BITTEN & BEHOLDEN
By
Heather McCorkle
Copyright © 2020 Heather McCorkle
Edited by Yelena Casale
Cover Design by Mibl Art.
All stock photos licensed appropriately.
Published in the United States by City Owl Press.
www.cityowlpress.com
For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher at [email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior consent and permission of the publisher.
For the Viking who keeps me warm at night.
PRAISE FOR HEATHER McCORKLE
“Kickass women, Icelandic warriors, and plenty of action!” – Kait Ballinger, Bestselling Author of The Execution Underground Series
“The characters have lots of depth to them and are strong, sexy and fun. A fabulous story line full of magic and danger that I was pulled into from the first page. I can't wait to read more of this series. I loved it.” – Petula Winmill, Book Reviewer
“Holy werewolves, Batman! What did I just read!! A winning combination of romance and heat, action, and drama, not to mention plenty of Norse lore and mythology to make a paranormal lover combust! This story was unique and quite different from the shifter stories we’ve come to know and love. Ms. McCorkle did a marvelous job with weaving her story and I am so looking forward to what’s coming next.” – Katrina Berry, Book Reviewer
“Excellent book!! Not your average shifter book. I really like the Norse bent to the storyline. Couldn't put it down and anxiously awaiting book 2 of the series.” – Susan Hall, Book Reviewer
“What a great story this is! One of the best things about it is that I can't think of a book to compare it too. The reason why I love that, is because the story is just so unique. Which is why I kept turning the page! Loved it!” – Ali Cross, USA Today Bestselling Author of Young Adult Fantasy
“There's trouble in the Dragon Empire, the kind that could start a war between dragons and the races of people…For those who love fantasy, dragons and a sweet love story, this book is definitely a must read for you!” – Geeky Book Gal
“Channeler's Choice is definitely my choice for a fantastic story. Heather McCorkle turns the heat up in her second novel of the Channeler series…McCorkle is an outstanding storyteller, and she totally blew me away again.” – I Heart YA Books
Children of Fenrir
Recommended Reading Order
Clawed & Cornered
Bitten & Beholden
Tempered & Turned
(coming soon from City Owl Press)
Bared & Betrayed
(coming soon from City Owl Press)
Contents
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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
Sneak Peek of Red Alert
Notes & Glossary
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
Additional Titles
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Want even more paranormal romance? Try RED ALERT by City Owl Author, Tina Moss, and find more from Heather McCorkle at www.heathermccorkle.com
Special Agent Jame Bradshaw has five dead senators on her hands...and a pack of trouble between her claws.
As the newest team leader for the Paranormal Crimes Division, this feisty shifter is smack in the middle of a political hornet’s nest waiting to implode. With the mass murder at the Capitol building and the city under a red alert, paranoia spreads like wildfire. She must solve this mystery before the higher-ups call for her head.
When former vampire vigilante and newly minted PCD agent, Drake, shows up to the scene, the case heats up and so does the tension.
Fighting off the charms of a lethal hundred-and-fifty-year-old vamp may prove Jame’s final undoing...in the most delicious ways. But if this alpha shifter doesn’t learn to let down her defenses and channel the passion into a true partnership, she’ll risk losing more than her badge.
BUY NOW!
Chapter One
Sonya
Caught up in the moment as I was, I didn’t see fate coming for me. I should have. There were signs. Like the animalistic growl rumbling in his chest as he kissed a wet line down my jaw to my neck. I wasn’t about to protest. The primal sound of it was sexy as hell, even if it did remind me of all the strange things I’d seen over the last week. His incredible amber eyes developed a shine that seemed unnatural, but I figured it was the drinks we’d had earlier getting to me. It had to be that, along with my wild imagination. His hips ground against mine, pushing me into the door of my downstairs apartment.
Again he asked to go inside, and again I refused. I certainly had nothing against premarital sex, but casual sex was another thing altogether. Especially with a guy I had only met two weeks ago. What had I been thinking when I’d invited him back here? It was bad enough that we were making out in the dark alley in front of my low-income apartment where my sketchy neighbors could come out at any moment. But then, Twin Falls, Idaho wasn’t exactly a hopping town after midnight. And seeing as my apartment building was only a little two-story number that housed less than fifty, the odds of anyone being around were slim to none. All the more reason not to go inside where temptation would lead me somewhere I wasn’t willing to go yet.
At least I wasn’t anymore. I needed to process the weirdness of our date and make sense of it first. Something strange was going on here. I felt it deep in my bones.
The gentle nips at my neck grew harder. Walking that razor edge of pleasure/pain made my blood pump so hard the cool Idaho night felt more like Arizona in the midst of summer. Until impossibly sharp teeth grazed the sensitive skin of my neck. People did not have razor sharp teeth!
“Ouch!”
Those teeth broke through my skin and sank deep into the muscles and meat of my neck. I screamed and writhed in pain but he had locked onto me with the strength of a boa constrictor. After an excruciating second, his teeth withdrew from me in a
rush.
One moment he was pressed up to me, the next he leaped back and stood against the building across the alley as if using it to brace himself. His mouth hung open and within it, not one set of fangs shone in the streetlight, but two, a set on the top and a set on the bottom, much like a canine. The worst part: they were covered in my blood. My blood.
“What the hell?” I yelled, a hand going to my neck.
My fingers came away slick and sticky with blood. He stood there, staring at me with those gleaming eyes, blood trickling over his bottom lip. Slowly, like a cat’s claws, his fangs retracted until they looked like no more than overly pointy teeth. Before tonight I had thought his toothy smile looked sexy. Now, not so much. If it weren’t for the blood making a steady trail down his chin, I would have thought I’d imagined the whole thing. Then there was the pain.
Keeping my eyes on him, I fumbled in my pocket for my keys with one hand while the other searched for the mace I kept on me. My fingers settled around the metal canister. Hand so steady it surprised even me, I took it out, flicked my thumb under the safety cap, and pointed it at him. The bastard just grinned, though it was a sad smile instead of one filled with humor. A cold chill of fear threatened to extinguish my anger.
“What. The. Hell?” I demanded slower, emphasizing each word, desperate to hang on to the anger that gave me courage.
His shoulders sagged, his defined chest caving in on itself as if he were trying to melt back into the wall. The button-up shirt he wore lay splayed open, giving me a good view of the blood that dripped from his chin onto his pale pecs. Only moments ago I had opened that shirt in my eagerness to touch his bare flesh. The memory made me shiver with revulsion. That gorgeous, fit body of his suddenly seemed to sport more hair than I remembered. Hair covered his bare chest where I didn’t recall him having any before, and the line of it from his belly button down into the waistband of his jeans had definitely thickened. The hand holding the mace began to shake, and I loathed myself a little for the weakness. He looked past the mace at me with something close to contempt.
“I’m sorry it happened this way. I didn’t want it to, I swear.” He glanced down the alley, then back at me. “Sonya, please, come with me and I’ll explain everything.”
Straightening, he adjusted the erection pushing against the fly of his jeans, as if I weren’t pointing mace at his half-naked body. The front step swam a bit. Damn, how deep had he bitten into me? I pressed one hand to the wound and kept the mace trained on him with the other. Freaked out and feeling exposed, I wanted nothing more than to dig my keys out of my jeans pocket and open my apartment door, but I didn’t dare. Dropping my guard even a little wasn’t an option.
Hot, sticky blood oozed through my fingers and ran down my neck. “You bit me, you son of a bitch!”
“I’m so sorry. I ran out of time.” Going stiff, he stood up straighter, eyes darting down the alley in both directions.
The alley swam, and not in a pleasant, too-much-Jack-Daniels kind of way.
“Get away from me, Raul. Now,” I said, doing my best to sound like the badass I totally did not feel like at the moment.
“No, Sonya. Listen, I’ll explain everything, but you need to come with me now,” he urged, reaching a hand toward me.
Soft yellow light from headlights outlined his spiky brown hair. Someone had parked at the other end of the parking lot, beyond the small bit of green space that edged the building. When the lights didn’t switch off, I realized whoever it was wanted to see us. I called out for help. The blinding bright light hid Raul’s expression from me until he turned his back to it. Damned if he didn’t look a bit toothier—and worried. The second part I liked; the first made me even more concerned than I already was.
He backed away and started down the sidewalk, moving away from the headlights. “Damn him. I will come back for you and explain everything,” he said in that sexy voice of his that made me want to vomit.
Light bounced off the green thread of the top rocker sewn to his black jacket. No matter how many times I had asked, he’d never told me what AVW—stitched onto the top rocker—stood for. The bottom rocker read Montana, revealing he belonged to some kind of group out of that state. Beyond that, I knew very little. Between the rockers sat a patch with strange symbols of circling knotwork woven into the shape of a canine with Norse runes all around it. That told me even less. Damn it, I should have known better.
“Not a chance, you freak. You ever come back here and I will kill you.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to kill spiders, but he didn’t know that.
White teeth flashed in a snarl that was directed at something behind me before he dashed off. I wanted to follow him, make sure he left, but I couldn’t move. Hell, I couldn’t hold the mace up anymore. Before it could fall, I shoved it in my pocket, having to try twice. Soft footsteps padded from the direction of the headlights. While my fuzzy mind regretted having pocketing the mace, part of me realized it was probably a concerned neighbor who had heard me yell. But none of my neighbors were as tall and muscular as the man who came running down the alley toward me. I wasn’t sure if it was the light, or if he had short golden hair, but one thing I couldn’t miss were his ice-blue eyes. A woman could get caught in eyes like that. The man looked like he’d walked right out of one of the old Norse legends my dad had liked to tell me when I was a kid.
Everything swayed. Or maybe it was me; I couldn’t tell. Strong hands gripped my arms, holding me upright. The skin of his hands tingled against my arms, growing warmer the longer he held on, until it felt like we might melt together into one. Something in my fuzzy brain tried to tell me that wouldn’t be a bad thing, not at all. Those ice-blue eyes snagged my gaze and held on with a vengeance. Heat to rival that of an inferno lay behind those glacial blues, and it pulled at me as if it wanted to consume me.
“You should get inside and lock the door behind you. I will go after him.” His voice was accented with the right timbre to set my nerves vibrating in a very good way.
Survival instincts broke through the haze caused by blood loss. Yeah, that had to be it, the blood loss. I thrust my hand in my pocket and pulled out my keys. As I turned them in the lock, I forced my weary head up so I could look at the blond man one more time. I wanted to remember his face, and not just because he was the only witness to the assault on me.
“Careful, he’s dangerous,” I warned.
“So am I. Do not worry about me. I will be back to make sure you are all right,” he said.
I turned the knob and nearly fell as the door opened inward. Just before I closed it, I heard the man curse in a language I didn’t recognize but that tickled at my memory. Several sets of footsteps pounded on the pavement. I slammed the door shut, threw the deadbolt, and bolted the other two locks for good measure. On weak legs I made my way to the bedroom, using the walls and furniture to keep myself upright. Coagulating blood forced me to peel my hand from my neck so I could use it.
Blood ran in a hot trail from the wound, down my neck and between my breasts. In this light I couldn’t tell by the color alone how bad it was, but the flow was entirely too steady for my comfort. The fact that my heart was working overtime from the stress didn’t help. Halfway there, with my stomach threatening to revolt and my vision swimming, I realized I should have grabbed my cell phone off the coffee table. Too late now. Besides, I didn’t want the cops involved. Damn police only made things worse, a lesson I had learned all too well growing up. I’d go back for the phone in a moment and call Nikki from work. She’d take me to the hospital faster than an ambulance could get here. First, I had to stop the bleeding, and I was closer to the bathroom than the living room. Shock would soon slow my heart and with it my blood flow, giving me plenty of time to get to an ER. With six years into my medical degree I could do just as much—or more, in most cases—to stop the bleeding as an EMT anyway.
Hoping I didn’t split my head open on the doorframe, I let go of the wall and took a leap of faith by crossi
ng the open space to the bathroom. My hand left a bloody streak on the door as I stumbled through. The vanity offered me something stable to lean on and was thankfully at the right height so I didn’t have to lift my hand to do so, because at that point, I didn’t think I could.
From within the vanity mirror my ghost stared back at me. Or at least that’s what it looked like. My bronze skin looked sickly pale, a hue I strove hard to avoid with as many hours in the sun as I could manage while working full time at the bar and studying for college with plans to go back the next semester. Blood stained my straight-as-an-arrow black hair, making it cling to my neck and left breast. I didn’t want to peel away the hair, didn’t want to see, but I had to. Swallowing my fear, I pulled my hair away. The pain caused my vision to go dark, but it came back after a few blinks.
Bright red blood flowed from not one but four holes, two above and two below my carotid. They weren’t deep enough to show muscle or bone, but the sight of them was enough to make my stomach twist. I definitely should have grabbed my cell phone. I could have at least called one of the waitresses from the bar to come get me. With one hand bracing myself against the sink, I opened the vanity with the other and grabbed the hydrogen peroxide. The way I figured it, a biker guy with a bizarre biting fetish and weird teeth was likely to carry some kind of germs. Even if he didn’t, I wanted to boil the freak’s saliva from my skin and this was the best way I could do it without actually using boiling water.
Bitten & Beholden (Children of Fenrir Book 2) Page 1
