Feisty Heroines Romance Collection of Shorts

by D. F. Jones

  “Lib…touch,” he demanded, trying to roll out of bed to come to her. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her waist, putting pressure on the areas the human’s skin had touched her own.

  “The healer has to get the bullet out, boss,” Dane reminded him. “You’re losing too much blood.”

  “My mate…” The sound of Talon gasping for air caused tears to well up in her eyes. She needed his touch, but he needed to be operated on more.

  “Luna can sedate me,” she blurted, looking for the healer’s mate. Luna came into the room with a tray full of items. Liberty tried not to look at them, but she noticed the syringes and scalpel immediately.

  “Already prepped, Liberty,” she said, setting the tray next to Harold. The female removed the syringe and approached her. “It’s not enough to knock you out, but it’ll be enough to make the pain bearable. I have more if you need it.”

  Liberty knew exactly what she was saying. Anytime a mate was in pain, the other mate would go feral. They thought she was going to lose her shit seeing Talon on the table.

  “I’m fine, just give me the shot,” she huffed, pulling her sleeve up so Luna could give her the injection. Within a few seconds, the medicine began to work, allowing Liberty to focus on her mate.

  “Better?” Luna asked.

  “Much, thank you.” Liberty brushed past the healer’s mate and reentered the exam room. He had just placed an oxygen mask on Talon when she narrowed her eyes on the Guardian, Dane. “I want to be in here.”

  “Liberty,” Harold warned, his voice deep despite the mask over his face. “I have to get this bullet out so he can shift and heal. I can’t have you going feral when I cut him open.”

  Luna slid the x-ray panel over her mate. The whirling sound of the machine was faint to her enhanced hearing. Once the female was done, she hurried out the door to check the images. She returned moments later and clicked on the computer in the room.

  “Damn it,” Harold growled as he studied the x-ray on the screen. “That was too damn close to his heart. I hope you have this male in custody.”

  “He’s being detained as we speak,” Axel snarled from the door. Liberty glanced up and saw several Guardians outside the room, standing at attention as they protected their alpha from a threat. The males were doing the job they were trained for, and at the moment, Liberty wanted to thank them all. Having them there made things a little easier.

  “I need everyone to leave,” Harold ordered, looking over her shoulder at Dane. “Take Liberty with you.”

  “No,” she snarled. “I’m not leaving him.”

  “I will sedate you if I must,” Harold warned. “I’m not your mate nor am I your leader, but you are in my clinic. My rules apply here, and I need you to leave.”

  “Fine,” she barked and stood when Dane came to her side.

  Chapter 4

  It had been an hour and Talon was still in surgery. The medicine Luna had given her was working, and she knew she had about two hours before her body started burning it off.

  “Where’s the male?” she asked the Guardians who were hovering around her in the front room of the healer’s cabin.

  “Sheriff Lynch has him,” Axel replied. “He wants to speak to you when everything is clear here.” She knew the Guardian meant Garrett wanted to talk to her once they knew Talon was going to be okay.

  She pulled her phone from her back pocket and headed for the front door. When one of the Guardians started to follow, she held up her hand in warning. “I need privacy.”

  “No further than the porch,” Dane ordered as she headed out the door.

  To her surprise, the remainder of the Guardians and the entire pride was camped out on the healer’s lawn, waiting for word on their leader. They gasped as she exited, the mass of them surging forward as a unit toward her. She was the alpha’s queen for a reason. They gravitated toward her even though she didn’t have the magic her mate had inherited from his father.

  “He’s in surgery to remove the bullet,” she announced. “I don’t know anything else.”

  When they calmed, she jumped off the porch and headed toward her home, ignoring Dane’s demand she stay close. Liberty needed privacy to make this call.

  “Garrett,” she said the moment the lawman answered the phone. “Why didn’t you see this coming? This male is human, and you were put here to protect us from them.”

  “Liberty, I don’t know why.” Garrett sighed into the phone. “I hadn’t had any visions of harm coming for the pride, and I sure as hell didn’t see anyone pulling a gun in your bar. If I had, I would’ve diffused the situation before it ever started.”

  “What’s done is done,” she conceded, knowing that questioning the gods wasn’t going to change the fact Talon had been shot. Liberty guessed that even among the paranormal there were flaws. “Shifter law needs to be in place for this, and I want that male brought to my land.”

  “There were human witnesses,” Garrett reminded her. “I can’t just let you have him. We have new laws I must adhere to when it comes to humans and the shifters, Liberty. You know this.”

  If her eyes could turn red from anger, Liberty was certain hers would be glowing.

  “I don’t give a damn about the laws, Garrett,” she snarled, feeling her canines extend. “You need to stage an escape and bring that male to me. It is my right as Talon’s mate to end his life. You have half an hour to get him to the back of our property line. Meet me in the clearing.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to reply and hung up the phone. She understood the males’ need to protect their mates and the ones in their pride now. Talon was fighting for his life because he jumped in front of a bullet meant for her. It was her place to kill the male for his actions, and her beast was out for blood. She may have been born human, but the animal inside her ruled the need to gut the male with her panther claws, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

  “Liberty!” Dane called out, running toward the main house. “He’s awake and he’s asking for you!”

  She ran toward the healer’s home, feeling the strength of her pride as she passed. The scent of blood and antiseptic overshadowed Talon’s presence, but she was relieved when she found him sitting up in the bed.

  “Liberty, come,” he ordered, holding out his hand. “Let me heal you so I can shift to heal myself.”

  She went willingly into his arms; careful of his injury. There were stitches on his chest where the healer had sewn him up. Talon’s arms around her was the most amazing feeling in the world.

  “You’re okay,” she sighed, kissing his neck. “God, Talon, why did you do that?” She was still in shock that he had thrown himself in front of a bullet. They all had superhuman speed, but Talon’s display was faster than she’d ever seen a shifter move.

  “You are the love of my life, Liberty Shaw,” he began, tucking his finger under her chin to get her to look into his eyes. What she saw there was his love for her and his family…his pride. “I told you I’d always protect you, and that meant giving my life for yours should that day ever come.”

  “Don’t ever do that again,” she fussed.

  “Shhh, let me hold you for a few minutes,” he cooed.

  “You need to go outside and shift.” They could live through things most human bodies wouldn’t handle. Like being shot in the chest. No matter their healing abilities, shifters still needed to go through a pattern of shifting to kick it into gear. Talon would be outside for at least two hours going back and forth between human and panther while the damage to his body repaired itself.

  “I’m going,” he promised, kissing her lips. “After I’m done, we will take care of the male who tried to kill you.”

  Liberty nodded, giving her mate a sense of peace, but inside she was ready to take care of that herself. Garrett would be in the clearing soon, and she would slip away while Talon was shifting.

  Dane and Axel followed Talon out the door, and she had her chance to go. A few of the pride members watc
hed her as she left, heading toward her home. With everyone on the west side of the land, waiting on their alpha to heal, she could head into the forest on the other side of the main house and the old Guardian dorms.

  Once she was clear of any prying eyes, Liberty slipped quietly into the woods. It was time to punish that human male for almost taking away her true mate.

  Her trek through the woods was fast and quiet. She’d pulled at her beast to give her the stealth she needed to meet the sheriff without the pride knowing. She was essentially breaking the law, but at that point, she didn’t care.

  “Liberty,” Sheriff Lynch greeted. He’d been her friend for the longest time, but he’d been in her life for another reason. She now knew all of his secrets, and the sheriff knew theirs. The friendship was a weird one, but it was solid.

  “Leave me alone with him,” she snarled, jutting her chin out toward the pole that sat in the middle of the meadow. The male was handcuffed there, his body slumped over as if he’d been knocked out. “I need to wake him up.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Garrett asked, his brows pushed down in worry. “How’s Talon?”

  “Do you mean, ‘Where’s Talon?’” she huffed. “If you’re going to get my mate involved, then I do need you to leave. It is my right to end this male’s life for the crimes against my mate.”

  Liberty ignored Garrett’s harsh curse as she marched up to the human male, unleashing her claws and backhanding him across the face. He jerked awake with a scream to rival her own. She knew touching him would cause her pain, but her anger overrode any sensations she might be feeling.

  “You will pay for shooting my mate,” Liberty warned. “Shifter law is a lot different than your human ones.”

  “You’re nothing but a shifter whore anyway,” the male spat. “We all know about your type.”

  “My type?” She’d had women in the bar looking for a Guardian more times than she could count. This male thought she was like those women. Boy, was he wrong about that.

  “You want one of those things to change you into what they are so you whore yourself out until you find one that’ll keep you, and look at you, Liberty, you got the leader.”

  “I am not like those women, and you better not use the word ‘whore’ in reference to my name again,” she warned.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “You’re going to kill me anyway. How’s your man, whore?”

  “You son of a bitch!” she exploded, her beast pushing so hard for release, she let her.

  The animal’s body vibrated with the need to kill the human, and the scent of fear coming off of his skin made the panther hungry.

  “Liberty!” Talon’s voice registered, but her animal’s sights were on the male.

  The panther pushed at the human’s mind, insisting they make the kill now before the alpha had a chance to use his magic to stop them.

  Curses filled the night sky as she pounced on the male, wrapping her canines around his throat. He didn’t yell nor did he fight as she crushed his windpipe with one quick bite. Her sharp nails dug into the soft flesh of his belly, spilling his insides onto the grass beneath their feet. Liberty’s panther tasted the male’s blood on her tongue and growled low in her throat at the taste of victory.

  Talon shifted for a ninth time, lying on his side as a human. His breathing was still staggered. The bullet had punctured his lung and shattered a rib, but otherwise, he was going to be okay.

  “Ten minutes, then you can shift again one last time,” Harold informed him. Talon nodded and closed his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to get this over with so he could go to his house and hold Liberty for the rest of the night…hell, for the rest of the week. He wanted to see his children and hold them just the same. Realizing he could’ve been killed that quickly bothered him more than it should, but there was no way in hell he was going to let that male shoot his queen.

  He didn’t know what had happened to the male, but he remembered seeing the sheriff at the bar as he was being carried out to Harold’s SUV. He’d passed out right after that.

  When he shifted one last time, his panther’s hearing caught the sound of his mate crying out. It was a cry he knew; one he’d already heard once today. It was the sound of her being touched by a male who wasn’t her mate.

  “Where’s Liberty?” he yelled as he shifted to his human self, reaching for the clothes someone had brought outside for after his healing shift.

  “I don’t know.” Dane frowned. “I thought you’d sent her home.”

  The scent of human blood drifted across his nose when the wind changed directions. He didn’t need to ask any more questions as to her whereabouts. He knew exactly where she’d gone.

  When Talon and his Guardians arrived, they found the human male handcuffed to the pole in the meadow at the back of the property, four gashes across his cheek. His mate was stalking him as if he were her next meal. It didn’t matter that he called out to her, his mate was set on the kill, enforcing ancient shifter law and not the kind the human government had given them the approval to use.

  Her beast knew what to do, ending the male’s life.

  The moment she shifted, he scooped her up and brought her hand to his lips. “You should’ve worn gloves.”

  “That’s all you’re going to say?” she asked, accepting his shirt when he offered it.

  “You were doing what I would’ve done had you been the one shot,” he replied, taking her into his arms again. He looked over her head and saw the sheriff standing on the edge of the meadow. With a nod, the lawman disappeared, leaving the alpha and his mate with the dead human and a few Guardians.

  “I wanted to gut him at the bar,” she huffed. “That way, it would’ve sent a message to the other humans not to touch my Guardians.”

  Talon chuckled and lifted her into his arms. “I’m going to take you home now and make love to you, my feisty little mate.”

  “I like that idea very much.” She winked and held onto him as he made his way back to the main house and their mated bed.

  About Theresa Hissong

  Theresa Hissong is the bestselling author of the Rise of the Pride series. She writes paranormal romance, rockstar romance, and romantic suspense.

  She enjoys spending her days and nights creating the perfect love affair, and she takes those ideas to paper. When she’s not writing, Theresa spends her free time traveling and attending concerts all over the United States.

  Also by Theresa Hissong:

  Buy Theresa’s Books

  Rise of the Pride

  Talon

  Winter

  Savage

  The Birth of an Alpha

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  Kye

  The Healer

  Dane

  Booth

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  A Second Chance Feisty Heroine Romance

  Chapter 1

  Audrey

  There was something about the finished product that always caused her heart to seize in her chest. The sun was steady in the sky, and she could see the bumblebees already congregating around the flowers that her landscaping company just planted. Along the edge of the estate were hedges wrapped in English ivy, with a small pond in the middle and a beautiful modern sculpture of a giant lily surrounded by white birds. She could hear the sound of water while standing on the patio stones, which led to a long and narrow path with tall evergreen trees on each side.

  Months of preparation ha
d led to this. She couldn’t believe that it had finally come to fruition. After all, she’d spent hours of overtime trying to make sure it all came together perfectly. This was what she had been waiting for. Now that it was here, it was a surprise that it went by so quickly.

  Audrey narrowed her eyes to her white and pink flowered apron, which was covered in soil. She normally didn’t step out into the field, but she was able to get permission to help out finally. After all, with such a large property, the landscapers needed all the help they could get. Her knowledge would make the garden work minimal.

  “Is this okay over here?”

  She turned her head toward the edge of the immense patio and saw Jenine lifting a massive pot of red peonies above her head. “Just in the corner next to the lavender,” Audrey told her, pointing to a narrow space between some lavender and wildflowers, which had been planted into the ground. “It’ll help bring it up a bit.”

  She could see the sweat across Jenine’s beautiful golden-brown skin as she lowered the last of the flowers to the rightful place. Her thick brown hair fell in front of her eyes. She lifted herself and sighed, as though letting the hard day unravel in one breath. Everything was just as Audrey had laid out in her initial plan, and she felt an overwhelming sense of pride when she scanned over the estate’s land.

  “I think that does it for the day, then,” said a voice behind her. “I’ll let them know it’s finished.”

  She knew that voice better than any other. “Do you think they’ll like it, Dad?”