Eminence Shifters 2
Peata
Peata O'Donnell works hard to protect the young people she works with, but is tortured by her brutal past. After inadvertently witnessing an horrific murder, she is recognised, and forced to flee with nothing but the clothes on her back.
Sheltering in an abandoned barn one night, she accidentally sets it on fire. She is rescued by firemen, and forced to face the horrors from both her past and her present.
Firemen and cougar shifters Max, Calder, and Axel Wilder were on the verge of leaving their home and jobs to begin a search for the mate they all yearned for, when they discover her in a blaze.
However, the unexpected complication of their mate being a human is not the only obstacle to their mating. They must free her from the threat of her pursuers, as well as from the pain of her past, before they can all find happiness.
Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 43,697 words
DPGroup
PEATA
Eminence Shifters 2
Ashley Malkin
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
PEATA
Copyright © 2014 by Ashley Malkin
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-397-0
First E-book Publication: October 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
Thank you to everyone who enjoys reading romance. We believe in true love and happiness despite all the sadness in the world around us.
Ashley
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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
Epilogue
About the Author
PEATA
Eminence Shifters 2
ASHLEY MALKIN
Copyright © 2014
Chapter 1
Peata decided, after two hours of watching the front door of the youth center where she worked, that stakeouts were mind-numbingly boring. Her ample ass was joining her brain in that numbness, and she was fidgeting to get comfortable when her quarry finally appeared. She waited for him to pass her car, which she had moved to a side street with a view of the center’s front door, and got out to follow him on foot.
Peata worked as a social worker in the center, located in Montrose, Colorado. She had received help from a social worker herself at age seventeen, and had decided then that she wanted to help others in return.
Following one of her young clients, Gareth, through the cold dark streets, she worried about what he may be involved in. Recently, he and some of his friends had begun wearing high-end sneakers, flashy watches and designer clothes. The boys were all from poor families, mostly single parent homes. Their parents worked long hours to pay rent and put food on the table. She knew they would never have had the money for such extravagant luxuries.
Suspecting they had begun shoplifting, she had tried speaking to them about their new possessions. They had all given the same story, that they were birthday gifts. She was not stupid enough to believe they all had the same birthday.
So, Peata had decided that tonight she would follow Gareth, the youngest of the boys, to gather evidence of exactly what he was doing. Perhaps then he would accept her help.
They regularly had officers from the Montrose police visit the center to give talks and mentor the kids. She could have informed them of her concerns, but she really hoped that she could get them to stop herself. She didn’t want them or their families to have to deal with the ramifications of arrests or incarcerations.
But this was going to be up to them. If they would not stop stealing, even once she had proof, then she would tell her colleagues, and have them inform the police.
Gareth was listening to his “new iPod” and remained unaware that Peata was following him. He walked for nearly an hour to an area filled with abandoned warehouses on the outskirts of town. None of the streetlights were working and the darkness created an ominous atmosphere. Peata felt the first stirrings of misgiving tingle down her spine. It was deserted way out here, no passing traffic at all. Her breath was misting in front of her, the temperature having dropped rapidly now that the winter sun had set.
Shaki
ng with the cold, Peata took a deep breath and continued on. She would not leave Gareth out here alone, even if he was unaware of her presence.
She watched Gareth enter one of the derelict buildings. Creeping up to the empty and rusted window frame, she found she had an unhindered view inside. She took her phone from her purse and began filming Gareth as he approached the three men inside.
The men were standing around an old table in the middle of the otherwise empty space. The table was stacked with plastic-wrapped white bundles. Oh God, the bundles looked like cocaine. That’s just what they looked like on Crime Busters.
Shaking herself out of her momentary state of shock, she continued to film. She wanted to run, or throw up, but she couldn’t leave now. She had seen too much to just walk away. How I wish they had been shoplifting.
Those men were rotten bastards for taking advantage of the young boys, but the boys were in serious trouble now. Despite that she wouldn’t let the drugs continue to be sold. They would cause far too much misery.
She was too far away to hear what they were saying, but one of the men began gesturing angrily and strode to Gareth. Picking him up by his hoodie, he shook him hard.
Glancing at her phone to make sure it was still recording, she felt her heart skip a beat. She recognized the man holding Gareth. He was a detective from the Montrose police department. Zooming-in further on the scene, she recognized the other men as policemen from the same department.
Before she had time to process this turn of events, the man holding Gareth, Detective Phelps, threw him to the ground. The ensuing shot had a scream erupting from Peata’s throat before she had time to think.
She stood frozen, watching Gareth’s blood stain the ground as the men all turned toward her scream. As Detective Phelps pointed his gun at her, adrenaline soaked her bloodstream and she ran.
She ran between the buildings, looking around desperately for somewhere to hide. She could hear the heavy footfalls drawing closer through her own panting breaths. She tried opening the doors to the old buildings, she would never outrun them. She had to hide.
Finally a door opened, the squealing of its hinges seeming to split the still night air. Squeezing through the opening she pushed the door closed behind her. It was pitch black inside. Dropping to her knees she felt around the dirty floor for something to wedge the door closed. Sweeping blindly with her hands she found a piece of timber and jammed it under the handle.
She heard the doorknob rattle and pushed her hand into her mouth to stifle her scream. The rattling stopped and she heard the footsteps retreating.
She lay awake, shivering, on the cold warehouse floor all night, trying to think of what she should do now. She relived the horror of the young boy’s death over and over. She had been foolish and naïve in her actions, but if she had gone to the police with her suspicions, would it have ended any differently?
If three policemen from the small department in Montrose were involved, could she trust anyone at all? She had easily recognized all three of the policemen last night as the ones that came to speak at the center. So she was certain they would have also recognized her. Mentoring, my ass. They had come to the center scouting for vulnerable teenagers and recruiting them as drug dealers.
As morning finally lit the building, she pushed her sorrow aside. They would kill her too, if they found her. She had to disappear for a while. They would probably know where she lived, and her car registration by now, so she had to leave with nothing but the clothes on her back.
She had enough cash to leave town and once she was far enough away she would stop and think things through. There had to be a way out of the mess she was in. She was just too terrified to see it right now.
Chapter 2
Max Wilder was sitting at his desk, wrestling with the end of month budget. Having been the fire chief of their town of Eminence for the last thirty-five years, he should have been able to do it in his sleep.
But his mind continued to drift back to the events of the evening before. He and his brothers, Axel and Calder, had been invited for supper at the home of their pride Alpha, Finn Frederick. Max both liked and respected the Alpha of their pride of mountain lion shifters. He also liked his three brothers, Connor, Dane and Hunter.
They had been invited for the meal by Melanie, the new mate of all four Frederick brothers. Melanie had been hurt and abducted by a rogue from their pride only eight weeks ago. Max and his brothers had aided in her rescue and she had wanted to cook them a meal as a way to say thank you. She was a fantastic cook, so he and his brothers had eagerly accepted the offer.
Max sighed as he recalled the palpable joy and contentment he had felt emanating from the newly mated family. Seeing their happiness had caused a yearning and restlessness to emerge in Max. He wanted that for himself. He didn’t think he would be able to settle for casual, empty sex anymore. It had always satisfied the itch before, but now, the thought of touching someone who was not his chosen mate, just made him feel angry, not aroused.
He was seventy-two and had been waiting patiently for his mate to come along. But he had spent last night tossing and turning, wondering why he had not been actively seeking her out instead. Hunter had discovered their mate in a town two hours from Eminence, and she was a human.
Max was feeling angry at his own arrogance, to assume his mate would be a shifter, and that she would somehow find her way to him. Nowhere was it written that fate would drop his mate in his lap.
His fathers, Tagan and Noah, were brothers, his mother, Neva, was a shifter and a member of their pride. So they had known since puberty that they were mates.
Max had often wondered if he and his brothers would also share a mate, as their fathers had. It was not uncommon amongst shifters, for brothers and even cousins to share the one mate.
His twin younger brothers were also firemen, and they worked the same shifts. Trusting each other was vital when they were fighting a fire. He trusted all of his men, but none as much as he trusted his brothers.
Banging his head on his desk in frustration, he decided to abandon his futile effort to stay focused on his job, and go in search of his brothers. If their total silence, since the evening before, was caused by the same thoughts plaguing him, then they needed to talk. Whilst being quiet and taciturn was the norm for Calder, it was very unusual for Axel.
Max was at the door to his office when the alarm sounded. It had been reported that the barn on the Landers farm was ablaze. Old man Landers had died about fifteen years ago and the barn was now the only building left standing on the abandoned property.
“I hope it’s not kids setting fires,” Axel was saying, as Max stepped up to put on his gear.
“It’s cold enough that a vagrant may have started a fire to keep warm,” Max said.
Sadly, they had had homeless people burnt to death before in the winter, when they had lit a fire to keep warm and it had gotten out of hand. It was the end of winter, but at this altitude, snow was still on the ground.
They took less than two minutes to leave the station. The property, however, was nearly ten minutes out of town, so Max knew they would be lucky to find any survivors if they were caught in the barn.
* * * *
Axel leapt from the truck when it stopped outside the burning barn. The front of the barn was fully ablaze with the roof creaking ominously.
“Axel and I will go round the back and see if we can enter safely to do a search,” Max told the crew, as they connected the hoses and prepared to start dousing the flames.
Axel and Max sprinted around the back, donning their breathing equipment as they ran. The back door to the barn was missing and smoke was billowing from the open doorway. Deeming it was safe to enter they turned on their torches and went inside.
Max motioned for him to do a sweep to the right and that he would go the left. Axel lost sight of Max immediately in the thick smoke, but with his enhanced shifter senses, he knew exactly where he was.
Axel got a third of the way d
own the length of the barn when he caught the faint sound of labored breathing, despite the roar of the fire. Sweeping the ground with his torch, he headed toward the source of the sound.
Inside a stall at the side of the barn, he found the body of a small woman lying prostrate on the dirt floor. Her breathing was becoming increasingly labored in the thickening smoke.
Max stepped up behind him. “No one else is here, but the roof is about to go,” he yelled above the roar of the flames.
Axel scooped the woman up and ran with her out of the barn. Max was waiting for him outside, he had already taken off his mask, and he moved to place it on the victim.
“Fuck no,” Max said vehemently. Pushing the mask onto the woman’s face he snatched her from Axel’s arms and sprinted around the barn with her.
Axel shook his head. What the hell is wrong with my brother?
Removing his breathing gear, to inform Max that he was finally succumbing to senility, the world tilted. He staggered on his feet, the smell surrounding him lighting up every cell in his body. It was coming from his coat, and it was the most amazing thing he had ever scented. It was sweet and creamy like caramel and musky like sex, all rolled into one. It was his. He suppressed a roar that threatened to tear from his throat. The two other members of their crew were human. He had just carried his mate in his arms, his injured mate.
He ran at full speed toward the truck. The roof of the barn collapsed behind him, sending smoke and flames skyward. They had nearly lost her. Five more minutes and they would have been too late. They would not have discovered her body until they were raking over the coals. The thought had his cat scratching at his skin to be released. It wanted to protect its mate. The need to shift rose until it nearly consumed him and the fact that he couldn’t was just pissing him off.
Peata [Eminence Shifters 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 1
