Most Shifters lived with their own kind. But Austin, the Packmaster, had fallen in love with Lexi. She’d grown up thinking she was human until she had recently gone through the change—a Shifter’s transition to adulthood when they shift into their animal for the first time. Lexi had been stolen from her Shifter family by a human when she was just a baby. That explained her resilience in all she’d been through, because that was the Shifter way. After coming to grips with the truth, she’d moved in with the Weston pack, mated with Austin, and that was that. The brothers accepted her mom and little sister as family, even though they were human.
They weren’t the only humans in the house. Reno had recently hooked up with one of Lexi’s coworkers, and they were as good as mated, except that mating wasn’t legal between humans and Breed. April had moved in several months ago, and they had a chemistry that couldn’t be matched. But it was less “in your face” sexual than the Austin and Lexi phenomenon. Those two were like watching the mating rituals of wild animals. April was a great girl, but more of a bookworm. At first the pack had tried to steer Reno away from her. The brothers insisted it wasn’t a wise decision for Reno to pursue a human. But after saving Reno’s wolf, April had earned their respect. When Reno asked her to be his life mate, the pack let go of their grudges and accepted her into the family. That’s what brothers do.
Jericho didn’t have a mate, despite the two bombshells curled up next to him. He loved the ladies and loved them good… in bed. But outside the sheets, no woman had ever made his wolf pace restlessly. No woman had ever made him feel an inexplicable desire to behave irrationally, all for the sake of making her smile. No woman had ever made him want to be a better man, one who would spill blood to protect what he loved. No woman had ever incited the hunter in him. No woman had ever denied him.
Except one.
Chapter 1
The only thing in this world I loved more than a frozen chocolate shake on a hot spring day was combustible sex on a kitchen table.
“Hell’s bells,” I groaned, rubbing my forehead when a brain freeze struck me.
“You drank it too fast, Izzy. How many times have I told you to suck on it slower?”
I smirked and glanced up at Hawk, who seemed oblivious to his own innuendo.
I was born Isabelle Marie Monroe, which didn’t fit my spirited personality in the least, so everyone called me Izzy. I came from an interbred family of Shifters—something frowned upon by most Breeds. My dad was a wolf and my mother a cougar. Talk about cats and dogs. All my siblings were cougars, so growing up the lone wolf in the family was no cakewalk. Shifters don’t go through the change until their late teens or early twenties, but kids often show telltale characteristics of their animal early on. When they began to sense I wasn’t one of them, my sisters and older brother turned on me. After I went through the change, it confirmed their suspicions.
So I learned how to fight.
It took me three long years to build up enough courage to go out on my own, and when I did, I couldn’t escape that house fast enough. A charismatic young Shifter named Jericho took me under his wing. We met about twenty years ago when he worked as a roadie for a popular band touring around the country. We were two Shifters from different worlds who found each other in a rainstorm. It was a lifetime ago, but Shifters live for centuries. I still looked a graceful twenty-five.
I lived and traveled with Jericho for five years. We had a magnetic chemistry, as if we’d known each other in another lifetime. But Jericho would often ditch me in a bar and run off with some floozy who caught his eye. It couldn’t be helped; the man was gorgeous and women threw themselves at him. Except for me, because all we ever were was best friends. Then things got twisted between us, and I bailed.
Recently I’d found out my parents had divorced. A loner by nature, my mother had finally given up fighting my father’s desire to join a pack. As for him, he ended up joining a group up in Colorado. By that time, my siblings had scattered across the country, and we didn’t keep in touch.
Avoiding pack life wasn’t advisable for single women because rogue wolves were a constant threat, though a pack led by a good Packmaster offered protection. But I’d never known that life, and it frightened me. After all, my own family hadn’t looked out for me. How could I expect strangers to? Because of that distrust, I never revealed my animal to anyone except close friends or lovers. I’d never experienced what it meant to be in a pack, but the instinct called to me in quiet moments.
I bounced around the lower states for years and then moved to Texas with a friend who wanted to join a pack. She’d heard Austin was thick with Shifters, and you can bet your red panties she found a Packmaster within the second week, which left me without a job or a home.
And that’s when I bumped into Hawk. We met at a Laundromat of all places, and I sensed his Breed energy when I sat next to him. After letting his jockeys tumble with my G-strings, we decided to take it to the next level and have been living together for the past month. I didn’t know what he did for a living and didn’t care, so long as he treated me right. He’d just gotten me a job at a Shifter bar called Howlers, which is where we were headed.
When I noticed only a few slurps of milkshake remained, I hurled the cup out the window.