REVENGE IS SWEET, BUT SO IS DESIRE
On the hunt for his alpha’s killer, Lycan Matthias Marshall is willing to go to any lengths to end his quest. Even if that means kidnapping the enemy. Well-trained tracker Trinity Caldwell can take him back to her pack and their treacherous leader. Yet convincing Trinity to betray her kind won’t be easy. Nor will denying the pull his body feels toward hers.
Matthias has buried his heart along with his mate. Desire...love...have no part in his plan. But when Trinity risks her life for his, Matthias must decide how much vengeance means to him.
He stood there in the moonlight, a perfectly formed warrior. And he was staring at her.
Lycans always shifted naked. Trinity had seen others, and others had seen her. But for the first time, she was vitally aware of her body, as well as another’s.
She stood tall, her shoulders back. The cool wind played with her hair, the tendrils caressing her bare shoulders. His gaze skittered over her, from the top of her head, halting briefly at her lips before continuing its journey downward. When he raised his gaze, she sucked in her breath at the clear and visible hunger in his eyes.
Trinity couldn’t ever remember anyone staring at her so openly, so intently, so freely displaying his desire.
She stared back at Matthias for a moment. Powerful. Strong. The ring on the chain glinted in the moonlight.
And he bore the brand of another woman.
SHANNON CURTIS grew up picnicking in graveyards (long story) and reading by torchlight, and has worked in various roles, such as office admin manager, logistics supervisor and betting agent, to mention a few. Her first love—after reading, and her husband—is writing, and she writes romantic suspense, paranormal and contemporary romance. From faeries to cowboys, military men to business tycoons, she loves crafting stories of thrills, chills, kills and kisses. She divides her time between being an office administrator for the Romance Writers of Australia and creating spellbinding tales of mischief, mayhem and the occasional murder. She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her best-friend husband, three children, a woolly dog and a very disdainful cat. Shannon can be found lurking on Twitter, @2BShannonCurtis, and Facebook or you can email her at [email protected]—she loves hearing from readers. Like...LOVES it. Disturbingly so.
Books by Shannon Curtis
Harlequin Nocturne
Lycan Unleashed
LYCAN UNLEASHED
Shannon Curtis
www.millsandboon.com.au
Dear Reader,
I’m so excited to introduce you to the Shadow Breeds series, and to Matthias and Trinity in particular. As the first in the series, it was so much fun having my characters show me this new world they inhabit, and it was so easy and tempting to get lost in it. This book was a fast write for me. I couldn’t stop. Think pj’s, candy wrappers and messy hair, and you get an idea of my compulsion to write this. We’re not talking charmingly, eccentrically tousled. We’re talking kind of gross. For that, though, I have to thank you. Yep, you. It’s your fault.
A little while ago I sat down with a group of readers and we discussed what we really wanted to read. Shadow Breeds is born from that. There is a prequel, Tribal Law, that was written for the Australian Romance Readers Association. I so appreciate that Harlequin Nocturne has given the series a wonderful new home. So thank you.
Thank you for taking the time to share what you like to read, for debating the merits of traits, experiences, values...and muscles. You’ve inspired this series, and I love how our conversations together have fired my imagination. I hope you enjoy reading Lycan Unleashed, and more in the Shadow Breeds series. Please feel free to email me at [email protected] or at www.shannoncurtis.com—I’d love to hear from you!
Shannon
This one is for Eugenia. For all the giggles,
the junk-food comas, the heartthrob crushes
and the enduring good times. So many years,
and yet we haven’t aged a bit.
No, wait, that should be “we haven’t matured a bit.”
Matthias and Trinity are for you.
Okay, so mainly Matthias.
Contents
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
Excerpt from Enchanted Guardian by Sharon Ashwood
Chapter 1
“What the hell are they doing?” Zane Wilder whispered.
“They’re training,” Matthias murmured. He tucked his ring and the chain it hung on around his neck under his T-shirt, not wanting a glint of sunlight on metal to give away their position. Both he and Zane lay prone on the ground as they peered over the edge of the ridge. A group of juveniles were clustered below in a clearing, and all listened avidly to the woman instructing them.
He and Zane were on a scouting mission, gathering as much information as possible on the Woodland Pack. Four months earlier his alpha prime, Jared Gray, had been poisoned in a dentist’s chair. The dentist, Ryder Galen, had ultimately proved his innocence and uncovered the conspiracy between Rafe Woodland, alpha prime of Woodland Pack, and Arthur Armstrong, the head of one of the oldest families in the capital city, Irondell. Arthur was currently remanded to a Reform prison, awaiting his trial.
Arthur Armstrong was a human, not a werewolf, so his crime—being a crossbreed crime—fell under the control of Reform Authority. Getting justice from that individual was out of his hands. Rafe Woodland, though, was a different matter entirely.
As neighboring werewolf packs, his own pack, Alpine, had requested to transfer the matter out of the Reform justice system, to deal with it under tribal jurisdiction. The Reform justice system governed all of the tribes, be they shadow breed or human, and had to be seen as fair and just for all. There were certain cases, though, that could be transferred to the tribes. In this case, when a werewolf from one pack coordinated the murder of a werewolf in another pack—especially if the murdered werewolf was an alpha prime—then the transfer was almost automatic. Rafe Woodland was proving a hard lycan to catch, though. He’d refused to acknowledge the charges and refused to turn himself in to Alpine.
So now they were working on plan B, perving on—er, no, scouting out the enemy. He eyed the woman below.
The sunlight filtered through the trees, picking out copper highlights in her braided brown hair. He wished he could see her eyes, but they were too far off. She turned away, her back to them, and Matthias couldn’t help noticing the indentation of her slender waist, the sexy curve of her hips, the way her jeans cupped her trim butt. She had an athletic figure that drew his attention, and he grew hard as he eyed her lean grace as she walked around the clearing, instructing her charges.
A cool breeze washed over him, a sign that the chill snows of winter were just around the corner. It teased the back of his neck, and he could almost imagine it was her fingers caressing him, playing with him, teasing him. Tempting him. He watched her hands as
she spoke, the smooth, rolling gestures hypnotic and innately sensual. He wanted those hands on him. The lust he felt now was at first uncomfortable, then painful, and wholly surprising and unwelcome.
His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like the rise of desire within. Didn’t like it at all. He told himself he was merely surveying the enemy, that his intense interest—not lust—was completely warranted. She was undeniably sexy, moving with a lithe fluidity that called to a part of him he’d trapped and buried. His senses sharpened. His body throbbed in time with the slow, languid thump of his heart. The leaves in the surrounding trees rustled, whispering encouragement. He took a deep breath to calm his body’s reaction, and breathed in the loamy richness of the earth, the rock on which they lay hard and unrelenting. He caught the whiff of a scent, something he knew by instinct was hers, a delicate trail of spice amidst the fragrant forest. He dug his fingers into the stone outcrop as he battled the sensuality that was flooding him. He wanted to leap down, grab her and carry her off. The beast within him unfurled, awakened by his reactions, stretching, arching.
This was not the time to lose himself in an attraction, damn it. He was tempted, though. Tempted to ignore his goal, the reason he was spying on the enemy, to abandon his friend and surrender to the lust that was licking at his defenses, like a bushfire consuming the land.
The woman commanded the attention of several adolescents as she spoke with them quietly. Matthias felt a smile tease at the corners of his mouth as he watched a little boy of maybe five years old standing next to her. Once again, his reaction surprised him as much as it displeased him. The kid mimicked her stance, nodding and frowning as she spoke to the group. A man stood behind the class, and Matthias wondered briefly who he was and what his connection was to the woman. Something deep, dark and possessive rose within him, and yes, so did a hint of jealousy, of envy, that this man was within her trusted circle. The man nodded, then jogged away into the undergrowth.
The woman held up her hands, calling their focus back to her as she assigned partners within the group. Her back was to him, but her movement raised her shirt and jacket, calling his attention back to her butt, her waist. This reaction he had to her was new. Alien. The kid started to wander off, but she grabbed hold of the back of the younger kid’s hooded pullover, not once breaking her focus from the adolescents as she gently pulled the child back to her side. Matthias sucked in a breath as, just for a moment, the scene below merged with a memory he’d ruthlessly ignored and never thought to revisit, of another woman, another boy...another time.
The kid frowned up at her, folding his arms as his lips pouted, but the woman ruffled his hair absently as she kept talking. After a few more minutes of instructions, she clapped her hands and gestured to the edge of the clearing, and the pairs of adolescents took off in multiple directions.
“That must be the Woodland Tracker Prime,” Zane murmured. “I’ve heard she’s good. One of the best.”
Matthias raised his eyebrows briefly at his friend’s remarks. The guardian had a knack for acquiring intel. So far he’d been quite valuable in getting information on the Woodland pack. Although he had to admit, even he’d heard of the Woodland Tracker Prime.
“Hmm.” Matthias didn’t take his gaze off the woman as she finally turned her attention to the boy. She folded her arms and tipped her head to the side. Her brown braid slid forward over her shoulder, and his body tightened. He wanted to touch that hair, unravel the braid and watch it slide through his fingers. He wondered if it was as silky as it looked. Again, he was stunned by his curiosity—no, his need—to know more of this woman.
She was tall, he could tell, despite their angle of viewing. Damn, she had great legs. Long, slender and encased in denim, her coltish frame had just enough curves to catch and hold his attention. Those legs...wrapped around his waist...
He clenched his teeth. This was not the time to get horny over a she-wolf, for God’s sake—no matter how long it’d been since he’d looked at another woman as more than just a pack mate. The woman below was Woodland. The enemy. Her family—hell, maybe even she, had been responsible for Jared’s death. The pack was systematically thumbing its collective nose at the rest of the lycan tribe. They had killed his friend, his mentor, his alpha prime.
And she was one of them.
Everyone at Woodland would pay for what they’d done to Alpine. Just the thought that she was part of the enemy pack—and in a trusted position, if she was training juveniles—was enough to snap everything back into perspective. He wasn’t there to ogle. He was there to gather information, maybe even hunt.
From this distance, he couldn’t make out what was being said. The kid dragged his toe in the dirt, and she squatted down so that her eyes were level with his. Her jeans tightened around her butt, although it was the sight of the woman leaning in to the little boy that brought a tightness to his throat, the emotion taking him by surprise. He shifted, trying to shrug the moment off. She looked nothing like Cara.
“One would almost think Woodland care for their young, too,” Zane commented in a rough whisper.
“They’re still lycans,” Matthias murmured. And as such, had similar weaknesses to the rest of the lycan tribe, weaknesses that could be exploited. “They’ll still value life.” The young were to be protected, nurtured. Loved.
Whatever the woman said cheered up the kid, as he started to strut about the clearing. He’d point at something, and she’d either shake her head or shrug, walking behind him with her hands clasped behind her back. She was relaxed, patiently answering the questions the boy asked. Eventually he reached the point where the man had stood, and looked up at his instructor. She smiled and nodded, giving him a high five, then knelt beside him, tracing something in the dirt. The kid nodded, took a few steps, then pointed. She gave him a thumbs-up, rising to her feet to follow.
Zane started to shuffle back from the edge, but Matthias’s hand shot out, clutching his forearm. They both froze. The woman halted at the edge of the clearing and cocked her head to the side. She turned to slowly scan the area. Matthias didn’t move. His muscles clenched tight, and his breath caught in his chest. The reason they’d picked this vantage point was because they couldn’t be seen from below, yet the woman’s gaze remained glued to the ridge for a moment, before finally drifting on. The boy must have asked her something, for she turned to him, a reassuring smile on her face as she held her arms out. He ran up to her, and she grasped his wrists, swinging him up and over her shoulders until he could wrap his arms around her neck. She carried him, piggyback-style, into the woods, furtively glancing over her shoulder as she went.
Matthias relaxed once she was out of sight.
“Did she see us?” Zane asked as he retreated from the ridge.
Matthias shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Should we go after her? She could prove valuable.”
He shook his head. “No.” He kept scanning the trees, but it was as though the brown-haired woman had melted into the forest, disappearing like a wisp of mist. He smiled. They wouldn’t go after her, not now.
Maybe later.
* * *
Trinity Caldwell slung her backpack over her shoulder as she stepped into the great hall. Fires burned from the wall sconces bolted into the stone, casting flickering shadows down the walls and across the dirt floor as members of her pack went about their daily business. Not many spoke, though, and most walked with their eyes downcast as they went about their tasks. The hall had almost returned to normal, although there were still some repair areas cordoned off. Just over a month ago an explosion had ripped through the hall and some of the main corridors, and there were still some ongoing issues as a result. At least Rafe had acceded to her request for routine structural inspections.
She sighed as she stepped brusquely along. They still weren’t quite sure how the explosion had occurred. One moment Rafe was interrogating a
half-blood vampire lawyer and her client, Ryder Galen, a dentist accused of murdering the alpha prime from a neighboring pack, and in the next, Galen had somehow managed to trigger an explosion that knocked all those in the hall unconscious. Thankfully, nobody died. Not from the explosion, anyway. One lycan had lost his teeth, courtesy of the dentist, and two guardians had died in the forest on their way to returning the vampire lawyer to the nearby vampire colony. Well, at least that was what she and her pack had thought at the time. It turned out Rafe, her pack’s alpha prime, had subtly instructed the guardians to permanently remove the vampire lawyer. She’d killed those guardians in self-defense. All deaths that could have been avoided, damn it. She thought of Jax. His father had been one of the guardians slain in the forest—a guardian prime, no less. Her pack was still reeling from the death of a highly respected, highly valued warrior. His partner, dealing with a young son and the death of her mate, was struggling to cope.
Trinity sighed. She knew how it felt, losing one parent and having another swept away in a tide of mourning. Well, she’d keep an eye on the kid. At least Jax would know he wasn’t invisible. Not around Trinity, anyway. She’d taken him out on one of the juvenile training sessions, and the kid had done well. He needed a short leash, though, she’d noticed. He had a tendency to wander off and get into mischief. She smiled. He was a good kid.
She made her way toward a little-used corridor that would lead her deeper into the mountain and then out the other side. She skirted along the rim of the great hall, nodding occasionally to friends and family as she passed them. Some acknowledged her. Others acted as though they didn’t see her—but that was a reasonable reaction, she kept telling herself. She wasn’t going to let it hurt her, not like it had when she was a teen. The great hall was a large, long cave, and along the rim the stone wall had natural pockets of space used for storage or as alcoves used for sundry tasks and private conversations.
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