HUNT (A Shifters Short Story)

Thank you so much for reading “Hunt!” I hope you’ve liked what you’ve seen of Abby and Jace, and if so, you’re in luck! What follows is a preview of the first Wildcats book, a spinoff of the original Shifters series, which launched my career.

The Wildcats books are paranormal romance novels set in the Shifters world. Each will be narrated by a new couple, beginning with Abby and Jace’s book, LION’S SHARE, which introduces a new concept—a Pride made up entirely of strays.

Readers ask me all the time for more books set in the Shifters world, and now that I have a great spinoff concept, I’m happy to oblige! I hope you have as much fun reading them as I’m having writing them!

If you liked “Hunt,” I hope you’ll consider reviewing it wherever you review books. And if you’d like to be updated about new releases, contests, and cover art, click here to sign up for my (hopefully monthly) mailing list.

Thanks again for reading!

Rachel Vincent



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SNEAK PEEK OF



LION’S SHARE



A WILDCATS NOVEL



BOOK ONE OF THE

SHIFTERS SPINOFF SERIES



By





RACHEL VINCENT





ONE


Abby

What they don’t tell you about college, before you get there, is how much time you’ll have to spend dodging your Alpha’s calls in order to get any studying done.

Or was that just me?

My phone rang again as I unlocked my dorm room door, and again I pressed the ignore button, even though I was all done studying for the semester.

Force of habit.

But to be fair, I did feel a little guilty that time.

I exhaled with relief when the door closed at my back and warmth from my dorm room enveloped me. Three and a half years in Kentucky, and I still couldn’t get used to the cold or the snow. Where I came from, winter was little more than a cool breeze around the first of the year, and even though Kentucky liked to think of itself as a southern state, no one actually hailing from the depth south could claim quite such a familiarity with the changing of the seasons.

In my part of South Carolina, we only had two: hot and slightly less hot.

I dropped my backpack on my unmade bed and took one resentful look at the bulging laundry hamper in the corner of the room, wondering if I actually had to wash my clothes before I packed them. Finals were finally over—I’d aced them, thank you very much—and the winter holiday didn’t officially start until the next day, which meant I had one last night to spend celebrating the end of the semester.

That night was much too precious to be wasted on laundry. Or packing. Or…

“Abby!” My roommate, Robyn Sheffield, pushed the door open with her elbow, carrying a steaming paper cup in each hand. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were red. She looked happier than I’d seen her in two months.

Healthier, too. Her appetite had come back almost a month before, and her steady hands told me she’d just about put the trauma at the campground behind her.

“Thanks,” I said as she handed me one of the cups. “Hot chocolate?”

Her smile rose higher on one side as she took a sip from her own. “Irish hot chocolate.”

“Because it was made by leprechauns in a pint-sized sweatshop on the outskirts of Belfast?”

“Because it’s liberally spiked with Irish Crème. Gary’s Christmas present to the entire floor.”

Our RA was a pain in the ass nine months out of the year, but he was generous around the holidays. God bless him.

I took a sip and sank onto the edge of my bed with my feet tucked beneath me. “All done with exams?” I said, leaning across my nightstand to press the ratty old scarf farther into the crack in the windowsill. No matter how high we set the thermostat, the draft froze the tip of my nose all night, every night.

“Finally!” She sipped from her cup. “You?”

“As of twenty minutes ago. Seven semesters down, one to go.” In six months, I’d have a bachelor’s degree—only the second ever awarded to a female werecat. In the world. Ever. My brothers were proud. My parents were happy for me, but they were also ready for me to be finished with my education, so my “real” life could begin.

The life wherein I would move back home, marry a future Alpha, and have his shifter babies while he trained to take over our Pride from my father. That’s the way it had been for every tabby that had come before me. All but one, anyway.

My cousin Faythe—the world’s only female Alpha—had broken the mold. But that mostly just changed the way people saw her. Faythe was the exception. The tabby who could not be tamed. The rest of us were still expected to follow the rules, because the numbers hadn’t changed. There were still only a handful of female werecats capable of bearing children, and if any of us refused to do that, the strength of our species would be compromised.

We could literally go extinct.

No pressure.