In the Roar

by Milly Taiden

  IN THE ROAR

  PARANORMAL DATING AGENCY

  NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  MILLY TAIDEN

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  Alivia Vela is a big girl tired of dating. She’s at the point of buying a frozen popsicle and being artificially inseminated. Or she was until tall, growly, and oh, so sexy Karel shows up, saves the day, and gives her a night she won't soon forget. That mouth…that tongue. Oh my.

  Karel Yahgar needs a mate faster than he can snarl mine. He didn't expect to meet the perfect woman for both him and his jaguar moments after arriving on earth. Now all Karel needs is for her to go with him to another planet. That should go over well. If she doesn't decide he's crazy instead, which is highly likely.

  Liv is a born hardhead. She’s gonna need more than a pink ocean to prove she’s on another planet. Where are the flying saucers? Then there’s the issue of convincing herself she’s not falling for the big kitty. If her ovaries weren’t in agreement with her brain that Karel should be her future baby daddy, she might find the will to stay away from his sexiness. While she tries to figure out that, she and Karel have to work together to take down an unexpected conspiracy against the pregnant queen—Liv’s new best friend.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Published By

  Latin Goddess Press

  New York, NY 10456

  http://millytaiden.com

  In The Roar

  Copyright © 2015 by Milly Taiden

  Cover by Willsin Rowe

  Edited by: Tina Winograd

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Property of Milly Taiden

  October 2015

  —For Sheri

  You are priceless!

  ONE

  Gerri Wilder, matchmaker extraordinaire, stared at the hologram of Karel Yahgar. In the years she’d known Karel, she’d never seen him so serious.

  “You need me to find you a mate?” she inquired with a frown, her curiosity piqued over his intense look. Even through a hologram, she knew something was wrong.

  “Yes,” he told her, sounding emotionally drained. “Urgently.”

  She’d never seen him like this, and it worried her. “I have a lot of things to catch up on.” She’d arrived at her apartment only moments before. Her mail was stacked high, and too many things needed follow-up. It was impossible to leave so quickly without prepping things all over again. Three trips in a row had been more than she had undertaken before. “It is going to be a while before I can get back to Aurora.”

  The admission brought a deep, frustrated frown over Karel’s eyes. Gerri realized he didn’t want to give her more information so she sighed and shook her head.

  “If that’s the case,” he said, his gaze directly at hers, “I will come to you.”

  Her jaw dropped. She’d joked with him many times, trying to get him to visit earth and have some fun on her side of the galaxy. As head of security for the king of Aurora, Karel worked nonstop. Still, most times she saw him, there was an air of relaxation around him she didn’t see at that moment.

  “You want to come here?” She glanced around her messy living room. There were special apartments in one of her godson Noah’s properties specifically for those from Aurora to stay.

  Karel stood tall and proud and gave a short, hard nod that reminded her of his military background.

  “I guess we can figure out how to find you a mate here.” She bit her lip and contemplated where the hell her list of prospective clients had been the last time she’d been home. “Karel,” she said. His stress and sadness concerned her; it wasn’t like him to be so serious. “I will do my best to help you as soon as possible.” She leaned forward on her seat. “I do need to know why the sudden need for a mate. You said nothing about it when I was last there.”

  He made a pained face and glanced away. “It’s my mother.”

  “Ah, shit.” Gerri knew about the jaguars. Last she heard, Karel’s mother was dying. Her illness was unexpected because it came on suddenly and she started to deteriorate immediately. Being such a protective and important figure in Karel’s life, he’d do anything his mother asked as her final wish. “She wants to see you mated.”

  “Yes. This needs to happen as soon as possible.”

  Gerri nodded, now ready to ignore the mess in her apartment and help a son giving his dying mother a final wish. Karel was a good man. Tall with a killer smile and hazel eyes, not to mention muscles that could make any woman stutter.

  “I’m in. I will do my best to get you what you need. Get your cute ass to this side of the galaxy and I will arrange a place for you to stay.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.” He finally smiled. There was the handsome man she had come to love like family. “I will be in your debt if you help me.”

  She laughed and winked. “I will help and you will most likely fuck up at some point. It’s what men naturally do. Be warned. I will kick your ass if you make the lady I match you with cry.”

  His hand slapped against his chest, mouth gaping. “I’m not heartless.”

  She grinned at his flabbergasted expression. “Darling, you don’t have to be heartless to make a woman cry. Most men do it because they use their penis to think.”

  His lips quirked and eyes crinkled with amusement. “Not everyone is like that. Some men can, and do, use their real brains.”

  She twined her fingers on her lap. “I’ve lived through too many matches to know better.”

  “Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt?” He laughed.

  “It died with the dinosaurs,” Gerri replied cheekily. “Now, let me go. I have to get your big pussy an earth girl. And don’t believe the hype. Not all of them are easy.”

  He nodded, a grin still covering his face. “Thank you.”

  Yeah. Great. Now she had to figure out who in the world would mate a giant jaguar with hazel eyes, a sexy body, and a face that made panties drop. Shouldn’t be too hard.

  TWO

  Alivia Vela, or as her friends and family called her, Liv, glanced at the card in her hand. A woman dropped it when she paid for wrapping paper in front of her at the card store. For an older woman, she moved damn fast. Liv had just paid for the get-well card for her stepsister when she noticed the woman’s card on the floor.

  With big jagged letters, the business card was for a paranormal dating agency. Already signed up to an infinite amount of dating sites, Liv wasn’t interested in keeping the card, but maybe the woman needed it. Hell, maybe she was using the services and needed the website address.

  Tonight she had a date with a man from a matchmaking site. Why had she allowed herself to feel guilty about being single? Oh yeah, it was Monica, her stepsister. She meant well. But Monica was in a happy marriage, and wanted to see Liv happy too. That was all well and good until she was scheduled on endless dates with men who she had nothing in common with. Not a fucking thing.

  The sun beamed on her face when she left the store. She slid the sunglasses on top her head to rest on her nose, effectively blocking most of the annoying brightness.

  Scanning the area, she searched for the older woman, her attention drawn to the bakery across the street. She shouldn’t. Her health was important. As a large woman, she had done her best to eat rig
ht, exercise all the time, and know her big curves were not due to poor health. She was just vertically challenged in proportion to her weight.

  It sucked that she was the only big girl in her family. Everyone else was stick thin and they didn’t believe she took care of herself like she said she did. Oh, they nodded and gave her sympathetic smiles, saying they knew she was doing her best. But when they thought she wasn’t listening, she heard them whisper about her eating a cookie or a piece of cake like she’d broken some rule about fat people having dessert.

  The bakery called to her. She was PMSing and really wanted chocolate. It was that or run over the next person who stared too long at her crop top that read “Nerdy, Dirty, Inked and Curvy.” She’d loved it when she had it made but some of the disgusted looks really pissed her off. Apparently big girls shouldn’t wear cropped tops. Too bad.

  She eyed the bakery with a secret craving for its deliciously smooth and sweet concoctions. Chocolate or murder. Stupid female hormones. They always did this to her. Every month, like clockwork, she’d get cravings for chocolate and the need to find a man and get herself pregnant. She didn’t know why, but babies became a desperate longing at least two days every month. At thirty-six years old, she knew the desire for children would only grow with time. Lately, the need for progeny was the only reason she put up with the idiot dates Monica set up.

  Monica and her children brought so much happiness into Liv’s life, but those were not her kids. So she joined matchmaking sites to make Monica happy and to secretly search out a man willing to have children. She was growing desperate, though. Soon she’d start researching sperm donors if this dating stuff didn’t work.

  The sweet allure of chocolate and cake won. Besides, she had a healthy chicken wrap for lunch and she could really use the happy endorphins chocolate sent to her brain.

  Mouth watering and stomach anticipating the taste of the delicious pastries, she crossed the street. She pushed the door open; the scrumptious scent of cookies, cakes, and other sugary sensations rushed to meet her.

  “Hey, Liv,” greeted the owner and head baker.

  “Hi, Aurelis.” She waved the hand holding the business card. Though she knew she didn’t go to the bakery enough to be remembered, Aurelis had mentioned she was good with names, so Liv had gotten used to being greeted like an old friend.

  “How’s the dating thing going?” Aurelis asked, placing a piece of chocolate fudge, two chocolate chip cookies, and a mini napoleon on a plate.

  She’d made the mistake of being on the phone with Monica the last time she’d gone into the bakery and Aurelis heard her whole conversation. “It’s, ah, it’s going.”

  Aurelis gave a sad nod. “Coffee?”

  “A latte, please.” She took the plate of sweets from Aurelis and sat at a table. The place was empty, having passed the midday rush. Luckily for Liv, she worked from home translating English books to Spanish whenever it suited her. Today, it suited her to take the day off and relax.

  Aurelis came around the glass display case and brought the latte to Liv’s table. “I have a friend you should talk to. She’s great at matching up people.”

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  She was already regretting her date for that night and the last thing she wanted was to get roped into more. Her wish would be to go back in time and ignore the help Monica pushed on her. Aurelis patted her shoulder and left her alone. She glanced at the bits of dessert. These did not make her weak.

  She was a grown woman, allowed to have cravings and desires for sweets. It wasn’t like she went overboard, but still, the nagging guilt she was being bad persisted. It was probably due to the argument with her grandmother that morning.

  “You’re getting fatter,” she’d exclaimed, disgust and surprise on her face. “I thought you said you exercised and ate healthy.”

  “I do.” She didn’t like explaining herself to her grandmother. She had a one–track mind. Lose weight. You must be doing something wrong if the weight didn’t come off.

  Eat less. Workout more. Eat healthier. Her grandma had hammered those three rules into Liv’s brain all her life. Until she wasn’t so fat, Grandma would not approve how she looked. No matter how nicely she groomed herself or how well she dressed, her grandmother always destroyed her self-esteem and dragged her back to feeling like that little girl looking for love.

  So Liv said fuck it and got four tattoos and colored the tips of her hair purple. She wore cute tops made for curvy women and felt damn hot in them. Grandma did not like this. Not even a little.

  The door chimed and another patron walked into the bakery. Pulled out of her thoughts, Liv growled. Every time she tried to enjoy something she’d worked hard to deserve, she ended up feeling guilty. No more. She had to stop letting her past bother her. Fuck that.

  She was an adult who worked out, ate well, and loved her body. She picked up the first cookie and took a bite, moaning. It was divine. The amazing flavor combination of chocolate, sugar, and other ingredients burst on her tongue. Aurelis created pure magic in the form of dessert.

  “Hello, Gerri,” Aurelis said behind Liv.

  Liv focused on her coffee and cookies, shutting out the world and relaxing. The more she thought about her grandmother, the more determined she became to overcome the negativity. She might be big, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t beautiful. Everyone had beauty in their own way.

  Her grandmother didn’t understand Liv would never be thin. Perhaps there was something about her body that held on to weight. She didn’t know and at this point, she no longer cared. She liked her big, fluffy curves. She felt damn sexy with her nipped-in waist and wide hips. And her boobs nicely balanced her physique into an hourglass. No. She wouldn’t let her grandmother upset her any longer. Liv knew she was beautiful the way she was.

  Sudden movement from the corner of her eye made her turn to Aurelis and the woman she spoke to. It was the older woman from the card store.

  “Excuse me,” Liv said.

  “Yes?”

  “I think you dropped this in the store I was in a little while ago,” she told her and handed her the business card.

  THREE

  Liv noticed the woman eyeing her with interest. “I’m Gerri Wilder.” She gave Liv her hand to shake. “Owner of the Paranormal Dating Agency.”

  Liv gave her the clean hand she hadn’t used to eat. The last thing she wanted was to cover the poor woman in chocolate. “Nice to meet you, Gerri. I’m Alivia Vela, but please, call me Liv.”

  “Do you mind if I sit down?” Gerri asked, her look more intense by the second.

  She hadn’t been wanting to spend time with anyone, but what the hell. The older woman had a nice disposition and a welcoming smile. “No. Go right ahead.”

  Gerri sat across from her. Her gaze roamed Liv’s face, her exposed arm tattoo and her colorful hair. Unlike most people, Gerri appeared to like how different Liv looked instead of frowning at her like she’d broken societal rules by doing whatever she wanted.

  “Thanks for returning the card,” Gerri said, placing it on the table next to Liv’s plate. Why didn’t she take it? She should put it in her handbag. Someone would eventually need it.

  “You’re welcome.” She bit into the second cookie. Aurelis brought coffee for Gerri and a plate with chocolate covered cream puffs. “A paranormal dating agency, huh?”

  Gerri grinned, her blue eyes twinkling with humor. “Yes. You have heard of shifters, right?”

  Who hadn’t? Everyone knew shifters were the badasses that shared the planet with humans. They were built like Mac trucks. Tall, strong, and caught everyone’s attention. Men wanted to be them. And women…well, women just wanted them. It was said shifters fucked like animals. Too bad Liv had never had the luck to date one.

  “Shifters. The sexy, growly men women die for a taste of. Those guys? I’ve heard of them.”

  Gerri laughed. “Are you single, Liv?”

  She nodded and sipped her latte. “Have been
for thirty-six years.” She lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug. “If my dating life keeps going downhill, I might buy myself a cat or ten.”

  Gerri pushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear, her gold hoop glinting in the light. “Don’t say that. You’re much too young and beautiful.”

  “Well,” she sighed, “I’m giving up on men on this planet. I swear I’d have better luck with aliens.”

  “Why is it so hard for you to get a man?”

  “Aside from the obvious?” she replied with a question.

  “What exactly is the obvious?” Gerri asked.

  “My size. My hair, my tattoos. I get either the ones who think I am a super freak willing to take on a gang of men or ones who think I am desperate and willing to accept any kind of treatment.”

  Gerri sighed. “That’s just like men. Never really using their brains.”

  “Men are generally stupid.”

  “I agree with you there.” Gerri nodded. When she glanced at Liv’s face again, Liv noticed the gold rim around Gerri’s eyes. She was one of them!

  “Shifters sound fascinating, but you must have lines of women dying to hook up with one.”

  “Listen, let me set you up on a date,”

  She shook her head firmly. “No way. I have bad luck at this shit. People always give me the ‘good’ qualities of the man and then I find out the bad ones within five minutes of meeting.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you,” Gerri told her. “My clients want curvy women they can love. It’s that simple.”

  Nothing was ever that simple. “Look,” she smiled at Gerri, “I really appreciate what you’re offering, but my luck sucks balls. I mean, I’m at the point I might get artificially inseminated and forget men altogether.”

  Gerri’s brows rose and the interest in her gaze spiked. “You want children?”