by Laina Kenney
Vulfen Cadre 6
Vulfen Tracker’s Bliss
When Bliss Colletti finishes back-to-back final exams in nursing and cartwheels into a tall, gorgeous stranger, she knocks him to the ground, but it is her heart that falls. Mesmerized by his hard body and laughing green eyes, she steals a kiss before letting him escape.
Egan Reitn, born a vulfen warrior, wades through blood every day to keep his people safe. He thinks he understands the urge to protect, but when the soft scent of a human female awakens his ancient instinct, his vulfen nature makes him ruthless in her defense. The need to possess the blonde beauty leads Egan into a crisis where his instinct wars with his obligation to keep the vulfen secret. Under pressure from all sides and trying to protect the pregnant Vulfen Queen, will Egan make the right choice?
And when Bliss discovers the secret of centuries, will she choose to accept her mate, or will she reject him out of fear?
Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 25,429 words
VULFEN TRACKER’S BLISS
Vulfen Cadre 6
Laina Kenney
EROTIC ROMANCE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Erotic Romance
VULFEN TRACKER’S BLISS
Copyright © 2014 by Laina Kenney
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-868-3
First E-book Publication: June 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
VULFEN TRACKER’S BLISS
Vulfen Cadre 6
LAINA KENNEY
Copyright © 2014
Chapter 1
Egan stood at the edge of the clearing where a cool breeze ruffled his too-long black hair and the glorious red and gold autumn leaves around him. Behind the maples and birches, the dark pines stood as silent sentinels on the hill.
His eyes tracked over the boisterous crowd where women juggled infants and organized the buffet while hardened vulfen warriors growled and play-chased laughing little ones. There were many more adults than little ones, a fact of life for the vulfen people and one that ensured all of their children were cherished.
It was a calm scene, even a happy one. But his ancient instinct was on edge. The gifts of his grandmother’s family whispered in his blood and he couldn’t settle. Something unknown stretched inside him as if waking from a long sleep.
He was a soldier and knew himself well, but the feelings were unfamiliar and irresistible. He didn’t understand what was wrong with him. But his suspicions were aroused. The tangle of instinct and hope inside him only upped his frustration levels.
His sharp eyes could not detect any reason for his unease, so he did what came naturally to a born tracker. He followed his nose, weaving through savory food scents near the long tables and the sweet fresh scent of innocence when he passed through the small throng of children. His ears rang with laughter and shrieks of glee. It lightened his heart but did nothing to calm his uncommon disquiet.
He followed the winding dirt track down to where some of the families had parked their vehicles and stopped.
The tug he had been feeling snapped into place like a silver thread and he loped straight over to a car that belonged to his friend and fellow Cadre member Ives Toussand.
He sniffed the passenger side door handle and his heart tripped in his chest as the sweet freshness of the female scent wrapped around him like a sheet of silk. It wound around and through him, creating a sensuous path that connected body and spirit. His cock hardened in a blazing rush and he almost groaned aloud.
He swore as he adjusted himself.
How could it be?
He was a warrior, a male who was always in control of himself. He was no desperate teenager to be aroused to the point of pain by the sweet delicate smell of a female who wasn’t even present, but her scent ignited a deep consuming hunger inside him.
He straightened from another deep inhale to find Ives standing beside him. Ives had a blank look on his face as he watched Egan.
“Is there a problem with my car?”
“What female was in this vehicle?” Egan asked. Ives’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead before Egan heard the urgency in his own voice. He could hear his watch ticking and it jarred him with the knowledge of passing time.
“My mate,” Ives began, but Egan shook his head sharply.
“I’ve met your mate several times. Maressa did not set off my instinct or my libido. She’s lovely, extraordinary even, and my wolf
likes her, but I don’t want to hold her down and slurp her up like ice cream.”
“And that is why you still live and breathe,” Ives said complacently.
Egan shocked himself by growling at his friend.
Ives smiled. “My new little sister, Bliss, and Aunt Belle were in my car this morning. Since I know you well enough to say with some certainty that your tastes do not run to the elderly no matter how charming, I would have to assume that Bliss is the one who has awakened your instinct.”
His friend knew the woman. Egan started to ask questions on a rush of savage anticipation, but Ives held up a hand and he subsided. It seemed Ives wasn’t finished.
“Maressa knows about the vulfen people, obviously, but Bliss does not.”
Ives waited a beat while Egan digested that information.
“A word to the wise, Bliss is a Masters nursing student in her last semester before she writes her final exams at Christmas. It will be a matter of weeks until she graduates. It is a specialized program that she worked very hard to get into. She is at the top of her class and if you do anything that derails her education, my mate will carve you into thin slices. She is a very protective older sister.”
Egan found himself grinning.
“Understood. I will tread lightly.”
The smile faded and Ives’s face settled into hard lines. Egan straightened and looked around for the danger. Ives was not a man who attacked unnecessarily.
“I should tell you some of the history of the family so that you are aware of the true danger these girls have faced since Bliss was a teenager. Bliss’s blood father was murdered and Maressa dragged her out of the house that night while the murderer was still present. The girls paid cash for bus tickets out of Maressa’s tip money and deliberately travelled to a city where they knew no one. For years, they have had only each other, the bartender Todd, and his elderly aunt, who took them in. They are trying to make a life, but it has been difficult. Maressa and Bliss live under false versions of their names and rarely socialize.”
Egan listened in silence, though his muscles burned with sudden tension. The words that remained unspoken were that his mate had lived in fear for a long time. Two girls running through the night alone must have been terrifying.
“In the past weeks I have begun to investigate the situation in Chicago,” Ives continued, “but I must go slowly. I will not leave a threat to my family unanswered. I do not want to bring undue attention to the girls at this time in case the motive was financial and someone is still waiting for a chance at them, but I must know in order to protect them.”
Everything in Egan stopped at the thought. There was a mate for him. The universe had granted him a mate and she was in danger from a known murderer. His heart jumped wildly before it settled into a strong hard beat.
“I am with you.”
Egan would have said the same even if the younger sister didn’t set his blood pumping hot, but in the circumstances, he was more than ready to lend a hand.
Ives nodded. “I had already planned to ask for your aid, you and Balke both, but as things stand…” He trailed off then shrugged. “Well, it might be for the best.”
They shook hands in the manner of humans then Egan turned, intending to be off.
“Do you not want a description of her? So that you will know who you search for?”
Egan closed his eyes and let his grandmother’s gift speak to him. “Her eyes are the color of a storm over the ocean. Her scent speaks of shyness and beauty and her soul is the missing part of my own. I will find her. No force on earth could stop me.”
Ives clapped him on the shoulder.
“Be good to her. I would hate to have to kill you when we have become such good friends.”
Egan laughed even as he shifted into his wolf form. Of course he would be good to his mate. He didn’t take offense as he could tell by Ives’s approval that he wasn’t worried about it. If Ives was worried about the man he was sending after a member of his family, there would be an instant challenge, plain and simple. Egan knew it because they had worked together and he was the same way.
Ives was just giving his friend a hard time. Egan bared his teeth in a wolfy grin. Between two Cadre members, it was expected.
Chapter 2
Bliss twisted her long blonde hair up, pinned it in place with her spare pencil, and kept writing. Only a few more seconds.
“Time,” the proctor announced.
Bliss wrote faster and finished the sentence on triage protocols.
“Fold your papers in half and place in the envelope provided. I shouldn’t need to say this but please make sure your first and last names are on both the exam paper and the envelope.”
A spate of nervous laughter followed the remark, but most of the students double checked.
Bliss double checked, too. She had worked too hard for this to miss getting top marks for a stupid mistake like not putting her name on the exam paper. Maressa would lecture her about that, but her older sister wouldn’t be half as hard on her as she would be on herself.
Bliss sighed as she gathered her things and headed up to the front to turn in her paper.
For Bliss, walking out into the fresh autumn air felt amazing after being cooped up all day writing back to back exams. Long afternoon shadows reached across the manicured lawns, but the sun was shining through the bright maples and the cool breeze felt wonderful on her skin.
She pulled out the pencil and let her golden hair fall down her back. A gust of wind ruffled through it, teasing a strand so it caressed her cheek. She brushed it back absently. She wished she had her camera with her. The orange leaves were brilliant against the green of the hedge and the deep blue sky. What a perfect fall day.
She looked around, but most of the students had left by the front entrance and she was alone except for one man walking in the distance.
A smile curved her lips. Why not?
She dropped her bag and took a running start. She performed a series of cheerful cartwheels across the green lawn then stood and threw her arms into the air in perfect presentation form before turning to run again. She was laughing already for sheer joy when her cartwheeling went off course and she slammed into what felt like a wall where a wall shouldn’t be.
Before she could right herself, a pair of hard arms pulled her close to a wide chest and they tumbled over until she ended up, flushed and winded, sprawled on top of a man’s hard body with her long hair falling all around them.
She blinked slowly, staring into the most gorgeous masculine face she had ever seen up close and in person. His eyes were as green as the grass below them and his square-jawed face would be right at home as the hero on a movie screen.
He was no university student. He was big and broad-shouldered in a way that made her feel as tiny as a fairy, and he had visible laugh lines at the corners of his fabulous eyes.
She shifted a little and felt her cheeks heat.
The body beneath hers was a man full-grown, and the growing bulge against her thigh provided more than enough evidence to make it a firm conclusion.
When his lips turned up at the corners, she couldn’t help but smile. She wanted to apologize for flattening him, but she couldn’t find the words.
And wow, she wasn’t exactly unhappy about it. Her nerve endings were jumping for joy everywhere they were pressed against his hard body. Her nipples tingled where they were pressed against his wide chest. She could feel her body melting against his.
He smelled better than any man she had ever met. Their lips were a scant inch apart and she was deeply tempted to settle in for a long slow taste. She had never initiated a kiss before, but looking down into his blazing eyes, she realized that today could be the day.
She tilted her head slightly and his eyes narrowed on her mouth. She licked her lips and his eyes flashed.
His full mouth drew her like a magnet. She felt the unexpected pull between them sweep through her like a warm wave that frothed and fizzed in her blood like fo
rbidden champagne.
Her lips just brushed against his, then settled like a sigh.
Perfect.
“Bliss?!”
Her body jerked but one big hand slid into her hair and drew her right back to his waiting mouth. He tasted her, a gentle touch at first, then a more thorough study, until she was clinging to him and breathing in desperate gulps. Only then did he release his hold on her head.
And, free now, she just kept kissing him. Her tongue dipped inside his mouth and his curled around it in a heated dance. Her fingers were twisted into the collar of his shirt and she didn’t ever want to let go. His dark, rich taste lured her into a long moment of heat and the textured sensation of tongue on tongue that turned her brain to mush.
Sinking into his hot mouth was the best feeling. It felt like the world was far away and they were alone together, cocooned in the glowing strands of her pale hair.
“Bliss! What the hell?”
The unwelcome voice was all too familiar and she sighed and rested her forehead on the brow of the stranger beneath her without opening her eyes.
“The skinny boy, is he yours?” the man under her asked in his deep, husky voice. He had a slight foreign accent, and Bliss shivered for no reason.
She pulled back a little so that she could see his expression clearly. Looking into those fierce, almost glowing, green eyes, she had the sudden feeling it would be very bad for Jason if she said yes.
“No, he’s not mine,” she answered honestly. “He was my partner in chem lab.”
“That is good.” He gave her another lingering kiss. “But he wants to be.”
