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📚📚🐺🐺Two excerpts from A Pack of His Own volume 1:📚📚🐺🐺
Excerpt from Hunter’s Claim:
A strong, well-remembered hand closed around Charlie’s automatically outstretched right. Then the man before Charlie pushed that hand aside and grasped Charlie’s left, white cane and all.
Charlie laughed as lean, muscular arms pulled him close and tightened around his back. It wasLuis. His nose had been right.
“I was planning to see you here,” Luis whispered in Spanish, his voice richer than the thrum of the best-played bass. “But I didn’t think it would be so soon.”
Charlie drank in Luis’s scent, relishing how Luis held him. Then he pulled back slightly, though he was still safe in Luis’s embrace. “It’s good to see you.” That was an understatement, and he was hard-pressed not to resume the kisses he’d run from in March. He had no right to such a warm welcome, and for a breath his heart lodged in his throat.
Then another smell — a stench compared to Luis’s heady aroma — invaded the library, and Charlie stepped away completely. He held up one finger. “Un momento.”
Luis retreated several paces, and Charlie blinked at the psychic vampire’s discretion. Luis hadn’t possessed anything close to circumspection or respect for duty when they’d worked together in Tampa.
Charlie went to the library doors, meaning to close them, but the werewolf he’d smelled stood before him. He made the conscious switch to English, realizing he must be overwhelmed by Luis’s presence if the change needed to be willed rather than instinctive. Or maybe I’m intoxicated again. As he’d been when he and Luis had tumbled into bed for a single, blissful hour. Maybe it wasn’t the Lady Lavender drinks that got me drunk in March. It could’ve been Luis.
Excerpt from Tracker’s Fate:
Jeremy frowned as he put the first of the pans under the running water and squirted soap in. It would do no good to attempt inviting more information through silence; Ethan was an old hat at keeping things to himself. “What is a haint anyway? Besides a chicken-fried Southern ghost?”
“The words ghost, zombie, half-vampire, and weird distant cousin of the wendigo can all apply to haints.” Ethan slapped his palm down on the lid of one plastic container, producing a hollow click that strangely resembled the noise a handgun made when cocked.
Jeremy decided that probably had to do with the acoustics in the huge kitchen. “That is not helpful,” he answered in a dry tone he hoped would make Ethan laugh.
The SearchLight tracker snickered; the tension in the room dropped. “Thankfully we went in with our eyes a little open to the possibilities, or…” Another lid clicked into place.
Jeremy scented the air, searching out Luis Delgado’s unique aroma. He thought the psychic vampire was outside. Perhaps with Charlie. “Did this haint bite you or stab you?”
“Bite. I fell on her from above before she could claim another victim. But she twisted under me like a snake. I saw her eyes just before she showed her fangs. As we were told, she was starving.” Ethan approached the sink with slow, dragging steps. “I had to kill her.”
Jeremy considered the tense line of Ethan’s shoulders. SearchLight trackers were, by definition, spies, stalkers, information gatherers, and more than occasional executioners. Not a single one had been pressed into service. “Do you regret becoming a tracker?” he asked as he squirted soap into the hot water. He began dumping dishes into the mix almost indiscriminately, ninety percent of his attention being for Ethan. I could almost be attracted to this quiet-speaking werewolf with so much fire in his soul. Almost, however, was the operative word. Ethan could laugh as well as any other wolf, but his reticence sometimes annoyed Jeremy.
The two of us would not make a good match, Jeremy told his lonely heart.
Ethan opened and closed a nearby drawer, his movements gentle and slow. “I used to love it.” He flipped a towel over his shoulder. “Did your run help?”
Jeremy scowled. “You’re an ass.” He faced Ethan, forgetting the dishes. “How long, exactly, were you going to wait before telling me you’ve decided to follow my every movement?”
Ethan nodded toward the faucet. “Maybe you should turn that off.”
Snarling, Jeremy did so. “Well?” he demanded, his anger increasing when he saw Ethan wasn’t flinching. Not that I’m trying to scare him, but he’s a less dominant wolf. He should cower before me. Jeremy cursed, hating himself for wanting Ethan submissive to his will. He whirled back to the sink and plunged his hands into the nearly scalding water. He seized a pan and a sponge and tried to take out his building fury on something inanimate. “You are a tracker, but that doesn’t give you the right to spy on me.”
“Luis and I returned from Albion half an hour before dinner. Neither of us was in a position to hunt you.”
Jeremy thudded the still soapy but degreased pan into the second sink for Ethan to rinse. “Then how do you know I was running?”
“You smell of Queen Anne’s lace, a mix of wild grasses, and the exhaustion that comes from changing too quickly and too often from your human guise to that of the wolf.” Ethan rinsed off the pan and set it in the drainer. He did this with exquisite care. “Please don’t accuse me of treating a pack member like a rogue haint.”