by Reina Torres
LOCKE
MYSTIC MOUNTAIN
Reina Torres
Copyright © 2019 by Reina Torres
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Photographer - Golden Czermak - FuriousFotog
Model - Chase Ketron
Contents
WINTER - Book 1
XAVIER - Book 2
LOCKE - Book 3
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
About the Author
Also by Reina Torres
WINTER - Book 1
Aaron Winter has waited for nearly two decades to claim his mate and now he has his chance. He’s going to do everything he can to convince Celeste that she’s the only one for him… and his bear.
He’s had two dreams in his life: Turning Mystic Mountain Resort into a getaway for shape shifters and to have Celeste at his side. The town is excited as nearly all the residents are shifter themselves.
Celeste Olwin is at a turning point in her life. She raised her kids as a single mom, with Aaron as her friend and rock. She was already half in love with the man.
But Aaron has always kept his emotional distance from her and after all of this time he’s offering her a dream. There are still some questions she has about him, something she’s sure he’s hiding from her. She’s not sure if she can take that leap, because if he broke her heart now, she’d never survive.
Aaron knows he has to tell her who he really is if this is going to work between them, but to drag up old memories into the darkest night of her life may set her against him forever. Still, he can’t give up.
He’ll move a mountain to prove that he’ll protect her and love her like no one else could, because they were meant to be.
XAVIER - Book 2
His freedom and his solitude were everything to him… until he met her.
Xavier Salazar lives the life that he wants. He has his friends and his home carved into Mystic Mountain. It’s his retreat, his refuge. When a gorgeous woman shows up in town to help make the resort’s bar a brilliant success, he’s torn. Xavier is determined to drive her away, but his panther wants to touch her all over, hide her away in their den, and add to the family that he was slowly creating around himself.
Oh, he was going to fight his panther’s demands… hard. And yet, even he knew he was probably fighting a losing battle.
True Sinclair is at the top of her profession. Being a world class mixologist means she knows how to blend all kinds of things together. She just can’t fathom why Xavier treats her like he’s oil and she’s water. There was no doubt that he was combustible around her.
At first, he can’t seem to force himself to be civil or even make an effort to share the same town, but she finds herself drawn to the dichotomy warring inside of him.
True knows what he is and she knows what she wants, but she won’t wait around forever if the man who makes her blind with love and drunk with passion won’t even meet her halfway.
LOCKE - Book 3
She was his heart and he’d never let her go.
They say it’s the little things that make a house a home, but for Locke Ascher it was one single thing. His first breath of air in Mystic. It wasn’t just the fresh air of the quiet mountain town. It was the scent of shifters in the air. His whole life had been spent in a town composed solely of Lion shifters and that’s how it would always be. But Locke wanted more. Moving to Mystic was just the start of his new life.
Katherine Lincoln was on her first grand adventure. She knew that moving to Mystic was going to be an eye-opening experience, but the man who came to give her the keys to her new shop was drop dead gorgeous. So what if he could turn furry with fangs and his roar shook the windows, he says he belongs to her and she belongs to him. Heaven help her, but she’s willing to buy into the fantasy. Why not? What could she lose?
Well, when you’re ‘all in’ with something, you suddenly have everything to lose. And Locke’s past comes knocking on his door and threatens everything they’ve found together. What steps are they willing to take to get what they both want? A life together.
Prologue
True Salazar rolled her eyes heavenward and struggled to form the right words in her head. “Xavier, we have to-”
Her husband and mate closed his mouth over the mating mark on her body, nestled between her neck and shoulder. The light nip of teeth against skin had True shivering with need.
“Xavier-”
She felt his teeth dig in a little deeper as she felt his hands tug her jeans down over her hips. The same jeans she’d just pulled on.
“You know we can’t.” She said the words, but as she tried to wrestle the garment from his hands, her hips canted back, and she felt the hard line of his rather persuasive argument nestle against her. “Why?” Her question was barely a whisper of sound torn from her throat.
“Why?” His voice was slightly muffled against her neck until he leaned back. “Why am I trying to get my mate back in bed? I should think that was a given.” He skimmed his hand under the loose hem of her blouse. “After feeling our cub moving around inside of you, you think I’m going to share your time with half the town?”
She turned around, which was no easy feat considering how much she really did want to crawl back into bed with her panther. “It’s not half the town, and you know it. Katherine arrives today and you’re supposed to make sure that Locke is awake and sober enough to help her move her things into the cottage.”
Xavier was her snarly alpha mate, but at the moment he was pouting just a little. She had to focus and keep her mind off where that talented mouth had been less than an hour before.
“Xavier-”
He cut her off with a kiss that nearly overruled her determination for her task and sent them back to bed.
She managed a small sound of protest.
“Fine,” he grumbled against her lips. “I’ll make sure he’s awake, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll be sober.”
True could hear his concern for his friend, she felt it too. Locke had been struggling for over a month. After she’d been kidnapped almost under his lion’s nose, his pride and confidence had been wounded. No matter how many times she explained that it wasn’t his fault, he descended further and further into himself.
Her heart was hoping that the sudden arrival of her friend might draw him out of his dark moods and bring him back into the circle of family that surrounded him in Mystic.
True wrapped her arms around her mate and pressed a kiss to the throbbing pulse in Xavier’s neck. “I just want him to see the sunlight, okay? He needs us to drag him out of his lair for a little while.”
“And,” Xavier nipped at the tender lobe of her ear with his teeth, “you’re playing matchmaker. I know, don’t bother denying it.”
“Why would I.” She sighed as she pulled away from his indecently talented mouth. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
She watched as he raised a dark brow at her comments.
Before she’d taken the pregnancy test to confirm that she was expecting, she’d already predicted a number of love matches in Mystic. After her run in with a rather persistent spirit determined to find her own happy ever after, True had gained a peculiar knack for giving others their own.
And she was sure, deep down inside, that Katherine and Locke were destined to be mates.
“Now, go and get our lion and make sure he’s presentable, because we, my love, are about to turn his life around.”
One
One moment, Locke was wrapped up in a fitful sleep and the next, he was sprawled on his bedroom floor. He glared up at the man responsible, fangs pushing through his gums. “Asshole!”
“Idiot,” his friend countered. “And if I didn’t show up to dump your ass out of bed, you’d be late.”
Scratching the back of his neck, Locke turned his gaze to the windows and saw the sun just beginning to creep over the mountain. “Late? For what?”
Xavier looked over at the dresser and picked up the ring of keys. “You promised True that you’d go into town and meet her friend so we could get things ready for her at the cabin.”
Locke started to roll his eyes, but halted as the pain in his head put a quick stop to the motion. Growling, he laid back on the floor and covered his eyes with his forearm. “That’s tomorrow.”
“No.” Xavier’s tone didn’t even hold a tiny sliver of humor in it. “Today.”
A roar built up in Locke’s throat, but he swallowed it back. “Are you sure?”
Xavier’s snort came out more like a snarl. “You think I’d come over here and risk your lion trying to take a bite out of me for… what? A joke?”
“How would I know?” Locke groaned and started to sit up. He didn’t get very far on his own.
Xavier’s hand entered the field of his vision. “Need some help?”
He wasn’t going to answer him with words; he wasn’t ready to down that slice of humble pie.
Still, he grabbed a hold of Xavier’s offered hand and got up onto his feet.
He didn’t last long vertically and sat down heavily on the foot of the bed. “Look, I don’t think I can.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m in no condition to drive into town.”
“Right. You can’t be that hungover.”
Xavier took a step closer and a bottle fell and rolled away from his foot.
Locke hear Xavier cuss and let his head fall forward.
He had to keep his gaze cast down to avoid the ambient light, but his hearing was still sharp enough to hear the comments his friend made under his breath. Xavier crossed the room and Locke heard the telltale clink of glass.
Squinting against the sun, he looked up and saw the disapproving look in his friend’s eyes.
“Just how much did you drink last night?”
Locke managed to raise one shoulder in a shrug, but he saw Xavier’s eyes narrow. “Or was that two nights ago?”
The hint of bile crept up the back of Locke’s throat. “Look, I just don’t think I’d be the best welcoming committee for anyone right now.”
“You said you would.”
Locke made a half-hearted gesture. “I’m a mess, man.”
“First real thing you’ve said in a while. Now, get up and take a bath.” Xavier’s nose wrinkled. “Take several and then get down to the shop and give Katherine her keys. You know, exactly what you promised True that you’d do.”
Locke flopped down on the bed and yawned, his jaws stretching wide. “I said I can’t go.”
“Don’t care.” Xavier’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a choice. Whatever you have going on in your head, stop it. If you think you have something to make up to True, and you know she thinks you don’t, then get your ass up and get moving.” He pointed at the keys on the dresser. “I need to get going before True starts trying to overdo since I’m not there at the cabin.”
Xavier gave him one last baleful look and left, leaving the front door of the house wide open.
Glaring at the opening, Locke Ascher let his lion roar through his vocal cords. “Close the damn door, asshole!”
Through the window, he could see Xavier walking away from the house with an easy wave and a smile on his face.
Locke’s lion flashed an image of the kind of damage he could do to Xavier’s face into Locke’s head.
Locke started to shake his head only to realize that he was still suffering the aftereffects of his drinking the night before. His brain ached. His face ached.
Letting out a sigh, he pressed his fingers to his temples and reminded his lion that Xavier was a shifter too.
Sulking, his lion slipped into the dark shadows of their link and let out a pointed sigh. He was grumpy too, but for admittedly different reasons.
Sure, his lion was pissed at Xavier, but he also sided with him too.
His best friend and his lion wanted him to get up and get on with life.
They were both tired of him hunkering down in his house. Aaron disapproved of it too, but the Polar Bear shifter had his paws full with his mate and cubs. Aaron didn’t have the time or inclination to do more than pointedly suggest that Locke ‘get off your tail.’
He was halfway hoping that Xavier would knock up his mate so they could focus on their cubs and leave him alone.
The thought led where it usually did and fell into a deep cavern of silence.
Yeah.
Alone.
A soft snarl in his head reminded him that his lion was a little sensitive about those thoughts. Who knew the grumpy cat could be such a baby?
Locke hissed as the lion sank claws into their link.
Fine.
Locke got up and walked outside and toward the pond. He clapped a hand over his mouth and growled at the rough growth of hair he felt under his hand. Lifting his other hand, he rubbed them over his jaw and chin, scowling even more. He didn’t have a mirror in his bedroom and didn’t bother looking into it when he went to take a piss, but he could have sworn he’d shaved a day or two ago.
That you remember.
Ah, the peanut gallery. He didn’t bother telling his lion to shut up, it wouldn’t listen anyway.
Working at the button fly of his jeans, he moved toward the edge of the pond and dropped them at the edge of the water as he threw himself into the frigid water.
A string of colorful expletives rolled through his head as he twisted and turned in the water trying to right himself in the pond and find some footing on the floor.
The cold worked like magic in chasing away the sluggish feeling in his limbs and clearing his head.
It might have been a good thing in some ways, but it always brought his actions the night before into crystal clarity.
He’d gone way beyond stupidity in the number of drinks he’d consumed. Then again, he’d downed just enough to forget what a failure he’d been.
You need to stop.
Locke shook his head, flinging droplets of water in arcs around his body. He heard a bit of truth in his Lion’s words, but that was all he was willing to hear. When he left Sylvan City, he had no home to speak of. No real direction besides the idea of getting away, far away from the family which had forced him out.
With his whole life cast adrift, he’d wandered across a few states looking for someplace to disappear. Instead, he’d found himself under the suspicious eye of many. Human and shifter alike, everyone seemed to sense that he wasn’t going to fit in.
It kept him moving.
Searching.
Until he’d all but given up.
Running into the woods, losing his human form, and giving his lion free rein, they ran for what must have been hours.
Long past sunset and into the night, over the crest of the mountain and down into the valley.
It wasn’t until both animal and man were aching with exhaustion and in dire need of water that they stopped beside a pool of water fed from above. The water had been cool and sweet, the air calm, and for one moment he’d been sure that he was hallucinating the whole thing.
Until two glowing green eyes looked out of the darkness.
The sleek black form of a jaguar moved into the light of the moon and Locke knew his life was likely over.
The animal paced through the moonlight, keeping its cool green gaze on him.
For the first and probably the
last time, Locke knew his life was literally not his own.
Oh, he would have put up a fight, but he and his lion knew that they were weak. Muscles ached and shook, lungs heaved. It wouldn’t be a long fight, but it was a fight he’d give the jaguar if that’s what he wanted.
Instead, the jaguar padded up and laid down beside them.
Locke still remembered the way tension had bled out of his body as the jaguar beside him sat in companionable silence.
Xavier had been his friend and brother ever since. Acceptance was just as easy as that.
And yet, Locke submerged himself beneath the water, Xavier was pushing him to shake off this ‘mood’ as he called it. Xavier and True didn’t fault him for what happened. They just couldn’t understand why he still held himself accountable.
His lion didn’t either.
But for Locke it was simple.
His responsibility that night was to watch True. He was supposed to keep her safe. It didn’t matter that True had explained that he’d been under a glamour spell used to distract him.
He hadn’t been able to voice his reasoning. The real reason he was still so damn angry with himself.
As his lungs began to ache for air as he sank toward the bottom of the pond, he let the shame of his failure press in on him.
How could he protect a mate of his own if he could fail his blood brother? How could he be trusted to shield her from harm if he allowed Xavier’s mate to slip away under his watch?
His lion snarled at him from the dark, no doubt tired of his self-loathing, but things were easier for the beast inside of him.
Air, human. We both need air.
Letting out the last bit of air in his lungs, Locke felt his feet touch bottom.
