Chapter Two
Quinn
The imprint had begun. Quinn could feel the possessive, protective instincts taking root and growing. This was not like defending his men. This was visceral. Primal. Instinctive. Innate. And it was a bad idea from beginning to end.
First, she was as human as he once had been. Quinn had seen with his own eyes how fragile humans were. Their flimsy, insubstantial bodies could be killed by a single blow or bite. Disease got them. Hell, even a fucking splinter could kill one if it got infected. Humans died way too easily, and Maxwell Mountain was no place for a human.
Second, the town of Silver Fells was becoming a shifter haven. One by one, they were showing up. Former Special Forces soldiers seeking solace. Whether they were recently discharged or World War veterans, one by one they sought out the privacy offered by Western North Carolina.
And as more showed up, Silver Fells became a magnet for the shifters the US government had created since discovering the technology to splice DNA in the 1940s. Since female shifters weren’t even created until the 1990s, the town was mostly all men. Sure, there were a few humans living nearby, but they mostly hung out at the Lusty Leopard.
Three, she was a human female! And despite how his dick was currently reacting, humans had to be a no-go. Her skin was silken. Dewy. Made for his tongue. His touch. His cock. And no matter how perfectly she might fit him, Quinn was not prepared for a human life-mate. She was a genetic dead-end for him. His babies would be more human than Mastiff.
But then the thought of how those babies were made crashed into his mind. Silken legs spreading, the wet heat only a woman could provide, and the soul-crushing feeling of sheathing his dick deep in her tight pussy.
Never ending curves. This wasn’t a girl who couldn’t take the demands of shifter sex. Her hips were designed to be gripped. Her ass was plush. Pliant. Accommodating. He had visions of filling his large hands with her perfectly shaped ass.
And did he mention those tits? Mouthwatering, firm, pillow-soft tits that were made to play with. Tease. Taunt. Suck to his heart’s content.
Another image hit him, one less carnal and more wholesome. Of cradling his woman while she nursed their babies. Watching as life flowed into life. As the body that gave him such pleasure was used to nourish his child.
He swallowed back the emotion that threatened to choke his throat. Far safer to think of the physical pleasure she could bring and not the deep-seated instinct to breed.
When she’d taken her coat off, he wanted to beg her to continue. To reveal each inch of glorious skin,
And her skin. Fair skin, the color of early spring peaches with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Briefly, he wondered if she had freckles elsewhere and longed to find out for himself.
Fuck.
And then there was Cree, the illegal mountain lion shifter. Born from a non-sanctioned union between a soldier and a human civilian. Cree was young. Angry. Restless in the way of unmated males everywhere. He wanted a fight and was more than willing to test his sharp fangs on delicate skin. It was Quinn’s job to help settle Cree into the mountains.
And did he mention Lacey was human?
Quinn drove into town to the bar Cree ran on the edge of town. He didn’t want to telegraph there was a human in Silver Fells but if he didn’t, the other shifters would think she was fair game.
Which she wasn’t. Not even a little bit.
He moved in his seat, adjusting the raging boner he’d developed helping her move into one of the cabins. She confused him, and if there was one thing Quinn hated, it was being confused. Lacey was trouble. With a capital T that rhymed with D that stood for dick. Which also happened to be not-so-conveniently standing at attention.
His animal was a pack animal. It hated the solitary life his human side had chosen for him. And it sure as hell didn’t mind the short, stacked bit of trouble that had washed up on his doorstep. Quinn’s Mastiff wanted to herd her into a bed and keep her there for as long as it took.
His Mastiff had howled with pleasure at the idea of breeding with her. Filling her with his children. Watching her belly swell with a new generation.
Lacey was gorgeous. The kind of beautiful that never appeared on the cover of a magazine. Wholesome, with wide golden-brown eyes that were stubborn one minute and curious the next. Slim thighs that would part for him. Cradle and cushion a man of his size. Arms that would hold a man tight, pressing her supple curves against his lean chest. He wanted to cup, crush, and cling until they were both exhausted. And the hair? Her long cascade of dark blonde curls would look exquisite spread across his cotton pillowcases.
No. Fuck. No. Not on his pillowcases. Not in his bed. Not across his naked body. Not in his cabin. Not anything.
He had to get her out of his home before the imprint became permanent. She was a city girl through and through and had no business being on his mountain.
Oh, but the things he longed to teach that city girl.
How had the website he hired to handle rentals mucked it up that badly? Quinn only rented to other shifters who had the clearance code. How had a human managed to get past his security protocols?
Quinn paused in the middle of his internal diatribe as he pondered that question. How had she managed to get past his web security protocols? Could she be a spy? Someone sent from the government? He hadn’t scented any lies or dishonesty on her but then he’d been a little distracted by his unexpected hard-on.
Quinn pulled into the parking lot of The Lusty Leopard and turned off the engine. Everything about the dive bar screamed desperate last chance, and yet every Saturday night it was full of shifters looking for a scuffle and human women looking for love.
Briefly, Quinn wondered if either found what they were looking for.
The loud honky-tonk music spilled like light into the darkened night. Ignoring the bear-sized bouncer glaring at him, Quinn walked straight to the bar.
“Hey, Quinn, how can I help you?” The girl was young. Twenty-one tops, human, and way too young to be eyeing an old soldier like him with anything approaching interest.
“Two cheeseburgers to go. Onion rings. Ranch.” Quinn purposefully made his words terse. Businesslike. Despite the Lusty Leopard’s reputation as a shifter hook up bar, Cree didn’t encourage flirting with the staff
Quinn forced a smile down at the cute little waitress and kept the pack of shifters at the edge of his vision. Survivors learned to never turn their backs on danger.
“Gunny.” Quinn swung around and nodded in recognition at Jason Fox, a bear shifter he’d served with in some forsaken sand-encrusted area thousands of miles from home.
Shifter soldiers were an odd breed. Most of them he recognized. Some were happy to see him. Others not so much.
“Fox,” Quinn said with a nod.
“Rumor has it you’ve got a human up at your cottage. You know anything about that?”
Quinn smelled his curiosity. His desire. Fox’s animal was broken, and Quinn was concerned it could spell trouble for Lacey. “She’s a lost tourist,” Quinn said. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the polished wood of the bar. The band took a break and some twangy country song popular thirty years ago echoed from the crappy speakers of a dilapidated jukebox. “She’s here a few days. A week tops. And then she’s going back to whatever city she came from.”
Fox grunted. “Sure she couldn’t see her way down to the Leopard? We could use some fresh sport.”
“She’s not for you,” Quinn said abruptly. A low snarl clawed its way up the back of his throat. Quinn wanted to protect Lacey with all the fierceness of his training.
Fox watched him as two testosterone-fueled minutes passed while they assessed each other. Measured each other. Drew their own conclusions.
Fox reached behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “Get me two shot classes, Tiffany,” he barked at the bartender.
Hands shaking, Tiffany pulled out two glasses and set them side by side. Fox poured out the liquid and
raised his glass.
“I’m not playing this game with you, Fox,” Quinn said, his eyes never leaving the other shifter. “She isn’t negotiable.”
The desire to down Fox surprised Quinn. He had been out of the army for two years. Hadn’t wanted to take a man down since long before that. But as he watched the anger simmer in Fox’s eyes, Quinn felt it burst through him. He wanted to watch Fox gasp for air. He wanted Fox on the ground, bleeding, and begging for mercy.
“You aren’t a bear,” Fox said. His threat of using his size in a battle was implicit.
“No, I’m a man,” Quinn returned. “One who is telling you that this woman is not for you. Not for any of you.” The jukebox wound down as if on cue. Quinn felt a prickle of awareness at the base of his neck telling him not only was he surrounded, but he was deep in enemy territory.
A roomful of men, mostly shifters in one form or another, eyed him up.
“Playing dog in the manger?” Fox said, eyes shrewd as he mocked Quinn. Seeking weakness. Taunting him.
Quinn nodded as the bartender brought him a bag of food.
“This doesn’t concern you, Tiffany,” Fox said, growling at her.
Quinn grabbed the bag of delicious smelling food and nodded to Fox. “Not for you,” he repeated. His gaze took in the assorted men surrounding pool tables, the bar, and the high tops. “Not for any of you,” he reiterated.
He downed the shot, his eyes never wavering. After all, it was a shame to waste good liquor.
Quinn turned his back on this group of half-feral men and walked away. He knew he’d made a tactical error but had been helpless to resist the pull to protect Lacey. And her crazy mewling cat, too.
<<<>>>
Quinn tossed the bag of burgers onto the passenger seat and glared at the neon lights of the Leopard. Stupid bar. Stupid shifters. Stupid desire to claim.
Unwanted emotions pummeled Quinn as he pulled away from the Lusty Leopard. He ground his teeth against a growl tearing at his throat. The desire to fight. To attack. To defend what he saw as home ate at him and his whole body ached from the resistance.
Not many of them realized Quinn had been the first shifter. After he’d retired, all he’d craved was the quiet of the mountains. The solace of running in the woods. Time to consider the deal he’d made with the Army right after boot camp, the guy from the Pentagon had shown up and made him an offer.
The Shifter Special Forces were looking for more men. There was a lot to gain by allowing the government to splice animal DNA with a human. The ability to shift. Heightened senses.
Of course, this was also Quinn’s first lesson that the military tended to downplay the negatives of an operation when looking for volunteers. What the man from the Pentagon hadn’t told him was that Quinn would be unable to have children of his own. First, the Pentagon wanted to keep track of the number of shifters in the country. Letting them have babies willy-nilly if they survived their service contract would have been counterproductive. Secondly, they weren’t quite sure spliced DNA would work with human DNA.
Quinn had signed on the bottom line and received his animal the next day. Quinn loved the stubborn beast that lived within him. They’d run herd together as a gunnery sergeant. They’d protected his men. Protected his country for twenty years.
And then, when his time was done, he’d received his discharge papers without as much as a “fuck you” from the government.
Quinn had returned home to Maxwell Mountains, the land his great-grandfather had claimed deep within the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Despite the loneliness, Quinn had needed the solitude.
First on the scene had been Cree James. Cree was the unexpected offspring of a mountain lion shifter and a human. He’d remained off the grid of the government for years, but a stint in juvie had exposed him as a partial shifter.
That told Quinn all he needed to know about the Army and their deal. It was fucking bullshit.
And as his men came home. Didn’t fit in. Couldn’t find jobs, one by one they’d found him. Came to the mountains. Settled the Silver Fells land. Built businesses and homes.
But the biological fact was, you couldn’t have a few hundred men settle a town without women. They became edgy. Restless. Territorial.
And Lacey St. Claire had wandered her delectable body right into the middle of a mangy pack of horny shifters. With Quinn Maxwell being the horniest, mangiest, and most territorial of the lot because she had sauntered right up to him and settled on his property.
His.
Quinn breathed a sigh of relief when he returned home and saw the light in Lacey’s cabin. He stared for a moment as her shadows moved around the cabin. Somehow, in the space of only an hour, she had given the dilapidated shack a quality of hominess.
One he would miss when she was gone. Because she was going.
He was going to contact the realtor he used and ream them out. This kind of fuck up was unacceptable. The last thing he needed was to babysit a human unable to protect herself.
The problem was he liked her. Her southern sass. That mouth that didn’t know when to stop. The way she leered at him like he was a stripper on a pole.
That was the real danger. With her golden eyes and unruly brown hair, she was a woman Quinn could learn to love and desire. Already he could feel his protective instincts carving her into his soul.
Quinn smiled, remembering her inhaling. Catching his scent like she was an animal herself. Remembering. Wanting to mark him.
And the need Quinn felt to be marked was fucking ridiculous.
He thought of sand. Ice. Frozen unpronounceable lands where troops fired on him and his men before they’d unleashed their beasts and charged. As the negative images flowed into him, the constant stiff dick he’d endured since Lacey had shown up out of nowhere finally fell to half-mast.
After Quinn slammed the door closed, he jogged across the parking lot to deliver her food. The wind howled and blew through his sweater, but Quinn was impervious to the cold. His Mastiff ran hot, and the cold winters of the Blue Ridge were exactly what his animal needed.
Quinn bounded up the stairs and knocked on Lacey’s door. She was leaving tomorrow. For his peace of mind and hers, he had to make it happen. But right now, he wished to God he could pursue the sweetest fucking woman he’d ever met.
Chapter Three
Lacey
Lacey wasn’t much of a traveler, but when she did, she made sure she packed the necessities. Wine, her favorite flannel pajamas, and candles. And did she mention wine? She took a long swallow of the Riesling, letting the sweet fruitiness calm her nerves.
How dare Quinn order around as If … as if … Well, as if he owned the mountain. Which, she had to admit, he did. But still. That didn’t give him the right to be a bully. At this rate, she was going to need a vacation from her vacation!
She looked around the cabin and hugged herself. Maybe Hadley was right. She needed some rest and relaxation. Lacey pulled back the plain, utilitarian curtain and peered outside. She couldn’t wait to go play in the snow.
She was settling into her new digs. Her clothes were hung, sweaters neatly folded, and shoes were lined up all in a row. Candles flickered from every surface. With a sigh, she sat back and put her feet up. All she needed was the food McSeximus Prime had offered her.
She got up, put on some low key jazzy music and let the sounds and scents of seduction play with her imagination. Of course, she thought with a wry grin, one look at her in her pink flannel pajamas, and her chances of getting laid by Quinn would rapidly drop to zero.
Maybe she’d get naked instead, she thought with a wine-hazed giggle.
No, that would be bad, she reminded herself. But in the throes of her imagination, she couldn’t remember why it would be a magnetic, mesmerizing, madness-inducing mistake.
Right?
The knock on the cabin door startled her and wine splashed down the front of her shirt. Well, she thought with a chuckle. That was one way to get naked.
She walked over to the door and opened it just a crack. “Is that my food?” she demanded, hunger raging to the forefront as she scents of meat and onions attacked her. “Gimme. Uh. Please?” she tacked on, barely remembering her manners in the face of overwhelming hunger.
She intended it to be a snatch and grab of the food, but Quinn had other ideas. He barged in with his bag of goodies. She still managed to take the bag, but with the added bonus of Quinn’s presence. Lacey grabbed one of the burgers out of the bag and bit into it once she’d unwrapped a corner. “Oh, thank you,” she said around a mouthful of food as her belly finally quieted down. “I swear, my stomach thought my neck had been cut off.”
Oh, like that was ladylike, Lacey thought with an internal roll of her eyes.
Quinn paced the small confines of the cabin like a dog needing to go out. She stared at Quinn a moment as a thought began. A mere thread, really, but when she went to follow it found it had disappeared.
“Do you want the other one?” Lacey thought to ask before she dived into the onion rings.
“No,” Quinn barked. “Maybe,” he conceded before grabbing the bag and wolfing down the second burger. “The Leopard still makes the best burgers in town,” he agreed as he took a healthy bite.
Lacey set her glass down to refill it and was surprised when Quinn picked it up and downed it in one shot. “My wine!”
“Did you want that?”
“Of course, I did,” she said with a pout. She slapped his hands and took the wine glass back. She poured another glass and took a sip, closing her eyes at the heady pleasure it brought.
Quinn growled. He actually growled! Lacey opened her eyes to look at him. “Are you okay?” she asked cautiously.
“No, I’m not okay.” Quinn’s jaw tightened and he paced around the small living room. Lacey stood, unsure what he was doing. Suddenly, he stopped to look at her and she became acutely aware of her pink flannel jammies and wine stained shirt. “What are you wearing?”
Pride bristled along her spine. He didn’t have to sound so annoyed, did he? “Pajamas, thank you very much. It’s cold up here in the mountains. What am I supposed to wear to bed?”
Her Lonely Mastiff Page 2
