Excerpts
These are excerpts from my published works or works in progress.
Rough Draft of Sherry’s Wolf Finished!
Yes, the rough (very rough!) draft of Sherry’s Wolf is complete. I need to go back and add a few details, plus prune a lot of redundant, rambling internal monogue, and some other changes, including smoothing out the ending. But I’m putting it off until Tuesday. This weekend I’m knitting, spinning, sewing and reading for fun. Yippee!
To celebrate the completion of the first draft, here is anothe snippet for Sherry’s Wolf. (Unedited, of course!)
Stag found Taye in the rec room by the window, sitting in one of the chairs that were grouped around a small table, frowning down at a book in his hand. The Alpha scented him before he came close and got up with a smile.
“Hey, Taye.”
Taye gave him a one armed hug. “What brings you here?”
Stag settled into one of the hard wooden chairs beneath the window. Taye joined him, still holding his book. “My mate,” Stag answered gloomily. “She wants me to wait until summer to kiss her again.”
Taye’s brows rose. “You kissed her?”
“Last night.” Heat poured through his body when Stag remembered the feel of her tongue playing with his. “I went too far and now she’s running scared.”
Taye ran a thumb over the spine of his battered paperback. “Did she like your kiss?” he asked carefully.
“Yeah.”
Stag was sure of that. She held onto his wrist in a grip so strong she’d used it to lift her mouth closer to him. And she hadn’t stopped him sooner even though she said she should have. Most telling of all had been her scent. Yeah, she liked kissing him. It was only the memory of a dead husband who had hurt her that made her stop.
“She liked it. I think she liked it too much. She told me to go back to the Clan until Christmas. She’s scared, Taye. She said I scared her.” Stag knew that Taye could smell his anguish at that. Even if he wanted to hide it he couldn’t.
Taye held up his book. “Same thing happened to Dante when he was courting Lady Amber.”
“Who?”
Taye waved the book. “Dante the pirate fell in love with the Governor’s daughter but he couldn’t have her, see, because she was a lady and he was pirate scum. So he kidnapped her and took her on his ship and sailed away. He teased her with kisses every day until she fell so deeply in love that she agreed to marry him. And they lived happily ever after.”
Stag eyed the faded cover of the book. The title scrolled over the top of the page in fancy letters: The Black Dragon’s Woman. A kneeling woman whose strange dress was falling off her shoulders clung to the leg of a bare-chested man. The woman had her head tilted back, staring up at the man in doe-eyed adoration. The man had one fist clenched on the rail of a ship, staring out to sea like he didn’t even notice he had a woman kneeling in front of him. They were apparently caught in a strong wind, since their hair and clothes streamed behind them.
“No offense, Taye, but that picture is disgusting. I don’t ever want to see Sherry kneeling in front of me.”
Taye’s smile was dreamy. “There’s things a woman can do on her knees in front of a man …” He cleared his throat. “The thing is, Dante took his woman away from everyone else. In his cabin they were alone and no one interrupted them. They didn’t have any distractions.”
“Taye,” Stag said carefully. “That’s just a book. It’s not real. And, um, what does a woman do on her knees …? No, don’t answer that!””
Taye’s smile turned wolfish. “You sure you don’t wanna know?”
Actually, Stag thought he had a pretty good idea. On her knees, Sherry’s face would be close to his cock. The thought of her mouth on him as his mouth had been on her breast last night had him shifting in his chair. His breechcloth didn’t hide anything, so Taye had to know why he barked, “Not now!”
Taye had the decency to tone his grin down. “Okay. Back to The Black Dragon’s Woman. Women have been reading these stories for years. They like it. I know it’s not real, but if you treat Sherry right she’ll be like Amber. She’ll fall in love with you.”
“I’m not a pirate! I can’t kidnap her and take her out to sea.”
“No, but you could take her out to the cabin over east of Sheep Head Hill, the one Laura and his Beagle hide out in. Keep her there for a week while you court her. If you have her alone, she’ll have to pay attention to you.”
Alone with Sherry … “No, it would be too dangerous. What if someone came on us? A beautiful woman with only one man to protect her? We’d be attacked and Sherry would be stolen.”
“I’ll send a couple of the boys to run patrol around the cabin,” Taye offered.
That would work. The thought of having Sherry all to himself was tempting. Would a week be enough time to make her forget her husband? He could prove to her that he wouldn’t hurt her. Maybe she would fall in love with him. What could it hurt? Right now she wanted him to leave her. He couldn’t stand that.
Taye could see his inner debate. He held out the book. “Here. Read this. Then come back and tell me if you want us to guard you and Sherry at the cabin.”
Stag took the battered paperback doubtfully. “What am I supposed to find out when I read this?”
“What women like in bed.”
Well, that was probably worth a couple hours of his time. Sherry was no virgin, not with her marriage to LeRoi, but he was. He’d had nothing but years of hot dreams of what he’d do with his mate if he ever found her. He sighed and nodded to Taye. “I’ll be out in the sweat lodge.”
It was nearly supper time when he returned to the rec room. The room was crowded. Rose and the Grandmother were by the window, winding yarn into balls. The skinny blonde, Mrs. Madison was there, in a chair by the fireplace, with her husband Eddie standing at her side. His cousin Dan and his new wife were beside them, Dan carving and Tami braiding a rug. About a dozen members of the Pack were there, too, lolling on furs on the floor, and Taye was sitting on the floor beside his mate, his head tipped back so the Lupa could finger comb his hair. Everyone looked up as Stag burst in. He ignored them to wave the book angrily in Taye’s face.
“He strips her naked and ties her to the bed?” he roared.
Sherry’s Wolf Update and Excerpt
I’ve been hard at work on Sherry’s Wolf, and the end is in sight at last. I won’t actually have it done this weekend as hoped, so now my deadline is February 25. In my defense, I have to say that Sherry is a much more complicated woman than I had first believed. I will have to do some fairly major re-writing of chapters 2-5. It will probably be about 28,000 words, a solid novella length and I hope to have it out around March 25. Depends on how long my beta readers and editor take with it and how easy it is to format it for Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Here is a short excerpt of Sherry finally accepting Stag’s mate bond. Sherry is sitting up in bed, and Stag is perched on the edge of the bed. This is totally unedited, so please excuse the errors.
Sherry shifted on the bed, a mere inch from Stag’s naked thigh. “I guess what I’m trying to say is: I’m sorry I’ve been so … so dither-y.”
“Dither-y?” Stag blinked with adorable confusion.
“Yeah, first I’m coming on to you, then I’m pushing you away.” She reached up to put the empty glass on the top of chest of drawers. “I’m done with that. I won’t lie; I’m a little nervous about this, so be gentle, okay?”
His mystified expression froze when she put her hands on his warm bare shoulders and dragged them down his pecs and lower. She hesitated at his belly button, all too aware that his nakedness didn’t hide his body’s reaction to her touch. But she didn’t stroke any lower. She didn’t dare. Her boldness trembled on the verge of collapsing as it was.
“Stag?” she asked nervously. “Is this okay? Do you mind if I touch you?”
She watched his adam’s apple bob when he swallowed hard. “Are you accepting me as your mate?”
Now she was the one to swallow hard. “Yes.” The word cracked, so she swallowed again and spoke more firmly. “Yes. Be patient with me. I didn’t do a very good job being a wife the first time around, but I’ll try harder with you.”
“You were a good wife, better than that man deserved.” Stag reached a long brown hand to cup her cheek. “I’ll be the best mate I can be. I’ll protect you and provide for you always. I’m not in love with you. That’s for giddy children who base their commitment on feelings. I love you, which is more permanent because it’s a choice I’ve made. I think you’re beautiful, and a lot braver than you give yourself credit for. I’ve seen how good you are with the other women at the Plane Womens’ House. You work hard to help them. You deserve to have someone to take care of you. You will always come first with me.”
“And you’ll let me have a little freedom, right?”
“Right,” he agreed. “I’m not the only one of us who will need to be patient. I promise to try to not be a male chauvinist pig, but habits are hard to break.”
She suppressed a spurt of surprise that he even knew what a male chauvinist pig was. Of course, he –and all the other wolves– defined ‘male chauvinist pig’. “Kiss me, Stag,” she whispered.
His hands settled on her shoulders. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said fervently. “I promised Taye I wouldn’t touch you until you invited me to.”
That made her snort out a chuckle. She’d never imagined Taye Wolfe as a chaperone before. It made her like him a little better. “Consider yourself invited, dear.”
Stag kissed her lips once gently. And again. Sherry wanted more. She opened her lips under his and licked at his closed mouth.
“Open your mouth, Stag,” she whispered against his lips.
“Okay. I just don’t want to go too far and scare you again.”
“You can go as far as you like now. You can go all the way. You better go all the way. I like you being gentle, but you don’t have to be so gentle.”
Cupid’s Choice Bloghop!
Welcome to Maddy Barone’s stop of the bloghop! If you’ve fallen off and want to hop back on, click here.
Wolf Tracker, the third book in my After the Crash series, was released by Liquid Silver Books on Monday February 6, and to celebrate that I am offering a free download to one winner. To enter, simply leave a comment on my blog saying you’d like to read Wolf Tracker.
Strong, independent Tami was a survivalist and mountain guide in 2014 when she was flung forward fifty years into a post-apocalyptic future where women are worth their weight in gold. She is taken by four men to be their wife, but when she escapes from them they hire the Tracker, a deadly loner from the Clan with a reputation for being able to track anything, to bring her back. But Tami knows how to ride and how to hide, and she leads him on a chase that rouses his admiration. Behind Tracker’s stone cold face is a man who yearns for a wife of his own. When he catches up with Tami and learns that she is not a willing wife, he knows he can’t give her up.
I didn’t write a short story for the hop, but Valentine’s Day usually means candy, so I have a little eye candy for my visitors. My next story is Sherry’s Wolf, about plane crash survivor Sherry Rowe and the wolf that claims her as his mate. It will be a free read and I hope to have it ready by the end of March. As my series features Lakota heroes, here are a few hotties that could easily pass as characters in the After the Crash series.
This is Jumping Stag, the patient wolf who claimed Sherry way back in Sleeping With the Wolf. Sherry is terrified of the werewolf and stubbornly denies his claim. 
Sherry thinks werewolves are scary, however playful and harmless they may try to appear. Stag has done everything he can to convince her he only wants to treasure her, but she just won’t be convinced. What’s a wolf to do?
Here are Stag, and his cousin Snake. In Wolf Tracker, Snake is assigned to be Tami’s personal guard while she’s living at the Plane Women’s House in Kearney.
Go through the blogs and at the end fill out the entry form to be entered to win! There are tons of prizes to be won on this hop, like free downloads of books and a Nook Touch. Light weight, easy to use, and small enough to be tucked into even a smallish purse, the nook touch would be my pick for a new e-reader. Good luck on the hop!
Coming February 6: Wolf Tracker!
Yes, I have the release date for Wolf Tracker! It will be available at Liquid Silver Books on Monday, February 6!
Click here to read a sneak peek at Wolf Tracker!!
Thursday 13: A Peek at Sherry’s Wolf
I am currently working on two stories: Eddie’s Prize, Book 4 in the After the Crash series, and the short story about Jumping Stag and Sherry. I plan to release this as a free read in February. That means I need to pick up the pace and WRITE!! Here are the first two paragraphs as a teaser. I thought I had 13 sentences here, but I think it’s actually 14. Oops.
What are you working on these days?
Sherry was so lovely. Jumping Stag of the Wolf Clan paused in the hallway outside the big room of the Plane Women’s House
to let his eyes soak in the beauty of his mate. He hadn’t seen her in nearly four weeks, since the day after he had made human wedding vows to her averted face and hunched shoulder. Those vows had meant nothing to her. For him, they had merely put into words what she was to him: the woman his wolf had chosen to be his mate, the woman he ached to share a bed with, the woman he would die to protect.
The sunlit room was empty but for Sherry. She sat before one of the wood stoves with the cane he had carved for her leaning against her chair, long slender fingers busy with knitting needles and wool. He should go in and greet her, but he remained in the hall, watching her hungrily. Her face was defined by high cheekbones that flowed to a perfectly shaped mouth and an elegant jaw. Even if she had not been his mate he would think her beautiful. She was still far too thin, though. In the Times Before slender women had been considered the most beautiful. Stag couldn’t imagine why. Sherry was beautiful like this, but with a little more weight to soften her narrow frame she would be even more beautiful.
13 Characters in Wolf Tracker
Here are some of the characters from my upcoming release, Wolf Tracker. Some are major characters, others are very minor secondary characters.
1. Dan Stensrud, known as Tracker. Hero. Son of Emma Two Birds, nephew of Muddy Wolf, a member of the Wolf Clan of the Lakota who prefers solitude. Too restless to ever stay in one place long, he rides over the prairies of Nebraska and the Dakotas. He’d like a wife, but no woman could keep up with him on the trail, and he can’t live in a town.
2. Tami Casper. Heroine. Survivor. Refuses to be a victim and struggles to regain her self confidence after finding safety at Taye’s den. And after her experiences with the men in Greasy Butte Tami can’t imagine any husband being acceptable no matter how much pressure is put on her to marry.
3. Rose Turner. A teenaged crash survivor who has made a place for herself at Taye’s den and swears she doesn’t want Sky for a mate.
4. Connie Mondale. The only surviving member of the crashed plane’s crew, leader of the Plane Women. She has no intention of allowing a husband to be foisted on her until a certain wolf changes her mind.
5. He Eats Jelly, known as Jelly. Fourteen year old wolf in Taye’s den. As the youngest member of the pack he is saddled with the worst chores.
6. Sherry Rowe. Plane crash survivor who rejects the wolf who has chosen her for his mate.
7. Richard Dickinson. Well to do rancher who visits the Plane Women frequently in hopes of securing a wife.
8. Father John. Priest at Grand Island’s St Mary’s Basilica.
9. Des. Taye’s Beta wolf. He seems sleepy, placid and slow moving until someone annoys the woman his wolf loves.
10. Renee Mathis. A plane crash survivor who was a chef at a posh St Paul restaurant, she takes cooking with primative equipment as a challenge. The wolf who has chosen her as his mate is proud of her culinary skills.
11. Neal Overdahl. A respected young man engaged to be married to Taye’s favorite little cousin.
12. Faron Paulson. One of Kearney’s civic leaders, he has finally found a woman to marry.
13. Kills Bears. Emma Two Bird’s second husband. Tracker respects and loves his stepfather, who gives him some very good advice.
There! A few people you’ll meet in Wolf Tracker.
Excerpts Update & Vacation Report
I have been on vacation this week. It’s been wonderful! I’ve slept late everyday. I have read some books, re-read some old favorites, knitted, had supper with friends and gone to see Puss in Boots. (really liked Puss, btw). Also, at the beginning of my vacation I turned in the third round of edits on Wolf Tracker, received and approved the second draft of the cover art of Wolf Tracker. All in all, it’s been a fantastic vacation. And I deserve it! For the last year and a half I’ve been working the day job, often with overtime, plus I’ve spent about 15-20 hours a week writing. I also spend a couple hours a week at church (services plus some volunteer work), a couple hours a week on SCA stuff, a couple hours a week at my knitting group… All of which leaves me little time for reading and relaxing. I enjoy all those extras, but for me, the best way to re-charge is quiet time by myself. Many people are the opposite. They get more energy by being with people. Me? I’m a loner. What can I say? 🙂
I have spent a little time re-organizing the Excerpts Page. The first couple chapters of Sleeping With the Wolf, Wolf’s Glory and Wolf Tracker are now up. By the end of the weekend I will include snippets from other books in the series so come back and visit in a few days.
Writing Updates & A New Excerpt
I’ve been insanely busy (partially with my writing!), so here is an update on what I’ve been up to. (This is a bit long. If what you really want is the excerpt, scroll to the bottom 🙂 )
- I got the first round of edits for Wolf Tracker from my editor on October 23. I went through her suggestions, made some updates and corrections and re-wrote a small but key element of the story. I just sent the edits back yesterday and my editor will be reviewing this week and let me know what she thinks.
- I received the first draft of the cover art for Wolf Tracker and returned it with a few suggestions. Lyn Taylor has done all my covers so far, and this one is in the same style. I really love what she does with the covers. I hope to be able to post the final art in a few weeks.
- I have been working on Eddie’s Prize, Book 4 in the After the Crash series. You know, I love Eddie. I also want to strangle him. He’s beautiful. Seriously, a beautiful man. He is a veterinarian who loves animals. He fought for and won the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. The wedding night is sweet and tender and Lisa thinks she’s found the one man who will always love her, one she can love in return. But Eddie is a moron. He doesn’t deserve Lisa.
- But I’ve had to abandon Eddie and Lisa for now. My mom had her 5th surgery on the elbow she shattered 10 years ago. The darn thing just won’t heal, and poor mom is in a lot of pain. So I’ve spent a lot of time in October first at the hospital and now at her house. Between mom and the edits, I haven’t been writing anything new.
- Well, except for a brain worm that Tracker and Tami’s daughter gave me. I was sitting at my desk at work when a story burst into my mind. At least the beginnings of one. About 25 years after Tracker and Tami’s story takes place, their daughter is out riding on their ranch when she is surprised by a lion shifter who claims her as his mate. Unlike the wolves she is used to, the lion man has no intention of courting her. He simply takes her and carries her off. I will be sharing this story with the readers of my newsletter. Chapter 1 went out with the October Newsletter.
And here’s a new excerpt from Wolf Tracker. AS usual, this is still in the editing stage, so changes may be made before publication. The action up to now is as follows: Tami was one of the volunteers who left the plane crash to find help. She and her partner were found by men who sold them to men who abused them. Tami escapes and the men hire a man called Tracker from the Wolf Clan to find her and bring her back. He’s been trying to catch up with her, but Tami is pretty good at hiding her trail. She’s cold, tired and hungry but too frightened to just let Tracker catch her.
There he was again.
The sun was almost down, lighting those long blond braids to pale corn silk. He was too far away to see clearly, but Tami knew it was the same man who had come to the ranch house yesterday afternoon. His hair was distinctive. How many men had white-blond braids to their waists? How many of them rode bare-chested wearing only a breechcloth and leggings in the November cold? Yesterday, when she’d first spotted him while checking her snare, she had considered asking him for help. But her experiences in Greasy Butt made her cautious. Instead of hanging around for him to find her, she ran, abandoning the ranch house she’d found before she’d gotten any food or rest. Damn him.
Tami backed one careful footstep at a time away from the lip of the hill. All her knowledge of tracking hadn’t been enough to prevent him from following her. Her hopes that his appearance at the ranch was just coincidence or that he wouldn’t try to find her were dashed. He was definitely following her. But why? Because she was a lone woman and easy prey as she had been for the men in Greasy Butte? Damn them all straight to hell.
Dammit, how was he following her? She wasn’t a novice on the trail and she knew she wasn’t leaving many clues. She estimated the blond-haired man was no more than an hour behind her. It would be after sunset before he got to this point. Maybe she could lose him in the dark.
She went back to Freedom and forced herself back into the saddle. “I know, boy,” she murmured. “I’m tired, too. But we have to keep moving or Blondie will catch us, and that would be bad. Real bad.”
She had been so busy running she hadn’t had time to catch anything to eat, much less cook it. Raw meat sounded just fine right now. Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, and back home she’d have a table groaning under the weight of a turkey and all the trimmings. Just the thought of it flooded her mouth with saliva. In half the fiction books she’d read the ninny of a heroine would have conveniently found a berry bush or some nuts she could eat on the run. Western Nebraska in November didn’t supply those. Even if Tami found anything like that, it would have taken hours of picking to satisfy her hunger. She didn’t have hours, not with Blondie so close behind her.
So her stomach rumbled, and she rode with her hands tucked under her arms to try to warm them. The weather had stayed unusually warm for mid-November, but it wasn’t summer. Riding hungry and cold meant making mistakes if she wasn’t careful. Mistakes would send her right back to a bed with her arms and legs tied to the bed posts.
After the sun was fully down she slowed the horse to a walk. The plains were giving way to badlands. Rocks of various sizes thrust up through the dead grass, some knee high, others twenty feet high. If she were better rested and had daylight enough to not risk Freedom’s legs, she would keep riding to put as much distance as possible between her and Blondie. But Blondie would have to stop for the night, too. She needed a good place to camp, somewhere sheltered and hidden, where she could get a little rest. Without rest she’d never be sharp enough to get away from Blondie.
This place here, between a tall rock and a jumble of smaller rocks, was a good place to hide. She dismounted and loosened the saddle girth. Every movement was an effort. She leaned against her horse’s side.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Freedom,” she whispered to the gelding. “Why’s he following us? What if Blondie found our tracks and only wants to help?” Yeah, right. And there was a Super Walmart over the next hill, too. She straightened with a groan and dug through the sadly empty saddlebag for a crumb of bread. Any little crumb at all would be welcome. There was none. Tami made herself close the bag. “Maybe he wants to find me because I’m a woman and he’s a man ‘with needs,’ like those assholes in Greasy Butte.” Cold sliced through her like a knife at that thought. “Or maybe those guys back in Greasy Butte sent him to find me.”
Would they have done that? Tami wrapped one of the blankets around her shoulders and the other over her lap, and wedged herself into a crevice between two rocks to doze. She drifted off in spite of the little rock digging itself into her hip, thinking of roast turkey and stuffing.
Maybe that was why she woke smelling meat roasting over an open fire? It took a few seconds for Tami to realize the scent was real. A night breeze was wafting it right into her face. Mouthwatering. Tremor inducing. She shouldn’t move. Blondie had probably set up camp and built a fire to cook his supper. How unfair was that? She should not go and scope his camp out. If he had trailed her over thirty miles of empty country, then he knew what he was doing. Why would he have a fire unless he was using it to lure her out? She should either stay put, get some rest, and then head away from him when he settled down to sleep, or get the hell out of Dodge right now. Yeah. So why was she leaving her hidey hole and creeping toward the smell of cooking meat?
Well, because she was starving. It had been a day and a half since she’d eaten, and for a week before that she had eaten only bread, dried fruit, and a rabbit she’d caught in a snare. He had certainly picked a fine way to trap her.
She crept noiselessly until she was only yards from the edge of his camp. The fire was very low, hardly more than coals, with a blob of something that smelled heavenly hanging close above it. Aside from the fire there was nothing obvious to indicate it was a camp. Tami looked around carefully. The horse was barely visible past the fire. Blondie’s gear must be tucked away out of sight. She saw no sign of even a saddlebag. But Blondie was nowhere to be seen. She waited. If he were off taking a piss he’d be back any time. Minutes crawled by. Nothing. This was a trap. It had to be a trap. But how she wanted that meat!
In a burst of either steel nerves or utter idiocy, she skimmed into the camp, grabbed the half-cooked bird and skimmed back out. The bird was hot enough to burn her fingers, but she didn’t care. With every step she expected the guy with the blond braids to tackle her, but she made it back to Freedom, tightened the girth and mounted, juggling the bird all the while. She let the horse walk quietly, to avoid alerting Blondie, while she tore into the bird. It was tough, gamy, and half raw. It tasted like heaven. A month ago the idea of eating it would have turned her stomach. Right now it was the best meal she could ever remember eating. Blondie might catch her, but at least she’d have something in her stomach when he did.
13 Sentences From Tracking Tami
I am buried in revisions for Tracking Tami, Book 3 in the After the Crash series. Tami is a modern woman who runs a wilderness survival school but is thrown into a future where women are treated in some places like possessions. She was married against her will and runs away. Tracker is a loner from the Clan who was hired to find her and bring her back. It’s a long hard chase for both of them. The woman that Tracker expected to be an easy job challenges him every mile of the way.
1-3
As she turned to leave the kitchen to get her snare set up something on colorless, papered wall caught her eye. Stapled to the wall was a sun faded, age-yellowed calendar. For the year 2017.
4-6
“Sky,” Rose uttered with loathing.
Tracker politely pretended to not notice this sign of discord in his young cousin’s mating. He would allow himself be amused by it later when he was alone.
7-8
The first thing that struck Tracker when he came back to camp was the rich enticing scent of one particular woman. The second thing was that the damn woman had made off with his dinner.
9-11
“Ma’am?”
Tami woke with a silent gasp. The quiet murmur came out of the cold dark like a lover’s whisper.
12-13
Helpless was one thing she was not. Tracker wiped at the blood on his face with the back of his wrist.
There we go. 13 sentences from my WiP Tracking Tami. What are you writing or reading these days?
13 Paragraphs from Wolf’s Glory
To celebrate last week’s release of Wolf’s Glory, here are 13 random paragraphs from the story.
1. Shadow watched the woman riding beside him with wonder. At last, his wolf had chosen a mate for him. And what a mate. This was no thin scrap of a woman. No, his mate was tall and strong, with soft lush curves that he wanted to explore in great and loving detail. Her face was a soft oval with startlingly pale blue eyes and a soft, plump mouth that he wanted to taste again. He couldn’t stop looking at her hair. “Why is your hair pink?” he asked, fascinated.
2. After one last kiss he stepped back. Good thing, too, thought Glory, because the kid was back, all big curious eyes and long black braids. Shadow took the bowl of stew and shooed the kid off. As she spooned warm stew into her mouth she looked around his tent. Spartan didn’t begin to describe it. Glory hated camping even more than she hated clothes shopping. Good thing she wouldn’t be here long.
3. “Excuse me.” This voice was different. Glory looked up and saw one of the plane-crash survivors politely raising a hand like a kid in school. Well, it made sense. She was still in the all-arms and gawky-legs stage of being a teenager. “Excuse me. What exactly do you mean by wolves within you? Is it symbolic?”
4. Glory tried not to cry. She hated crying, especially in front of strangers. But everything hit her at once. Her parents were dead. She was stuck here, in this crazy world with werewolves. For God’s sake, werewolves? She wanted her own bed. Her own bathroom. She wanted her own life back.
5. Glory waited for Sky to hand over the rolled-up bandage, but he was staring open-mouthed at Rose, inhaling deeply, bandage forgotten in one hand. Glory smirked a little. “Rose, have you met Sky yet? Rose, this is Sky, Shadow’s brother. Sky, meet Rose Turner from the plane.”
6. Shadow flipped his waist length hair over his shoulder. This time his kiss was a lot less comforting and a lot more sexy. Damn, he could kiss. His kiss could bring a dead woman back to life just so her toes could curl. It was the type of kiss to make a woman forget the hurt people around her, the blankets boiling in the pot behind her, and even the fact that she was wearing torn, filthy clothes. She felt beautiful and desirable and reveled in it.
7. Did werewolves give off extra-strong pheromones? Glory had read that modern Americans had showered and deodorized natural pheromones away. That couldn’t be the case with the Clan. They all smelled pretty natural, sometimes to the point of stinking. But Shadow didn’t smell bad to her. She inhaled his scent and felt a whisper of desire curl deep inside.
8. He lifted his lips away and stared at her with eyes that shimmered wolf-gold in their black depths. “Are you giving me orders?” he asked with mild disbelief. “All right. But when I come back we’re going to finish this.” He gave her one more kiss and walked away, fading to his wolf form even as he untied the string of his breechcloth and let it drop. Glory had about a second to admire that muscled physique before it blurred into fur.
9. “Yes,” Glory crooned at the dog. “Those two girls are Bad. Calling them bitches would be an insult to you, wouldn’t it? You’re a very smart little dog.” She made little kissing noises before she straightened back up. “Seriously,” she told Shadow. “Those two are a waste of time. The other one, Sherry ? Some guy says she’s his mate, but she’s scared to death of him. And I know why.”
10. Carefully, slowly, Shadow released her. His eyes were almost frightening in their intensity. He turned with deliberate calm and walked with dignity around the fire back to his place. His face was smooth and cold, but his eyes shimmered across the fire at her. Glory swore she saw his wolf in those eyes. And Wolfie was not happy.
11. Before the sun was up Shadow forced himself out of bed. He was careful to smooth the blankets back into place around his mate so that she would stay warm. Did she love him? Once he had thought that just her acceptance of their mating would be enough. Now he knew acceptance alone would never satisfy him. He wanted her heart.
12. Quill put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. His voice was hardly even a whisper when he said, “It’s hard to not be able to claim your mate.”
13. A familiar scent in the crisp air made Glory inhale deeply, her heart flinging itself into her throat. “Shadow?” She thought she yelled, but it came out in a choked whisper audible only to wolf ears. She didn’t notice the way all the wolves stopped their play to watch her scramble to her knees and swing around. He was there, long hair drifting in the breeze over his naked body, gaze fixed on her. She devoured him with her eyes. He looked magnificent, all bare brown skin and taut muscle under what seemed like miles of black hair.
