I’ve finished the rough draft of Wolf’s Oath and it’s with the beta readers right now. I will be working on Wolf’s Vengeance next, but of course Sky and Rose are demanding my attention. Here is a little snip of one of the turning points in the story. Sky has brought Rose to Omaha, but they’ve seen very little of each other.

Rose stared at Sky, not recognizing the impetuous boy whose wolf had claimed her in this slick, handsome stranger dressed in a city business suit.  “I don’t know you,” she whispered. Loss and bewilderment  made her eyes smart. “You dragged me away from home and brought me here so we could get to know each other, but it’s been a week and I’ve barely seen you, much less talked to you. I want to go home.”

He smoothed the lapel of his silk suit with that condescending expression she loathed. “The world doesn’t revolve around you, princess. I’m in the middle of some very delicate negotiations right now, and having to go and fetch you has put me seriously behind schedule. By next weekend I should have some time free for you.”

“Really.” Her lips felt stiff. “Next weekend? So generous of you to squeeze me into your schedule. You know what? Don’t bother. I’m going home. I repudiate your claim.”

Finally  those cool, cobalt eyes sparked with honest emotion. “You want to see more of me? Fine. The only free time I have is at night. I’ll have Katelyn move your things to my room.”

Between the overtime at the day job and having two releases this week, It’s been a crazy! I totally missed doing my Tuesday Teaser. I thought about just skipping it this week, but I am THIS close to having the rough draft of Wolf’s Oath finished. So here is a snippet for you.

Ice gleamed smooth and slick on the moonlit road and stung the pads of his paws, but Des, trailed by Hawk on his right and Red Wing his left, didn’t stop running. Dawn was only a few hours away, and they could have stayed at the den, but they all wanted their mates. Heartsick, weary, and wounded, Des needed Connie like a starving man needed food. He needed to burrow his face into the warmth of her neck and release his grief into her keeping. He needed the touch of her hands on his body, her lips on his brow. Not for sex, but to fill the hole grief had torn in his heart.

They stopped in front of the gate at the Plane Women’s House and changed back to their man shapes. It would have been quicker to leap over the fence, but the guards from Kearney might have been alarmed and shot them. So they waited, naked in the wind, for the guard to open the gate for them.

Once inside, the three of them nodded at each other, eyes dark with the weary pain of grief, and parted to seek the solace their mates could give them. Hawk and Red Wing didn’t know which room their mates were in, so they used their noses to search out their scents. Des remembered very well which door led to Connie’s apartment. He turned the knob and ghosted through the empty communal area to the door that opened to her private room.

She was a tightly curled ball under the layers of bedding, only a few disheveled locks of pale hair showing on the pillow. He stood above her and inhaled her precious scent. It was laden with the saltiness of tears and faintly soured by fear. His hand trembled when he reached to touch her hair.

“Connie,” he whispered, his voice the merest thread of sound, perhaps too low for human ears to hear, but she woke with a start.

“Des?”

He took her searching hand in the dark and lifted it to his cheek, and then his lips.

“Yes, love.”

“Oh, God, you’re back!” She struggled to uncurl from the bedclothes and sit up. “Are you okay? Is everyone else okay?”

The grief, lifted momentarily by the sweet scent of her concern, sank back into his heart like a stone in a pond and stole his voice.

“Des?” she said again. Her groping hand brushed over the bullet hole in his shoulder. He jerked in a breath through his teeth. “Des! Are you hurt? Where’s that damned candle?”

He glanced around the room, dark to her human eyes, and found the candle on the ledge beside the door. He left her long enough to light it and carry it back to the small bedside table.

Here is a snip from Wolf’s Oath. Connie told Des that she finds him attractive, but she doesn’t know him well enough to sleep with him. They’ve spent the evening talking and she’s wavering in that decision. They are in his room at the den. It’s night, and without a wood burning stove in the room, it’s cold.

“Des, I’m cold.”

His brows puckered. “I’ve kept you up too late talking in this cold room. Scoot under the covers. I’ll tuck you in.”

She ran her gaze over his wide shoulders to his burnished brown skin stretching smoothly over taut pectoral muscles. His nipples were the color of dark rosewood. She wanted to lick them. “I’d be warmer if you were under the covers with me.”

He froze. “I don’t think I can. Not without touching you, and if I touch you I’ll want more.”

“That’s good. I want more too.”

Somehow he went even more still and spoke in a hushed voice. “If we start, I won’t be able to stop at a kiss.”

Now she knew another thing about him: he was principled. He’d promised to not take anything from her she did willingly give. “I don’t want you to stop. I want everything. You, kissing me. You, touching me everywhere. You, moving inside me.”

His nostrils flared when he inhaled deeply. “Don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing.” She braced herself against the cold air in the room and ripped the T-shirt over her head. “Des, I’m cold,” she said again.

Her nipples furled into tight points, partly because of the cold air, but mostly because Des was  staring at them. He murmured something she didn’t catch, maybe in Lakota, but she understood awe and greed well enough. Then she was flat on her back and he was under the covers lying over her.

Ellie’s Wolf will be released in three weeks! Here is a snip to whet your appetite. Ellie and her friends Sara and Mel are in their tent getting ready for bed. Ellie has just returned from a long romantic walk with Quill.

Sara couldn’t seem to keep her curiosity in check. “How far did you go? Did you like it?”

“Sara!” Ellie couldn’t believe the teenager would ask something so personal. Yes, she could. “Nothing happened. We’re waiting until we can be married by a minister or priest.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Mel blew out the lamp. “My uncle is an ordained Methodist minister. He could marry you tomorrow if you like.”

A whisper of desire flared back to life between Ellie’s thighs. Under the blanket she pressed them together.

A voice just outside their tent said, “Did you say your uncle can marry people?”

Ellie identified the voice as Stone’s. Sara growled. “Can’t you let me get even fifty feet away from you?”

“No. And answer the question.”

“Yes,” Mel said. “My uncle can marry people.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then a dozen wolves lifted their voices in a joyful chorus of howls that sent a shiver down Ellie’s spine. Tomorrow she would marry Quill Wolfe, and tomorrow night she wouldn’t be sharing a tent with Sara and Mel.

Here is a snip from Des and Connie’s story. Enjoy!

Connie drifted on the edge of waking, feeling utterly relaxed. Something poked at her mind, something that wanted to disturb her, but she was curled too comfortably on her side to want to let it in. For the first time in weeks she felt deliciously warm. She wanted to savor the feeling. When she tried to tug the edge of the blanket higher under her chin it snapped taut and didn’t move. She tugged harder with the same level of success. Frustrated, she rolled onto her back to free it and realized she wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes a slit and found herself nose-to-nose with Des.

That woke her up in a hurry, the feeling of warm relaxation fleeing. Des? What the hell was he doing in bed with her? He had the nerve to smile at her.

“Good morning,” he said, and his voice was rough with that sexy, just-woke-up gravel note in it that made her want to melt.

Connie refused to melt. Des was gorgeous, sexy, and smelled good enough to eat, but why was he in her bed?

Yes, today I have one of each! The Truth is that the Mid Summer Dream Men Blog Hop is this weekend, Friday July 19-Sunday July 21. There are going to be great prizes, so drop in at www.JustRomance.me to come along on the hop!

And I have a teaser from Des and Connie’s story. This snip is from chapter 2. It’s visitation night and Connie would rather be anywhere than here, but she feels obligated to stay. She’s leaning against the wall beside the kitchen door, watching the flirting and maneuvering with distaste. Enjoy!

Katie, the blonde who shared Connie’s apartment with Kathy, was at the nearest stove. She laughed loudly and playfully slapped the shoulder of one of her current boyfriends. Connie mentally shook her head. Katie was one of the women who enjoyed all the male attention. She and JaNae loved flirting with the men who tried to outdo each other in their lavish gifts and compliments. Katie’s voice rose above the low murmur of voices.

     “I need the little girl’s room,” she told the six men hovering around her, flashing them a flirtatious smile. “I’ll be right back. Don’t any of y’all fight while I’m gone, hear?”

     She detached herself from the cluster and gestured for Sammie to join her. The younger woman jumped up and abandoned her admirers without a backward glance. Katie paused to grin at Connie, who raised one brow. “Why do you flirt with them like that?” she asked.  “And why are you using that southern accent? I thought you’re from Minnesota.”

    Katie’s cheeks turned pink, then her grin flared bigger. “It’s fun.”

     “Are you ever going to actually pick one and marry him?”

      Katie shrugged. “Someday, I guess I will. But I’m enjoying myself too much to settle down with one yet.” Her hand smoothed down the curve of her waist to her wide hip and down to her thigh. “After twenty-eight years of being too fat to attract a man it’s a rush to have dozens of men fighting over me.” She winked and grabbed Sammie’s arm to tow her through the kitchen door toward the outhouse in the yard.

     That was one thing Connie did like about the men here. They didn’t judge a woman solely by her slender body. They liked big women even better than skinny women, but every woman, no matter her age, looks, or size, found herself the object of blatant admiration.

Poor Jelly. his name is now Spotted Stone Wolf, but his mate mockingly refers to him as Spot.

Poor Stone. Snared by a pair of pansy brown eyes as hot and wild as a prairie fire, and almost as gentle. What does a wolf have to do to get a little petting? Apparently, getting shot twice in the belly is just the ticket.

     The bedsprings groaned under him as he stretched one arm above his head to test the torn muscles in his belly. Searing pain told him he wouldn’t be getting up for a while. Footsteps, light and quick, tapped in the hall outside the bedroom and the door opened. His mate came to the bed and scowled down at him. Ah, yes, that was his sweet mate.

“When someone points a gun at you, you’re supposed to move,” she said, brows pulled straight over narrowed eyes.

“I did!” he protested.

“Away from it, Spot, you idiot, not toward it.”

Spot. He hated when she called him that. Time for a little payback. “The gun was pointed at you, little girl. I had to stop the bullet.”

The way she clenched her jaw at his nickname for her made him want to grin. She huffed. “With your stomach?”

He almost forgot his wound but remembered just before he would have shrugged in a show of nonchalance. “It was handy.”

“You idiot,” she murmured, leaning over the bed to stroke his tangled hair. “You idiot.”

Here is a bit from chapter 1. It’s raw and I may re-write it (again). I want enough detail that those who have never read the series can figure out what’s going on, but I don’t want to bore readers who have read the series. In other words, I want to build the world but make it part of the story. Anyway, here you go. Connie is staring at a hand drawn calendar and talking with Kathy, one of the survivors.

Connie stopped dead on her trek across the kitchen to stare at the calendar on the wall. Today was Monday, December 29, 2064.

Kathy stopped too. “It’s been exactly two months, hasn’t it?” she asked quietly. “The plane took off on October 29.”

“Yeah.” While she stared blindly at the calendar, Connie’s mind drifted back to that day. The vertical wind shear they hit was so strong it disabled the plane. Inexplicably, all engines failed simultaneously.  Like every pilot, she and Don had trained for every emergency imaginable and they worked calmly and quickly to retake control of the plane. Nothing had worked. The plane had screamed a metallic protest under the stress of air currents, and finally, broken, had come down to earth in a barely controlled crash that left too few alive. If only …

Connie shook her head briskly. It never did her any good to review the sequence of events from that morning, so she shoved the memory away. Besides, it just made her headache worse. She made herself glance around the room, noting rush of women cooking lunch. Good. Maybe some food would tame her headache.

Kathy leaned closer to speak in a low voice. “You should stop blaming yourself. You and the captain did everything you could.”

“Not enough.” Connie heard the bleakness in her voice. “Too many died.”

“You’re not being fair to yourself. Some of us did survive.”

Her laugh came out of her throat like cheese scraped over a grater. “Thirty out of a hundred and two.”

Kathy squeezed her forearm. “That’s thirty who still have lives. Probably more would have died, if we hadn’t gotten help from the Lakota. Heaven was looking out for us. The Lakota nursed us through and they brought us here to Kearney, where the mayor gave us a safe place to live.”

Connie refrained from asking why heaven didn’t look out for the seventy-two who hadn’t made it. “It’s safe because we’re surrounded by a barbed wire fence patrolled by armed guards. Women being so rare that we’re like gold in a bank vault.”

“Or water in a desert.” Kathy brayed with laughter. “When you’re my age, it’s nice to have younger men panting over you, wanting to lick you up and down.”

Connie closed her eyes. “Stop! Do not put that image in my head.”