7/14/15 Tuesday Teaser: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
Happy Bastille Day!!! Another Tuesday is rolling around, and that means we get to find out what happens when Tracker and his boys catch up with Olivia and Kit. But first, a Public Service Announcement:
This weekend I will be sending out the newsletter with the entry forms for the Kindle Fire and other Prizes!
And now back to your regularly scheduled program.
Strength gone, Olivia fell, skidding painfully on her elbows along the rocky ground. She dragged herself up, to stare as two—no, three—wolves launched themselves, snarling viciously, at Kit. They crashed together in the air and went down in a thrashing mass of fur and teeth.
“Dad!” Olivia croaked. “Wait!”
She scrambled to her feet, but before she could go to the fight, another wolf was there, blocking her way and sticking his nose in her crotch. She slapped at him, realizing too late it was her cousin Colby, not one of her brothers.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m not hurt. Let me by.”
Colby growled low in his throat and didn’t move. He was one of the bossiest of her cousins, more Alpha than even his father Taye. She glanced at the furry bodies writhing on the ground, seeing how her dad and brothers were tearing into Kit. They were killing him. It didn’t look like he was even trying to fight back.
“Dad! Stop! Colby, let me by.” Kit was bleeding from multiple lacerations. He didn’t deserve to die. “Dad, I mean it! Let him alone!”
No one was listening to her. They were going to kill Kit. She glared down at Colby’s big gray head and tried to shove him away. “Get out of my way, Cole. The only way you can stop me is if you bite me. You wanna bite me?”
Colby whined, but let her go. He walked so close to her that he nearly pushed her over a couple of times. She clenched her fists as she watched the fight. Except it wasn’t a fight, because Kit only tried to defend himself, not attack. It was three against one, and Kit was losing.
“Dad, he’s not fighting back. Look! You’re going to kill him if you don’t stop.” For the first time in her life, her father ignored her. He ripped into Kit’s leg. “Dad!” she screamed. “He’s not fighting back. Stop!” She didn’t even know she was crying until Kit’s face blurred from her tears. “Kit! Oh, God, you have to fight.”
“No hurt my mate’s pride.”
At least, that’s what she thought he said. His words were distorted and his voice was weak. Desperate, she flung herself at Taylor, the nearest wolf, and grabbed him by the ruff. “Leave him alone,” she ordered. “He never hurt me.”
Colby morphed into a man and grabbed her arm to haul her back. “Are you crazy?”
She twisted away from him. “No. Kit didn’t hurt me. He fought his own people to keep me safe.” She launched herself into the fray and let out a yip when a claw scored through her jeans. Something –the scent of her blood?—turned her father and brothers’ attention from their victim. She immediately launched into a tirade worthy of her cousin Victoria.
“What are you doing? You never even asked if he was a bad guy!” she yelled. “He didn’t hurt me!”
Parker shoved his snout into her crotch to inhale. She slapped at him, but he leaped back and changed to his human form. “I don’t smell him there, Dad.”
“That’s because he didn’t rape me!”
“I smell you all over him,” Parker retorted hotly. “And him on you. He stole you.”
Kit lay on the ground, the moonlight showing his blood as black blotches over his furred body. Taylor and her father crouched over him, snarling. Kit’s eyes looked at her with mute pain. She turned to her father’s wolf and tried to control her voice. “Dad, don’t kill him. He didn’t hurt me. When some others wanted to, he protected me.”
Her father shifted back to human, his face cold and pale in the moonlight. “Was he the one who took you?”
Olivia swallowed. “Yes.”
“Were you running away from him?”
“Yes.”
“But you think we shouldn’t kill him.”
“No.” She tried to sort of her feelings for Kit, but they were too jumbled. “He didn’t hurt me,” she said again.
“Why did he take you?”
Kit answered, and Olivia could tell he was trying hard to speak clearly. “She’s my mate.”
She drew in a shocked breath at the rage that flashed over her father’s face. He never showed much emotion, and this was raw.
“That’s not the way a man treats his mate!”
That was her cousin Colby, harsh and loud, glaring at Kit who still lay at their feet. Taylor, still in wolf form, snarled.
Olivia turned on Colby. “And how did your grandfather claim his mate? Wasn’t he the one that carried her off and held her captive for three years until she accepted him?”
“That was different.” Colby scowled, trying to push her behind him. “He tried to court her first.”
Her father, face once again cool, cut them off with a slashing gesture. He stepped closer to Kit. “My daughter has asked for your life, so I’m gonna let you live.” His voice sunk to a harsh whisper. “But if I ever lay eyes on you again, I’ll kill you.”
“My mate—“ Kit began, but all her men folk growled.
Her father leaned over Kit’s battered, bleeding body. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think she is. If I see you sniffing around, you’re dead.”
He turned sharply away, catching Olivia’s arm. “Let’s go.”
As she was marched away, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder. Kit curled in a tight ball on the rocky ground. He lifted his head to watch her leave. She wondered if the gleam on his cheeks were tears on his fur. When her father tapped her chin she faced forward again.
She was rescued. Why didn’t it feel like it?
What’s Coming Next From Maddy?
I’ve had a few people ask me what was next on my plate now that the After the Crash series is wrapping up. I’ve had a few ideas.
For instance, I want to write an inspy contemporary Christmas novella tentatively called Under A Christmas Star. It takes place in northern Minnesota. A woman runs into the man who had a crush on her back in high school and finds he’s improved tremendously. My plan was to write it during June through August, send it to the editor in September, and publish it in October. I have a rough outline, but I can’t seem to concentrate on it when it’s so hot outside, so maybe that will be for next year.
Another idea is to write a story called Dream Lady that takes place in the same world as After the Crash, but 100 years later, in Japan. The people living there are descendants of Japanese Yakuza and American soldiers stationed in the area, and the culture has evolved into a very rigid samurai code. The hero, the lord of one of the largest clans, has been dreaming of a certain woman since he was a teen. He’s always accepted that he has a vivid imagination, but one day he sees her, arranges her kidnapping, and begins his assault on her virtue.
Then there is a fantasy romance series I want to write where women from our world somehow fall through windows to other realms. They are fighters in a medieval historical re-enactment group, so they know how to fight with swords. Each of them lands in a different kingdom. Some of them are able to take jobs as guards or warriors, some are captured and sold as slaves. All of them find love with the perfect man.
And then there is a stand-alone Young Adult novella called The Stinger’s Lady. It takes place in a mythical Empire called Helta. Imagine a blend of Roman Empire and Victorian England. Lisell Schulte is the bored daughter of a nouveau rich Imperial merchant about to be presented to society. Prince Merid is the younger son of barbarian royalty whose kingdom the Empire was never able to conquer. Merid gets into a bit of trouble with the Imperial Honor Guard and is rescued by Lisell. He falls completely in love with her and will do anything to win her for his princess.
I’ve been taking a little break from writing. I know so many authors who work a full time job, wrangle their families, and write three or four books a year. I don’t know how they do it! I’m exhausted writing only one or two books a year, and I don’t even have children to take care of! Hats off to all those ladies. I think my break from writing needs to come to an end now.
So what should I write? Which sounds most appealing to you?
Tuesday Teaser 7/8/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
Here we are, the next snip in Kit and Olivia’s story, and it’s still Tuesday so it’s not really late, right?
I had a casual poll on my Facebook Author Page a while back and people seemed to be split pretty evenly about which of these two best represented what Kit looked like in their minds. Which do you think? Light blond hair guy leaning on the tree? Or darker blond hair guy crouching? Let me know what you think!
And here is the snip:
Slowly, carefully, she moved away from him, easing her leg from between his, and untangling his hair from hers. Her heart thundered while she stepped over him. It jerked into agonized stillness when he caught her hand. He immediately let her fingers go and curled more tightly on his side. Her heart started up again after a long minute of watching him to be sure he slept.
Once out of his cave, she hesitated. Which way was home? She studied the dark landscape, wishing she had her brothers’ wolf-born eyesight. She didn’t know which way Kit had come when he stole her because she had inexplicably fallen asleep while he carried her. Just, she realized with uneasily, as she’d fallen asleep earlier.
No time to think about that now. She had to get moving before he woke and came after her. When he first picked her up and carried her off he had headed north and west. A look at the stars told her it was around midnight, and south and east were that way. Moving carefully to avoid kicking any loose rocks, she started down the steep slope and began her journey for home.
It was too dark to make a fast pace safe over the rocky terrain. Each slow, careful step made Olivia frantic to go faster. Kit could wake up any time, or one of his pride could find her. After what had happened when Kit was born, they must put out perimeter guards. Normally Uncle Taye at the den had men patrolling a mile out. If he had any reason to expect trouble, he had another set of guards two miles out. Olivia looked back to try to estimate how far she had come. Maybe a half a mile. She had to move faster!
She kept walking, trying to keep to the shadows where she could, flinching at every stumble or clatter of pebbles. Every now and then she glanced up at the sky to be sure she was still heading south and east, and to gauge how long she had been away from Kit. Please, she begged silently, please don’t let him wake up before morning.
As she walked, her mind went over the time they had spent together. When she first woke in his cave she was sure he would rape her. A shadow of the terror and fury she’d felt then moved through her now. If Maria hadn’t come, would he have stopped? Yesterday —er, before she fell asleep, he said he would never hurt her, that he hadn’t understood. For heaven’s sake, how hard was it to understand the word No? Yet, she believed him. She couldn’t say she knew what his life had been after spending only fifteen minutes with his family, but it was plain they were completely crazy. All of them having sex with each other? In plain view of everyone else? A shudder that had nothing to do with the cold night air jerked down her spine. No wonder Kit was messed up. She almost felt sorry for him. Even though he was a feral, uncivilized half-cat, a tiny part of her was drawn to him. He said he loved her. Once he was convinced she didn’t want to have sex, he respected that. Maybe if they’d spent more time together she could have convinced him to let her go. But she couldn’t wait around for him to change his mind. Her dad and brothers were already looking for her. She was pretty sure they’d started after her within hours of her disappearance. How long had it been? Only a day? It felt like weeks.
It was three hours later that she heard a distant rattle of rock behind her. She jerked around, her heart doing its best to block her airway, to search the dark shadows of the craggy landscape she’d passed through. It was just a nocturnal animal moving around. Right? It couldn’t be Kit. No, please, not Kit. She increased her pace until she was almost trotting, looking back every minute or so. She stumbled while she was looking over her shoulder, kicking a small avalanche of debris free. She froze, listening hard. Nothing. Relief made her almost dizzy as she rushed on. No, she told herself firmly, running and not watching where she was going was dangerous. The risk of spraining her ankle here wasn’t worth the increase in speed. She forced herself to keep her eyes on the ground and her feet to a walk. She still heard occasional rocks falling behind her, but each time she strained to hear more there was nothing. She struggled on, hoping she was moving in the right direction.
Hunger and cold made her long for dawn, but dawn was still hours away when a faint roar chilled her heart. Kit! Completely abandoning caution, she ran as fast as she could, sliding and skidding in the gravel as much as running. She chanced a glance back and saw a man-cat shaped shadow outlined against the star lit sky when it leaped from rock to rock.
Oh, God. She couldn’t outrun him. She couldn’t hide. And he was running right toward her.
“Olivia!” he screamed in his distorted cat voice. “Back back, my mate!”
“No,” she sobbed, running even faster.
He was closing on her. Fifty yards. Forty. Thirty. Olivia ran, knowing escape was agonizingly hopeless. Twenty yards separated them when she heard a sound ahead of her. Growling? Her breath rasped in and out of her so loudly she wasn’t sure what she heard. Kit was only ten yards away when she saw the gleam of canine teeth shining white in the dark fur of a wolf’s face.
Strength gone, Olivia fell, skidding painfully on her elbow and jaw on the rocky ground. She dragged herself up, to stare as two—no, three—wolves launched themselves, snarling viciously, at Kit. They crashed together in the air and went down in a thrashing mass of fur and teeth.
“Dad!” Olivia croaked. “Wait!”
Wolf’s Princess Is Up For Pre-Order!
Wolf’s Princess, the final book in the After the Crash series, releases on August 3, 2015. Yes, less than a month away! If you’d like to pre-order it, it is available at:
the publisher’s website. If you preorder from the publisher, it is 20% off.
Amazon,
Amazon UK,
Kobo,
iBookstore (sorry, can’t link, but you could go to iTunes and do a search)
Barnes & Noble has a page for it, but it looks like it’s not ready yet.
Don’t forget that I’ll be having a contest for my newsletter folks in about 12 days. Win a kindle! Win a $100 gift card for Amazon! Win free downloads of Wolf’s Princess and more of my books! If you don’t already get my newsletter, follow this link to sign up.
The new snip from Olivia and Kit’s story will be up tomorrow.
Tuesday Teaser 6/30/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
It’s almost July!! That means it’s only a little over a month until the release of Wolf’s Princess. I expect to see it up for Pre-Order in about a week at the publisher and Amazon in about two weeks. That’s just a guess. As soon as I know anything I’ll be sure to let you know too. Also, don’t forget about the newsletter giveaway!
And now, here’s the next bit of Kit and Olivia. The end of chapter 5 isn’t quite working for me. I’ll go in later and add some more emotion and tension and hopefully make it flow better. But Chapter 6 is up next, and then we get some real tension. 😉
Her moan stabbed him like a knife. Her face was so beautiful. He couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head and put his lips on hers. For one wonderful moment she accepted his kiss, but all too soon she jerked her face away. He hid his hurt and turned her questions back on her.
“How many brothers in your pride? Your family?” he corrected himself.
“I have two brothers.” Her chin lifted as she stared in something close to a challenge. “The Clan has over two hundred men.”
He understood her meaning well enough. She came from a large pride and they would search for their stolen queen. The knowledge sank like a stone in the pit of his belly. “They won’t find you, Olivia.”
“Yes, they will, Kit.”
It was the utter assurance in her voice that shook him. “No, no one can find us here.”
His mate rose to her knees and fixed him with an urgent stare. “My father is called He Tracks the Wind in Lakota. He’ll find me. I told you that. And if he has to, he’ll bring the entire Clan to rescue me. How many men are in your Pride, Kit? Two dozen? The clan has twenty dozen. They’ll destroy your Pride.”
“No!” It was a visceral denial. “No one will ever destroy the Pride again. Never again.”
The urgency in his mate’s face faded to confusion. “What you mean, again?”
He had never spoken of that time. He didn’t remember it. He only knew the stories, but they were bad enough. “The day I was born, the pride was discovered by humans. They slaughtered almost all of us. Only the young survived. The queen who bore me had been badly wounded and I was born two months early. She died.” He closed his eyes against the unfamiliar sting of tears.
When he opened his eyes he saw Olivia’s eyes were wet. “That’s terrible. Years ago some men stole some of the women of the clan and murdered them. That’s one of the reasons why they protect women so fiercely.”
“Your pride understands what it’s like then. Did you notice there are no elders in the Pride?”
“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t see any old people in the other cave.”
“That is why we hate humans.”
The warmth of her hand on his arm eased the old hurt and rage. “Not all humans are like that.”
“But your family will destroy the pride to get you back. You said that.”
She withdrew her hand. “Yes, they would fight to get me back, but they wouldn’t murder people who hadn’t done anything to them. Kit, let me go.”
“Never.” It was a flat statement. “You are my mate. I can’t let you go.”
“You have to. I’m not rejecting you. You can come to my house and court me properly. We can take our time to get to know one another.”
Why did she have to insist on leaving him? “No.”
“But you have to!”
“I said no.” When she opened her mouth again he gripped her chin and his fingers and stared deeply into her eyes. “Sleep, my mate.”
He’d never seen anyone come so close to shaking off his compulsion. “Sleep,” he commanded.
Gradually she lost her fight against sleep and slumped against him a warm, precious weight that he swore he would never give up.
Chapter Six
Her head hurt. That was all Olivia could think of at first. And her hip was sore from the hard ground. Then she became aware it was dark and a heave weight was draped over her chest. An arm. Kit’s arm! She peered through the dark, trying to figure out where she was. Kit’s cave, she decided. They were lying together a few yards from the banked fire. The barest hint of a glow lit the outline of his long hair where it spilled over his broad shoulder and onto hers.
She sighed when she remembered his refusal to let her go. The story he’d told her –yesterday?— explained her reluctance to bring harm to his family. They had suffered enough, and though the Clan wouldn’t murder the women or children, they would probably kill anyone who tried to keep them from retrieving her. She had to escape. Could there be a better opportunity than this?
Slowly, carefully, she moved away from him, easing her leg from between his, and untangling his hair from hers. Her heart thundered while she stepped over him. It jerked into agonized stillness when he caught her hand.
Tuesday Teaser 6/23/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
You know, we’re far enough along with this story that I should start thinking about an actual title. I like Daughter of the Wolf Clan, but I wonder if there is a better title. What do you think?
This next bit is mostly dialogue. When I do revisions, I might condense this a bit. I know a lot of you are waiting to read the scene where Tracker catches up with his daughter, then again, I want the readers to get to know Kit and his feelings, and also explain a little of how the Pride works. We’ll see. Here is the middle of Chapter 5:
Kit leaned to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Tell me, my mate, what love is.”
“Love,” she said slowly, thinking about her mom dad and how they acted toward each other, “is when a person cares more about another person than they do about themselves. They want the other person to be safe and happy.” She frowned. “I think.”
A smile curved his lips, making him startlingly handsome. “I love you,” he said.
She leaned away from him. “No, you don’t! You don’t even know me.”
A shade of hurt crossed Kit’s face, dissolving the smile into a tiny frown. “If love is caring about another person more than I care about myself, then I love you. I want you to be safe and happy. You said that’s what love is. I love you, Olivia.”
She swallowed hard. “We haven’t known each other for very long. It takes time to fall in love.”
Inwardly she flinched. It hadn’t taken her dad any time at all to fall in love with her mom. He said he’d fallen in love with his mate before he’d ever laid eyes on her. But that was different. She blinked back the urge to cry. Just thinking of her parents made her ache to be home with them. She missed Parker and Taylor, as bossy and overprotective as they were, because even though they teased her, they loved her.
“Why does it take time? You’re my mate. I knew it as soon as I saw you.” Kit hauled her tightly against his side. “I love you. Do you love me?”
Olivia took a deep breath and let it out in a shaky sigh. “How can I? I don’t even know you.” A low growl rattled in his throat and her lips trembled. “So we should talk to get to know one another. Um, do you have brothers?”
* * * *
Kit stared at his mate, trying to keep his frustration back. Why didn’t she love him? He loved her. Why didn’t she want him to give her sex? He would act whichever way she preferred. Fast, aggressive, slow, tender. All she had to do was instruct him and he would obey. But she was rejecting him. He examined her carefully for any hints of her feelings. Her face was composed except for the tiny shaking of her lips. Her breathing was too fast and too shallow for calmness, but she pretended well. Was she angry? Or frightened? She wanted to talk, so he would talk. What had she asked? Were brothers the same in the human world as they were in the Pride?
“There are nineteen mature males in the pride. They are my brothers.”
She flashed him a quick glance out of her eerie, pale blue eyes. “No, I mean your siblings. The sons of your mother and father.”
Kit had an idea of what she meant by mother and father, but those were human terms. “The queen who bore me died. I don’t know which male fathered me. The Queens accept any male they wish to have sex with. Their children are all brothers and sisters.”
“Oh my God!” Olivia slapped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were huge. “Do you mean that you and Maria and Juanita and Patricia might be literally brother and sisters? And you have sex with them?”
She looked utterly horrified. Kit sighed. “Humans don’t do that?” He didn’t need to hear her emphatic denial to know his guess was right. “I won’t do it anymore. I have a mate now.”
“Are any of those … children yours?”
His mate seemed very concerned about which male fathered which children. “All of them are mine. They are part of the Pride, and I am a mature male of the Pride.” When her horror didn’t diminish he quickly went on. “But only I will be the father of your children.” He frowned, troubled by another thought. Unless Patricia forced Olivia to have sex with other males as she had threatened. He caught his mate’s chin in his fingers and turned her face so she had to look at him. “I will not give you sex without your permission, but if you make me wait too long the Queens could take your choice away from you. Then I would have to fight my brothers. I won’t be able to win against them. If I am killed, I can’t bear to think what will become of you. If I’m not killed I could be banished from the Pride. Please, please don’t make me wait too long.”
Fear joined the horror in her eyes before she shuttered her emotions behind her closed lids. “Oh, God.”
Her moan stabbed him like a knife. Her face was so beautiful. He couldn’t help himself. He lowered his head and put his lips on hers.
Tuesday Teaser 6/16/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
I’m back! Back from moving, back from surgery, back from working my butt off on Wolf’s Princess, back from RAGT, and back from that sino-bronchitis crap. 2015 has been quite a ride so far! But I devoutly hope I can get back to Kit and Olivia on a weekly basis now. In this snip I’m not sure of the best way to write Kit’s dialogue. In his half-cat form he is single-minded and he can’t speak clearly, but I don’t want him to sound stupid. He tends to speak in short sentences with few connecting words. In human form, he speaks in more complex sentences. What do you think? Should I re-write Kit’s dialogue to be normal in both forms?
It’s been a while, so before you read the first half of Chapter 5 let me refresh you: last time we were with Tracker and his family as they embarked on their mission to rescue Olivia. And before that, Olivia was dragged in front of Kit’s Pride and told to make nice with him.
As Kit ran full speed along the teeny ledge, Olivia gripped the thin fur covering his back. It was softer than she expected. He made a final leap into his cave and bent over to set her down. Kit’s smaller cave looked almost welcoming after the menace swirling in the one they’d just left. Olivia swayed as her feet landed on the ground. Nonetheless, she moved quickly away and held out both hands to ward off his embrace. “Just wait, Kit.”
“Why waidt?” That face, with its mix of human and cat, looked confused for a moment before it cleared and he ran a clawed hand down his furry chest. “I nah human. Cand gih you sex in this shape. We waidt undil I change.”
Olivia braced her feet. “We’ll wait a lot longer than that. I’m not having sex with you.”
His lips peeled back to show wicked fangs when he growled. “Mah madte!”
Olivia folded her arms, hoping to hide her hands’ tendency to shake. “Yeah? But I haven’t accepted your mate claim yet. In my pack a man doesn’t force his mate to have sex. He waits until she agrees.”
His furry face frowned. “How long until she agrees?”
She wondered if she should mention Aunt Naomi making her mate wait three years. Probably not. “As long as it takes for him to woo her into agreeing. Sometimes it’s a long time. Sometimes it’s only a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” His fur seemed to bristle.
“Yes,” she said firmly.
He prowled back and forth in front of her. “What is wooing? The queen wants us to mate soon.”
His diction was becoming clearer. “Well, wooing is…” She tried to think of what wooing actually consisted of and how she could use it to put him off until she could escape or her father found her. “Wooing is nice. A man and a woman talk to get to know one another. He brings her presents. He never insists on sex. He doesn’t try to rape her like you tried to rape me.”
“I nah rape you!”
“When I first woke up! What was that?”
“I gih you sex.”
She waved her hands around in helpless fury. “I didn’t want you to give me sex!”
Kit stared at her with alien green-gold eyes, still prowling. “Tell me more of wooing.”
“When a man finds his mate, he is gentle and kind. He is …” Her imagination ran out of ideas. “He tries to make her fall in love with him.”
He stopped prowling to stare again. “Fall in love? What is that?”
Now she stared. And realized he was still naked. “Oh, dear. Put some clothes on, Kit.”
He didn’t move. “What is fall in love?” he insisted.
“Really? You don’t know what love is?”
“No.” He closed the distance between them like a cat closing on prey. “You tell me what it is. We talk. That’s wooing. I woo you. Then I give you sex.”
“You will not give me sex,” she shouted, retreating. Immediately he closed the gap she’d put between them, so she made herself stop. “Kit, you can’t give me sex until I ask you to. And I’m not asking you to.”
He trailed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “The queens not accept you until we have sex. If you not accepted, you die. I can’t let my mate die.” He curled his hand around her arm, obviously taking care to not let his claws touch her. “Sit down. Talk. I woo you.”
“We’re not having sex,” she warned.
“No sex,” he agreed. “Soon? Tomorrow?”
Olivia tried to control the panic threatening to drown her. Was one more day enough time for her dad to find her? “Maybe in four or five days,” she offered.
“Two days,” he countered.
“Kit,” she began.
“No wait long. Queens say. I give you sex or all the males do. Choose.”
She pressed her lips together hard to keep the tears back. She could either have one lover or two dozen. Surely dad was already on his way. “Three days?” she asked with desperate hope.
He trailed the backs of his fingers down her cheek again, a strange sort of tenderness in those feral cat eyes. “I no force you. We talk? Woo?”
What else could she do? “Okay.”
He exerted gentle pressure on her arm to move her over to the blankets. “Sit. You cold?”
“A little.”
“Sit.”
He let her go to put more wood on the fire, then joined her on the blankets. His flattened cat nose touched hers for a brief moment. With a horrible shudder, he shifted from half-cat to man. It was an agonizingly slow transformation, with crunching sounds as if bones were breaking. Olivia felt a reluctant wave of sympathy.
“Does that hurt?” she asked. “I don’t like pain, and that looks painful.”
He shrugged and grabbed a pair of jeans to put on. She shifted to make room for him on the blanket. He sat and faced her, their knees touching. “Olivia, I will never cause you pain. I’ll never force you to have sex. I didn’t understand before. I’m sorry. I will fight even the entire Pride to keep you safe.”
“I want to go home,” she whispered. “You could court me there.”
He shook his head, his golden brown hair flowing over his shoulders with the motion. “I can never leave the Pride. I can’t live in that world.”
She sighed as he moved to sit beside her and drape an arm over her shoulders.
Kit leaned to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Tell me, my mate, what love is.”
Wolf’s Princess News!
I am on the road with limited internet access, but I’m sitting in my hotel room pecking away at this tiny keyboard to bring you good news!
SEE THE GORGEOUS COVER ART????
AND GUESS WHAT? WOLF’S PRINCESS RELEASES AUGUST 3!!
I am soooo excited. Wolf’s Princess is my longest and most intense book yet. I honestly think (I hope I don’t sound big-headed here) it’s the best book I’ve ever written. There are a few giggles here and there –wait until you read the bit where Sky realizes he is wearing his necktie and nothing else. Not only do Rose and Sky find their happily-ever after, but Stone and Sara learn to love one another, and a couple other wolves find their ladies in Omaha. Are you anzio0us to read it? Can’t wait for August 3? Well, read on.
I will be having a contest in mid-July through my newsletter for some great prizes including a $50 Amazon gift card, a pair of sterling silver earrings, and five ARCs of Wolf’s Princess. If you haven’t signed up yet for my newsletter, there is a link on the right. More details to come soon!
Tuesday Teaser 5/5/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
Hello! Lori Foster’s Annual Reader & Author Get Together (RAGT15) is only a month away!! I am so excited! This will be my fifth year attending. I look forward to this event every year. I would like to go to other reader/author events, but with moving, surgery, cat vet bills, etc, my budget is sadly empty. Eve Langlais’s Romancing the Capital looked like soooo much fun! Maybe in a year or two I’ll be able to go. Is anyone going to RAGT? I just ordered my swag for this year, and I’m involved in a couple of “Find the Author” games that I think will be a lot of fun.
I’ve been working a little bit more on Olivia and Kit’s story. This is the end of chapter 4. Enjoy!
Tami was on the porch, arms folded tight around herself. Their older son, Taylor, along with his cousins Colby, Matt, and Red Horn, ran in their wolf forms from around the back of the house. Tracker slid off his horse before it stopped.
His mate was controlled, but he could smell her worry. “Tracker. Olivia’s horse came in a few minutes ago. Olivia didn’t.”
For one second Tracker stopped breathing. During that single moment, Taylor, Colby, Matt, and Red Horn shifted to human.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Tami.” Colby’s face was almost identical to his father Taye’s at age twenty-three, down to the dimple which wasn’t in evidence right now. “She’s fine. I bet she got thrown and she’s walking back right now.”
Taye’s son was doing what the Clan always did to sooth a worried mother. Tracker didn’t bother to tell Colby that Tami didn’t need empty words to comfort her. His mate was strong enough to take anything life dished out. “Where’s the horse?”
Tami pointed toward the barn. “The rifle’s still on the saddle. So is her canteen.”
It took Tracker only a minute to thoroughly sniff the horse. The sweat of terror lingered on the anima’s neck, raising sweat on his own neck. He jerked his head at his kin.
“Colby and Taylor, let your wolves out. Matt and Red Horn, stay at the house in case Olivia comes back. Tami and Parker, saddle up.”
Seventeen year old Red Horn fidgeted. “Don’t you think Aunt Tami should stay here?”
Tracker fixed a stern eye on his cousin Stag’s youngest boy. “She’s coming with us.”
As Parker and Tami hurried to saddle horses, check their rifles, and fill canteens, Tracker suppressed a smile when Matt cuffed his little cousin’s head. “You oughta know better than to try to keep a momma from her one ewe lamb.”
But the urge to smile died. His one ewe lamb was missing, and that was no reason for smiling. His wolf, usually a timid critter content to sleep, was silently howling inside him. That wolf loved Olivia almost as much as he loved their mate. Tracker gave Tami a long steady look, wordlessly promising her they would find their girl, and mounted up.
The horse’s trail was plain enough. Even someone with no trail experience could have followed the animal’s flight up the path. From behind, Tracker heard his son Parker mutter, “What were you doing so far from the house, Livvy?”
With every step his horse took along the rocky path, Tracker’s heart tightened. If Olivia had been thrown, they would have seen her walking home by now. Either she was hurt or … He swallowed, keeping his face impassive out of habit. He’d seen no sign of strangers. There was nothing to indicate Olivia had been stolen. He glanced at his mate and knew she was already thinking the same thing. Tami knew firsthand the evil men could visit upon a woman. His wolf forced a whine past his throat.
Taylor and Colby had run ahead, but loped back now. Colby turned human to talk. “We found where Olivia’s horse bucked her off. She started walking home.” He swallowed, not quite hiding cold fury. “You better come look.”
Tracker heard his mate suck in a quick breath, but she pressed her mouth into a flat line and rode beside him to the place Colby indicated. He handed his reins to Tami, meeting her eyes for a moment of silent communication. Her face was calm, but he scented her fear and it almost killed him.
He moved carefully around the tracks on the sandy path, reading the story they told like a man might read a book. He looked up at the top of the cliff lining one side of the path, measuring how far a man would fall if he jumped off. On the side of the cliff he smelled something that made his heart pound with sick dread and icy rage. His daughter’s terror and pain lingered here. He followed the tracks going northwest for about a quarter-mile before returning to stand at Tami’s stirrup. Even from her saddle she must have read some of the tracks for herself. She met his eyes, but he could see her composure was a front. He waved his sons and Colby over.
“The way I read it, Olivia was bucked off and started for home. Right here, she was ambushed by two men. One of them picked her up and ran off with her that way.” He pointed to the northwest with his chin. “The other one followed behind.”
“Are you sure it’s a man, Uncle? Both of them, I mean?” Colby asked respectfully. “He —or it— doesn’t have regular feet. They look more like mountain cat paws.”
“Doesn’t smell like a man either,” said Parker.
No, it didn’t. The boys were right. “It walks upright. We’ll call it a man until we know different. He’s moving almighty fast. We’re hours behind him so we need to cover ground quick. Parker, shuck your clothes and let your wolf out.”
Parker obeyed, stuffing his clothes in the saddlebag behind Tami’s saddle. Tracker did the same. Tami’s hands were clenched on the reins so hard her knuckles showed white even through her suntanned skin. “You’ll move faster without me.”
“Yeah.” Tracker looked up at the woman his wolf had chosen for their mate with something like gratitude. He’d fallen in love with her before he’d ever met her, and every minute he’d spent with her for the past twenty-five years had made his love stronger. Her light brown hair had begun to turn to silver, and sun, weather, and age had put lines on her beloved face. She was so beautiful to him, and so brave. It must be like a knife digging around in her guts to let her men go alone to rescue their daughter, but she smiled at him. No wonder he loved her. “We’ll bring her home to you, Tami.”
She gathered the reins of her horse, and the horses Tracker and Parker had ridden. “I’ll be waiting at the ranch.”
Before she could turn her horse, he gripped her knee. “Come here.”
He reached an arm up to draw her face down to his. The kiss was light but heartfelt, telling her he loved her, and he trusted her, and he would bring their little girl back to her. One tear slid down her cheek to touch his lips. She fisted her eyes and smiled at him while she straightened in the saddle. She nodded at all of them, and rode back down the path toward the ranch, her shoulders back and her head high.
There was no time to waste. The trail was hours old. He refused to think of what might be happening to Olivia. He would find her. He would bring her home to her mother. He would kill whoever had taken her.
Tracker let his wolf out and led his kin along the trail of his daughter’s kidnappers.
Tuesday Teaser 4/28/15: Daughter of the Wolf Clan
I’m slowly recovering from surgery. Too slowly! Seriously, I thought I’d be completely well by now, but I still experience enough pain to need to take a Percocet before bed. During the day I just take Tylenol, since I really can’t be taking strong pain pills while working the day job. I suppose I should try to take it easy and not expect to be 100% when it hasn’t even been two weeks yet. I guess I’m just impatient. 🙂
It’s been a while since we visited this story, isn’t it? Over the weekend I decided it was time to get back to it, and played with the idea for the next scene. I started to write it tonight. I didn’t get very far, though. I’m giving you the page I wrote, and at the bottom is a link to the story so far so you can read it straight through if you want. Please remember none of this has been proof read yet, so there are a ton of boo-boos. Please disregard them 🙂
Chapter Four
Dan Stensrud shifted his grip on the shovel he was using as a lever to pry the boulder out of the stream. Tami was right. If any more debris collected around the boulder the stream that watered this pasture would be completely dammed. The rock had to go. He nodded to his son. “On three. One.T…”
The clang of the ranch house bell, muffled by distance, kicked his heart into overdrive. Two clangs, a pause, and two clangs. That meant everyone was summoned back to the ranch immediately. Tami wouldn’t ring the bell without good reason. He released the shovel and ran for his horse. His son was two steps ahead of him. The boy hadn’t learned yet to hide his feelings; fear was plain on his face as he threw himself into the saddle. At twenty-one, Parker wasn’t a boy. Tracker had to remind himself that all his children were adults now, even his little girl. He drove his horse into a gallop.
Tami was on the porch, arms folded tight around herself. Their older son, Taylor, along with his cousins Colby, Matt, and Red Horn, ran in their wolf forms from around the back of the house. Tracker slid off his horse before it stopped.
Not being the clingy sort, his mate didn’t throw herself at him, but he could smell her worry. “Tracker. Olivia’s horse came in a few minutes ago. Olivia didn’t.”
For one second Tracker stopped breathing. During that single moment, Taylor, Colby and Red Horn shifted to human.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Tami.” Colby’s face was almost identical to his father Taye’s at age twenty-four, down to the dimple which wasn’t in evidence right now. “She’s fine. I bet she got thrown and she’s walking back right now.”
Taye’s son was doing what the Clan always did to sooth a worried mother. Tracker didn’t bother to tell Colby that Tami didn’t need empty words to comfort her. His mate could take anything life dished out. “Where’s the horse?”
Tami pointed toward the barn. “The rifle’s still on the saddle. So is her canteen.”
It took Tracker only a minute to thoroughly sniff the horse. The sweat of terror lingered on the animal’s back and neck, raising sweat on his own back and neck. He jerked his head at his kin.
“Colby and Taylor, let your wolves out. Matt and Red Horn, stay at the house in case Olivia comes back. Tami and Parker, saddle up.”
Red Horn fidgeted. “Don’t you think Aunt Tami should stay here?”
Tracker fixed a stern eye on his cousin Stag’s boy. “She’s coming with us.”
As Parker and Tami hurried to saddle horses and fill canteens, Tracker suppressed a smile when Matt cuffed his little cousin’s head. “You oughta know better than to try to keep a momma from her one ewe lamb.”
But the urge to smile died when Tracker stripped out of his clothes to let his wolf out. His one ewe lamb was missing, and that was no reason for smiling.
Daughter of the Wolf Clan
