Chapter 1
Tyson BloodMoon watched from the shadows as his prey was backed into the dead end of a darkened alley. The tiny impressions left in the snow from her high heels were covered by the much larger prints of the man stalking her.
“I’m gonna fuck you,” the man sneered drunkenly. “I’m gonna fuck you, and then I’m gonna hurt you.” He shrugged. “Maybe not in that order.”
Watching the guy back Cersi into a corner was riling up his inner beast, but when Monster heard the man’s words, he lunged hard for the surface. The action caused Tyson to stagger, and he nearly gave away where he stood hiding in the shadows of the tall building.
Tyson had been following Cersi Doe for two days, and in that time he’d found the most contradictory and curious woman he’d ever laid eyes on. That first night when he’d traced her to a local pub, he’d found her seated at the end of the bar. She didn’t fit in. Wearing skinny jeans with rips showing too much mocha colored skin, she had on bright red stilettos that were hooked onto the bar rail at her feet. One soft looking shoulder was bare, exposed by the gaping gray sweater she wore. Back rod straight, elbows resting on the bar, her neck was craned so she could watch the TV hanging behind the bar. She’d been watching the Pro Bull Riding Finals and had been cheering around sips of a brightly colored margarita in a cactus stemmed glass that was out of place in the dingy pub. She was out of place. Hair a mop of shiny, unruly, ebony, corkscrews and wearing large silver hoops in her ears, she looked like she belonged in some urban nightclub, not an old Irish pub on the corner of No One and Really Gives a Shit. Her name didn’t fit her either. Cersi Doe. He’d dug into it when he’d been assigned to her and had discovered that when she’d been abandoned, she’d been given the name Jane Doe. At some point, someone had started calling her Rebekka, but when she’d turned sixteen, she’d changed it to Cersi. Funny though, she’d kept the Doe part, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was a reminder that she didn’t belong to anyone. Maybe she was waiting to find someone who’d give her a last name. Who the fuck knew why women did the crazy shit they did. He sure didn’t.
That first night, Tyson had snuck into the bar after her. He’d ordered a beer and quietly slid into a booth where he watched her while pretending to watch the TV. She’d been loud and animated even though she’d been alone. It wasn’t how he understood females to be. They were supposed to be quiet and docile and run in crowds. He should have known then how much trouble she was going to be.
His eyes had flicked from her flared hips that rested on the cracked vinyl barstool to the TV when she’d started clapping and hissed a “Yessss!” The cowboy had been bucked off the bull before the buzzer and was being trampled. It had taken Tyson a full two riders before he realized that she’d been watching Bull Riding and had been cheering for the bulls and not the cowboys. Something about that had roused Monster from his sleep. The beast had peered out through Tyson’s eyes, and Tyson should have walked right then. He should have paid for his beers, cast Cersi one last glance, and fucking walked. He hadn’t, and now here he was, riled up, ready to rush down and mutilate the psycho fucker threatening to rape the woman who was his new Alphena’s sister. Not blood-related. Haddix, his Alpha, had told him that Cersi was Vesa’s foster sister, whatever the fuck that meant. Humans had a tendency to try and dilute relationships by calling people foster this or step that. Once he’d even heard a woman telling another about her second cousin, twice removed. He didn’t understand it, and honestly, he didn’t care. He’d been given one assignment. Find the woman, stalk the woman, keep her in his sights, and wait for orders. So that’s what he’d done.
Now, watching Cersi, he wondered if this assignment was some sort of set-up. Before he could think on it, Drunk Fuck struck out with a leg kick that was decidedly fast and accurate for how slurry and wobbly the guy had been mere seconds ago.
Pretending to be drunk to corner unsuspecting women? A growl wrenched its way up Tyson’s throat, and he swallowed hard to keep it down.
Cersi hit the ground with a soft grunt. That grunt had Tyson slipping from the shadows as soundlessly as the falling snow.
“We don’t like your kind here,” the man snarled, hands curling into fists.
His words only served to call Monster closer to the surface. The damn beast was shredding Tyson’s insides, snarling to be released.
On her hands and knees, Cersi slowly lifted her head, and the expression she wore had Tyson halting in place. He’d been expecting pain, fear, pleading, but none of that claimed her features. No, Cersi was….smiling. Eyes hard, lips twisted into a smirk, her look was almost sinister as she stared up at Drunk Fuck.
“And what kind is that,” she asked slowly.
He’d been wondering the same thing too. He’d assumed the guy meant dark-skinned, but who the fuck knew with humans nowadays.
Cersi lifted one foot, planting her red stiletto in the snow as she settled one dainty hand on her knee and lifted her chest. “The dark kind?” she asked mockingly, canting her head to study the man standing before her. “Or did you mean…the violent kind?”
Before her words could even register, her second hand whipped up, and a slight pop sounded before Drunk Fuck’s body seized. His body started convulsing, and it took Tyson a second to realize she’d just tased the prick. After several minutes of convulsing, Drunk Fuck’s big body fell straight back.
Ooooh, little badass! Tyson’s gut clenched, and he looked down at the front of his jeans in astonishment when his dick went hard.
What. In. The. Actual. Fuck?
His head snapped up when Cersi shoved to her feet. Walking to stand over sprawled out Drunk Fuck, she pouted out her bottom lip in a feigned moue of sadness as she mocked, “Oh what’s wrong, daddy? I thought you were gonna fuck me.”
She pulled out a second taser and this one she aimed straight at his crotch before pulling the trigger. Drunk Fuck, who’d been moaning and breathing hard, went into another seizure, but this one was accompanied by a high pitched whine that had Tyson swallowing hard even as he reached down and adjusted his dick with a wince.
“Josh Clark. Fugitive, absconder, nuisance to society, and sick fucking pervert! I’m Cersi.” Squatting over him, she deftly removed the taser barb from his chest, leaving the other still embedded in his crotch. The unhooked gun was shoved down the back of her pants before she patted him down, taking time to check all his pockets while he wheezed, arms and legs still locked up.
“I am a Recovery Agent.” She stood and looked down at him before lifting her foot and settling it on his chest. Digging in her heels, she offered, “Or where I come from, Bounty Huntress.”
Tyson watched as she kept her heel dug into the guy’s sternum while she lifted a cell phone from her back pocket. She touched the screen to life and tapped a few times before narrowing her eyes and looking down at the man. Bending, she shoved the screen of her phone into his face. “You see this woman.”
“N-n-no,” he wheezed.
Gritting her teeth, Cersi shoved her phone into her jacket pocket and punched Drunk Fuck hard in the side, knocking the remaining air from his lungs. “It wasn’t a fucking question, moron.” Stuffing her hand in her pocket, she jerked her phone out and shoved it in back in his face. “This woman, you saw her. You were following her, but someone got to her first. Who was it?”
It took Drunk Fuck several breaths to stutter out, “I-I-I…wasn’t…”
Cersi drew a deep breath in through her nose as she slowly shoved up to her full height of five foot nothing.
She was a beautiful thing to watch. The denim she wore clung to her ass and hips like a second skin and Tyson went half hard again just watching her cross her arms under her chest. Even through the thin satin of her jacket, he could see the ample swell of her breasts as they were thrust up.
“You’re gonna make me do this the hard way,” she warned, taser gun still in one hand, her phone in the other. Rolling her head from side-to-side, she sighed and lowered her arms. “That’s okay. I like hard.”
His cock jerked at her words.
Cersi flashed a grin before pulling the trigger on the gun. Drunk Fuck writhed, and over his grunts, she spoke calmly. “You were there when she was taken. You set up a blind date with her that night. You were going to attack her in her parking lot. I know it. I’ve studied your M.O. But, someone beat you to it, now, Tell. Me. What. You. Saw!” She released the trigger. Drunk Fuck was crying now. Even from this distance, Tyson could smell urine from where the guy had pissed himself.
“V-v-v….va-van!”
Smiling like she’d just been offered a cookie, Cersi squatted and actually patted the guy on the head like she was rewarding a puppy. “Good boy, go on.”
“A…fucking…a van. Guys jumped…out.”
“How many, what color, did you see the plates? And before you sell me bullshit, know that I know that you don’t like having things taken from you. Don’t pretend like you didn’t drink in as much detail as you could. In your eyes, those fucks stole your prey, which means you were paying attention. You’d try for revenge. Now tell me everything you know, and I might just let you leave here with your balls medium rare instead of well done.”
Tyson listened as the guy rattled off a surprising amount of detail about the night Vesa was taken. Cersi was right. Drunk Fuck…or apparently, Crazy Psycho Stalker, had been paying attention. It was problematic, especially because Cersi was working damn fast and was much closer right now to a real serious lead on Vesa’s whereabouts than she should have been.
Tyson knew who took Vesa. He even knew where she was. She’d been kidnapped by orders of the Council and shipped up to Montana to participate in The Hunt. It was a ritual. A Hunt created so that un-mated Alpha’s could chase down a mate and haul them back to their respective packs. Shifters were low in numbers and procreation was of utmost importance, but most packs tried to avoid mates for as long as they could because while ancient medicine was what gifted them the ability to shift, it also acquiesced to stronger medicine. And, there was only one form of medicine stronger than a shifter’s ability to change into his animal. It was a woman’s ability to create life. This meant that for about seven days a month, each pack with a female pack member, was unable to shift while she was on her cycle. It scared the shit out of most male shifters, it’s why they formed rogue packs with no women allowed. But, that was against Council rules and nobody, not even his BloodMoon pack—the strongest pack in the northwest—went against the Council. They couldn’t. The Council was old as time and knew more secrets and history on shifters than anyone else. It was even rumored that they could permanently remove a shifter’s animal, and that’s what kept the packs in line. All packs! So, each year rogue packs were tracked down and given one dictate, appear for The Hunt or be hunted themselves. His pack, the BloodMoons had attended, and Haddix, his Alpha, had participated in The Hunt. He’d claimed Vesa as his new mate and she’d been taken back to BlackLodge, where currently Haddix was hopefully doing his best to woo her. Tyson had been sent out because intel had been delivered on Vesa. Each pack had gotten a similar package on their new Alphenas or Phenas, as most called them. The women who were chosen for The Hunt were selected because no one would miss them. Well, hardly anyone. They had very little family, usually only one person, so that they could be easily taken but still had leverage to be used against them. That’s why Tyson was here. He was to stay close to Vesa’s person and if need be, use her to make Vesa submit to his Alpha.
He knew it’d never come to that. Haddix wasn’t that type of man. None of his pack mates were. Yeah, they housed vicious beasts, but they didn’t hurt women…ever!
His attention stayed on Cersi as she paced the alley in her red high heels and ass-hugging jeans. She was sexy as all fuck, and as he watched her, he tried to convince himself that it wouldn’t be a problem. Physical attraction to a woman had never been an issue because he knew better than to get too close to anyone. Monster wouldn’t tolerate it, and that meant Tyson couldn’t either, for everyone’s sake.
On her phone, Cersi made a call to local law enforcement for pick-up, and the whole time she waited for the cops to show, she tormented the sack of shit on the ground. It’d been fun to watch, and interesting. When he’d shown up at the bar earlier and saw Cersi hanging all over this guy, his opinion of her had settled in the basement. Now, it was skyrocketing.
When he picked up the sound of a car approaching, he melted deeper into the shadows, eyes still locked on Cersi. She heard the car too and stopped pacing to squat down near Drunk Fuck. “I want you to remember how easy it was for me to find you.” She held up the taser gun and shook it in his face. “I want you to remember how your balls feel right now. Because if you ever get out of prison and think of going after another woman,” her look turned sinister. “I’m gonna find you, and I’m gonna bury you someplace no one will ever find you. Do you understand?”
Drunk Fuck nodded, but Cersi shook her head and lifted a red-tipped finger and pointed at her ear, turning her head slightly.
“Y-yes.” Drunk Fuck panted a little before offering, “I…under-stand.”
Smiling, she slapped his chest, and it made the guy flinch. “Good boy.”
She stood just as the police arrived. Tyson stayed hidden while Cersi spoke with the cops. It was almost comical watching her explain who she was and why Drunk Fuck was still writhing on the ground. She put serious emphasis on the fact that the guy was her capture and even went so far as to video her conversation with the cops and them putting the sick perv in the back of the cruiser before she slid her phone into her back pocket and walked down the alley.
Her steps crossed one over the other in the feline way only a woman’s did when she sashayed her ass with each pronounced step. It was sexy as fuck. Cersi looked like a pleased little kitten that’d just captured a canary, and Tyson felt equal amounts of disappointment and excitement in the realization that he was going to have to throw a wrench in the little minx’s hunt. She couldn’t get close to Vesa right now. Haddix needed time to convince his newly captured mate that she was his. Vesa needed to choose to stay at their pack territory, BlackLodge, of her own volition, which meant Haddix needed time. Time Cersi apparently wasn’t going to give them. Time Tyson would have to create.