Talon (Rise of the Pride, Book 1)

by Theresa Hissong

  Talon

  Rise of the Pride

  Book 1

  by

  Theresa Hissong

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the author, publisher, or retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer:

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. The names of people, places, and/or things are all created from the author’s mind and are only used for entertainment.

  Due to the content, this book is recommended for adults 18 years and older.

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2016 Theresa Hissong

  Cover Design:

  Custom eBook Covers

  Editing by:

  Heidi Ryan

  Formatted by:

  Wayne Hissong

  For more information or how to contact Theresa Hissong, please visit:

  http://authortheresahissong.com

  www.facebook.com/authortheresahissong

  Other Books by Theresa Hissong:

  Fatal Cross Live!

  Fatal Desires

  Warriors of the Krieger:

  Blood & Roses

  Blood at Stake

  Rise of the Pride:

  Talon

  Book for Charity:

  Fully Loaded

  Dedication:

  Shaman’s Harvest:

  Music is my inspiration for not only my writing, but my life. Being a girl from Memphis, TN, my choices in music vary across the board, but there is one style of music that defines who I am and what I do. The past few months, I have fallen into an abyss filled with harmonies and the bluesy rock sound of Shaman’s Harvest.

  While writing Talon, I set up a playlist with nothing but songs from this band. For those of you who have been with me over the past few years, you know that I give credit to the bands who touch my soul. You all know me as the “rockstar author”, for my fictional rockstar romance novels, and I pulled that love of music into this paranormal romance.

  So, I’m saying “Thank You!” to the guys in Shaman’s Harvest for making the music that speaks to me in so many ways!

  Much love, always!

  Contents:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The footage had been seen on every news outlet around the world. Two men were filmed shifting into black panthers at the edge of a forest in northern Mississippi. The video was as clear as the blue sky above. They’d been seen and the entire world now knew that shifters existed.

  Talon Shaw gritted his teeth at the reporter who kept asking some of the most idiotic questions he’d ever heard in his life. Why the fuck they wanted to know about their mating rituals was beyond intrusive, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let that bit of information out into the general public. Every human would run away screaming if they had any idea how mating occurred.

  He’d been in talks with local law enforcement and the media for almost a week now. If Ranger and Kye hadn’t been so stupid, they wouldn’t be in this situation. They’d be living peacefully on the pride’s two hundred acre ranch south of town with no one the wiser.

  “How long have your kind been around?” a reporter asked.

  “Where did you come from?” another chimed in, talking over everyone else.

  “Are you dangerous?” a cute blonde asked, raising her hand.

  “Our kind have been around for thousands of years,” Talon began, looking out into the sea of human reporters. It was hard not to lash out at the reporters for their increasingly impertinent questions. “We are a peaceful group, usually keeping to ourselves. Our ancestors were warriors for kings in ancient times. Panthers have no hatred toward anyone, human or animal.”

  “How old are you?” a male reporter asked, leaning forward to make himself visible. Talon recognized him from the local station.

  “I am twenty nine years old,” he answered, catching sight of his younger brother, Noah, standing off to the side. Talon scanned the room and found his second in command, Winter, waiting off to his right. As his eyes moved back across the room, Noah made a sign for Talon to finish answering questions.

  “And you are the leader of this…pride?” the male asked, looking confused over his choice of words.

  They were different from their animal cousins. Usually, panthers were solitary animals, only coming together to procreate. Since the beginning of time, the shifters had stuck close together, maintaining a family environment. Their ancestors actually coined the name “pride” in reference to their families.

  Their animal form wasn’t quite like the big cats in the jungles of the world. From a distance, you’d say they were panther, but their genetic makeup was more than just one breed. In fact, their animal bodies were bigger and different from their animal cousins in the wild. They did not have darkened rosettes like some black cats, either. Their genes were not a pigmentation flaw like scientists liked to use in reference to the wild black cats. No, Talon and his pride were just black, panther-like cats that lived in the human world.

  “Yes, I am. Every pride has a leader, an alpha. It is his responsibility to nurture and provide for his people. Without the leadership of an alpha, the pride would suffer and eventually die out. It is my responsibility to make sure that they have work and a safe environment to live and raise their young.”

  “Are there other shifters out there?” the blonde woman asked.

  “This is about my pride, and I will only speak about them,” he said, his voice holding a warning. It wasn’t his place to tell the secrets of the other shifters.

  “So, there are others?” she pushed, leaning forward. “Are there wolves? Like in the movies? What about other animals?” The woman’s eyes took on a dreamy haze and Talon cringed.

  “Next question,” he responded curtly, looking away from the woman. He hoped like hell that she didn’t push him any further to answer those damn questions.

  “You own a few companies, Mr. Shaw,” another reporter began. “Is this how you provide? Do you only employ your own kind?”

  “I employ members of my pride and humans,” he said, trying his best not to fidget in his seat. He had to answer these questions as honestly as possible, but not so honestly that the people who worked for him would be targeted.

  “Did the humans know that you shift into an animal?” a woman called out.

  “No,” he answered simply.

  He didn’t want to scare the humans. The last thing their kind needed was for the humans to hunt them down out of fear. There were many things about shifters that he would take to his grave. There was no way in hell Talon was going to let the humans know that they could be transformed into a shifter with a blood exchange and excruciating pain while the human’s body transformed into an animal.

  The questions kept coming and eventually his t
ime was up. His brother, Noah, and his second in command, Winter Blue, escorted Talon to an awaiting SUV, whisking him away from the steps of the City Hall building. The camera flashes caused the panthers to squint, the light irritating their sensitive eyes.

  “I’m so glad that’s over,” Talon sighed, leaning back in his seat. It’d been a long day of answering increasingly personal questions.

  “We should be able to breathe a little this weekend.” Noah smiled. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to have a beer.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Talon agreed, finally beginning to relax. “Let’s hit up The Deuce for dinner.”

  “Do you think there will be a problem?” Winter frowned. Winter was not only his second in command, but also the head of his security company, S.S.S. or Shaw Security Specialists, as the sign over their office complex stated.

  “No,” Talon replied. “We will not run away from this town. Running only makes them believe that we have something to hide. This pride will continue their daily routines regardless of the media and whatever they say.”

  “Then a beer it is,” Noah cheerfully proclaimed. “Let’s hope that little bar owner is there tonight.”

  “Just a beer, Noah,” Talon warned, not giving away any emotions. He didn’t want to think about the woman that owned the bar they visited.

  Liberty Raines was there most nights, but that didn’t mean that they’d interacted with her very often. There’d been a few times that she’d come by the table to drop off drinks or food. She was always too busy working for them to strike up a conversation. There was something about the little brunette that sent Talon’s panther into a growling frenzy. It must’ve been her scent. Oh, he could pick it out of a crowd. The combination of wildflowers and sunshine was permanently etched into his brain.

  The last thing he needed in his life was a woman. He had too many things going on now that they’d been outed by the humans. The fact that she was a human sealed the deal on the certainty that he wanted nothing to do with her. A panther and a human didn’t mix, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to drag a human into his world.

  Not now…not ever.

  The bar was mostly quiet. Liberty wiped down the old wooden bar top with a fresh rag out of the bucket of clean, sanitizing solution. The television was on above her head. The news had been focused on their breaking story for a week now.

  The fairytales from childhood nursery rhymes had come true. Paranormal stories of men who shifted into animals were no longer fiction.

  It was real. It’d been real for as long as the Earth had orbited around the sun.

  One of her waitresses was sitting on a barstool at the end of the bar, totally engrossed in the newscast. A pair of men had been filmed shifting into sleek, black panthers at the edge of a wooded area just south of town not too far from her bar. Once the news had blasted the information all over the world, a local man had stepped forward claiming the unthinkable.

  Some of those men had been regulars, and Liberty had never noticed anything out of the ordinary about them. They all seemed so…normal. Well, that was a lie. None of those men were anywhere near normal looking. They all were larger than the average man that stepped foot into her little business. Each one was tall, muscular. Their shoulders were wide, arms rippling with muscles that seemed to overlap themselves. They moved with grace despite their size. Every woman in the room noticed them when they took their usual seats in the back corner, ordering their drinks and food with no problems. Each and every one of the men that entered was beyond handsome. Sexual prowess oozed off of them whenever they were around. Even Liberty had to admit that they had thrown her hormones into overdrive a time or two.

  “I still can’t believe this is happening,” Nicole fretted. She leaned back, her blonde hair falling in ringlets down her back. “And in our little town! Did you know that I saw several news vans on my way in earlier?”

  “I’ve heard the media is going crazy over all of this,” she admitted.

  Liberty shot a quick look at the screen, averting her eyes when the man claiming to be the pride’s alpha started talking about his secret. She didn’t have to even look at the screen to know who it was, because she would’ve known his voice anywhere.

  Talon Shaw was a regular in her bar. He and his buddies could be found there every Friday and Saturday night, staying until last call, and sometimes they came in for lunch during the week. They’d interacted only few times in the last two years that she’d been running The Deuce, and he’d always seemed to be aware of everything that went on in the bar. Oh, she’d noticed how he watched her move around, helping wait tables and delivering food when the place became busy during rush hours. She’d be lying if she said that she hadn’t watched him from the corner of her eye whenever he walked in the door, too.

  The man who was the leader of these shifters was huge. His dark hair was short cropped, but on the top of his head his hair was kept a little longer. That sexy length obscured one of his icy blue eyes, making him look dangerous. His arms were so large that she was sure his shirt would split at the seams if he sneezed. His skin appeared to be soft as satin, and a few times, Liberty would have a full bodied shiver attack when she’d thought about the possibility of those arms brushing against hers by accident. She honestly didn’t think she’d survive that much stimulus…if she’d ever get that close to the man.

  “Are you even watching this?” Nicole called out.

  “No,” Liberty replied, brushing her long, chocolate-brown hair behind her ear. “It’s none of my business.”

  “Yes, it is,” Nicole insisted. “Do you realize these guys have been here every weekend? It is your business, Liberty. Are you going to let these freaks back in the bar tonight when they show up?”

  “Now hold on one damn minute,” Liberty yelled. “They are as welcome here as anyone else.”

  “Are you serious?” she scoffed, throwing her hands in the air. “I can’t believe this!”

  “I’m going to only say this once, Nicole,” Liberty said, dropping her rag in the bucket and making her way to the end of the bar. “This is my bar and I will decide who is welcome or not. If these guys come in here, you are to treat them like any other paying customer. Got me?”

  “Yes…yes, ma’am,” Nicole answered in defeat.

  “Now, go prep for the dinner rush,” Liberty ordered, flipping off the television. “This place should start filling up within the hour, and I think maybe I need to have a meeting with everyone before we get started tonight.”

  She watched Nicole hop off the barstool, grabbing her order pad as she walked into the backroom. The last thing she needed was for her waitresses to be mean or hateful to the group of men…no, the panthers that spent time in her bar.

  She busied herself with making sure all of the coolers were stocked with beer bottles covered with ice. She stacked cups at each station behind the bar and refilled the napkin and straw caddies for the bartenders who’d be arriving soon. Looking up into the mirror on the back wall, she took a deep breath and continued to work. She didn’t need to worry about the news, she had to run the bar and keep her staff from quitting out of fear of the shifters.

  It was thirty minutes before the employees started trickling in for their shift. Moe, the cook, was the first to arrive, stopping to kiss Liberty’s cheek. “Good evening, doll.”

  “Hey, Moe,” she greeted. Moe had been around since before she took over the place. The Deuce had been in her family for two generations. Her father had left the bar to her when he died from a sudden heart attack just over two years ago. Her mother and grandparents had passed several years prior in a fatal car accident, leaving her younger sister as the only living relative in the area.

  The Deuce was located at the very outskirts of the town of Olive Branch, in northern Mississippi. The town was just over the state line from Tennessee and the city of Memphis. Liberty loved her town, never finding the appeal of moving away. The people there were friendly, and having the oldest, m
ost popular bar in town kept her busier than she’d ever thought possible.

  Moe tied on his apron, covering his rounded belly. He was in his late fifties and had already started shaving his head to hide the fact that his hair was now completely white. “Before you start prep, I need to have a meeting with everyone.”

  “Sure, darlin’,” he drawled in his southern accent.

  The two bartenders and three extra waitresses gathered around Moe, waiting for Liberty to make her speech. Her sister, and co-owner of the bar, stood off to the side, waiting to hear what Liberty had to say.

  “I’m going to make this short and sweet,” she began, letting her eyes fall on each and every one of her employees. “We’ve all seen the news and know that it centers around some of our customers. We will treat everyone that walks through that door with respect. A lot of things are going on right now, and we need to show that our customers are our top priority. These men, who’ve been coming here for a while now, are still just like all of us. They come in here to eat food and drink beer. I want you to treat them as if you’d never heard about their story. This is all I ask of you. If you have any problems, and I mean any, you come get me. Okay?”

  Everyone nodded or spoke their understanding, most of them heading off to their stations. The two bartenders, Cole Bryant and Luke Everett, squeezed Liberty’s shoulder as they passed, silently giving her their support. Nicole didn’t show any emotions as she headed off to the backroom for more supplies. Mary Grace Browning and Della Carter smiled warmly and started turning on lights over the pool tables in the back of the bar.