Wolf Born
Underground Heat, Book 2
By Ann Gimpel
Publisher: Liquid Silver Books
ISBN: 978-1-62210-030-9
Release Date: 9/2/13
Genre: Paranormal Romance
50,000 words
In a futuristic world where shifters keep their friends close
and their enemies closer, passion flares hot and sweet.
Blurb:
In a futuristic California that’s
almost out of resources, Max leads a double life. A Russian wolf-shifter, he
heads up the State of California as its governor—and the shifter underground.
He took on the governorship to help his people. Threatened with genocide, many
shifters have gone into hiding. Some blame Max and the underground for their
plight, rather than the governmental edict that’s meant death for so many.
Audrey works for Max. Unlike most
humans with low levels of shifter blood who bless their lucky stars they
avoided the purge, she wants to be a shifter. If she could find a way to
finesse it, she’d quit her job in a heartbeat and go to work helping the
shifter underground. The only sticking point is Max. She’s been half in love
with him forever.
Against a dog-eat-dog political
backdrop where no one knows who their allies are, Max and Audrey spar with one
another. Max fears she’s part of the group trying to kill him. Audrey has no
idea about Max’s double identity and worries she won’t be able to walk away
from their fiery attraction to help the underground.
After a second attempt on his life,
Max faces critical choices. Should he follow his head or his heart?
Excerpt:
…Loren double parked the electric
car outside the restaurant and shadowed them inside, along with the redheaded
guard. “Looks pretty good.” Loren eyed the private, sound-shielded room. “I’ll
be right outside, and John will be here, too, just as soon as he takes care of
the car.”
“Once reinforcements arrive, feel
free to go hunt for your men,” Max said. “You must be worried about them.”
“Thanks, boss. I am. Go sit down.
I’ll scare up a waiter to at least get you a bottle of wine or something.
John’s going off-shift in an hour, so there will be two new guards outside when
you’re done eating.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” Max
pulled the door shut and walked to the table. Audrey had already seated herself
and was sorting through the stack of papers, arranging them into piles. “It’s
all right if you don’t work for a few moments,” he said, taking a seat across
from her.
“It’s better if I have something
to, uh, take my mind off what happened. You asked if I’d gotten a chance to
practice with the gun. The answer is yes. My brother sort of smuggled me into
the cop shop gun range in the middle of the night a couple of times. But I’ve
never been around anybody who was dead.” Her voice cracked. He saw her swallow
hard. Max’s estimation of her edged up a few notches. Audrey was one tough
cookie, even though she might not realize it. Most women would have dissolved
into hysterics.
“You did fine. Good thinking to be
in front of the elevator door with your gun.”
“Really?” She met his gaze with
lovely hazel eyes that were shading toward green at the moment and rested her
chin on an upraised hand. “I wasn’t certain what to do. I thought I should call
the elevator back, but I didn’t want to subvert whatever you were doing. Then I
wondered if I should take the stairs to a lower floor, but that wouldn’t have
helped if you were still in the elevator… Ach.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t
mind me. I’m babbling.”
“You did fine,” he repeated just as
the door opened, and a waiter swooped in with a silver bucket holding a wine
bottle and two glasses.
“Good evening, sir and madam.” The
waiter bowed slightly. He was in his fifties with a bald head and merry blue
eyes. “The gentleman outside thought you could do with a spot of something
relaxing. How does a cabernet strike you? If you’d rather have something
different, I haven’t opened it yet.”
“I’m sure it will be fine.” Max
held out a hand for the bottle and inspected the label. “What’s on the menu
tonight?”
The waiter rattled off a series of
dishes while he opened the wine. Max glanced at Audrey. “What sounds good to
you?”
She smiled warmly. “I’m used to
whatever my ration coupons will buy. If it’s not too expensive, I’d love to
have a steak.”
“How would madam like it cooked?”
the waiter inquired, arching a brow. He poured a jot of wine into a glass and
handed it to Max.
“Rare.”
“Salad and rice or potatoes?”
“Salad and potatoes, please.”
“I’ll have the same,” Max cut in
and took a sip of what was a very good wine. Rich and oaky, it had an enticing
bouquet. “The wine is perfect,” he told the waiter, who immediately poured some
into a glass for Audrey and added more to Max’s.
“This is really quite wonderful,”
Audrey said once the waiter left. “Everything. Not just the wine. I can’t
remember the last time I ate out at anything but one of those diners where I
flash my wrist computer at the glass cases, and it debits credits from my
account.”
“Enjoy it.” Max smiled. “You
deserve to be pampered after what happened. I can still barely believe…” His
voice trailed off. He needed to be careful not to say too much. “Um, what’s in
those documents that’s so important?”
She leaned toward him. Her scent
was even more intoxicating than the wine. He caught himself inhaling deeply and
pulled away, aware of a pressure against his trousers where he was suddenly
hard.
Audrey wriggled in her seat. She
bit her lower lip and blew out a tense breath. Finally, she lowered her voice
and murmured, “I probably shouldn’t do this, but I need to be honest with you.
It’s all in my employment records anyway, but since I was here long before you
were governor, well, you may not have looked at them… Cripes! I’m blathering
like an idiot.”
“Whatever it is, just go ahead and
tell me.” Max felt oddly protective toward her, though he didn’t understand
quite why. Worse, the moment his cock had gotten hard, his wolf had begun a steady
patter of lewd side remarks that made Max want to throttle him.
“There’s no easy way to do this,”
she went on, her knuckles so white against the wineglass, Max hoped it wouldn’t
shatter from the pressure. “If you decide I can’t work for you afterward,
well…” she set down the stemware and spread her hands in front of her. “Not
much I can do about it. I have shifter blood. Roughly 35 percent. Some of my
relatives have been killed in this purge, so I’m not the most ardent supporter
of the governmental edicts to round up shifters and imprison them.”
She sucked in a ragged breath and
raised her gaze so she looked right at him. A combination of defiance and
pleading etched fine lines around her eyes.
“Miss Westen. Audrey. I’m not going
to fire you. It’s all right. Thank you, for trusting me.” Deep inside, Max felt
the wolf push him to say more, to tell her about the serum. To offer it up, for
God’s sake. He resisted. “You told me that for a reason. I assume it’s related
to the documents. Could you walk me through what’s in them?”
She nodded. “Sure. It’s intel about
something called the shifter underground.” Her eyes flashed. “Frankly, now that
I know about them, I’m on their side, but don’t worry, I wouldn’t ever say that
publicly.”
Max listened as she relayed the
story he’d lived for the past couple of days. Everything was there, including
the serum that pushed cops with a low percentage of shifter blood into
full-blown shifters. Before the series of intravenous infusions that law
enforcement had forced on their elite tracker task forces, a person needed 50
percent shifter blood to morph into their bond animal. After the infusions, 10
percent was sufficient. Max had gotten unutterably excited by the prospect of
thousands of new shifters to swell their ranks and perhaps turn the tide of the
war in their favor.
Another set of nationwide reports
detailed those same cops betraying their oaths and going rogue. Predictions
about anarchy ran wild. By the time Audrey was finished, Max was ecstatic, but
he couldn’t let it show. Everything he’d assumed would happen was playing
itself out like a well-oiled machine. He couldn’t wait to let the underground
know.
“Well?” Audrey raised her gaze from
the stack of papers and gathered them together.
“Interesting material. I understand
why it was classified top secret.” Max tried for a neutral expression. Just
because she’d confided in him was no reason to let his guard down.
The door to their private dining
room opened. The waiter pushed a cart laden with wonderful smelling dishes. Max’s
mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was pushing nine at
night. For the moment, his sexual hunger receded, and he tucked into a
succulent, barely cooked piece of meat.
“Where do they get this?” she
asked, cutting into her steak and chewing slowly. “None of the shops where I
exchange my ration coupons ever have anything but ground or processed meat
products.”
“There’s a black market,” he
replied around a mouthful of salad.
Her brows drew together. “So it’s
real,” she muttered. “I never paid much attention.” Her mouth curved into a
smile. She set down her fork and knife. “It’s so good, I feel like I should
save what’s left and take it home. I’ve already eaten far more than I usually
do.”
“I can ask the waiter to box it up
for you.”
“That would be wonderful. Thank
you.” She glanced at him shyly through long, dusky lashes. “You’ve taken the
worst day of my life and turned it into something special.”
He wanted to move to her side of
the table and gather her into his arms. Not only was Audrey one of the most
stunning women he’d ever seen, she was level-headed and seemingly oblivious to
how gorgeous she was. Max put himself on a tight leash. He had bigger problems
to attend to than his non-existent love life. At least so far, Audrey hadn’t asked
about O’Hare’s accusations in the elevator. Christ! Maybe she thought he was
tossing the shifter epithet at her.
Max nodded to himself. It made
sense. Likely, that was why she’d fessed up about her shifter blood.
“Penny for your thoughts, boss?”
She focused her alluring hazel gaze on him. In the low light, her eyes held a
violet cast.
“Nothing. Are you about ready to
head home?”
She nodded. “I suppose we should.
Tomorrow morning will come around early.”
He laughed. “Right you are, Miss
Westen. It always does. It’s all right with me if you take a few hours off—”
She waved him to silence. “Nothing
happening at home. The neighborhood’s gone to hell. I can’t even go out for a
walk anymore. All I do is sit barricaded behind a bunch of deadbolts.”
Part of him wanted to bring her
home with him, to his uptown mansion where she’d have gated grounds to roam. He
cleared his throat before something untoward slipped out. “Let me find the
waiter.” He realized he was still hard and pulled his jacket around to shield
the evidence as best he could.
As if the waiter had been waiting
right outside and could read his mind, the door opened before Max had gotten
up. “Would sir and madam like anything else? A touch of dessert perhaps?”
“You can box up the rest of the
lady’s meal,” Max said. “You wouldn’t happen to have that delectable chocolate
mousse?”
The waiter’s mouth formed an
apologetic moue. “Not tonight, sir. We have lemon cheesecake, a cheese and
fruit plate with brandy, or ice cream.”
“Does any of that sound good?” Max
glanced at Audrey. Her eyes were wide with delight.
“Oooooh, it all sounds wonderful. I
can’t even remember the last time I had real ice cream. That frozen crap they
sell nowadays doesn’t even have any dairy products in it.”
“Could you bring us a sampler plate
with a little of everything?” Max asked.
“Of course. Coming right up.” The
waiter snatched their plates and left.
“Not that I wouldn’t love something
sweet,” she said a bit wistfully, “but I thought we’d decided it was late and—”
Max kicked himself. They had decided that—sort of. He was enjoying himself, and
he didn’t want the evening to end, but that wasn’t the sort of thing he
could—or should—say to his secretary. He shrugged. “You seem to finally be
relaxing. After what happened at the office, you deserve a little R and R. You
really can come in an hour or two later tomorrow.”
Her gaze softened. “Thank you.”
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