“What do you feel?” Caine demanded.
Placing his hands on the bed on either side of her, he shifted his weight very close, as if he were going to kiss her neck.
His magnetism pulled at her, but more than that she felt his heat; glorious, primal heat. “I feel how hot your skin is, even though you’re not touching me.”
“That’s lust and desire. I want you.”
His declaration made her feel light-headed.
What does all this tell you about me? About us? he demanded, suddenly serious.
Emma blinked. She had just heard him speak in her mind. She searched his gaze, sensing that whatever words she spoke next would be very important. “That you’re different.”
His expression hardened. “We’re different. You and I. Tell me, damn it!”
The ferocity in his expression scared her because she thought he was going to push her away. “You’re unique, and we have a connection that’s undeniably mind-blowing, but…I don’t know what you want from me!”
PATRICE MICHELLE
Born and raised in the Southeast, Patrice Michelle worked as a financial analyst before giving up her financial calculator for a keyboard and never looking back. Thanks to an open-minded family who taught her that life isn’t as black and white as we’re conditioned to believe, she pens her novels with the belief that various shades of gray are a lot more interesting. She’s a natural with a point-and-shoot camera, likes to fiddle with graphic design and, to the relief of her family, strums her guitar before an audience of one.
Visit Patrice’s Web site at www.patricemichelle.net to learn about her upcoming books, read excerpts and join her newsletter.
SCIONS: REVELATION
PATRICE MICHELLE
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the dark and seductive SCIONS world! I hope you’re looking forward to learning the answers to the prophecy and how they relate, not just to the hero and heroine in this third book, but to the first two books in this trilogy as well.
Ever since I introduced Caine Grennard as Landon’s loyal packmate in Scions: Insurrection, I couldn’t wait to share his story with you. Darkly sexy, dedicated and on-the-edge in a rebellious sort of way, Caine is the kind of alpha hero you can’t help but fall in love with, yet whom you also ache for, because those rebellious tendencies are what ultimately land him where he is at the beginning of Scions: Revelation.
Young, enigmatic Emma Gray never felt as though she fit in with girls her age. The social scene just wasn’t her thing, not to mention that her life was pretty full, between family obligations and her job at a café in town. So she’s taken by surprise when something finally entices her away from her calm and predictable world.
Emma has no idea that meeting Caine will completely change her life. And neither does Caine.
I hope you enjoy Caine and Emma’s tempestuous journey as they follow their hearts and wind their way through the layered machinations of others, while duty, honor and loyalty fiercely test their future together. Only after every intricate twist and turn of the prophecy is revealed can Emma and Caine finally find their own path to happiness.
All the best,
Patrice Michelle
www.patricemichelle.net
To my family, thank you for always believing in me!
Acknowledgments
To my amazing agent Deidre Knight for believing in my writing and finding a home for my books, to my editor Ann Leslie Tuttle for her astute editorial input and endless drive to make the story better, and to Charles Griemsman—the go-to guy for pretty much everything. I can’t thank you enough for all that you do!
Thank you to my brainstorming partner-in-crime Rhyannon Byrd for always being there!
Contents
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
Prologue
N o one will ever look at me the same again. Caine Grennard’s hand shook as he lifted it toward the mansion’s main door. Clenching his fist, he focused to calm his rage before he turned the knob. As he entered, the Lupreda sitting in the living room and standing in the hall turned and stared. Every single member in the wolf pack was there now. Only a few had witnessed his fight with Brian.
It had been a great battle—painful and bloody, but satisfying to kick the jerkoff’s ass and finally put him in his place. Brian, the surly, ready-to-mutiny Lupreda, wouldn’t dare disparage Landon as Alpha Wolf again, at least not in Caine’s presence. Yet all the satisfaction Caine had when the fight was over disappeared the moment he realized he couldn’t shift back from his dominant werewolf form, known as Musk form among the Lupreda, to human.
Was the pack waiting to see if Caine had gone full zerker—to see if he was permanently stuck between man and wolf, like the other three Lupreda in the past?
He saw it in their eyes: the worry, the condemnation. Brian had the nerve to smirk. Caine wanted to kick his ass all over again. When Caine’s gaze locked with Landon Rourke’s, the Alpha’s stoic expression told him nothing. Resentment burned in Caine’s stomach.
Landon uncrossed his arms and pushed his tall, broad form away from the thick column separating the living room and the foyer. “Everybody, out!”
The Lupreda scattered, moving so fast that Caine saw only blurs zooming past. A pair of folded jeans landed with a thump on the floor in front of him.
He looked up and caught a glimpse of Kaitlyn’s red hair through the rails in the catwalk overhead before she disappeared. Landon’s half human–half Lupreda mate was one of a kind. Only she would anticipate the turmoil and self-doubt that had festered within him while he’d paced in the woods for two agonizing hours, waiting for his body to finally shift back to human form. Kaitlyn intuitively sensed something as simple as a pair of jeans would help him feel more human as he faced the pack’s leader.
Caine quickly pulled on the jeans and buttoned the fly. As soon as he met Landon’s steady gaze, the Alpha tossed something in the air toward him. Catching the metal, Caine curled his fingers into a fist around it. The chain felt both hot and cool against his palm.
“Put it on,” Landon said in a hard tone.
Caine tensed and glanced at the silver chain in his hand. He’d been there, done that. All the Lupreda had experienced having a thick silver collar locked around their necks to keep them from shifting to wolf form until the Sanguinas vampires were ready to hunt them as prey. Ever since the vampires got sick from humans’ poisoned blood over twenty-five years ago, and they’d retreated from their land into exile, Caine had relished his freedom. He swore he’d never let anyone put silver around his neck again. He sure as hell wasn’t doing it willingly, even if he was at risk of going zerker.
Clenching his hand around the chain once more, Caine met Landon’s steady stare. “No.”
Landon’s green gaze narrowed. “I won’t have you going zerker. You’ll wear it if you want to stay here.”
If Caine couldn’t shift to Musk form on the fly, he couldn’t protect his pack. He’d be nothing to his brethren. Useless to his Alpha, the man who’d mentored him all his life. Why didn’t Landon see that?
Caine shook his head and flexed his jaw. For as long as he could remember, his faith in Landon as the pack’s true Alpha had never wavered—even while Landon had lived away from the pack for eighteen years—yet now that Landon had recently become Alpha, he was the one who would
force Caine to leave.
“I guess the decision’s made for me.” Turning, Caine slipped the chain around the neck of the carved wolf statue sitting on its haunches by the door and walked out of the Lupreda’s mansion—the only home and family he’d ever known.
Chapter 1
W hy would an alluring smell make me feel so free? Emma Gray wondered as she waved good-night to her boss before pushing the café’s door open. Her pulse raced and every nerve in her system worked overtime. She hurried across the street, heading toward the nightclub Squeeze. Despite her social hang-ups, she was finally going into that nightclub. Come hell or high water.
She stepped up on the curb and inhaled, trying to recapture the glorious smell’s deep earthy notes, the essence that brought her out here in the first place. She knew if she could conjure it, the scent would help solidify her resolve and calm her stomach that felt like a snake had taken up residence inside, coiling tighter and tighter.
Nothing but car exhaust, lingering hints of rain and alley trash filled her nostrils. Damn.
She’d always had a keen sense of smell, something Jared, her boss at Jared’s Java and Pastries café, often relied on. “You think these eggs are still good?” he’d ask as he held the carton under her nose, to which she could accurately predict, “You’ve got two days before you have to chuck ’em.” Jared thought her talent was “wicked uncanny.” Emma thought her “gift” was just plain weird.
Until yesterday.
She was cleaning up coffee cups left by some of the patrons, whose lingering musky smell on them made her body tingle all over. She smiled and she didn’t know why. But she just felt…exhilarated, like she was flying down from the highest hill on a roller coaster—buckled in and safe, but completely free.
Then, tonight at work, she’d caught the scent again and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest, she’d been so excited. This time the smell had been very fresh—as if the person or persons had just been there. She’d lifted her gaze from gathering the cups in the dirty-dish container in time to see a tall, dark-headed guy leave the café and accompany an auburn-haired man to the popular Manhattan nightclub across the street.
Now, here she was, an hour later, her throat closing as she stood at the end of the long line of people waiting to get inside the nightclub. In the two years she’d worked at the café, there’d been many nights that she’d stared out the big display window at Squeeze’s black double doors, wondering what it was like with music blaring and patrons packed inside like sardines. But curiosity wasn’t enough to overcome her social ineptitude. She wasn’t a sexy siren. Just a normal, average-looking woman, who’d rather talk about the latest marketing strategies being used in businesses today than prove how well she could hold her liquor or how fast she could tie a cherry stem with her tongue. Yep, she’d crash and burn the moment she opened her mouth.
If it weren’t for that earthy, musky aroma that had imprinted itself on her psyche since yesterday, she wouldn’t be standing here. But she had to at least put a face with the appealing, soul-wrenching scent. Maybe then she could let it go.
Techno music thumped and the crowd inched their way through the frigid, damp air, waiting to be let in. As she waited, Emma noted the distinct difference in her own attire: jeans, bulky sweater and black wool pea coat, compared to the other young women her age. Sporting big earrings, spiked heels and heavy makeup, the girls wore clubbing clothes of tight pants, miniskirts and cropped tops underneath their winter coats.
While they giggled and flirted with the guy manning the door, Emma’s insides churned. These girls have mastered the art. I could never compete. With each step closer to the entrance, Emma’s body tensed to the point she thought she might pass out. Breathe. They’re people, just like you. Well, except for the I-suck-at-flirting-and-idle-chitchat part.
“You don’t look twenty-one,” the burly guy at the door said after he’d checked Emma’s driver’s license to make sure she was legal.
“I am twenty-one, but it doesn’t really matter. I’ll only be in there for a few minutes.” She’d always been told she looked young, but was it because she didn’t have on any makeup or was it because she wasn’t wearing three-inch heels? She was sure her five-foot-six height made her appear much shorter and younger than the girls he normally let in. Even if half those girls were probably three years younger and sporting fake IDs.
“You still have to be twenty-one to be allowed in.” Frosty plumes expelled from his nose, reminding her of a dragon.
Emma followed his frown to her feet. Her boots had mud spatters all over them from her jaunt through the woods this morning, looking for Casper. She instantly regretted not changing her shoes before she went to work. Meeting his gaze, her smile turned sheepish. “I’m going for the grunge look.”
The streetlight shone on the man’s bald head as he scanned her clothes. Crossing his arms, disdain laced his tone. “We have a dress code for a reason.”
Emma stiffened and outraged, embarrassed heat shot up her cheeks. She didn’t need to be reminded her pea coat had threadbare elbows and a frayed collar or that her jeans were so old and worn they were naturally faded. “Are you saying I’m not good enough to enter this club?”
She had to get into the club so she could at least see the guy with the innerving scent, even if she didn’t speak to him. Maybe his face would ring a bell or something. There were no guarantees he’d come to the café again just because he’d been there two days in a row. Plus, working up the nerve to enter the club was a big deal for her. Seeking out this guy was a perfect excuse for her to finally get a peek inside Squeeze without feeling like she was there on a social basis.
A snotty look crossed the bouncer’s thick jowls. “That’s exactly what I’m—” At that moment, a thin guy burst through the club’s double doors, took a couple of steps and hurled on the sidewalk. Baldy turned to him and growled, “Hey, go puke somewhere else, moron.”
When he walked over to send the guy on his way, Emma’s heart rate ramped. She didn’t have the flirtatious skills the girls in front of her had used to make him wave them in with a lopsided, dopey smile. Instead, she’d challenged the guy. Way to go, Emma. Better take the opportunity to quickly slip inside the club while he was occupied.
Inside, the nightclub was so dark, the neon manga murals painted on the walls on either side of the entryway glowed vividly. When the closed door opened with a swift jerk behind her, Emma’s pulse jumped. She pulled her pageboy hat low on her head and ducked past a tall guy, moving farther into the room.
It didn’t take much effort to be sucked into the crowd; the nightclub was that packed. It was like she’d entered another world, full of drinking, dancing and erotic decadence. Emma was enraptured and invigorated by the laughter, talking, partying and life going on around her. And the smells. There were so many: thick, sickly smelling perfume, heavy musk-based cologne, strong deodorant soap aromas laced with sweat…all were mixed in with alcohol’s distinct sharp scent.
Hanging above the DJ on the other side of the club, glittery gold cages held half-naked girls sliding up and down poles. The sunken dance floor three feet below the main floor was so crowded that she couldn’t tell where one person began and the other ended. The partiers were one big mass of arms, legs, bobbing heads and gyrating bodies, moving to the beat of the music.
Fog floated through the room in a heavy haze, carrying with it images of excitement, aggression and…lust. She saw it in the way the people moved, the way they touched. Especially one group of three, who were dancing on the fringes of the dance floor.
A tall, broad-shouldered man with pitch-black hair danced in front of a woman with short dark hair, while her blond girlfriend plastered herself to his backside. When the blonde raked her nails down his cotton T-shirt and then along his denim-covered thighs as she leaned close and bit his shoulder blade, Emma’s stomach tightened. The man laughed and turned to say something in the blond woman’s ear. Emma could tell by the way the woman’s eyes narrowe
d into pleased slits that his comment was very suggestive.
She felt like a voyeur watching the three of them, their bodies moving in tandem to the suggestive beat of the music, but Emma couldn’t look away. She was totally mesmerized by the sight. The man held the brunette’s waist with a gentle touch that surprised her. When he ran his lips along the woman’s throat, Emma found herself tilting her head as if he were kissing her.
Her pulse thrummed and her palms turned sweaty. Sudden heat spread through her body, making her dizzy. Seeking a distraction, she unbuttoned her thick jacket and gazed around the room, looking for the auburn-haired man. He’d be easier to spot in a crowd than the dark-headed guy. When she returned her gaze to the threesome on the floor once more, the man lifted his head and stared right at her.
Embarrassed to be caught staring, Emma quickly turned and made her way through the crowd toward the bar. Maybe the two men were having a drink. Frat boy and sorority girl were making out on the stool to her left. She ignored them and leaned across the bar to scan the patrons sitting on either end.
The bartender’s military-style buzz cut shifted forward with his raised eyebrows. “What’ll you have?”
Emma nodded. “I’ll have a dark beer.” More than once she’d shared a beer or two with her aunt. Mary might be in her mid-sixties, but she could hold her own against any sailor out there.
“Come on, baby. You don’t need a drink,” a woman said beside Emma, drawing her out of her musings.
Glancing to her right, Emma froze. The man from the dance floor had walked up to the bar. But it wasn’t his face that shocked her. It was his smell…that intriguing musky scent she’d come looking for. The blonde stroked his waist and hips, dancing in place behind him, while the brunette hung on his right arm.
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