Latent Desires
Graphic artist Chloe Thomas has built a new life, but struggled to keep her latent mate status a secret. She discovers there’s a dark side to some shapechangers. Stalked by danger, she has to decide whether to run or stay and fight. She seeks advice from her friends, but meets three men who sweep in and take over her life.
Tony Landon, Logan Gentry, and Jason Malone have searched for their mate. Now, that they’ve found her, they want her to be happy, but with Logan in mating heat, they can’t seem to move slowly. They’re determined to protect her, not only from the danger targeting her, but also that focused on all Whyr.
They try to give her the romance she craves, but danger threatens to destroy the new relationship. The three men must keep her safe and convince her of their love. She’ll have to overcome her doubts or risk losing what she now desires most in the world.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-shifter
Length: 80,176 words
LATENT DESIRES
Rebecca Airies
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
LATENT DESIRES
Copyright © 2016 by Rebecca Airies
E-book ISBN: 978-1-68295-089-0
First E-book Publication: March 2016
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2016 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
Dear Readers,
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This is Rebecca Airies’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Rebecca Airies’s right to earn a living from her work.
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www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
Thank you to my sisters and brother. You’ve always given me support and strength when I needed it.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
About the Author
LATENT DESIRES
REBECCA AIRIES
Copyright © 2016
Chapter One
Casworth, Georgia
Thank God, it’s Thursday. Chloe Thomas couldn’t wait until Friday. The week started off all right, but events turned stranger with each day.
First, she’d helped Dixie get her drugged uncle to an ambulance. That same night, a man broke into Chloe’s home. She’d used her bat and her dog had helped take the man down. A couple of days after the break-in, a whyrbear in animal form demonstrated his jerkiness. He wouldn’t let Odin and her go past him on a running trail in the park. It made for an interesting few days.
Chloe pulled into the grocery store lot. Normally, she shopped on Friday, but she’d be busy tomorrow. She intended to get her shopping done so that the weekend could be all about fun.
After she hopped out of her Mazda hatchback, she made sure the doors locked and headed into the store. She grabbed a cart. The cleaning supply aisle was her first stop.
She took her iPad from her purse. With a swipe of her finger, she brought up her list. As she looked down, a strand of red hair fell in her eyes. She brushed it back behind her ear. The fine strands had escaped from the clips again.
She grabbed the dish soap she needed before moving down to the floor cleaners. Her gaze ran over the shelves. Her favorite scent seemed to be missing.
In frustration, she swept her gaze from the bottom shelf to the topmost. She spotted a single row of her cleaner on the highest shelf. Now, who the fuck would put it there?
She reached up, rising to her tiptoes to try to get it, but her fingertips brushed the bottle. She saw a big tanned hand stretch past hers and grasp the bottle before lifting it off. She turned, wanting to know who was behind her and if they could grab a bottle for her. She found herself staring at a broad chest.
Muscles rippled beneath a blue shirt. A rich fragrance that reminded her of the forest surrounded her. He smelled wonderful.
She ran her gaze over the hard angles of his high cheekbones and dark chocolate-brown eyes. His honey-blond hair looked as if he’d recently run his fingers through it.
“Hi, if you’re grabbing that for yourself, do you mind getting one for me? It’s a little out of my grasp.” She smiled up at him.
Lord, he was a big man and gorgeous. His teeth gleamed a bright white. The heat in that gaze sent a thrill of hunger thr
ough her. She wondered if he’d like a date. Nothing might come of it, but if it did, she’d savor every moment.
“This is for you. I saw you trying to grab it.” He extended the bottle to her.
Gorgeous and nice. She liked the combination.
She took the cleaner. “Thank you. That’s thoughtful of you.”
“Not a problem. I’m Tony Landon.” He extended his hand.
The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite remember where she’d heard it. She’d recall if she had met him before.
“I’m—” she began.
“I know that bitch came this way. I saw her. She’ll pay for what she did to Carl.” A growl sounded, carrying in the store.
Chloe gasped. Every muscle in her body tensed. Her heart pounded in her chest. Carl was the name of the man who broke into her house. Damn it, who the hell cursed me? Why is this week getting worse?
She’d learned the man’s name when she went down to the county sheriff’s office to make a formal statement. Carl Tunney. He’d been charged with breaking and entering and some other things. The police were investigating the possibility of his involvement in other crimes.
Two women strode onto the aisle. They growled again. Chloe expected to see fur and claws bursting from their skin, but the two women still looked human. They weren’t here to yell at her. They wanted to attack. They stopped when they saw the man in front of her.
“Get out of our way, bear. The bitch ruined the life of one of ours.” The petite black-haired woman straightened and glared at the man.
“I don’t give a shit what you think she did. To get to her, you go through me, my partners, and my den.” The man put himself between her and the women.
Chloe’s mouth fell open. That wasn’t some chivalrous boast of protection. A whyrbear didn’t offer the protection of their den to just anyone. Family and extended family comprised a bear’s den.
Bears offered a den’s protection to those related by blood or marriage and intimate associates. Not a lover though. A mate, a friend as close as family, or something like that would qualify.
“She’s not claimed, bear.” The brown-haired woman’s chin lifted.
Chloe eased back a step, leaving her basket, but grabbing her purse. She didn’t hang around to find out why the big man thought he had a claim on her.
Luck seemed to be on her side. He didn’t notice her edging farther away. At the moment, the foxes weren’t worried about her. The women’s attention was locked on him.
He advanced on the women, backing them out of the aisle. His voice was deep and rumbling when he spoke. She heard the hard, clipped words, but couldn’t make out what he said.
Realization hit her with the force of hammer blow. No one was paying attention to her. She took the opportunity and hurried away.
Her heart pounded as she left the store. She looked over her shoulder, half-expecting the man to come rushing out after her. No sign of him yet. When she drew close to her car, she fished out her keys and unlocked the doors. She heaved a big sigh of relief when she slid inside.
Before her luck ran out, she started the engine and left. Although part of her wanted to go home and hide out there, she had to get some food or the isolation would be short-lived.
She headed across town. Nervous energy thrummed through her while she did her shopping at the second store. She raced around finding the items on her list.
The implications of that meeting and the two women’s actions kept circling in her mind. She didn’t know the man. He would have one reason to put the protection of his den out there at all.
Mate. He thought she was his mate. Not that she believed he was wrong. Whyr didn’t make a mistake about that unless something interfered with their senses.
The women and the threat they posed offered a different problem. Carl had known where she lived. If the women had talked to him, then they had her home address.
She thought hard on the way home. She needed a place to stay and think, at least for a few days. Somewhere she could take her dog. She wouldn’t hang around and let them hurt her or Odin.
With the mate thing and that big bear from the store, she couldn’t chance staying with one of her friends. They might know the bear, especially Dixie. Dixie was a whyrbear.
Fear and confusion flooded through her. She hadn’t wanted to find a whyr mate. The males were possessive, macho, demanding, and unreasonable. And bears sometimes mated in multiples. The blood drained from her face. There might be more bears to claim her than him.
It wasn’t the thought of the mating itself that gave her qualms and kept her cautious. She’d heard of plenty of very happy matings. It was almost a cliché that anyone who mated with a whyr was happy. There were exceptions, but very few.
No, the first thing that freaked her out was the lack of choice. Once a mate was identified, he or she didn’t have many options. Sometimes, there were dates. Other times, not. The end result was inevitable. They would get together.
The second thing that troubled her was the possibility of a ménage. She had so many questions about that relationship. She didn’t know if she could handle it. Would they fight or get jealous if she paid more attention to one than the other? Would they expect her to be ready for everything the first time she was with them? Was she a walking uterus to them or would they see her as a person?
She hadn’t expected to have a problem avoiding the whyr version of marriage. What were the chances that she’d find that man in the town she chose to live in? Not that any of that mattered with the other problems.
Fuck. She had to decide what to do, but at least he didn’t know her name. If they hadn’t been threatening her, she would have thanked the women for the interruption. It would give her time make plans.
* * * *
Tony slammed the door behind him. He stalked into the mudroom. Fury pounded through him. He’d been close enough to touch, but the fleeting brush of her fingers wasn’t enough.
Logan was in mating heat. Because of the drugging, he didn’t remember where he’d encountered their mate, much less what she looked like.
Jason had found her while in bear form. He hadn’t been able to walk away long enough to change forms and meet her as a man. He’d scared her, and she’d maced him before running away. Now this.
All because of those damn foxes. If they hadn’t come along with their threats, she’d be right here with him. He wouldn’t have let her leave if he’d managed to get the word mate out.
She’d slipped away. He hadn’t realized until the foxes left that she was gone. He made it clear to the foxes that if they came after her, it would be the last thing they did.
“What’s with the door slamming?” Jason strolled into kitchen. “Something wrong?”
Jason leaned against the island and waited. His spiky hair looked wet, but it could be gel. He wore a bright blue T-shirt and faded jeans.
“Too fucking right something’s wrong. I found her in the grocery store, but she slipped away, damn it.” Tony tossed his jacket at a hook in the mudroom and missed.
It fell to the bench beneath. He picked it up and hung it on the rack, although he wanted to throw it on the ground. Anger pounded through him at the disaster.
“She slipped away? How the hell did that happen? She was in a damn grocery store. You only had to introduce yourself, identify as a bear, and say she’s your mate.” Jason frowned.
“Yeah, that easy, but when fucking foxes bop up threatening her, I wasn’t about to ignore them to get the rest of it out. Protecting her came first.” Tony bared his teeth at Jason.
If he’d told her he was her mate, he could have demanded she take the latent test. A latent human carried the genes which would enable them to be transformed. Before genetics was studied extensively, it was thought that humans who could be transformed had some whyr in their ancestry which had turned latent after many generations. The name didn’t really fit now that they knew the exact how and why of the process, but it was still used. Genetically
compatible hadn’t caught on.
Because whyr had biological mates, the law made that part easy. Regardless of where they were in the world, the testing was mandatory after discovery. Once a whyr met his mate, he didn’t want any other woman as long as his woman was alive.
The whyr laws had come into existence after nearly twenty years of open and covert battle beginning in 1962. That was when the humans had found out about the shapechangers among them. The strife had divided the humans and put all whyr in jeopardy.
That was when human towns and whyr towns came to be. The humans hoped to push all the whyr out of their towns. It hadn’t happened, and most of the animosity had settled. There were still a few human towns though where whyr weren’t welcome.
“Foxes threatened her? For what?” Jason’s expression hardened and became intent. He straightened away from the counter.
“Said she ruined one of their people’s lives.” Tony shrugged.
They didn’t matter. Finding her and keeping her safe mattered. The foxes could go fuck themselves.
“How would she ruin a fox’s life?” Jason shook his head.
“It’s fucking foxes, man. Some of them are screwed in the head. I’m sure that’s the case with these two women.” He stalked into the kitchen for a beer. Foxes were crazy, but also mean and vindictive.
“We need to find her if foxes are after her. She shops in the city. There’s a good chance she might live here.” Jason stepped forward. “We’ll find her.”
“We can also see if we can discover what has those fox women upset.” Tony took a long pull from the bottle.
“Logan is getting worse. The heat is intensifying in him. I can feel it growing in me. If we don’t find her, he’ll have to be put in hospital.” Jason sighed.
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