This was more than sex. It was electric, and as she released her weight over him, feeding his erection into her welcoming body and savoring the thrill of his hard penetration, she whispered, “Oh, Kaleb, I’ve wanted this for so long.”
“I love you,” he told her as she came to rest flush against his hips, his hard, thick dimensions filling her fully.
She felt so tight by comparison and breathed hard and fast as a hot sweat broke out across her skin, experiencing the sweet, stinging pleasure of her body adjusting to accommodate his large size.
Soon she began moving and rocking and riding him.
Kaleb took hold of her hips and helped her thrust him deeper inside of her. As the rhythm of their lovemaking increased, he reached one hand up and squeezed her tender breast and she cried out at the added stimulation.
This was too hot, too sexy. Kaleb felt too good. Almost as soon as he’d filled her with his hard body, she’d been thrust into the first swell of a strong-building climax.
She slapped her palm against the firm wall of his chest, leaning forward and bouncing with him on the bed. The new forward-leaning angle helped the curve of his pubic bone to press and massage into her most sensitive spot, and she cried out again as another hard swell of arousal swept through her.
As it did, her body rising further and further and closer and closer towards a powerful orgasm, she locked her eyes with his. This was her man. Her werewolf. And merging their bonding bodies together felt right. It felt perfect. Meant to be.
The she felt it. The first clamp of her exploding climax.
Kaleb reached for her, pulled her down, chest-to-chest, and held her tightly as she continued to thrust, harder and faster, their bodies bouncing as one on the bed.
His lips found hers just as her orgasm swelled and peaked.
She moaned into his mouth then pressed her lips hard to his, feeling the hot power of his own orgasm shooting through her.
“Oh, Lucy,” he groaned into her mouth between hard kisses.
Gradually, she slowed her hips, collapsed against his hot body, and they breathed heavily together until their bodies calmed as one.
“It’s time,” he told her, and she barely had the strength to lift her head.
He took her wrist before she could even process what he was about to do.
His incisors turned to fangs in an instant, which he sank into the tender skin of her inner wrist, drawing blood.
She winced, but he didn’t let go, only tore a gash into his own wrist and, pressing their wounds together, mixed their flowing blood.
It stung, hot and slippery, and the next thing Lucy knew, her entire body was contorting, her bones turning to glass, her skin flaring hot as fur broke through.
In the blink of an eye, she’d transformed into a wolf.
A golden, shimmering wolf.
And when she cut her wolf eyes up to Kaleb, he’d shifted as well.
Their mating continued, two wolves merging in animalistic heat, and the sex felt just as good if not better.
Soon the ritual was complete.
They’d bonded for all of eternity.
And Lucy could feel in the depths of her soul that she was now Kaleb Quinn’s one true mate.
She had never felt happier in her entire life.
Chapter Twenty-Three
KALEB
The heart of Devil’s Fist was in full celebration as the bright, Wyoming sun shined down on Main Street. The sky was blue with big, fluffy popcorn clouds, and if Kaleb didn’t know better, he’d think that darkness had never befallen this quaint, storybook town.
Lucy looked more beautiful than ever in her flowing, yellow sundress. She’d gotten herself all dolled up for Grandmother Sasha’s birthday parade.
Lucy had organized it. She’d convinced the sheriff to close off the length of Main Street for the parade. Though Lucy, Kaleb, and all the Quinns knew that Sasha was far older than one hundred, the sheriff had been easily convinced, and since no one else in the history of the Fist had made it to that ripe old age, he hadn’t hesitated to allow the celebration.
Residents had lined the blocks, eating cotton candy and giant lollipops. Children sat on their parents’ shoulders to watch a marching band high-step it on by, listening to the exuberant music.
Everyone was in high spirits, even all of the Quinn brothers. Troy was standing with his arm around Reece, and beside him were Shane, Conor, and Dean. But none were higher than Kaleb’s.
He’d bonded with the love of his life.
No matter what happened from this moment onward, the good the bad and the ugly, he would go through it with her.
There was no greater feeling in the world.
Grandmother Sasha, on the other hand, seemed more than a bit perturbed by the celebration. She couldn’t for the life of her understand what all the fuss was about, and it had taken more than an hour of Lucy’s effort to rouse the elderly woman from her little, stone house on the northern edge of Yellowstone.
Seeing Sasha now, as she sat perched in a float that had been made to look like the Tetons, was a real hoot. Sasha made a half-hearted effort to wave like the Queen of England to all of the residents as they cheered for her astounding age—one hundred years old! and here’s to another century, Sasha!
Kaleb wrapped his arm around Lucy, leaned in and kissed her soft cheek, and as she smiled up at him, he said, “Here’s to our next one hundred years.”
“Here, here,” she agreed before kissing him. “And the next one hundred years after that.”
***
From around the corner of Trout Street, he lurked, watching the parade as it inched up Main Street.
He should’ve killed Lucy Cooper twelve years ago when he’d had the chance.
Dante seethed with anger as he watched the parade floats nearing then ducked around the corner just as Sasha Quinn rolled lazily by.
So many happy faces.
It made him sick.
But he was increasing his army.
Soon the damned would outnumber the mortals, outnumber the werewolf pack that should have been his by now.
Devil’s Fist would be his kingdom to rule.
It was only a matter of time.
He would let nothing stop him from claiming the throne that was so rightfully his.
SHANE
Chapter One
SHANE
The parade might have ended, but the festivities were still going strong.
The length of Main Street had been barricaded off from Bison Road to Trout Street for the celebration of Grandmother Sasha’s one hundredth birthday. The whole town had turned up to partake. Residents who had cheered for Sasha’s incredible milestone as the floats had rolled by were now indulging in all the little pop-up shops that lined the sidewalks—street vendors selling jams and homemade peanut butter or pulled pork on slider buns, local artists under white canopies offering their one-of-a-kind jewelry or silk-screened tee-shirts, at the far end were a handful of rides for the children.
Shane watched all of it, the collective joy that spanned the length of the street, but he didn’t crack a smile over any of it.
Shane Quinn rarely smiled.
The locals ‘round these parts liked to assume that his serious, hardened demeanor was likely the unavoidable result of having served his country overseas. He was aware of the rumors, had heard the whispered comments whenever he stepped into the diner or the bar. That one never made it back from the war was the general consensus. Mentally, maybe he hadn’t, but none of them had a damn clue as to which war had scarred him so deeply. Shane looked about thirty-three years old, and up until five years ago he had been on active duty, but he was far older than that. And he was a werewolf. He’d served in more wars, reaching all the way back to the Mexican-American one. As far as Shane was concerned, there was a war unfolding right here in Devil’s Fist, and these blissfully ignorant people were none the wiser.
He’d like to keep it that way, and he didn’t mind the gossip and idle c
hatter about him. Not one bit. It helped people keep their distance. He didn’t put off a friendly air and so he was never met with companionable small-talk. That’s how he liked it. He even went so far as to dress the part, sticking to his old military fatigues no matter how hot it got.
Shane stood at six feet even. His shoulders were broad, his musculature built, a real tank of a man who no one was crazy enough to mess with. He kept his brown hair cropped tightly against his scalp in a crew cut, the sides and nape so short that they looked shaved clean. Today he was wearing a black tank-top and army pants, his black military boots laced up tight. He’d gone easy on the weapons, however, wearing only one Glock holstered at his shoulder and a row of Ka-Bar knives snugged into a strap around his thigh. Shane had one tattoo, the same as all his brothers. The length of his muscular forearm was tatted with a howling wolf in silhouette, the Quinn clan crest.
The late afternoon sun was cutting down the length of the street, heating things up and causing his chest to break out in a light sweat, summer closing in on the Fist and all. He didn’t mind the discomfort of it. It kept him sharp and alert. Alive. And that’s how he’d need to stay if he wanted to smell Dante Alighieri from a mile off—the real devil of Devil’s Fist.
His eldest brother, Troy, had watched the parade roll by with his arm around his one true mate, Reece, and now they were huddled up in front of one of the meat vendors. Reece must have gotten a hankering for beef, he figured.
Troy stood at a towering 6’4” and was heavily tatted. His hair was at least three shades darker than Shane’s, but his dark, inky eyes and strong jawline held enough resemblance that no one would mistake the relation. Reece, by contrast, was cute as a button, standing at 5’4” with a freckled nose and brown, shoulder-length hair. They made for a cute couple, but Kaleb and his one true mate, Lucy, were right up there. Lucy was slender as a pixie with long, flowing blonde hair and blue eyes that sparkled as charmingly as her personality. Shane could barely comprehend that she’d managed to tame his brother’s seemingly unstoppable prowess. Kaleb had been known as the playboy of Devil’s Fist, but all that had changed the second Lucy tore through his life.
As Kaleb and Lucy neared the meat vendor, eager to get a taste of the Foxhill Family Sliders, Shane had to wonder about his own one true mate. Who was she? Where was she? And would he have to wait another hundred years to meet her?
As soon as the thought washed over him, he kicked it right out of his mind.
Kaleb might have been so deeply entwined with Lucy that their eternal bond had brought him back from the dead thanks also to her Astral powers, and Reece might have been so clearly marked and destined for Troy that nothing could’ve ever kept them apart, but that didn’t mean that there was someone out there for Shane, he reminded himself. Yes, as a Royal, as a natural born Quinn, there was likely a woman out there who was marked for him, who had been brought into this world to be his other half, the one true mate who would ensure his invulnerability, his immortality that was his birthright. But there was no guarantee of it. None whatsoever.
Shane had been brought into this world—kicking and screaming—alone. Born angry and ready to fight, that’s how he’d lived his life. He was a loner, through and through, a real dark horse. And if his status in that regard never changed, then so be it. He was designed for war, not love. There was great honor in knowing what you were and embracing it, and that’s exactly what Shane was planning to keep doing.
As Kaleb and Lucy stepped away from the meat vendor, having gotten themselves some juicy sliders, they joined Troy and Reece, who were already chowing down beside Shane’s other brothers, Conor and Dean.
A former Marine, Conor was a lean 6’1” but had, unlike Shane, shed his military persona as soon as he’d returned to the Fist from Afghanistan. His light brown hair had long since grown out into a shaggy, boyish, almost-bedhead style. But like Shane, he only had one tattoo—the clan crest. Dean, by contrast, had never served and was built like a wrestler despite his 6’2” frame. His thick, brown cowlicked hair and dark smattering of tattoos that nearly covered every inch of skin called to mind how he was the baby of the brothers, always eager to prove himself.
Shane would easily give his life to save any of them, that was the depth of his love for his brothers. Luckily, both Troy and Kaleb were now protected, having bonded with their one true mates. It wasn’t easy to kill a werewolf, but Shane liked knowing that his two older brothers were no longer at risk of losing their lives to Dante Alighieri, if and when the rogue werewolf struck next in his twisted efforts to reclaim a throne that was never meant for him.
Shane felt his jaw clench just thinking about it and shoved his large hand into the front pocket of his army fatigues, feeling the purple amethyst crystal their grandmother had supplied him with. All five brothers had one, but it seemed the rules had changed. The crystals were meant to heat up, white-hot and searing, if Dante was near. But they’d been stone cold for awhile now. Shane had determined he would have to rely on his werewolf intuition and his military-trained instincts if he wanted fair warning that the bastard half-breed was closing in.
He was jarred from dark reverie when he spotted Whitney Abernathy across the crowded street.
“She’s been acting strange,” Lucy commented to Kaleb, her eyes locked on Whitney. “I say we slip on out of here.”
Strange seemed about right.
Whitney was a spitfire of a girl. Twenty-six years old with a personality much bigger than her petite 5’3” height, the girl’s wild mane of red hair and big green eyes seemed the only characteristics that could compare to her free-spirited and boisterous ways. She worked as a corral for the National Park Service at Yellowstone, tending to the horses and leading horseback riding tours along select trails. She was close friends with Lucy Cooper, but all that could’ve very well changed the day Whitney had shot what she’d assumed was a dark wolf charging down Main Street in the dead of night.
It had been a wolf.
It had also been Kaleb Quinn, and she’d watched, wide-eyed and horrified, as Kaleb had shifted back into his human form. Whitney had also witnessed Lucy wield her Astral powers in an effort to save her lover’s life. The fact that Whitney Abernathy was the sheriff’s daughter would complicate matters even further.
Acting strange, indeed.
Despite the danger she posed to the entire werewolf pack now that she’d garnered the knowledge of Kaleb’s true nature, Shane felt a strong pull towards Whitney. She’d been something of a flirt with him last week. They’d gotten a drink or two at Libations. He’d even cracked a smile simply because he was around her, and if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t much mind the shape of her bubble butt and perky chest or the way she liked to bounce herself around all girly and cute. But if he’d felt even the slightest twinge of sexual interest in her, he’d made a concerted effort to snuff the emotion right the hell out of his dark heart. Now that she knew about Kaleb, now that they would all have to assume she might like to do something with the information if she hadn’t already, Shane forced himself to regard her as a ticking time bomb. A threat that would have to be dismantled. A woman he’d do well to stay away from, unless and until his brother and king, Troy, gave the order for him to proceed otherwise.
He might still like what he saw when he looked at her, but he definitely didn’t like how she was looking back.
Those green eyes of hers that looked a brilliant emerald shade in the stark, Wyoming sunlight were glaring his way, a glint of apprehension behind them. She was wary of all of the Quinns. Shane could see it written all over her face, and it was enough to drive Kaleb and Lucy from the celebration.
“I’m with Lucy on this one,” Kaleb told Troy in explanation of their abrupt departure, as he clapped his hand good-naturedly over the older werewolf’s shoulder.
“Understood,” Troy agreed before reminding both of them, “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight.”
After Kaleb and Lucy disappeared through the crowd, S
hane neared Troy as Conor and Dean edged in as well, forming a circle within the bustling street fair.
“What are we going to do about Whitney?” Conor asked as Shane was itching to receive the order to stay on top of the redhead.
As Troy mulled their dilemma over, Dean pointed out, “We can’t assume she won’t tell her father.”
“We can’t assume she hasn’t already,” Troy said darkly.
“Rachel was also there,” Shane reminded them.
But Conor quickly corrected him, “After the fact.”
“Whitney could’ve told her as well,” Shane maintained.
“One way or the other,” Troy surmised, “the sheriff is going to get word.” He met Conor’s eyes, then cut his gaze to Dean and lastly Shane. “We’ll discuss it at the meeting.”
When Shane glanced in-between his brothers, he saw Whitney standing alone in the crowd.
She was staring right at him.
***
“Heck of a parade, Sheriff!”
Police Officer Rachel Clancy was back in keep-your-mouth-shut-and-keep-sucking-up mode. It made her teeth ache and her stomach twist, but the road to making detective ran straight through Sheriff Rick Abernathy, and Rachel had promised herself she would do whatever it took to get her badge, even if it meant appealing to the sexist man on a personal level.
“It was real thoughtful of you to give Sasha Quinn a big ol’ birthday celebration,” she added as she nervously brushed her brown, wavy hair off her slick shoulders.
She’d dressed for the warm weather, or at least she thought she had, deciding on a frilly sundress that should have been breathing a lot better than it was. The wedge-heeled sandals she wore effectively bumped her athletic, 5’9” frame up by a good three inches, bringing her a touch taller than Rick. She slumped, sinking into her hip and slouching her shoulders a tad to make up for it so as not to emasculate the sheriff, who didn’t take kindly to strong-willed women.
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