Grizzly Attraction
Page 1
Grizzly Attraction
A Shadow Sisterhood Novel
Hattie Hunt
Copyright © 2017 Whistling Book Press
All rights reserved.
Per the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher. Please only purchase authorized editions.
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This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events within this book are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to business establishments, actual persons, or events is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content
Printed in the United States of America
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Published by Whistling Book Press
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Whistling Book Press
Sutton, Alaska
Visit our web site at:
www.whistlingbookpress.com
ISBN 13: 978-1-947790-07-0
Contents
Grizzly Attraction
Other Books in the Whiskey-Verse
Discover More
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
About the Author
Grizzly Attraction
A Shadow Sisterhood Novel
A Whiskey Witches Universe Series
USA Today Bestselling Author S.M. Blooding
Co-Authoring as Hattie Hunt
Other Books in the Whiskey-Verse
The Shadow Sisterhood by Hattie Hunt
Bear Moon
Grizzly Affection
* * *
Whiskey Witches by
USA Today Bestselling Author S.M. Blooding:
Demon Whiskey
Whiskey Witches
Blood Moon Magick
Barrel of Whiskey
Witches of the West
Desert Shaman
* * *
Red Star Division by F.J. Wolfram
Big Bad Djinn
Lizard Wizard
Discover More
www.whiskeywitches.com
Newsletter
Whiskey-Witches Newsletter
To Frankie,
for inviting me into your world.
1
Emma paced the back porch of the Whiskey house. Even after the witches helped save her brother’s life, she still wasn’t comfortable with them. Every paranormal brought up in the small town of Troutdale, Oregon knew the same stories. Witches were bad.
They had the Eastwood Witches to thank for a lot of those stories. No paranormal went to Portland alone because of them. They also had the Blackmans, whose compound was right outside of Troutdale. Those witches kept to themselves for the most part. They kind of reminded Emma of the Amish. Not that it was a bad thing. They just… lived a very different kind of life than the rest of the world.
Emma also blamed her mother, Cheryl, for a lot of her nervousness around the Whiskeys. Damned bigoted, selfish, sorry excuse for a mama bear.
Ugh. Seriously, she needed to stop thinking about that woman. Getting angry gave Cheryl power. And she didn’t need any more of that.
The Whiskey house was massive and for a good reason. The Whiskey family was big. Emma still hadn’t met everyone, but there seemed to be an entire zoo-full of kids. It was a bit reminiscent of the Elliot Clan house where Emma grew up.
The back yard stretched away from the house into a large meadow surrounded by trees. She could smell and hear the Sandy river off to her right, somewhere beyond the trees and out of sight. She could even see two houses in the trees directly behind the main house.
In the trees?
The screen door screeched open behind her and Emma froze, her bear rising just under her skin. Warm. Familiar. Fierce. In control. Emma loved her bear and her bear loved her.
She breathed in and focused on him. Mal, we need to relax.
You need to relax. His voice was deep and comforting like a no-pill fleece blanket.
She’d been able to hear his voice for as long as she could remember. He’d also been the only reason she’d survived her mother’s tyrannical rule while remaining a strong, independent woman. Hell, a strong, independent person. No one who stayed around Cheryl maintained their own personality—or opinions—for long. Emma didn’t know how Cheryl did it, railroading people the way she did, but she had been watching it happen her entire life.
Emma leaned over the railing, hoping it looked casual and not like she had been pacing.
Leslie Whiskey stepped up beside her, completely ignoring Emma’s unease. Was she that unobservant or just being nice? Probably being nice. Emma had spent the better part of a hellish couple of days with the woman, and never once had Leslie slipped.
“Glad you could make it.” Leslie leaned over the railing, her Texan drawl light and inviting. She looked across the yard and the increasing number of shifters gathering around a table lined with snacks and drinks. Leslie was a strong looking woman, if soft around the edges. She was fairly tall and of average build. She didn’t look like she worked out and she didn’t have the natural physique of a shifter. Her long brown hair spilled down her back in waves. Her brown eyes lit as she watched two kids wrestling in a…boxing ring?
The Whiskey place was weird. Emma would give them that. They might be witches, but they were trying to fit in with the shifters. It showed. Kind of.
Emma watched as a naked man walked into a shed off to the right and emerged wearing a pair of sweats. A shed for spare sets of clothes. They were trying. The Whiskeys were led by a newly shifted alpha, Dexx Colt, who was a saber-toothed cat. Emma didn’t even realize shifters could choose extinct animals. What would be next? A gargoyle? Was there even such a thing as a gargoyle in real life?
Leslie glanced at her, eyebrows high.
Oh, crap. She’d been caught thinking… again. “A shifter party is a good party. Wouldn’t miss it.” That was lame. So, lame.
“Have you ever been to a witch party?” Leslie grinned at her with a slight chuckle.
It really was hard not to like Leslie. She just had a natural charisma about her. “I guess we’ll see how they handle the Elliot moonshine.”
“We’ll see how Dexx handles it. He’s the one you have to worry about.”
He was kind of the reason she was there. Technically, she should have come to talk to him when the whole lot of them had showed up. When a new alpha strolled into town with his pack, the other alphas were supposed to greet him. However, Cheryl, had declined, saying that a true alpha didn’t bed with witches and didn’t “take in the strays.” Dexx’s pack was…eclectic. He had four wolves and a hyena he’d collected from a run-in with another alpha during their first week. Not to mention the Whiskey witches. But that
last part left Emma scratching her head. Humans—even witchy ones—weren’t “part of a pack” no matter what the circumstances. Emma had spoken to other packs from around the country who worked closely with witches, and even they didn’t allow witches into their packs.
The door snapped open and a train of kids thundered across the deck. Leslie whipped around. “Tyler! What have I told you about running through the house?”
The boy in the lead winced as his steps slowed. He looked over his shoulder at his mother. The girl following nearly crashed into him, and the three trailing behind her scattered in a wave of shrieks and laughter.
“Don’t run in the house,” he sing-songed back, rolling his eyes. The boy was probably twelve or so—the same age as Griff, Emma’s cousin, but he sometimes acted a lot younger. Emma figured it was part of his stubbornness. He refused to get older just because others told him to. Though, she had to admit that she hadn’t spent a lot of time with the boy. He had been around the Elliot estates quite often because he was Griff’s friend.
That changed when Cheryl caught on. Griff had been spending a lot more time on the Whiskey compound since.
Which was another reason Emma was there. She needed to make sure her bear cub was safe. Granted, Griff wasn’t her cub and she wasn’t alpha yet, but she would be soon.
“And?” Leslie asked, shaking her head, extending her neck in expectance, demanding more.
He slumped, shoulders forward, his hands dangling around his knees. “Don’t run in the house?”
“It’s like I’m talking to a door,” Leslie muttered under her breath before saying louder, “Don’t slam doors. You’re going to give Alma a damned heart attack.”
Alma was the really old witch with the creepy white eyes that Emma avoided like the plague. Because…white eyes. They were seriously gross and gave her the willies.
“She slams more doors than I do.” Tyler gave Leslie a duh-look. “That’s not fair.”
Emma turned her gaze pointedly back to the yard, trying to hide her smile. The woman really did have her hands full.
“Just stay out of the house, okay?”
“Yes, Mom.”
Leslie leaned back over the railing, raking a hand through her thick brown hair. “Some days I really want to eat my young.”
“Maybe you need some of that moonshine.”
“I’ll stick to the wine. A glass of which has my name on it inside. You make yourself at home. Good seein’ ya.” And she disappeared, just like that.
Emma shook her head and peered out over the lawn, forcing herself not to resume her pacing now she had the deck back to herself. Leslie was nice enough. Hell, she had helped save Brett. And she was known to slip into the bakery for a cookie once or twice a week because she “needed some air.” Emma assumed she just needed five minutes to herself.
From what she had heard of the Whiskeys, though, Alma would probably throw a fit if she knew her daughter was cheating on her with someone else’s cookies.
Which kind of made Emma like Leslie a little more. That woman had balls. Cheryl should be able to respect that. But Cheryl was… Cheryl.
Emma sighed. Where the hell was Joe? Curse her brother for never being on time to anything. She should have offered to pick him and Ripley up from where they lived above the shifter bar, the Fox Hole. Emma hated being the first one to anything. Not that she was the first one to this gathering, but she didn’t have the energy to deal with people. Especially new people. She barely knew the Whiskeys, and she didn’t know any of the other people coming in. She’d grown up here, but that didn’t mean she knew everyone.
Besides, she had too much on her mind. Too many things to deal with. To plan.
She needed to talk to Joe.
She was glad that he and Ripley had finally worked things out, which had been a trial in and of itself. He’d mated with a padfoot. Emma didn’t know a lot about them except that they looked like a big, ugly dog and they were death omens. However, having him, an Elliot bear shifter, mate with anyone who wasn’t a bear was a big deal for Emma.
It meant she might be able to buck tradition as well.
Gah! Why was she so impossible to nail down for a conversation? Between work and ogling over Ripley and helping her upgrade the Fox Hole. Ugh.
Emma really was happy for him. But damn.
A truck rumbled into the driveway and Mal perked up. Her bear was useful for things like that. Especially when her mind was elsewhere. She followed the deck to the front of the house and stepped down the stairs, dodging Tyler and his string of followers as they appeared around the corner of the house in a rush.
Joe climbed out of a big, old red truck, his lips moving. He was medium height and build, had dark hair and eyes, and looked just like his twin brother who was happily married with his mate.
“Joe!” Since when had Ripley started letting him drive? When Emma had borrowed Tuck’s truck a while back, she thought Ripley might lose a gasket.
He looked up, confused.
Emma waived harder, arm stretched to full length. She wasn’t short. He just needed to use his eyes.
It was Ripley who finally caught sight of Emma. Ripley shrugged at Joe and mouthed, “Can’t take him anywhere,” with a wink. Then she walked around the truck and linked her arm in his. She whispered in his ear and he looked up.
Ripley was a couple of inches taller than Joe and had long, dark hair that rippled down her back. She wore tore-up jeans and biker boots that weren’t tied all the way up. Emma couldn’t read the t-shirt from under the blue flannel shirt, but it looked like the Smurf shirt that seemed to be this week’s favorite.
Emma waived again and lengthened her strides to close the distance between them. She needed to grab him before he started mingling.
“Hey, Em. What’s up?” He pulled her into a quick, one armed hug without letting go of Ripley.
“You’re late is what’s up. Get a watch, brother.”
“Can you really be late to a barbeque?”
Emma ignored him, jutting an elbow into his side and stepping back. “I need to talk to you.” She shot a meaningful glance back towards the house.
“Now?”
Emma growled, letting Mal accent the tone. “Yes. Now.”
“Joe, I think you should probably go with your sister. She looks ready to pounce,” Ripley said, untwining her arm from Joe’s.
Emma shook her head. “No, Rip. You should come too.” Lots of people didn’t like Ripley Kent. The woman knew how to piss people off in a bad way. But Emma had always liked her, and she was one of the major reasons the two were together. Emma had kept Cheryl otherwise distracted so the two could get closer. Well, through high school. Recently, she’d kept Cheryl busy, so Ripley and Leslie could find a cure for Brett’s rabies.
Oh. Whatever. Ripley and Joe had a lot to be grateful for when it came to Emma. That’s all she meant.
Joe raised an eyebrow, interest piqued. And then his entire face furrowed in concern. Dammit. Why did everyone have to assume impending doom every time they needed to have a discussion.
He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine. Yes. I just need to talk to you.”
Joe didn’t look appeased, but he sighed and nodded. “Let me drop off the drinks first at least. They will hang me if I don’t get it delivered soon. Brett has already been bugging me.”
“I am giving you five minutes. You aren’t getting off the hook.”
“Then grab a crate and help.”
Emma groaned, but followed him around the truck. There were four crates, and Emma and Ripley each picked one up. Joe grabbed two, and Emma couldn’t decide if he was showing off or going for efficiency. He was definitely aware of the way Ripley’s eyes followed him as he worked.
Not that Emma had time for that kind of thing—getting doughy eyed over some guy. She had to give Ripley some credit, because doughy was the last word Emma would use to describe the way she looked at Joe. Still.
Em
ma hadn’t looked at Jordan that way in years and nobody seemed to notice. With the way Brett and Juliet fawned over each other, and then the way Ripley and Joe were just Ripley and Joe, Emma thought that maybe somebody might pick up on the way her and Jordan were together.
If people would just see, things would be easier.
Emma didn’t have to try too hard to drag Joe away from the table in the back. That meant she had managed to get him too concerned about the discussion she was trying to corner him with. It wasn’t even a discussion. She just needed some advice. Or to vent. Or, something.
They moved around the side of the house. Not so far away that they would be conspicuous, but far enough to have a little bit of privacy even at a shifter gathering. Sure, they could probably hear, but there was an honor code. Of sorts.
Joe even managed to get three cups of homebrew poured out before Emma dragged him away. So, as they stood there, sipping and looking like they were just chatting about whatever, Emma steadied herself. Took a drink of liquid courage. It shouldn’t be that hard.
Mal, do you really think I should do this?
He growled indifferently.
Thanks. Sometimes, he really wasn’t much help.
“Where’s Jordan?” Joe asked.