by Zoey Marcel
Temptation, Wyoming 1
Wrestling with Temptation
Morrigan, a resurrected banshee, is attacked by a harpy and saved by two werewolves. Jack is the eccentric alpha and Mark is his handsome beta. They invite her to stay with them on their ranch in Wyoming for protection. She meets two more werewolves, Quinn and Damon, who are lovers. Her mates introduce her to the world of BDSM and act as her guardians to protect her from the forces of evil that are after her.
Jack is torn between his love for Morrigan and the mission hell sent him on—to drag her to the underworld where Death can claim the woman who escaped him. Jack's heart forbids it, but Death has others in line to kill her and eternal punishment in store for Jack if he goes rogue.
The pack must overcome their differences and band together if they are to protect Morrigan and redeem their soulless alpha.
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves
Length: 57,538 words
WRESTLING WITH TEMPTATION
Temptation, Wyoming 1
Zoey Marcel
MENAGE AND MORE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage and More
WRESTLING WITH TEMPTATION
Copyright © 2012 by Zoey Marcel
E-book ISBN: 1-61926-224-X
First E-book Publication: January 2012
Cover design by Jinger Heaston
All art and logo copyright © 2012 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
To my wonderful husband. Your love and support have made this possible. Thank you. And to the eight-year-old girl I used to be who stood in the sunshine in her backyard and decided that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Your dream came true.
WRESTLING WITH TEMPTATION
Temptation, Wyoming 1
ZOEY MARCEL
Copyright © 2012
Chapter One:
Werewolves
Jack Dillinger sat in the passenger’s seat of the green Camaro ogling the pretty brunette at the wheel. She chattered nervously for the first few miles, talking a mile a minute and timidly insisting he listen to whatever type of music he fancied on the radio. He settled for some classic rock which he likely would have sung along to had he not been so enthralled with the little cutie talking his ear off and distracted by his pressing thoughts.
She had picked him up a couple of hours ago by the side of the interstate. Although grateful for the ride, he had to wonder what sort of happy-go-lucky woman just picked up random men who were hitchhiking on I-5. It wasn’t safe, and he was the last person she should have picked up that day.
He hadn’t happened upon her by mistake. It would probably scare the crap out of her to know that he already knew her name was Morrigan before she even told him. He knew everything about her. She was his target. He recognized her by the scent and description they gave him.
Still, he had had no idea she was so beautiful and hot. Even her genuine sweetness would have given him pause for execution of his orders, but it was the time-stopping bitch-slap of fate that had him floored the most—the sudden revelation that she was his mate.
Years ago when they gave him the shroud with her scent on it, it wasn’t death he had smelled, it was destiny. He wrote if off as base human need that he would learn to control the longer he was human, but being in her presence, getting the full dose of her natural essence and the sheer magnitude of her glowing aura, Jack knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was his predestined mate. What was that about?
He’d been stalking her. Tracking an ethereal being among the land of the living had been a challenging feat that lasted years, but he finally caught up with Morrigan. She’d found a way to materialize in human form and he wondered if she even knew how to become translucent again if she wanted to. She likely reveled in her ability to be flesh again and mingle with the living, but what she failed to realize was that it made her especially vulnerable to him.
“May I?” he asked, pointing at her water bottle.
“Sure.”
He took a drink, tasting her personal flavor on the rim. It was feminine and succulent. Something about tasting her sent his deviant mind elsewhere. He licked the rim twice, imagining it was her clitoris. He needed to snap out of this erogenous haze.
He wanted to laugh when he saw the way she was looking at him from his periphery. Her expression said, “What the hell?”
Jack recapped the vessel and returned it to the cupholder. He felt a strange emotion coming over him when he laid his head back against the headrest. Was it contentment? He didn’t know. “You taste very good.”
“Thank you.”
Her demure blush made him smile. Instinct told him to drag her into the backseat and fuck her senseless even with the vehicle still moving. Yes, sir, his sex drive lacked the good sense his brain had. His body was raging with lust for her, while his mind replayed his orders in his head over and over again. “Find Morrigan W
eaver. If she is spirit, drag her down to Hades, by force if necessary. If she is flesh, then kill her.”
Curse Murphy and his bloody law that she was flesh. Jack had no problem killing. He was a natural-born hunter and had been one of hell’s trackers since nearly the beginning of time. What he had a problem with was taking the life of someone some higher power felt he was meant to be with. That was the other thing—he was an animal by blood, a minion of darkness, and some good and just being or force decided he should have a lady? What for?
He had no problem with shagging them, especially this tantalizing piece of flesh and blood. But mates were for humans, shifters, and other beings with a soul. He was an animal. Only a notch above the demons he went on missions for. He had no soul, so why a mate?
“What kind of cologne is that?” Morrigan asked, seeming uncomfortable with the awkward silence. “It smells wonderful.”
“Zino Davidoff. I’m glad you like it.”
There was another weighty pause.
“You said you live in Wyoming?”
“I do. Where are you from?”
“Around.”
Jack smiled at this. He knew she didn’t have a home. His thoughts filled the reticence as he ran back over everything he knew about this woman. Her name was Morrigan Weaver and she was born in England during the twelfth century. She was brutally raped and murdered by a rapacious wizard shortly after joining a convent in the Holy Land.
The wizard’s brother, Raphael, was a powerful sorcerer from Ireland who sympathized with the poor woman’s suffering. He used necromancy to resurrect her as a banshee and sent her forward in time so his evil brother, Galen, couldn’t find her.
While this gave the young woman a second chance at life, it was a bittersweet one since she had been snatched from heaven, unbeknownst to the benevolent sorcerer.
“Which part of Wyoming are you from?” Morrigan asked.
“Temptation.”
She looked skeptical, lips quirking into an incredulous smile that showcased how adorable she really was. “Where is that?”
Jack grinned, surprised by the jittery rush her radiance sent tumbling into his belly. It was like being hyped on espresso combined with the greatest orgasmic high he’d ever known. He had never known a smile to heat his core and send a rabble of butterflies in his stomach. Butterflies that seemed as caffeinated and drugged with passion as he now felt.
“It’s just outside of Jackson Hole, almost an extension, really. It’s not too far from Yellowstone. I look out the window and see our neighbors, the Grand Tetons.”
She gaped at him. “You spy on your neighbors?”
He grinned. “No, I was talking about mountains, not breasts. I own a ranch. We can’t even see our neighbors unless we ride or drive for several miles.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. The mountains are extraordinary, but I like your version better,” he teased. His cock jerked in his pants when she playfully slapped his thigh out of retribution for his scandalous remark.
She looked surprised by her own boldness and quickly retracted her hand. “That sounds really nice. I wish I could see it.”
He almost invited her, but his better judgment told him not to. “It’s a nice place.”
“So who is this person you’re meeting in Monterey?”
“Mark. He’s a friend of mine. I really appreciate the ride.” Mark didn’t know about Jack’s mission or his true origins. None of the pack did. Keeping his dark nature and killer instincts in check proved a constant battle. There were times, particularly during a full moon, when the hunter in him surfaced. The rest of the pack liked to hunt on occasion, but they would never understand his bloodlust or his need to strike fear in people. He reveled in it, but showing his true colors would blow his mission, so he kept his urges in check and played the part of a normal, law-abiding citizen. It had worked beautifully so far.
Jack knew he was supposed to kill this woman, but he was never given a time frame. What could be the harm in watching her for a while?
* * * *
Mark Montego got a text from his best friend, Jack stating that he was on his way with a woman and they would show up in a green Camaro.
Okay. Mark had come to Monterey to visit a friend and been planning on flying home, but Jack said he would meet him in the Santa Cruz-Monterey area, which made him laugh because of how vague it was.
Jack was off on another one of his random road trips, crossing off his bucket list or whatever the hell he was doing, and one of the things was seeing that area, so why not meet his buddy there when it was time for him to head home?
Mark wasn’t even sure why he had a bucket list to begin with since he was immortal, but no harm in living like he was dying.
He wondered who the woman was. Jack liked to bed them, but Mark had never actually seen him in a relationship with one and was curious what the deal was. Maybe his pal finally found the right one. Well, somebody had to.
Mark had gone through a number of women, too, but it wasn’t because he was a playboy, though he loved them enough to classify as one. His pursuit of them was to quell the ache in his chest, the black hole his true mate left in his soul centuries ago when he lost her forever. He should have fought for her, but he let her go because she wanted his brother. He lost them both.
His brother went to fight in the Crusades to prove his honor, or so they were led to believe. In reality, Quinn had been sold into slavery by a wizard who was also vying for the young woman’s affection. The wizard sent her a fraudulent letter declaring Quinn to be dead.
Mark had been devastated over losing his brother, but deep down he hoped she would turn to him. She sought comfort in his arms and he lost his virginity to her. He knew she was his mate, but he didn’t claim her, because in his heart he knew she was seeking solace in his embrace, not gratification.
She didn’t bleed and it hurt him when he found out she had lost her maidenhead to his brother. The next day she was gone. No one heard from her again. He looked everywhere but never found her. This was back in the twelfth century.
Now in the twenty-first century he could function like a normal man from day to day, but he was still hollow and empty inside. Broken in a way no one could ever fix him. The women could take the edge off his lust when he was horny, but they couldn’t remove or fill the bottomless pit of a void that supplanted the place where his heart once beat with life and love. She was his perfect one and he let her slip through his hands.
Mark texted a reply to Jack and told him he would be waiting for them on the pier. The air was cold and windy since it was winter, but the overcast sky and rolling waves of steel were brooding and magnificent.
She had liked the sea—his English rose. They had walked on the beach together flirting with one another. The ocean reminded him of her whenever he saw it. He professed his undying love for her by one.
He always wondered if she had truly preferred his brother, Quinn, to him, or if she’d simply picked one of them because she had to choose between the two men she loved or risk losing them forever. He would never know, and this would haunt him until his dying day.
He could still see her face. Granted it had been centuries since then, so her face was a bit blurry in his mind and it broke his heart, but he knew he would never forget the way she looked that day lying beneath him in the hay in his father’s stable as they made love. The drizzle outside had been a refreshing sort of natural music as they joined their bodies together in secret.
Only the horses witnessed their coupling. Well, he wasn’t sure if they caught it or had been too busy munching on hay and oats to give a damn. But they knew bloody well what the smitten young couple was up to. They wouldn’t tell. Horses were good that way. They kept their mouths shut, except when food was involved. They would turn beastly and trample down anything in their path to get it. Selfish pigs the lot of them, but glorious animals. Their ranch was full of them.
“Do you love me?” he’d asked shortl
y before he came. He had felt his inner wolf trying to surface and the urge to claim her was stronger than ever.
“With all my heart.”
“Do you accept me as your mate?”
Her eyes had closed and tears rolled down her cheeks. “I can’t.”
She could love him, sleep with him, steal his heart, and then rip it in two, but she couldn’t be marked by him. He couldn’t handle that. “Why not?”
“Please don’t do this,” she’d wept.
“Because I’m not him.” His final thrusts when he came inside of her were hard and deep, ripples of anger and suffering stemming from the stone of affliction and need that was hurled ruthlessly into the lake of his soul. This sweet, damaging angel of torment had looked up at him with those glistening, emerald eyes of hers and made him feel like shit, even as she gave him the greatest sense of euphoria he’d ever tasted.
He recalled how badly his eyes had burned from the rejection. Mates were supposed to fall for each other, not chase after the other person’s sibling. His eyes closed in remembered devastation and misery when he palpated her soaked cunnie but found no trace of blood. She hadn’t complained of the pain his parents had told him virgin women experienced when losing their chastity.
She had been indignant and hurt when he asked her if the experience was as good as sleeping with his brother. He hadn’t really asked her so much as snapped at her in anger and hurt. It was a beautiful passion that ignited into a heated argument afterward. It was his understanding that these things were supposed to work the other way around.
