Chapter One
Grace
Moonlight, Florida, Friday 8:00 p.m.
The darkening skies were even murkier beyond the lights from town and the highway. The eastern section of the abandoned grove provided a perfect location for the pack’s evening run. Several scouts had gone ahead to check the area for humans as the sun set. The wolves would be able to see in the dark when humans couldn’t, but there were always hunters with mag lights and guns, scopes and night-vision glasses these days. Wild boar hunting was popular with man and beast.
As Moonlight’s invited guest, Grace looked forward to visiting the pack, especially since her handsome security guard set her insides aching and heat burning in her soul.
Ty accompanied the scouts who would signal when the area had been sanctioned for the run. They’d been gone almost an hour.
A dry breeze blew through the October air. The distinct scent of citrus still hung as if it were embedded in the soil and remaining bare limbs of the orange trees. It was almost time to work her way to a more private section before shifting.
Yet, when the howls rose to announce the all clear, Grace’s mind fought back as every fiber of her being reacted to Ty’s distinct guttural howl calling to her in the distance. Tonight, there was no mistaking the big wolf’s needs or his intentions as his powerful voice rose above the others. Torn between her inner wolf’s desire and her personal goals, Grace resisted her wolf’s urges and the shiver of arousal running down her spine. Heat pooled in her inner core, but she shook it off, hoping Laurel hadn’t noticed.
The minute she risked a glance at her female security guard, Laurel’s pixie eyes widened and the corners of her lips turned up slightly.
“Wasn’t that Ty?” she asked, as if she didn’t recognize her partner’s howl. She and Ty had worked together over a year with the agency.
Another impatient howl reverberated through the trees, and Grace held her ground while her guard stood by waiting. She glanced aside not wanting Laurel to see the effect Ty had on her. But Laurel was not only a rare beauty; the female guard was too damned sharp at her job to miss the attraction growing between Grace and Ty.
Thinking to change the unspoken subject, Grace inspected her and asked, “Why do you work for The Defenders Agency when international designers would pay a king’s ransom for you to model?”
“I’m too short for runway modeling. I tried back in Atlanta before my family sent me out to Colorado. But when things went bad and the pack was attacked, I returned.”
She stopped talking. No one in Moonlight liked talking about the decimation of their old pack in Atlanta. Grace had heard some of the details. Laurel had lost her whole immediate family. If Grace had been in Laurel’s place, what would she have done? The same thing. She understood the mentality of taking control of your life. Laurel was doing just that.
“Not too short for your present job?” Grace teased.
“I compensate.” She frowned and exposed her additional weapons. “The males hassle me about overcompensating. But in case I can’t shift, I’m prepared with backup.”
“You’re a wolf. You’ll heal and then survive. When would you feel the need?”
“I can’t shift around humans. As a wolf, there aren’t any human men I can’t overpower, but although I’m stronger than human women, I still need to handle myself in tough situations. There are fewer questions if I resort to conventional means.”
“Good for you. You’re double trouble, and, to look at you, no one would ever expect it.”
“I like action…and more challenge in life than changing outfits in thirty seconds.” Laurel’s training and fitness program kept her in shape to perform her job as a security guard and agent with the Defenders.
“Your coloring is so unusual.” Grace’s artificial highlights were nothing compared to the multiple shades of red in Laurel’s hair, from the lightest copper to the deepest auburn, the natural balayage effect framed the shifter’s faintly freckled face.
Ty’s howls grew louder and more demanding.
“Are you stalling?” Laurel asked.
“Maybe. Okay, a little.”
“He’s very hot. A little too grumpy for me but….” Laurel put her hand on her cocked hip and sighed.
“Grumpy? You’ve not met my brothers. Scotland breeds grumpy. Must be the weather.” Grace stood straight, emphasizing her classic Amazonian size. “I’m a perfect match for him in many ways.” Since she’d met him, his ginormous size made her feel petite and feminine.
Several wolves howled, complementing the night sounds, but all she heard was Ty’s call.
“It’s only a moonlight run. Right?” Laurel asked. “Not even a date….”
“Aye, ’tis only a run.” She attempted casual disinterest because she wasn’t ready to accept the truth yet, let alone divulge it.
“I’m curious. Are you ever going to shift and meet him?”
“I-I can’t here,” Grace whispered. Except for her security guards, no one had seen her shifted form. Dire wolves weren’t like other shifters, and she dare not divulge her secret to just anyone. She lowered her voice and whispered, “I should not shift with all these strangers in the area.”
“True, this isn’t the best spot. Anyone could come up on us,” Laurel agreed. “The fewer who know, the safer your secret will be. We’ll find a private spot.”
Besides caution, independence fought with instinct as Grace held back. She desired Ty with all that was in her, but she had opposed the female wolf’s traditional role her whole life. That was one of the reasons she and Laurel got on so well. The woman was an excellent role model for future female agents. The world was changing, and the role of the females in the pack should change, too.
Ty howled again, Grace moaned, and Laurel grinned.
“Bloody hell. Won’t he please stop?”
“He’s not making it easy on you.”
Why this one male made her want to run him down and rub herself all over him, marking him with her scent, and more, baffled her. What next? Should she give up every modern thought and goal? Roll on her back and expose her throat in submission? Never! She’d already defied her family in Scotland. Still, they expected her to eventually choose a male with at least some dire wolf blood and mate; then pick up breeding where her mother left off. But she had no intention to fulfill old expectations.
Someone should tell my inner wolf!
Until now, she’d never met a male who affected her the way Ty did.
Suddenly, Laurel whipped Grace to the side and positioned herself protectively between her and the sound of approaching footsteps. The newest guest runner, Slater Hall, a male from farther south, emerged from the woods with a few members of his visiting pack. Grace had run into him at the New College President’s Luncheon in Sarasota last week, after applying for an internship with his company, Slater Hall Bio-Tech. He’d been infatuated with her ever since. He interested her on a whole different level. She wanted the internship. The company research might be helpful to the wolf population. Or it might be a threat to the existing packs. She planned to investigate the process.
Meeting out here made her uncomfortable. He and his group hadn’t been out running, yet, so they hadn’t shifted. Had the group been following them all along? How much of the conversation had they heard?
Last week, Laurel confided how the whole idea of males requesting a run with the Moonlight pack to improve relations in the area made her uncomfortable. Grace agreed. But Slater’s pack was small with few females, and several Moonlight females expressed interest in some new blood. It had been Julie, another adopted member of the pack, who invited them tonight. Well, good for her. To each her own.
Julie’s aggression had been a sore spot with the females ever since she arrived, and lately she stuck to Slater like a bee on honey.
The other members of the Fort Myers pack made Grace’s skin crawl, and Slater himself, though a good-looking man, unnerved her. He made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end from the instant she’d first shaken his hand. Except for Slater, the rest of the men were undersized, and once they shifted, their wolf forms were malformed and grotesque—part human, part wolf—incomplete transformations. She would have been more compassionate, but they reeked of evil intensions. From the look of these guys, she didn’t think they’d be getting the Moonlight females interested in a full-moon run anytime soon. Slater escaped the others’ bad luck with genes, but although he might be considered average size here, he’d be considered a runt back in Scotland. Grace had to admit, in any circle, his looks as a man were movie star material. Slater turned Grace off on an elemental level. Good looks wouldn’t affect her feelings.
Slater entered Grace’s personal space, coming too close, and nudged her. She stepped away putting space between them.
Laurel interceded. “Please,” she said, and stepped between them, bristling with all her superior security agent authority. “Grace is Derek’s special guest,” she gruffly reminded him.
Julie stalked up to Laurel and got right in her face. “I can’t believe you’re being so rude.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
Slater looked amused. “Sorry. Perhaps I was out of line. I only intended to show a little interest.” Slater shrugged when Laurel didn’t budge, and he finally stepped back. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
Laurel held her ground. Grace sniffed the air and picked up something in his scent. Lying. He wasn’t the type to care who he offended, and, from the pheromones she caught rising off him, his primary interest was sex. Laurel read auras, and the stern expression on her face said not only did his scent say one thing, but his aura told her something else.
Time to make nice. “No offense taken.” Grace made an effort to lighten the situation. Besides, she wanted that internship with his company. Her advanced degree studies depended on it. The genetic research strides Slater Hall Bio-Tech made in recent years was impressive. Grace didn’t believe the results were all based on scrupulous research, and the further she looked into the company, the more certain she was the CEO, Slater Hall, was up to his eyeballs in criminal activity.
No sense in stirring the pot too soon.
“Sorry about all of this, Mr. Hall. My parents are a bit overprotective. They believe Florida is still filled with savages.” Her brothers in Scotland would hate this guy. She was a female in her prime, and her family still expected the perfunctory weekly call home.
“Pfft,” Julie said, holding on to Slater’s arm, making it clear she had intentions.
“No need for formality. Call me Slater.” He regained his usual amiable composure, while Julie pouted.
The man had a great smile and oozed charm, but Grace was certain he wasn’t all that genuine. And he confirmed her misgivings when he glanced at Laurel with dark, narrowed eyes.
“Are you two ready to shift and run with the pack?” he asked.
The CEO of the large research company continued to put Grace off. He’d been self-serving at their first meeting and too forward, yet, compared to his earlier behavior, this seemed like little more than a harmless flirtation. Her responsive scent to Ty’s call must have triggered his male interest. She shivered at the thought.
“Sorry, I run alone.” Grace shook her head and, as politely as possible, excused herself from the group Slater Hall brought with him. She needed to end this.
Would he take no for an answer? Hall seemed like the sort to take what he wanted. As much as she wanted the internship to gather information about his company, she was having none of him. Besides, there were only a few members who knew what she was, and they had agreed to keep her secret. Except for the security team members, Grace never ran with other pack members or, as in this case, visiting wolves.
She left Slater and the pack behind, escaping into the woods with Laurel before she shifted unseen. Concealed by the thick underbrush, she flipped around on all fours and snarled a warning to Laurel for her to watch her back then she turned and bolted into the night, sniffing the evening air for Ty’s scent. If she was going to indulge in a little moonlight fucking, it would be with a man who sparked every cell in her body to life, a man who focused on pleasing her, not a man like Slater who was only interested in what she was worth and how she would please him.