Bad Blood Panther
(Bad Blood Shifters Book 4)
by
Anastasia Wilde
Bad Blood Panther
Copyright © 2017 by Anastasia Wilde
Copyright © 2017 by Anastasia Wilde
First Electronic Publication: August 2017
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, uploading, or distributing via the internet, print, or any other means, without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover by Jeanne Gransee Barker
Fall in love with the Bad Blood Shifters!
Smokin’ hot shifter men with hearts of gold; the strong, passionate women who love them; secrets, lies and danger; naughty, steamy love scenes—and happily ever afters.
Books by Anastasia Wilde
Silverlake Shifters Series:
Fugitive Mate
White Wolf Mate
Tiger Mate
Silverlake Enforcers Series:
Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers: KANE
Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers: ISRAEL
Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers: NOAH
Bad Blood Shifters Series:
Bad Blood Bear
Bad Blood Wolf
Bad Blood Leopard
Bad Blood Panther
Bad Blood Alpha (Coming Sept/Oct 2017)
Prologue
Three years ago
There was a monster wearing his skin. A creature straight out of a horror movie.
It had to be a nightmare—fucking had to—but it felt so real and it just went on and on without end.
Wake up, he told himself. You have to wake up.
But it had been days—weeks—who the fuck knew because he kept drinking to shut off the voices and the pain. Drinking, and running, but he could never drink fast enough or run far enough to make it stop.
Every cell in his body was on fire, and he couldn’t think.
Hurt kill blood mate hate love bleed die
He gulped some more whiskey, but the voices went on and on. Inside his head and outside. Screaming and gibbering and making no sense.
Women. Two. Yelling. They wanted something, but he didn’t know what, and why the fuck should he care? Because he was crazy and the monster just kept at him, kept at him…
Claw destroy hate hate blood hunt run die
He was in a motel room. What was left of one. Everything in it was broken or ripped to shreds—dresser, bed, chair. Bits of upholstery and mattress innards covered the ugly mustard-yellow carpet.
The women were yelling at each other. Not at him but it still hurt his ears and he growled at them. They impaled him with their eyes and their desire and their rage and the loud noise that hurt his ears and made no sense in his mind.
His growl turned to a soft snarl.
Females.
He loved one and he wanted to kill the other.
He loved them both, and he wanted to kill everybody.
Without warning, the nausea overtook him again. He lost his grip on the bottle and it dropped to the floor. He watched it fall and smash in slow motion: sparkling shards of glass, amber liquid splashing and spreading out on the cheap carpet.
Excruciating pain seized him—bones snapping inside his skin, breaking and rearranging themselves, muscles ripping like the worst torture anyone had ever invented.
And when it stopped, he was the monster.
He had an animal body, fur and claws and wicked teeth, and a lust for blood and terror and death. He sprang at the women. They snarled and leaped aside, and then they were monsters too, panthers black as night and evil as the depths of hell.
Bleed kill die
Emotions and sensations shook his body. Bitterness. Betrayal. Soul-deep wanting; furious agony.
His muscles quivered with tension. He was going to explode, shatter like the glass on the floor that cut his paws.
He smelled blood, and he wanted more.
Run.
The panthers boxed him in, but he bunched his hindquarters and leaped over them, smashing through the plate glass window into the cool night air. He could smell trees, and water, and he ran—
And ran. And ran.
But the pain and rage would never leave him.
Chapter 1
Watching her two-year-old son sleep always filled Jenny Castile’s heart with joy, underlaid by an old and familiar sadness. Now, as he lay in the tiny spare room in her grandmother’s cottage, his crib tucked under the slanting ceiling, her heart ached at the thought of leaving him.
“He’ll be fine,” Anthea said. “I’ll keep him safe.”
Jenny turned to face her. “I know,” she said. Anthea would die before she’d let anything happen to Brandon. “But now that Alton’s Seer has prophesied that Brandon will be the one to carry on his family’s line, and be alpha after him—he’s not going to want to let him go. He’s not going to let either of us go without a fight.”
That terrified her. She’d never been a fighter—she’d never been brave. Hell, she practically hyperventilated when she had to speak in a clan meeting. How could she stand up to an alpha like Alton?
“I know, love,” Anthea said. “That’s why you need to find him a safe place, with a clan that can protect you both. Until then, I’ll shield him from Alton’s Seer with what magic I have. He’ll be safer here with me than out on the road with you.”
Jenny nodded, turning to face the woman who’d raised her. Like most aging shifters, Anthea Castile could have been taken for a woman of thirty-five or forty, instead of the sixty she really was. Her long black hair had not even a hint of gray.
It was poker-straight, the opposite of Jenny’s wild curls. But their eyes were the same, a dark midnight blue. Their stubborn chins and high cheekbones were the same, too—except for the deep scar that marred Jenny’s left cheek.
Anthea had kept Jenny safe after her parents died—raising her alone, away from other shifters. But when Jenny got older, she’d wanted to be in a large clan, around other panthers. She hadn’t listened when Anthea warned her against the Broken Hill Clan.
Or against the other choices she’d made. But Anthea had been right and Jenny had been wrong, and now Jenny had to fix things for her son. There was no way she would let that warped bully Alton turn her son into a monster like him.
She wouldn’t let the Seer’s prophecy bind Brandon—the prediction that Alton’s line would restore Broken Hill to glory. But breaking away meant admitting she’d been living a lie for almost three years—and that Brandon wasn’t the destined alpha.
Because he wasn’t Alton’s son at all.
She leaned over and kissed Brandon’s chubby cheek, brushing back his silky dark hair. He stirred in his sleep, then clutched his favorite stuffed duck closer to him, giving an adorable little growl.
“I’ll see you soon,” she whispered.
They closed the door to his bedroom and returned to Anthea’s open main room, which served as living room, kitchen, dining room, and study. Crowded bookshelves covered the walls, with pots of
herbs and medicinal flowers tucked into spaces between the books. Large crystals and bowls of smooth polished stones decorated the tabletops, and brightly-colored pillows and throws were scattered around, a rich mix of fabrics and textures from nubby wool to sleek satin.
“Better put some of this stuff out of reach,” Jenny said, glancing at the crystals. “You know Brandon will go through here like a horde of Viking marauders, destroying everything in his path.”
Anthea just smiled. “He’s a good boy,” she said.
Jenny felt tears sting her eyes. He was a good boy, at his core. Emotional and passionate and prone to temper, though, like his father. But he also had his father’s humor and sweetness, and his easily wounded heart.
And she loved him with a fierceness that could still take her by surprise.
“I hope I’m doing the right thing for him,” she said. “Taking him from his clan.”
“Broken Hill is rotting from the inside,” Anthea said. “You know that as well as I do.”
Jenny nodded. Ever since Alton took over as alpha, he’d led the panther clan into one war after another—for territory, for pride, to feed his own insanity. “He’s going to destroy them,” she said. “So many dead, already…” Strong warriors, good men, their lives wasted in pointless, archaic fights.
She knew some shifter clans had managed to adapt to the twenty-first century. She’d thought Broken Hill was one of them. It was a wealthy clan, and had once been happy. But they’d returned so fast to their primitive roots. Peace and prosperity weren’t enough; they wanted the thrill of the hunt, and glory in battle.
And death.
She took Anthea’s hands. “I wish you could See our future. Brandon’s and mine.”
Her grandmother shook her head. “Your path has always been dark to me, lovey. I’m afraid you have to find it alone.” She leaned forward and kissed Jenny’s cheek. “I wish I could help you more.”
Jenny smiled through her tears, and hugged Anthea hard. “You’re helping me in the best way possible, by keeping my son safe.”
Anthea held her for a moment, then let her go. “Safe journey,” she said.
Jenny gave her one last hug, and walked out into the night.
She drove down the dark highway, determination fueling her for the first hour. Until she stopped for a break and a cold drink, and then found herself sitting in the car in the rest stop parking lot, shaking.
This was crazy. She’d always been shy, self-conscious about her scar, and hated being around people she didn’t know. Now she was hunting down a man she hadn’t seen in three years, who she’d thought she would never see again. A dangerous man—maybe as dangerous as the one she was trying to escape.
A man who’d never loved her, who’d never even realized how much she cared about him.
Who was, by all accounts, the craziest of a batshit-crazy crew.
But he was her last hope, her only chance to get away from Broken Hill. The least she could do for her son was go and see him, and find out if there was anything left of the man he used to be.
Without warning, it all came back to her like a sledgehammer to her heart. Alex. His dark eyes with the mischievous glint and the hint of vulnerability. His cocky grin. The way he made her feel like her whole body was lighting up, and she could do anything.
The night he’d dared her to ride shotgun with him in an illegal road race, driving his souped-up Camaro down the back roads in the dark, taking the curves too fast, winning by inches against that wicked fast Trans Am. He’d taken her in his arms afterwards, swinging her around, whooping and hollering and saying, “Feel that? Now you’re fucking alive.”
The touch of his hands, his lips on her skin, the one and only time they’d made love. The taste of him, his passion and his fire and his pain. Oh, Alex. It could have been so different.
Not Alex anymore, she reminded herself. He’d left everything behind, even his name. She pulled the wrinkled printout from her purse, and looked at it again. Alexander Fierro, it read. Panther, Bad Blood Crew. And underneath that, goes by Xander.
Chapter 2
Xander sat in the darkest corner of the Wildcat Whiskey Saloon, surrounded by his crew—which was his favorite place to be. Despite the fact that that was sappy and pathetic and he would never have admitted it to them unless Jaz strung him up and toasted his balls over the grill, which she was always threatening to do.
He fucking loved these idiots. And he knew, deep down inside, that he was going to have to leave them.
He shoved that thought away. For once, his panther had been quiet—at least, not violently insane—for enough days in a row that it was safe for him to be out in public. And this was a shifter bar, so if things got a little…hairy…it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
As long as he didn’t kill anyone.
They’d managed to get the whole crew out tonight, even Flynn, their grumpy-ass lion alpha, who hated people and crowds and civilization. But mostly people. Most days Xander wasn’t even sure he liked the crew.
They’d shoved two tables together in the corner of the crowded bar, so he and Flynn and Sloan could sit with their backs to the wall, able to see any trouble coming at them. Paranoid sons of bitches, all of them.
For good reason.
On the opposite side of the table sat Tank, grizzly bear shifter and the crew’s Protector, with his black bear mate. The contrast between big hulking blond Tank and petite, bubbly, dark-haired Lissa always cracked Xander up. He’d named them after the bear constellations—Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Big Dip and Little Dip when he wanted to mess with them.
Which he so often did.
Tank was paranoid too, but he was too damn big to fit between the table and the wall, and he liked being hemmed in even less than he liked having his back to the room. Jaz—Jasmin—and her mate Brody had just arrived, since they managed a restaurant and had to close up before they came out to party. They were the fucking Odd Couple: Brazilian spotted jaguar and good old American wolf. Okay, mutant monster wolf, if you were being picky about it. But that was only sometimes.
Caitlyn, Sloan’s brand-new mate, was whispering in his ear. The owl and the pussycat—well, snow leopard. That was another odd couple, but they were happy as pigs in shit. Whatever she was saying made Sloan smile. It was probably sexual, the fucker.
Xander was happy for him. Really. Even though it sucked that his best friend was getting laid, and he was not. He was happy for all of them, with their true mate bonds and their constant fucking and their clouds of frustration-inducing pheromones they carried around with them.
Yeah. Happy. Except when he wanted to claw their faces off.
“Your turn, Jaz,” Lissa said. “We’re up to ‘p’.”
They were playing Alphabet Death, a drinking game in which each person had to name a way to kill someone violently, starting with successive letters of the alphabet. You had fifteen seconds, and if you couldn’t come up with one that hadn’t already been used, you had to drink.
Xander had made it up. Well, Caitlyn had actually made it up, figuring out ways to kill her ex when he’d captured and tortured Sloan. After they defeated the ex and Sloan did, in fact, kill the murdering psycho fucker, Xander had turned it into a drinking game. Because hey—homicide and drinking were pretty much his two favorite things these days, after being with his crew.
“Potato peeler,” Jasmin said. She was head chef at the restaurant, and had food on the brain.
Sloan snorted. “You can’t kill someone with a potato peeler.”
Jaz just smiled lazily. “Give me one and watch, pussycat.”
Everybody laughed.
“I hate getting ‘q’,” Lissa complained. “After ‘quicksand’ and ‘quarrels,’ there’s really nothing left.”
“Quantum physics,” Brody suggested. “You could bore somebody to death with that shit.”
Quantum physics was not accepted, and the timer ran out. Lissa drank.
“Rifle,” Tank said.
; “Too easy,” Lissa muttered. “Not fair that I had to drink and you got ‘r’.”
Tank wrapped his arm around her neck and kissed her temple. “If you get drunk, I promise to take advantage of you and make you do evil perverted stuff while naked.”
She snuggled up to him. “Deal. Somebody pour me another beer.”
“Five seconds,” Flynn said.
Shit. It was Xander’s turn, and he hadn’t been paying attention. “Stairs,” he said quickly.
Everybody hooted. “Yeah, gotta watch out for those vicious attack stairs,” Brody said.
Xander casually flipped him off. “Especially if I throw you down them.”
“It counts,” Flynn said in his deep voice. “Throwing somebody down the stairs is a recognized form of assassination.”
He was slouched low in his chair, his tangled black dreadlocks fading into the shadows. “Tits,” he added, for his turn.
That was a new one. Xander might even let it count, because of extra points for creativity and sexual innuendo.
“You can kill somebody with tits?” Caitlyn asked, eyes wide.
Flynn grinned. “I can think of a few sets that have almost done me in.”
That got another a general laugh.
“You must have been absent for the ‘death by tits’ class in spy school, Spook,” Xander said. Caitlyn had once worked for the Shifter Intelligence Agency. “I volunteer to go to the makeup class in your place, though.”
Xander and Flynn fist bumped.
“Pervs,” Caitlyn said, blushing.
By Xander’s standards, that was not even a 1.0 on the Perv Richter Scale, but Caitlyn had grown up in some kind of bullshit snowy owl clan that didn’t believe in sex, or drinking, or any kind of fun, really. So she was endlessly easy to shock.
Sloan whispered something in Caitlyn’s ear, cupping his hand around her neck, and she blushed even harder.
Bad Blood Panther (Bad Blood Shifters Book 4) Page 1
