedroom and had begun to dress when Jed’s voice
sounded in his mind.
“Where
the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for a week.”
Les
sank onto the bed and pulled a quilt over his still-bare legs as he
considered where to start. Jed was clan leader for wolf shifters. He
needed all the information Les could provide. “First off, we’re
all still okay.”
“That’s
a relief. When I couldn’t raise you, I was afraid Hunters had
killed everyone. Made me half-crazy not to know anything. Anyway, we
pulled into Calgary last night, so I’m finally close enough to use
telepathy.”
“Is
your new mate with you?”
“Affirmative.
Bron, Terin, and Alice are with me.” Jed blew out a breath. “You
may have heard through the grapevine, we’d originally decided to
come north as part of our wedding trip, but Hunters nabbed half a
dozen of us in northern California. It took a major offensive to free
our people. Even so, we lost a couple.”
Les
nodded, and then realized Jed couldn’t see him. “Yes, I know.
We’ve had problems of our own. Hunters almost got your cousins, Ron
and Chris. We killed them, and I’m still waiting for the fallout on
that one since we also killed the whole posse that came afterward,
hunting for their fallen companions. All five of them.”
“How
many total? Was there any choice?” Jed’s voice was stern as he
peppered Les with questions.
“Seven.
No, no choice.” Anger tightened Les’ muscles. He’d like to kill
every goddamned Hunter in the universe, but he wasn’t about to tell
Jed that. And there hadn’t been any choice, not really. They’d
been surrounded. The only thing that saved them was taking a firm
offensive position.
Jed
broke into Les’ thoughts. “What’d you do with the bodies?”
“Don’t
worry, boss. No one will ever find them. We dragged them to the very
bottom of a cave system where there’s a vent to an upper cave and
burned them.”
“How
long ago?”
Les
thought about it. He’d spent much of the last month as a wolf,
which skewed his time sense. “Maybe a week.”
“You
still haven’t told me why you weren’t answering your phone.”
“We’ve
all been in our wolf forms. There’s a fire burning out of control
between our pack and the crest of the Rockies. A couple of the cabins
farther west incinerated—”
“Humph,”
Jed interrupted, obviously not concerned about an out-of-control
wildfire. “Any of you find mates yet?”
“What
do you think? It’s not as if the odds are in our favor.”
“Maybe
Alice can change that. Women trust her. She’s actually scared up
three mates since she joined Bron, Terin, and me.” A hesitation.
“How close did you say that fire was?”
“My
cabin’s not in any immediate danger. It’s fall and I’m
expecting it to rain soon.” Les scratched at month-old beard growth
on his chin. “It’s pretty primitive here, boss. Nothing like your
digs in Hollywood.”
A
different voice sounded in his head, rich, vibrant, and definitely
female. “I’ve been listening in. Shameless of me not to have said
something earlier. Don’t worry about me. My life was a whole lot
simpler before I met up with Jed and my other two mates. Besides, I’m
looking forward to meeting the clan members here in Alberta.”
Les’
mouth twitched into half a smile. “You must be Alice. We’ve heard
a lot about you. Are you really six feet tall?”
Alice
snorted, making Les wish he’d kept his mouth shut. After all, Alice
was mated to his clan leader. “How about if we leave the details
open, and you can see for yourself when we get there? Jed says it’s
a four or five hour drive, and we should arrive sometime tomorrow. Is
there anything we need to bring from the big city?”
Les
gazed around his one-bedroom cabin as if he expected a grocery list
to materialize. He cleared his throat before remembering he didn’t
need his actual voice. “Um, we’ve been pretty much living off the
land this past month, so anything you bring would be welcome.”
“I
get the picture.” Jed broke in with a laugh. “We’ll fill up the
trunk and the rest of the back seat.”
Les
couldn’t help himself. “Who gets to sit next to Alice?”
Female
chuckling made his heart lighter than it had been in a long time.
“Oh,
they fuss and snarl a bit, but they sort of take turns. It’s nice
actually, to have three doting mates.”
“I’m
sure it is.” Les brushed a wave of sadness aside. He’d love to
have a woman to fuss over, alongside Karl, his pack mate. They’d
hunted for years for a female to grace their lives without success
after their first mate died in childbirth in the 1600s. A few
promising candidates crossed their path when they’d lived in
Edmonton, but Hunters had driven them out of the city fifty years
before.
“We’ll
be there by tomorrow afternoon.” Jed’s voice was gruff, and Les
figured his clan leader could read his mind.
“I’ll
alert the troops, boss. Everyone will be really glad to see all of
you. And to meet your mate.”
Les
waited, but a certain emptiness told him Jed had signed off. He
shoved the quilt aside, finished dressing, and called Karl through
their telepathic link. It didn’t take long before paws scrabbled
against the door, and Les remembered he’d shut it. By the time he
crossed the small space and pulled the door open, Karl had found his
human form and stood shivering, arms wrapped around his tall, spare
frame. Black hair hung to his waist in tangles.
“Thanks.
Damned cold out here.” The wolf shifter bounded into the room,
giving the door a shove as he passed through it. “What’s up?”
“Jed’s
here.” Les spread his arms wide and rolled his eyes. “Along with
his lieutenants and their new mate. We’ve got to clean this place
up.”
“Why?
It’s always been good enough for us.”
Les
slugged him in the arm. “You weren’t listening. Jed’s mate will
be here.”
“Oh,
I get it.” Karl chortled, his dark eyes gleaming with glee. “Maybe
if we didn’t do anything, she’d take pity on us and—”
“Right.
Find some clothes, and we’ll get to work. I don’t think Jed,
Terin, or Bron will want their new mate waiting on the likes of us.”
Karl
sprinted for his sleeping alcove toward the rear of the log cabin’s
main room. Drawers banged open. “Fire’s getting closer,” he
called over one shoulder. “Maybe it would be better for all of us
to get together in Red Deer.”
Les
considered it. “Nope. Too soon since we axed those Hunters. That’s
where they were from—there and Edmonton. I don’t want any
friendly sheriff asking questions if they discover we live out here.
Are you sure the fire’s closer? Maybe the wind just shifted
direction.”
“It’s
definitely closer. The smoke’s thicker, and I can actually hear it
burning from the rise a couple miles west of here. At least my wolf
can.” Karl slid his legs into trousers and pulled a sweater over
his head before shoving his feet into an ancient pair of sheepskin
slippers. He turned to Les. “Where do you think we should start?
Come to think of it, when do you want to alert the rest of the clan,
or should I do that?”
“We
can take care of that later tonight. How about if you work on the
dishes? I’ll sweep and get the kettle going for laundry.”
Karl
strode to the sink and pumped the handle for water. “Eww.” He
wrinkled his nose. “How long have these plates been here?”
“Does
it matter?” Les lugged a large, cast iron kettle in through the
back door and hefted it onto a wood-burning stove. He opened the
firebox door, levered a pocket knife out of his pants, and started
shaving tinder. “Let’s warm some water. That should help.” As
he worked, Les dialed in his lupine senses and scented fresh air
coming through the back door. It was indeed tinged with smoke. What
bad timing for a major fire. If it drove them into one of the nearby
towns, they’d risk discovery because Hunters could scent them.
“Les?”
He
looked up from his half-built fire. “Um-hum.”
“Maybe
it’s time to move on.”
“No!”
Les banged a fist down on his thigh. “I’m sick of running. If the
fire gets this far, we’ll come back when it’s over and rebuild.”
“But
we’ll never find a mate out here.”
“Just
do the damned dishes. We’ve got enough problems without adding to
them.”…
My Review
And book two is just as good or better than book one! I love this authors writing style and her talents with the supernatural. We're still in the historical periods but now we've got a refugee from a cult and she's got a tough time to overcome. Megan originally joined the cult but then realized the mistake, it wasn't what she thought. So Alice helps her out. She introduced her to some wolf shifters thinking she could help them all. But with a wild fire making life complicated its not going to be easy.
Ms Gimpel always creates a world I love and her characters are always exceptional. I'm definitely cheering for this one!!! 5 WOLFY PAWS!!
Sophie’s
Shifters
Wolf
Clan Shifters
Book
Three
Ann
Gimpel
Dream
Shadow Press
66K
words
Release
Date: 5/2/16
Genre:
Shifter Ménage Romance
One
spirited woman + three coyote shifters = e-reader ecstasy.
Book
Description:
Late
1930s, California.
The
winds of change are blowing hard as shifters gather deep in the
Sierra Nevada Mountains for a war powwow. Tempers run high as they
argue their next move.
An
unexpected attack from more Hunters than they’ve ever seen forces
their hand, and Blake, alpha for the coyote clan, fights alongside
his brothers. He’s grimly pleased when every single one of their
enemies is finally dead, the bodies chucked into glacial crevasses.
Sophie
Laughing Wolf tracked her hated brother into the mountains. Gifted
with foreseeing, she wants to make certain he ends up just as dead as
he was in her vision. When the large group of men he’s with are set
upon by shifters, mythical dual-natured beings who can take animal
forms, she hides, calling on earth power to shield her.
It
doesn’t work. Two shifters, back in their men’s bodies, haul her
from her hiding place once the battle ends and drag her before their
chief. He spares her life—for now—but she senses the animosity
the others have for her. They see her as a threat, a witness to
multiple murders.
When
the mate bond strikes, she fights its pull. So does Blake. He can’t
believe the gods would be so cruel as to bind him and his lieutenants
to a woman with blood ties to Hunters—their ancient enemy. She runs
from her fate. So does he, but the bond burns bright, transcending
everything.
Excerpt
from Sophie’s Shifters:
Jed
slipped and slid down the glacier, grateful his mate Alice wasn’t
there to read him the riot act. An accomplished mountaineer, she’d
have laughed herself sick after the second time he fell on his ass
and slid twenty feet.
“Goddammit!”
Terin screeched from behind him and went flying past on his stomach.
He shifted mid-slide and dug his claws into the icy surface to stop
his suicidal descent. Once he’d stopped on the uphill side of a
boulder, he shifted back.
Jed
drew to a halt next to him. “Good thing you didn’t bother getting
dressed. Your clothes would be strewn over the last fifty feet of ice
in shreds.”
“Yes
and no,” Terin muttered, glancing pointedly at Jed’s shoes. “My
boot soles would have helped—a lot. Jesus but I’m glad Alice
isn’t here to see this.”
“Keir’s
doing okay in bare feet,” Bron noted, catching them up. “And I’m
not doing that bad, but the soles of my feet hurt like hell—and I
miss my claws.”
Jed
eyed the edge of the glacier. Patches of rocks and dirt, interspersed
with ice, began a couple hundred feet below them. Walking would get
much easier then. He grabbed one of Terin’s arms. Bron seized the
other one, and together they lurched over the remaining rock-studded
ice.
“We
have a problem,” he said without preamble.
“Tell
me something I don’t know,” Bron muttered.
“We
have to get home and make sure Alice is okay,” Terin added.
Jed
winced. He’d wanted to leave someone home with the women, but
neither Alice, nor Megan—Les and Karl’s mate—would have any
part of that. He reached for Alice through the mate bond, but she was
too far away for him to sense anything.
“Which
particular problem were you alluding to?” Bron asked. “Somehow it
seems like more than getting out of these mountains with our hides
intact.”
“It
is,” Jed said tersely. “Les and Karl found a woman. They’re
holding her back in the cave.”
Terin
stopped dead. “What? Is she a climber like Alice, who got stranded
up here?”
“Somehow,
I don’t think that’s it,” Jed muttered.
“We’ll
find out soon enough,” Bron broke in. “Shit! If she came with the
Hunters, we’ll have to kill her.”
“That
already occurred to me.” Jed shot a pointed look at his lieutenant.
“Keir said the same. He was standing close enough to hear when Les
gave me the bad news.”
“Damned
shame.” Terin shook loose from them. “I’m good. I don’t need
you two to nursemaid me anymore.”
They
covered the remaining half mile to the cave in silence. Terin and
Bron went to collect their clothes, and Jed strode briskly to a back
corner where he sensed Les and Karl. Crouched behind them in a
quivering mass was a woman with her head buried in her crossed arms.
Long black hair shot with thick silver streaks spilled around her
onto the dirt floor. She was swathed in dark colored wool and
flinched away when Jed hunkered next to her.
He
probed her mind and found terror so gripping, it obliterated
everything else. He started to tell her not to be afraid, but the
words died on his tongue. He couldn’t give her any guarantees, and
he wouldn’t lie to her.
“Who
are you?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle.
“We
tried that, boss,” Les said.
“At
first, all she did was moan,” Karl added. “She got quieter after
a while, but she hasn’t answered any of our questions.”
“Where’d
you find her?” Jed asked.
“After
we lifted the last of the bodies in our sector out of the moraine, so
others could move them up the mountain, Les and I sensed something
living. It wasn’t a Hunter, but it was human, so we dug a little.”
“Didn’t
have to go far,” Les cut in, “before we found her hiding between
a huge piece of deadfall and a big rock.” He shrugged. “Without
our wolf senses, we’d never have discovered her.”
A
low whimper escaped from the woman, and Jed laid a hand on her arm.
“What’s your name?” he repeated.
“Just
get it over with.” Her low, musical voice was strained. Hysteria
trod near the surface.
“Get
what over with?” Jed probed. Maybe if he could get her talking, he
could learn something.
The
woman lifted her head from her crossed arms and Jed’s eyes widened.
She was absolutely stunning with huge midnight blue eyes. Pronounced
bone structure and copper skin suggested Native American blood flowed
through her veins. Sharp cheekbones, a hawk-bridged nose, and a
squared-off chin lent her an exotic cast.
She
tilted her chin at a defiant angle. “You have to kill me. I know
too much. Get it over with. The others—” she cast a spurious
glance Les and Karl’s way “—they were waiting for you to make
the decision.” Her mouth worked as if she’d tasted something
bitter. “Anyway, get it over with. I took my chances when I tracked
my brother today. If he’d known, he’d have forbidden me to come.”
Jed
frowned. “One of the Hunters was your brother?”
The
woman nodded mutely. “Yeah, that’s what I just said, isn’t it?
Get it over with, white man. If you’re going to kill me, do it. If
not, let me go.”
Bron
and Terin had joined them once they’d dressed. Bron passed a hand
over the woman’s head, and Jed felt him probing with shifter magic.
“You have white man’s blood too,” Bron murmured.
The
woman shot him a scathing look. “Not much. What of it?”
“Where
we come from in Canada,” Les said, “Indians are friends to those
like us.”
She
curled her upper lip in withering scorn. “We have enough problems
without associating with shifters. You’re nothing but trouble. Bad
enough we got stuffed onto reservations, land no one else wanted.”
Jed
tried a different tack. “Why’d you track your brother today?”
She
buried her head in her arms again, refusing to look at him.
“Please.”
He gentled his voice. “Give us something to work with. Les and
Karl, my brothers who found you, didn’t harm you.”
“Only
because they were waiting for you, their chief.” Her voice was
muffled.
“Goddammit!”
Les squatted in front of her and yanked her head upward. “Karl and
I could’ve killed you. We didn’t. We were not waiting for Jed to
make that call. Tell us why you were tracking your brother.”
Jed
heard compulsion flow beneath the other shifter’s words.
The
woman drew back. She tried to combat Les’ spell, but the contest
was laughable. “To stop him,” she said. The words were clearly
dredged from her, but they held the ring of truth.
“Good.
He needed to be stopped,” Les said. “Why’d you think he’d
listen to you?”
The
woman’s face crumpled and she started to cry, big noisy gulping
sobs that ripped through her. “It’s not what you think. I didn’t
try to make him listen to me,” she managed between ragged breaths.
“I have the gift of prophecy—farseeing—and I knew things would
go to hell for all of them today.”
“Do
your visions always come true?” Jed probed. Despite the problems
the woman presented, her story fascinated him.
She
nodded, but didn’t say anything further.
“Did
your brother know you followed the Hunter group?” Jed asked.
She
shook her head. “No. He doesn’t share my gift. His magic came
mostly from the goddamned white man’s Church.”
“Odd
none of the rest of them sensed you behind them,” Karl muttered.
“Not
odd at all,” she shot back, choking a little on snot running down
her face. “I can blend my energy into the rocks, the dirt.”
“We
found you,” Karl pointed out.
“Because
you were in your natural form, and wolves sense such things far more
acutely than men.”
Jed
waved Karl to silence. This was going nowhere fast. Returning his
attention to the woman, he said, “So you came along, but didn’t
talk with him. Didn’t try to warn him. Help me understand why.”
Jed hoped things might get clearer, but so far they were just
becoming more confusing.
“Let
me get this straight.” Bron hunkered next to Les and caught the
woman’s gaze with his dark one. “You saw in a vision that your
brother would die, and you came along anyway but didn’t try to warn
him. Did you want to make certain he was dead?”
Jed
silently offered his lieutenant credit for shrewdness. If the woman
knew today would end in a bloodbath because she’d seen it—and she
made no attempt to warn her brother—what other reason would she
have had for trailing after him.
The
woman’s sobbing escalated. She tried to jerk her chin out of Les’
grip, but he held fast. “Yes,” she gasped out. “Yes. I hated
that bastard. He…used me, hurt me the way men hurt women, when I
was only ten years old and never stopped until I ran away when I was
sixteen. No one believed me. No one c-cared.” Her last words were
almost obliterated by sobs.
Suddenly
her phrase to stop him took on a whole new meaning. Jed just stared
at her. “So it’s not that you didn’t say anything today. You
never told him anything.”
She
did yank her chin away then and spat on the dirt floor. “Hell no. I
haven’t spoken to him in ten years, but he’s blood and he shows
up in my visions.”
Running
on instincts that had rarely failed him, Jed glanced at the four wolf
shifters ranged around him. They didn’t need to talk. After
hundreds of years of working together, they understood one another.
“Stand
up.” Jed told the woman.
“Why?”
“Did
you see your own death in your vision?”
An
odd look washed over her face before she shook her head and pushed
herself upright. Standing she was of a height with Jed, and her hair
reached past her ass. She squared slender shoulders. “Is that a
backhanded way of saying I can leave?”
Jed
shook his head and hurried to add words before she sank into a puddle
of terror again. “You’re right that we can’t allow you to
return to your life. We have no idea who you are, who you’d tell.
We could wipe your memory of us, but you’d still recall the death
that happened in this canyon.”
“What
are you going to do with me?” Her voice shrilled and she jerked her
chin upward. “If you think you’re going to abuse me like my
brother, think again, white man. I’d rather be dead.”
“We
don’t do that to women.” Terin pushed into her line of vision so
she had to look at him.
“Not
what I’ve heard,” she retorted. “My brother said he learned it
from you.”
“Bull
crap!” Jed said succinctly. “I’ve never known a shifter to take
a woman against her will. Not on my watch, and not in my clan.”
“You
planning to bring her home with us?” Bron quirked a dark brow.
Jed
nodded. “The only question—” he focused on the woman “—is
whether you come willingly, or we knock you out and carry you down
the mountain.”
“Home
as in staying under the same roof with five men?” Her face twisted
into a grimace. “No. Not happening. Just kill me here and get it
over with.”
“We’re
mated,” Karl informed her. “Les and I have a mate. Her name is
Megan. And Jed, Bron, and Terin are mated to Alice.”
The
woman tossed her head. “Fine. Just because you located some sluts
who—”
Jed
snaked out a hand and slapped her hard across the face. He grabbed
her head between his hands and forced her to look at him. “Never
say one bad word about my mate. I love her. So do Bron and Terin.
Don’t disparage what you don’t understand.”
A
shocked look blossomed on her face and she muttered, “Sorry,”
before looking at her feet.
“Let
go of her, boss.” Bron pulled Jed’s hands away. “She only
understands what she’s lived. And it hasn’t been pretty.”…
My Review
And book three may have topped the first two!! I love this author and I definitely love this series!! We get to see our favorites from the first two books while adding new characters to the mix. There's a hunter problem and the wolves are the only ones who will be in trouble, so all the shifter clans come together to try to solve the issue. And when something big happens, they find a woman in the middle of the crazy, things get complicated.
Sophie is Native American, she also has a lot of trauma from her life, so meeting a bunch of shifters isn't the happy moment. And it's complicated beyond belief, she's a mate but not everyone wants her around. And this one is not only about that but it's down to the nitty gritty with the hunters.
This one is amazingly fantastic! The author did a great job writing this one and I'm completely happy with how it played out. And a great bit of action scenes added to the mix made it impossible to put down! I loved it- like I had any doubt! 5 PAWS!!
About
the Author:
I'm
basically a mountaineer at heart. I remember many hours at my desk
where my body may have been stuck inside four walls, but my soul was
planning yet one more trip to the backcountry.
Around
the turn of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), I
finagled a move to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with
the mountains. Stories always ran around in my head on backcountry
trips, sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging
conditions made me fear for my life, sometimes for company.
Eventually,
the inevitable happened. I returned from a trip and sat down at the
computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. It
wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. I learned a lot between
writing that novel and its sequel, and I've been writing ever since.
In
addition to turning out books, I enjoy wilderness photography. A
standing joke is that over ten percent of my pack weight is camera
gear, which means my very tolerant husband has to carry the food --
and everything else too.
Find
Ann At:
@AnnGimpel
(for Twitter)
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