Chapter
1
Chloe
November 2013 – Wilmington, North Carolina
“Three sisters walk into a wolf owned bar—”
“Again with the jokes, Chloe?” Elena shot a dirty look at Delta, who was giggling at Chloe’s antics. “Okay, it’s time for the rules.”
“Again, with the rules?” Chloe mocked.
“Yessss,” Elena hissed back at her. “Because, without rules, my airheaded, oldest sister tells vampires bad jokes, which nearly gets the life sucked out of us! If Aunt Thea hadn’t been there with her freakin’ piece of maple two-by-four, you probably wouldn’t be here now! And because of that, the vampire refuses to be an informant for her anymore.” Elena turned her glare to Delta, who was still giggling. “And, without rules, Delta walks around to any Other she meets and asks them inappropriate questions all in the name of ‘research.’ ”
Delta stopped giggling to sputter a defense. “I only wanted to know! It’s not like I can go check out a book at the library to learn more about them!”
“God, it’s a miracle nobody’s managed to kill you two yet.” Elena ran her hand through her hair in frustration. “No jokes. No questions. This one is important for me and you know it. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Are you ready to talk about it, Elena?” Delta spoke the question softly and with compassion, which made Chloe want to puke. While she hated that Elena had had her heart broken by some oversized alley cat who had apparently only thought of Elena as a piece of ass, she didn’t believe in women wallowing in their pity over a man. She definitely knew that their poor, departed Amazonian mother wouldn’t have approved of it, either.
Aggie Demos, who had only died a few months ago, had raised her three daughters to be strong, independent women. And in a way, Chloe and her sisters, Elena and Delta, were. In other ways, they weren’t.
For instance, her little sister Delta, who was only twenty-two, had the fierceness of a mouse. She was meek and quiet, and if a man gave her the time of day, she sputtered before excusing herself to go back to stick her nose in her books.
Elena, who was twenty-six and thought she was the wisest of the three of them, was quite the opposite of Delta. She had gone in the military and had thrived there. If it weren’t for their mother getting sick then dying, Chloe was pretty sure she would have continued her military career.
Where Elena had failed to be a strong woman was—in Chloe’s opinion—because she had fallen in love with the wrong man, Gage Ivanov, who apparently was a tiger-shifter, and the very man who broke her heart. He, of course, was the other reason Elena had chosen to end her stint in the military, and was currently in the McPhee pack run bar, named McPhee’s Pub, totally unaware that he was about to be ambushed by the three sisters.
Elena needed to learn how to make men kneel before her so she didn’t get her heart stomped on again. That was how Chloe had decided to live her life after a previous boyfriend had hit her when she was seventeen years old. Now at twenty-seven, she didn’t need a man to love, help, or even give her the time of day. She was happy with herself and loved her life. Really, both her little sisters should aspire to be more like her. Why couldn’t they understand that?
A noise behind them caught Chloe’s attention, and she turned to see their aunt Thea finally getting out of the SUV they had driven there in. The woman joined their huddle behind the vehicle.
Chloe watched as Elena took a deep breath, trying to get her shit together.
“I’m good.” Chloe snorted, but Elena ignored her as she kept talking. “Don’t worry about me. All I’m asking for, is that you two not start shit while we’re in there. I want to go in, do what we have to do, and then get the fuck out of here. Okay?”
The vulnerability in Elena’s voice both killed Chloe and grated on her nerves. As a big sister, she never wanted to see either of her sisters hurting like this. However, nor did she want to see them vulnerable to a man. Therefore, Chloe chose to keep her mouth shut as she followed Elena into the bar. It was time to confront this asshat Gage Ivanov and knock him down a peg.
As the four of them settled on bar stools, Chloe crooked her finger at the bartender, who had been watching them with interest.
The handsome man shuffled over to where she was sitting. “What can I get for you ladies today?”
She held up her hand with four fingers up. “Four beers please, and a side of Gage Ivanov.”
The bartender tensed, warily eyeing her as she asked for the man they were there to see. “What do you want with Gage?”
Already tired of this conversation, Chloe told him the truth. “That’s for me to know, and Mr. Ivanov to find out. Now, chop-chop; get us those drinks and the man, and I’ll give you a nice tip, sugar.”
Did she sound condescending? Yes.
Did she care what the bartender thought? Not one bit.
She wasn’t there to pick the man up or make him happy. She was there on a mission with her sisters. A mission he apparently figured out rather quickly as he shot her a nasty look while delivering their beers.
Mouth open, he was seconds from saying something to Chloe, when a door slammed against the wall, drawing her attention to a tank of a man who was followed out by a small group of people. In no time at all, the tank of angry, muscled man was stomping in their direction, then stopping on the other side of the bar in front of Elena.
Elena picked up her beer bottle and took what looked to be a few fortifying gulps as the man snarled at her, “What the fuck are you doing here, Sergeant Demos?”
Yeah … she was pretty sure this was the infamous Gage Ivanov, breaker of hearts and overall asshat.
Chloe watched as Elena set her bottled beer back on the bar and pasted a smile on her face. Then she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the bar. “I take it you haven’t heard, Master Sergeant Ivanov, but I’m out. As for the reason as to why I’m here in this bar … well, that’s easy. I was looking for you.”
Movement out of the corner of her eye had Chloe’s attention turning to what must have been Gage Ivanov’s twin. The man looked just like him in facial features and body structure but, whereas Gage had dark hair, his brother was the opposite. His hair was white and in a mohawk, his eyes a weird arctic blue, his arms covered in tattoos, and there was a smug, panty-dropping smile plastered on his face.
While Gage was glowering at Elena, his brother was eye-fucking her. He was pretty to look at, but there was nothing there that interested Chloe. Didn’t mean she couldn’t give him a smile and a friendly finger wave.
Movement off to the side attracted her attention again—Chloe had a short attention span like that—and she turned her head to see what, or who, it was this time. Only, she wasn’t prepared for what her eyes were about to see.
The man who had shifted his weight from one foot to the other was damn near perfection. Incredibly hot in a Henry Cavill kind of way. Tall, dark, and handsome didn’t do him any justice. And the stubble on his strong jaw? Total yum factor. If she had a man of her dreams, that would be him.
Guessed it was a good thing she didn’t believe in dream men. That didn’t mean she couldn’t look at the man candy and daydream about him. He was just that damn pretty.
There was something different about this man, though. Some sort of magnetism that rolled off him in waves.
A primal lust rolled over Chloe, and she could just see herself wrapping herself around the man’s body and taking him for a test drive. From the burning lust in his eyes, she could tell he felt the chemistry crackling between them, as well.
She was so lost in looking at the pretty, shiny man treasure that she hadn’t heard what was going on between Elena or Gage. And that could have been a fatal mistake on her part because, the next thing she knew, the mohawked twin was roaring.
Chloe looked over to see Elena pressing the barrel of her .45 against the center of Gage’s forehead.
Shit had just hit the fan, and it was time to stop drooling over hot man candy and get out of this bitch.
Chloe pulled out her own gun at the same time that Delta and Aunt Thea pulled out theirs.
Amazons weren’t stupid. They wouldn’t come empty-handed when they knew they were going to be walking into a shifter-owned bar on unfamiliar territory.
As they became surrounded by the pack of friends Gage had shown up with, Chloe couldn’t help wondering if the shifters were going to let them go, or was Chloe or someone else going to have to use their gun to try to escape. She would do what she had to do to protect her family, but she really hoped it didn’t come to that.
In a raised voice, Chloe heard Gage say, “Back away from the Amazons.”
When nobody moved, he growled, “NOW.”
Knowing they needed to leave, Chloe took the chance to get one last good look at her pretty boy, finding his eyes were already glued to her. Wishing things could have been different and she could have at least learned the man’s name, she chalked things up to fate, gave him a wink and an air kiss, and then slowly backed out of the bar as her sisters turned and left.
Maybe, if she was lucky, she would run into her pretty boy another time.
~~~
Kent
Sweet baby Jesus, he had just caught a glimpse of an angel with a gun.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t an angel if she was swinging a gun around, pointing it at him and his friends, but she sure as hell did look like all his fantasies rolled up into one phenomenal package.
For a split second, he thought about whipping out his police badge and using it to go after his walking wet dream, but one look at his partner Jenna had him stopping in his tracks. She knew him all too well and was already shaking her head in negation. As in, no, you cannot go after the woman because you think she’s hot.
Fun killer.
Walking over to the bar where Gage was talking to his brother Alec in hushed tones, Kent asked the question that was burning on his mind. “Who the hell was that?”
Gage warily looked over at Kent and simply said, “An ex-girlfriend.”
Kent winced, but it didn’t stop him from asking his next question. “Who were the other chicks with her?”
That question had Gage giving him a dirty look. “Why do you ask? You’re not going to arrest them, are you?”
“Do you want me to?” Kent asked.
“No.”
“Then no, I won’t arrest them, but I still want to know who they are.”
The tiger-shifter gave him a suspicious look, while Alec smothered a laugh with his hand. “If you’re not going to arrest them, then why do you want to know?”
That question had Alec laughing out loud. “Really, bro? You can’t figure out why Kent wants to know who they are? If it were me asking, what would be the reason?”
Gage shot a nasty glare at his brother. “Because you’d want to fuck one of them, you horny bastard.”
Alec nodded, while Kent tried to keep a cop face on. “Just give me their names, Ivanov.”
Gage turned his head back to glare at Kent again. “Why, so you can try to hit on them? Is that all you think about, your dick?”
Sometimes. But he wasn’t going to say that aloud.
Not to mention, he couldn’t help thinking about that wink the Amazon had given him before she had left. Or the hint of a smile that she had graced him.
Kent knew when a woman wanted him, and the Amazon had wanted him bad. For some odd reason, Kent’s body wanted her just as badly, and he didn’t know why. He had never felt this level of lust toward a woman before, and he was damn determined to find out why.
Running out of patience, Kent snapped, “Just give me a damn name.”
Gage cocked an eyebrow at him, silently saying, Do you really want to push your luck?
All Kent could think was: Hell yes! For that woman, he was willing to push all his luck if it would help him find out why he suddenly felt like he had to have her or he would die.
The reaction wasn’t rational, but he didn’t care. Right now, he had a one-track mind and that was finding out everything he could about his angel with the gun.
After Kent and Gage stared at each other for long, quiet minutes, the tiger-shifter finally got bored and gave in with a sigh.
“I don’t know who the older woman was, but the two younger women were more than likely Elena’s sisters, Delta and Chloe.”
“And which one is which?”
Gage shrugged. “I can’t be certain because I never met them. But I do remember Elena telling me that Chloe was the oldest and Delta was the youngest out of the three of them.”
Kent thought back to the group of women and visualized their appearances. He knew who Elena was without a doubt, and he wasn’t interested in the older woman, so that just left the two other younger women to decipher. Paired with the memory of Gage calling Elena “Sergeant Demos,” Kent now had a name he could run a check on: Chloe Demos. If need be, he could run all three Demos sisters’ names to find out who was who. It wasn’t much information, but it was a start.
Kent headed for the door, new determination in his every step, as his plan formed in his head. He would go to the police station and run Chloe’s name; see what he could find out about her from there first.
Before he made it to the door, though, the peanut gallery known as Alec piped in with his two cents.
“Man, I don’t know why you want her so badly. That chick was so frigid I thought my nuts were going to freeze off standing just five feet away from her.”
Kent turned his head before he walked out the door and said, “And I’m just the demon to warm her up.”
~~~
At his desk at the police station, Kent swore under his breath as he closed out another driver’s license picture of a Chloe Demos. That was not his Chloe Demos. Just how many women were named that in the state of North Carolina? He had already clicked on five of the ten results that had come up on his search.
Clicking on number six, he held his breath and waited for the driver’s license picture to come up.
Jackpot.
Chloe Alyssa Demos. Date of birth: July 17th, 1986. Five-foot-five and one hundred and forty pounds. Residence listed on her license was one that Kent knew wasn’t far from the McPhee Pub. And her driver’s license was fairly new, so she hadn’t been living in the Wilmington area for long.
Using her social security number, Kent ran a background check on her and found no prior charges, which sort of surprised him. Only a little over an hour ago, she had been pointing a gun on him and his friends. He would have thought that she would have at least a minor infraction somewhere in her past to have that sort of bravado. Or maybe she was so confident because she had never been caught doing anything like she had done today. Whatever that answer was, he would figure it out … along with the rest of the mystery that was Chloe Demos.