Blurb:
Alexander
Dieson always knew that he was different. Yes, he could shift like the
other wolf shifting cowboys on the Tate Ranch, but he could also make
fire and a host of other things. When his parents move him to California
from Texas he resolves himself to spending a life alone.
Ross
Barber discovers the scent of his mate hours after the younger man
moves away with his family. He spends ten years searching for Alex and
finally finds him just after Alex’s life has been completely turned
upside down.
Ross
promises Alex that he will help find his mate’s missing siblings but in
the process of their search they learn the truth about Alex’s DNA and
are completely shocked by the way their lives and the Tate Ranch changes
because of it. And when they learn how high up the plot to kidnap and
sell paranormals actually goes, the Tate Pack will never be the same.
Excerpt:
“Hey! You!”
Ross
looked up at the shout and found himself facing the throng of men who
had left the
house and now spread out to surround him. The man holding the toddler
walked back to the front of the house before he returned. Ross looked
around at them all, noticing the pack’s Alpha stood among them, not at
all shocked that he would be involved in something shady—most Alphas
he’d met were—testing his odds and figuring out his best course of
action. His father was a former Green Beret and his mother had been
Special Ops.
Ross
had been trained from the crib in hand-to-hand combat, just like his
sister. They’d been trained to kill when they had no other options, and
his parents had always made sure they knew how to get themselves out of
any situation they ever found themselves in. Most people would think his
parents had done him a disservice by raising him to be a fierce killing
machine, dominant, aggressive… mean as all get out, but Ross didn’t see
it that way. There were some fucked
up things out there, and not all of them were in the paranormal world.
Ross, his sister, and their parents had come in contact with evil in its
purest form and he would be damned if he would ever be caught unaware.
He
tensed his muscles, ignoring the fact that he was completely nude
because of his shift, and waited for the first man to come charging at
him. That was always where people went wrong. They immediately went on
the offensive when it was defense that won games, no matter what his
football coach had told him.
“Hey,
look, we don’t want any trouble,” Vet said, the new Alpha, if the power
that swirled around him, almost bringing Ross to his knees, was any
indication. His hair, which looked black in the darkness, blew in the
late night breeze and his scent wafted up to Ross’s nostrils. Ross took
in a deep breath and wrote the Alpha off as his
mate again. He hadn’t been back at the Tate Ranch in quite a while.
Even though much of it was like returning home, there were still aspects
of the pack lands that were new to him. Namely, the fact that the men
before him were older and their scents, while at the core were still the
same, had subtly changed. Ross knew Vet. They had, in fact, gone to
preschool together, come out to each other, lost their virginity
together, and had shifted together for the first time. It was shortly
after losing their virginity to each other that Ross and his family had
left the pack to assist in a rescue mission.
Apparently
the pack had added more new members since then. One of them was his
mate, but Vet, even with his new, more powerful, cloying scent, wasn’t
his mate. None of the men who currently watched him were. Which meant
that his mate was in the house. “We just want to know what you’re doing
skulking
around the Dieson home. I am the new Alpha of this pack, and I would
have you identify yourself.”
Ross
tucked away the name Dieson for later and bared his neck to the Alpha
in a show of submission. “My apologies, Alpha. You may not remember me,
but my name is Ross Barber. My family and I just re-joined the pack
today. You met with my parents earlier.” Ross waited for Vernon “Vet”
Tate to nod before he continued. “I smelled my mate and came to find
him,” he finished simply. He noticed the large man who had been holding
the toddler earlier tense and immediately turned his attention to him.
“Do you know who my mate is, Beta?”
Ross
grinned when he saw the big man blink at him in stupefaction. He wasn’t
sure how he was always able to know exactly what someone’s position was
in a pack, coven, herd, company or wherever, but from the time he
was a child, it had been a gift of his. He could either peg what they
currently were, or what they would end up being. It freaked people out
all the time; he just saw it as a fact of life.
The
larger man recovered from his shock and growled low in his throat,
showing a small measure of aggression at Ross’s blatantly disrespectful
tone with him, before his shoulder drooped and he whimpered in the back
of his throat. The sound was one of despair, and Ross felt his blood run
cold. Had something happened to his mate? And what did the Beta mean to
the man who belonged to Ross?
“His name is Alex Dieson. Alexander Mitch Dieson. He’s not here anymore,” the Beta answered.
Ross
felt his heart stop in his chest. He crouched low to the ground, a
growl rumbling up from his belly and bursting forth from his lips.
He didn’t know why the Beta sounded so upset that Alex was gone since
he’d obviously had something to do with it, but Ross didn’t care. The
Beta would be the first to go. The other wolves crouched low, and Ross
ignored the small, niggling voice at the back of his mind that pointed
out that there was no smell of blood in the air anywhere, so his mate
wasn’t hurt. Ross’s eyes took in the other wolves, and he noticed that
the Alpha remained standing.
“Hold
it, guys. He doesn’t understand,” he said, the power in his words
causing them all to freeze. He stared at Ross and sighed. “Alex isn’t
dead or hurt. At least, we have seen no evidence that he is. We came to
invite him out for our weekly bowling party and found his home deserted.
All of his stuff is gone, as well as those of his parents. We believe
they left town sometime earlier today, without the permission of the
Alpha, and with no
indication about where they were going. They didn’t leave a note or a
letter behind to explain their actions, either, though Alex did leave
something written on his wall for us to see.”
Ross
didn’t allow the Alpha to continue talking, instead turning and yanking
off the doorknob to the back door in his rush to get inside. He ignored
the shouts of the men behind him as he ran upstairs. He followed the
scent of his mate and charged into the room where the smell was
heaviest. He stopped when he saw the words written on the bare blue
wall. There, written in large, black permanent marker were words that
filled Ross with hope and a determination to find the man who belonged
by his side.
I’ll be back.
Ross would make sure of that. He would find his mate and bring him back to Wichita Falls, where he belonged,
no matter how long it took to find him.
Vic
Vicktor Alexander
Author of Erotic M/M Romance
Where Naughty & Nice Boys Get Roped Into Romance Time and Again
No comments:
Post a Comment