by Eliza Gayle
Dirty Sexy Furry
Eliza Gayle
Gypsy Ink Books
Contents
About The Book
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Bonus Chapter
Also by Eliza Gayle
Books Writing As E.M. Gayle
About The Book
A Southern Shifters novel
© 2011 ELIZA GAYLE
[email protected]
http://ElizaGayle.com
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Dirty Sexy Furry, Southern Shifter Series Book 1
An uneasy alliance, a forbidden mating call that won't be denied, and unrelenting enemies who will stop at nothing to get what they want.
Lucas Gunn has been kidnapped, examined and tortured.
His only remaining tie to the outside world is in his dreams and the incredible woman who appears in them nightly.
He thought she was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. Then she came for him.
Kira MacDonald is in trouble… Her psychic ability to “see” things has gone haywire. She’s being plagued by false visions and dreams of a man she’s never met.
She’s desperate for a cure, which means finding and bonding with a mate. Something she fears more than losing her mind.
Too bad fate has other plans for her. Plans that include her rescuing one dark, dominant alpha shifter.
Passion and Pride. Duty and Danger. In the end, there's really only one choice...
1
Lucas searched beyond the dark, dank cell he sat in, trying to see the woman stalking him. He couldn’t, but he smelled the woman’s fear and the stench made him sick to his stomach.
She paced back and forth outside his door. Her boots squeaked against the concrete floor with every turn, making the kind of repetitive annoying noise that would eventually drive him mad—like nails on a chalkboard.
Suddenly, she turned, stepping into the single ray of moonlight coming in through the grime covered window, gripped the cell bars and bared her teeth. “Gunn, you’ll tell me what I want to know. One way or another I’ll find what I’m looking for and you and your clan will suffer the consequences,” she growled.
He took a deep breath and suppressed the rage eating him from the inside out. There was no way in hell he would ever breathe a word to this woman about his shifter clan. He'd die first.
“This is getting really old, you asking the same questions over and over, me giving the same answer every time. How many days are we going to do this?” he said.
“Until you give me the real answers, you sick son of a bitch.” An untempered rage surged from her, feeding the animal instincts he continued to fight. The animal inside him wanted freedom. To hunt the woman endangering him.
With slow measured movements, he rose from his cot in the corner of his private hellhole, edging his way through the dark shadows to her position.
The closer he got to her, the more her emotions pushed back at him, cementing his thoughts about her reckless behavior. Emotion not logic drove her, making her a weaker opponent.
But also an unpredictable one.
This was personal for her somehow. When only a few feet separated them he detected something else, the subtle scent he recognized from before but couldn't place for the life of him. In time he would, and for now time was all he had.
“You’re pushing the wrong man,” he snarled.
She jumped back, catching herself with her hands before she landed on her ass and Lucas smiled into the darkness.
“I know nothing about the stupid fairy tales you keep going on about. Just because some people like to tell stories and make shit up, doesn't make it true. Shifters," he snorted. "It's still nothing but old Scottish born fiction in the guise of something more." He leaned as close to her as he could get. "Haven’t you ever heard of make believe?” he purred, the words edged in steel.
The guard shook her head, her tense facial features, partially hidden under a hat, still betrayed the potent rage she kept barely restrained.
“I already know all about your kind as well as the existence of the other clans with different abilities.” Obvious disgust dripped from her voice. “It’s only a matter of time before I have what I want shifter and then you’ll regret not cooperating.” Her lips quirked up in a vicious smile, marring what should have been a beautiful face.
2
The sound of gravel crunching under the tires of Kira's vehicle and the wheel jerking aimlessly in her hands shattered the vision. Her car careened off the road while her heart jerked with sudden panic as she struggled to refocus on driving and prevent a crash. She pulled at the steering wheel, trying to regain control and swerve back on the pavement. Cold liquid sloshed at her feet when her water bottle slammed to the floorboard. Nothing she tried made a difference and her car smashed into the soft sand embankment, surrounding her in a cloud of dust.
What the hell was that?
She clutched the steering wheel tight to still her trembling arms, and sucked in gulps of air. Not only had she seen what her mystery man had, this time she’d been inside his head and heard his thoughts. A man in a cell alarmed her enough. But the woman… The hatred that practically oozed from her pores truly frightened Kira.
This was getting ridiculous.
With the onset of her mating call, her normally laser sharp and accurate visions had gone straight past weird and into creepy land with the line between reality and fiction no longer easy to detect. Shit. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Got to get a grip.
She fished on the floor for her other, unopened bottle of water, which had rolled out of sight. After searching the floor of the car, her hand finally wrapped around cool plastic underneath the front seat. She twisted the top off and gulped down the water, hoping to soothe the aching dryness of her throat.
Normally the Tallan, her psychic ability to see through another person’s eyes, came to her when she had specific problems to work through, enabling her to solve situations far more effectively than a normal human. She’d been using this gift of vision since puberty with extreme clarity, until several days ago when she dreamt of a man she’d never met. A man who reached out to her night after night, gripping her with sexual desire so strong she had difficulty coping.
The man in the cell.
She didn’t have many details about him other than what he looked like and sounded like. But what she did know, with every ounce of instinct she possessed?
Wha
t he was.
Her true mate.
Had to be. No one else could possibly have that kind of control to get inside her mind again and again uninvited. She shuddered at the thought and shoved it from her thoughts. God she hated being screwed with by fate.
She closed her mind and sifted through the images still burned into her brain. This vision wasn't like all of the others. This hadn’t been about being drawn together by some unseen mystical desire nor did it involve the hot and sweaty sex that curled her toes. Those she'd come to expect.
No, her mystery mate had been locked in a cage, angry and fighting for control by a thin thread.
Could it be true? Was the man she was supposedly destined to join with in trouble? Or was her gift deteriorating faster than expected?
Kira rubbed her temples. Nothing made sense anymore. Least of all a vision of a shifter from an opposing clan.
A shifter. Shit.
A mate she didn't want was bad enough, but a shifter… She shook her head. Impossible. Everyone knew that shifters didn't mate outside their clans.
The woman in the vision troubled her more. She appeared human and was pressuring him for information on their clans. Something she should know nothing about. For over a century they'd blended in or hidden away, making sure humans didn't know they existed. They’d lived in the Rocky Mountains, virtually undetected, and rightfully so. Of all the rules their ruling councils bestowed on their kind, never revealing their supernatural secrets was the one they all agreed on. Any argument against this rule was quickly squashed and over the years it had become more like an obsession than a law. There were even death enforcers employed to control what information got out.
She’d lived by this code her entire life, although deep down she believed forever wouldn't last. It was only a matter of time before they were discovered and her gut told her that time would now arrive sooner rather than later.
Kira’s cell phone rang, a shrill noise that made her jump in her seat. She reached across the passenger seat and picked it up. No need to check caller ID, she knew who was on the other end.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, trying to disguise her sarcasm.
“Kira, honey, is everything okay? I sensed trouble.” Kira rolled her eyes and inwardly groaned. Her mother used her ability to invade her privacy far too often.
“No, Mom, everything is fine now. I dozed off and ended up on the side of the road. I guess it’s time to stop for the night and get some rest”.
“Are you all right?” She heard the tension escalating in her mother’s voice.
“Yes, Mom. Nothing to get worried about.” Time to change the subject before she lost control. “What about you? Has anything happened since I left?” She tried to be subtle. If someone had gone missing from one of their clans, the word would spread quickly and a hunt organized. But until she was sure she could trust her latest vision she had to keep quiet and not let anyone know she suspected her deterioration may have started.
“No, everything is fine here. It’s you I’m worried about.”
With bitter disappointment, she sensed her mom was not telling the truth.
"Kira, honey I'm still not sure you should have left. It's not safe out there."
The more her mother talked the less she needed the Tallan to confirm what she feared. She couldn't hide anything from the woman. Never could.
“We've been over this. Out here I get to be the eyes and ears of the clan. I'm perfectly safe."
"I don't trust the humans and neither should you."
Kira perked up. Maybe her mother didn't know. She'd been on her ass to move back home pretty much since the moment she left. Yet another reason she couldn't go back. Not that she needed another one. Her controlling stepfather was always on a power trip and the fact Kira didn't go along with his schemes made all their lives untenable.
"I'm not going to get into this again," she took a calming breath. "I'm tired and hungry and I need to find a place to stop for the night."
“You’re sure nothing else is going on?”
Kira gripped the phone tighter and dug deep for some patience. “I'm positive you worry too much. It's not healthy. If anything changes I'll let you know.”
“Well, okay then. I'll expect you to call me when you arrive in California so I’ll know you’re okay.”
Her mother seemed even more paranoid than usual. So not a good sign. “Bye, Mom. I’ll call you soon.”
As she began to put the phone down, she heard her mom speak to someone, her voice strained. Most likely her stepfather.
“You were right, it’s her time—”
Oh, just fucking great.
So much for hiding her troubles. Her too powerful mother had seen right through her and now her asshole of a stepfather was sure to run straight to the Council to inform them her mating cycle had begun. That bastard would love to see her eliminated. It would give him the ability to harness more power if her Tallan transferred back to her mother at death.
Manipulating bastard.
The old anger and resentment made her chest ache. Her father's death all those years ago had changed their life and not for the best. Being a female in the clan meant you held the position of power in your family thanks to the female driven Tallan. Her father had understood that role, cherishing her mother and standing by her side as a partner and her rock of support. But not all women in the clan were that lucky. Some of the men refused to accept their secondary positions and went to great lengths to manipulate the women. And the mating call gave them the perfect in. Females without mates to ground them often couldn't maintain control over the psychic storm going on in their heads and a sort of power bleed began to deteriorate their mental capacity until eventually they became a danger to themselves and others. Once the process began there was very little time to stop it.
This led to women taking mates often stronger than them. It could still work, but only if the men allowed the power to flow freely between the joined couple. Many of the greedy bastards didn't, including her precious stepfather.
She glanced at the screen on her phone. Her clock was ticking now. She had to find a solution— and soon.
3
Lucas Gunn lay staring at the ceiling of his cell. He had so many unanswered questions and his tolerance for this kind of frustration had peaked long ago. His skin burned and his muscles ached, making him fear his ability to hold back a shift for much longer if he didn’t get his adrenaline level down.
For some reason they were hell bent on getting him to shift. He knew they watched his every move, he’d found the tiny cameras the first night here so shifting in his cell was out of the question. There were a dozen, obviously designed to film him from every angle. As if they wanted to study him for some reason.
He couldn't risk exposing his clan, and possibly several more. As Guardian, it was his duty to protect clan secrets above all else. Which sometimes meant delivering a death sentence to those who threatened their safety.
Now he was caged and helpless with time running out. Eventually his body would force the shift. Whatever these people thought they knew, he sure as shit didn’t want to confirm it.
The sweltering temperature inside the building made him edgy and the constant need for freedom left him sleep deprived. His cougar stirred, demanding release. He flung himself from the cot and stripped bare, anything to relieve the oppressive heat. Unable to resist the urge to move, he paced from one end of the small cell to the other. Unbidden images of cool water from a mountain stream, green grass under his paws, and a breeze rustling through his fur rose unexpectedly in his mind. All of which he forced away on a snarl of rage. Nothing helped.
He laid back down and focused on what he must do. He’d been trying for days to find a telepathic link to one of his kind. There weren't a lot left with that ability, but they were out there and if he caught one at the right moment they had a sliver of a chance to connect. Not that he had a hope in hell of giving anyone his location. He had no clue where he was. His crafty cap
tor had made sure of it.
Then there was his mystery woman. Ever since the binding spell the witch had used to capture him, he’d only found one person to reach. The sexy redhead that came to him every time he slept. The only thing he knew for sure about her was the fact that she drove him wild with desire, and if he ever laid hands on her, he'd never let go. Hell, it was a pretty good bet that when he was freed from this hellhole, he’d hunt her down. If she really existed.
Lucas let down his barriers, opening his mind to any psychic residue that could lead him to a connection with someone able to help. Between the anger of being locked in a cage and the out of control lust being fueled from a dream, his time was running out. He closed his eyes and relaxed his body one muscle at a time, willing himself to drift into sleep. If there was a chance she was real he had to find her.
Lucas glanced across the room, his attention drawn to the beautiful woman standing in the doorway. Ah, she was back. Her shoulder-length, russet hair had multicolored highlights of red and gold that shimmered under the lights. He desperately wanted to run his fingers through the thick strands and watch them dance as the soft silk brushed against his skin. She wore a simple tank top and running shorts that might have looked ordinary on anyone else, but they hugged and skimmed her lush figure to perfection. And then were the long, long legs her shorts accentuated. He growled.
