by C. D. Gorri
Home For The Howlidays
A Macconwood Pack Novella
From The Grazi Kelly Universe
by C.D. Gorri
For those first snowflakes that fall every winter and make me look at the world with childlike eyes again! And for my Paranormal Pack, without you getting the word out there about my books would be impossible. Thank you all! You are truly the best!
Copyright 2018 C.D. Gorri
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either part of the author’s imagination and/or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights are reserved. No part of this book is to be reproduced, scanned, downloaded, printed, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of any materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Title Page
Synopsis
Prologue
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Connect
Other Works
Tagline:
One girl, one Wolf, and whole lot of mistletoe!
Synopsis:
Cassie DeMarco is headed back home after failing to hit it big in the city. Her humiliation triples when her well-meaning stepmom signs her up to attend the “Singles in Maccon City Annual Holiday Ball” to find that special someone to share the season with.
Dr. David Evangelos made ER Chief at just thirty-four years old. He has money, a house on the beach, a sports car that he loves, and a promising future in Maccon City. But there is one thing he’s missing, a mate to share it with!
Mistletoe and magic conspire to bring these two together in this steamy holiday short!
PROLOGUE
The wind howled through the bare trees behind their small house. It bit through the thin cotton shirts and faded jeans that the two boys often wore, stinging their skin and making them shiver uncontrollably. The brothers huddled closer together in the ice and snow attempting to avoid their father’s latest rampage.
Christmas carols sounded in the background as the town went about its holiday festivities. The sounds were familiar and yet foreign to the two teens. In the Evangelos home, December 25th was just like any other day. Screams, tears, and pain.
“Dad, stop! NO! David, just go, run, get away fast!” Cael screamed. His voice cracked, and his eyes opened wide. All the color drained away from his face, still rounded with youth, as his father advanced on his older brother.
David, the older of the two Evangelos boys, put his hands up in a defensive position. He hissed in pain as the tight leather struck his palms, slicing the tender skin wide open. He wiped his palms on his shirt trying to ease the pain, it stung like hell. Still, it was better than being hit in the nose.
He hadn’t been quick enough the first time his father had come at him that day. Blood dripped steadily from his nostrils, filling his senses with the coppery scent that was much too familiar to one so young. This was not the first time his father had it in his mind to beat obedience into his two sons. David was used to ducking these rampages, but he’d been too slow to act the first time the black leather had whipped across his face. It wouldn’t happen again.
His younger brother screamed another warning and David dodged the belt successfully this time. His father’s angry voice reached his ears, but David was too far gone to understand the words. Rage and anger rushed through his blood.
How could a man treat his children this way? David wanted to scream at the injustice of it all, but he no longer had control of his body. He trembled violently, but not from the bitter cold. Pain made him clench his muscles, a burning sort of sensation ran along his limbs and even his gums.
Teeth aching, he bent in half and groaned aloud. What was going on? Thunder roared in his ears, no, not thunder, a pulse. His own heartbeat. It was unbearably loud. He covered his ears with his swollen palms. Sweat beaded on his forehead and white-hot agony lanced through his stomach.
His father’s fury couldn’t have rained down on him at a more inopportune time. It was happening. Here and now. On Christmas Day. He looked at the concern on Cael’s face and turned away from his brother. Crap. He needed to help him.
Wave after wave of emotion crashed down on David in that moment. They swelled together into a certifiable tsunami of feelings. Fear, anticipation, anger, hatred, nervousness, excitement, the need to protect. Each of them flowed into the other, they were interchangeable, all of them working to spurn on his Change.
The thing that stood out the most, of course, was the pain. Bones cracked, muscles stretched, and he knew without a doubt, it was time. David threw his head back and howled as the power of the full moon forced his first Change.
His Wolf growled in his chest with a ferocity that would have scared him had it not been directed at the man determined to beat submission into his two teenaged sons. His father.
David had felt the beast inside of him stirring for weeks now. At first, he’d believed he was going crazy, but after talking with his mother, he finally understood what was happening to him. David Evangelos was a Werewolf. What’s more, he wasn’t the only one.
Maccon City was a haven for Werewolves or Wolf Shifters, as they were sometimes called. His father, Stefan Evangelos, was the son of two Werewolves, but he’d never changed into a Wolf. His own feelings of inadequacy had led him to abuse his wife, Mary, and to beat their two sons regularly from the time they had hit puberty.
David closed his eyes as he tried to remember everything his mother had told him about this day. Mary Evangelos tried her best by her sons, but she simply wasn’t strong enough to go against him physically and today she was on call at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. He wouldn’t burden her with this, not on Christmas. No, today he would stop his old man once and for all.
His father threatened him again with the belt as he swore, spit flying from his lips in his fury, “You goddamn abomination! Your whore mother did this! I’ll beat it out of you!”
“Dad, stop it, he’s bleeding!” Cael, his younger brother grabbed his father’s arm to spare David another lash from the heavy belt, only to be brutally tossed aside.
That was all it took for David to release his hold on his shape. One second he was just himself, a seventeen-year old high school kid. Tall for his age, whipcord lean, but still defined with tight, toned muscles that he hoped would soon fill out.
He had shaggy blonde hair that hung down to his shoulders in unruly waves and dark brown eyes that he’d noticed just lately had begun to glow a bright shade of gold whenever his emotions were high. Sort of like right now.
The next instant, David was down on all fours. His limbs screamed in pain as the Change took over his entire body. Muscles tore and reknit themselves together, bones cracked and reshaped, lengthening and shortening a
s needed. David wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, so he understood that while medically impossible, his body was a goddamn miracle.
He growled deep in his throat, no longer a boy, but a huge Wolf, with thick, buff-colored fur and three-inch long fangs. Those fangs were bared for the likes of his piece of shit father. His father, he snarled the word in his mind, who liked to beat his kids due to his own lacking. He and Cael were not responsible for his father’s perceived failures. Fucking dick.
He turned his long, lupine head and saw his brother, Cael, whimpering from his position on the floor. His eyes were wide and afraid. Of me? David would never hurt him. Never. His only instinct was to protect the younger male.
“You, you’re one of them! I’ll kill ya!” His father stumbled backwards to get away from his Werewolf son, but David advanced. He snarled and snapped at his father until the old man cried and pissed himself.
David growled again and snapped his massive jaws. He waited until the drunken bastard completely retreated, running for his car and skidding down the road, before turning his golden eyes on his brother. Cael’s face was something he’d never forget. His brother’s green eyes widened as he looked at David. Fear was replaced by awe and he grinned from ear to ear.
“Holy shit, David! You’re a fucking Werewolf!”
David approached him slowly and nuzzled his hand before he howled and ran off into the woods behind their house. The call to run, to be a part of nature was strong. His breath huffed out as his large paws traipsed over rocks and fallen leaves. He felt at peace with himself for the first time in all of his seventeen years.
He returned home that night to discover his father had fled. David and Cael were finally safe. A year later, and his brother had his first Change. Their mother, though frail after years of living with an abusive husband, helped them best as she could to prepare for the event.
She surprised them both with her knowledge of what they were, and more so when she introduced them to Rafe Maccon, Alpha of the Macconwood Pack. Their Pack and their Alpha.
Without the slightest hesitation, Rafe Maccon had taken them on and helped them through those first few years after their Changes. He ensured their father would not do any more harm to them or their mother and in return they’d sworn their loyalty to him and to their Pack. The Evangelos boys finally had a place where they belonged.
CHAPTER 1
Years later…
“You might have had your Change first, David, but you still don’t get it, do you?” Cael shook his head at the picture David made shivering in the woods out by their hunting cabin.
David had been trying to control his shift ever since the Curse of St. Natalis, the one that bound all Werewolves to Change only during the night of the full moon, had finally been broken.
Cael was a natural, able to control his shift as easily as he controlled his next breath. David, for some reason or other, was having a hell of a difficult time. His Wolf was anxious. Restless as of late.
Despite being a doctor and newly appointed Emergency Department Chief at Macconwood Memorial Hospital, he still couldn’t seem to get his shit together. He’d almost Changed during an examination of a homeless man in his ER just a few nights before.
That mistake earned him a strong reprimand from his Alpha. And that was one male you didn’t want to fuck with. Grrr.
It was the reason he was buck ass naked in the woods, in the middle of the cold-as-fuck December they were having, with his recently mated little brother. Lucky bastard.
David was happy for him, but that little green-eyed bitch of a monster loved to remind him that Cael had what David didn’t. A mate. Grrr. Again.
Cael’s mate, a petite Werewolf named Rayne, was someone he knew well. A fellow a doctor, she worked with David at Macconwood Memorial and they’d known each other for years. As Chief of the Emergency Department, David was technically her boss, but the she-Wolf was one hell of a physician. She was even on call to their Alpha and his family.
Rayne was a miracle, truly. She’d all but rescued Cael from total destruction the year before and David would be forever in her debt. He loved his brother. Even if the bastard was having a hell of a good laugh at him while his balls shriveled as he stood out in the fucking cold. Stupid Wolf.
“Come on, David, focus!” Cael’s command annoyed David, but he closed his eyes and tried to get his Wolf to yield to his demands.
“Now, David, Change!”
David was happy for his brother and Rayne, but that didn’t help him solve his predicament. No matter how much Cael yelled, his Wolf refused to listen.
The cold wind whipped by making his man parts want to crawl back inside of him, but he paid them no mind. He needed to get to know his now readily accessible Wolf better. He needed to soothe and control the beast inside of him.
David’s job was high stress and occupied a shit ton of his time. As the Emergency Department Chief, the stinging antiseptic cleaner and the smells of medicine, blood, pain, and anger were his daily companions.
The fresh air of the forest felt good in his lungs. At first, he’d loved the fast-paced, action-packed routine of his job, but lately, well, he wanted more.
He rarely left the hospital these days, but it couldn’t last. His Wolf was agitated, nearing the surface more and more. His near-miss the other day told him that in no uncertain terms he needed something in his life to temper the beast.
Something more than his huge house on the beach or his fancy car. The Wolf chomped at the bit for release. There, in the protected woods of the Macconwood Pack, he could finally roam free.
Within seconds he felt the familiar hum of magic settle over him as his body transformed from that of a man to a large, muscular Wolf with light brown fur. His claws dug through the frozen ground effortlessly. He was fully Changed in under two minutes, something of a record for him and he reveled in that small triumph.
If only the dull ache in the center of his chest would go away with all his other angst while he was in this skin.
David swung his lupine head back and howled into the frigid night air. He took off on four paws, running off his loneliness under the cover of the moon while inside he ached for someone to run with.
Not a Werewolf per say, but anyone to share his life with. A mate. Not just any mate. His one true mate. And more. He wanted a family. Love. Pups. A real home.
CHAPTER 2
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
“No, Cassie, I assure you I am not freaking kidding you.”
“But, but-”
“Young lady, it is no big secret that the big career you had in mind for yourself crashed down in flames! Now, I am sorry about that, truly, but it’s not the end of the world!”
“I’m mourning the loss of my career, not looking for a little holiday nookie, thank you very much! How could you do this to me?” Cassie growled. She felt completely exasperated by the woman in front of her. Said woman simply rolled her eyes as if Cassie’s ire was unimportant. Sniff.
“It’s Christmas, Cassiopeia, you need a respectable man to date during the holidays! Get in the spirit. Get laid!”
“Ew! Gross. It’s the 21st Century, Stephanie, who says I need a man for anything!”
“Cassie,” the low tone of voice told her her companion was nearing the edge of her patience, but Cassie never did tread lightly.
“Seriously, you signed me up for a singles ball? How desperate do I look now?” Cassie rolled her eyes, ignoring the burning stare of the woman who raised her.
“Oh, honey, you don’t want me to answer that question. Look at you, you’ve been home for a week and you haven’t left the house. This is the first time you’ve been out of flannel pajama pants in six days!”
“What’s wrong with pajama pants?”
“Nothing. When you wear them to bed!”
“They were all anyone wore back in college.” Sniff.
“Yeah, Cass, like twelve years ago. Look, honey I am so glad you are home, just let me do this for yo
u. Play nice, it will be fun! Besides it’s the reason we’re here getting this mani-pedi and facial!”
“That’s bribery, Stephie, you know I can’t resist this stuff!” Sniff.
It was true. Cassie was a total slut for mani-pedis and any kind of girly pampering. Not that she got much of it since she moved out of her home and fled to the city five years ago. Oh well, you live and learn.
She leaned back and sighed as the woman sitting on the bench worked her arch with steady hands. It had been far too long since Cassie had seen the inside of a nail salon. Ahh, she missed this. Okay, she missed Stephanie too.
“Thanks, Stephie, I needed this,” she peeked up at her companion and grinned. Stephanie wasn’t big on showing her emotions, but Cassie was sure she saw her eyes swell with happy tears. Awe.
“Me too, Cassie, I am so happy to have you, the house has been so empty lately and my flower business is starting to take off, but I could use the girl time, you know?”
“I know, mom,” Cassie murmured.
“By the way,” Stephanie changed the subject, all traces of emotion gone, “the singles ball is a benefit for the hospital. It’s for charity, you know? Definitely a worthy cause, besides, it’s all paid for. My Christmas gift to you,” perfect white teeth smiled at her and Cassie cringed.
“Ugh, can’t you get me an ugly sweater I can return when you’re not looking?”
“Nope,” Stephanie smiled, and Cassie growled again.
“Well, gee, thanks for the gift and the subtle reminder that I’m still single, and I ruined my chances to make it in the city, mommy dearest!”
“Oh please, Cassie! The city’s not all it’s cracked up to be anyway,” Stephanie DeMarco tossed her glossy curls over her shoulder and gave her stepdaughter a faux stern look.
The two women giggled as they sat in their sinfully luxurious massage chairs and plunged their feet back into the bubbly, warm water of their individual pedicure stations. Get Nailed! was busy as usual with more drop-dead gorgeous women than Cassie had seen in her five-year stint living in New York City.
