Excerpt
Adam loved running. His legs pumped under
him, his arms swinging, and his chest puffing. It would have been nicer if he
hadn’t been trying to get somewhere, and that meant keeping up with men whose
legs were twice as long as his. He was sure if anyone were filming this, he’d
look like a little kid trying to keep up with his parents.
He finally reached the clearing, but not
before grunts and shouts sounded. Adam wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.
How could he help? Jump in with fist and feet. He’d never gotten the hang of
fighting, either playfully or for keeps. He’d always shied away from the
violence of it all.
Rubbing his hands on his thigh, he looked
around, his eyes catching the attention of a lovely little cottage. The wind
kicked up around him, making it seem like a different place.
Flowers glittered in the moonlight, as
spotlight of rays hit the front of the cottage. Ivory laced up the sides of the
door, with moss helping conceal it, turning it into something out of a fairy
tale.
Adam’s mouth watered, his heart pumped
harder, his palms sweating.
He looked around the clearing. Chaos met
his eyes, ruining that moment of perfection with hate and violence. Adam shied
away from it, wanting to turn and run, but he couldn’t leave his mates there,
couldn’t leave his family.
He shifted, unsettled. He wanted to do
something to help, but he wasn’t sure what to do. What was he supposed to do?
There was a rustle near him, just to one
side, not as close as he shouldn’t have been when Adam finally turned in that
direction, making sure no one was coming up behind them.
His whole body hitched with the sight. Home.
Adam’s throat closed, finding it
impossible to get air. His chest ached, bones cracking, trying to realign
themselves, but the moon wasn’t there yet, and so didn't have enough power to
shift him completely.
His feet took him forward as the gun
lowered off the man’s shoulder. Adam wasn’t sure whom he hit. Friend or foe, he
didn’t care. His whole world stood in front of him, and he wasn’t stupid enough
to let him go over a technicality.
Craig
had been a hunter, Adam thought, and they all loved him.
Sounds vibrated around him,
talking—yelling really, back and forth where one side was harsher than then
other. He wasn’t sure what was going on, and he couldn’t give a shit, not when
his mate stood in front of him.
Adrenaline had Adam’s body shaking, but he
couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t do anything but watch as his mate listened.
Nothing shifted. Nothing stirred in him as he waited for movement, waiting for
his mate to give him a clue on what was happening.
Adam scanned the area. He couldn’t seem to
stop it. He needed to know what had his mate so worked up. His eyes skirted on
bodies, blood, and people standing around watching the same thing he was, but
unlike him, they seemed to understand what the hell was going on.
Brad looked as if he was on the verge of
jumping in, where Adam was more than sure he would have already if it weren’t
for the grip Kyle had on Brad’s shoulders.
Like anyone in this situation, it had Adam
looking towards the action.
Matt was the first one he saw. Tall and
lean, he was standing there, just on one side of Jex, and his hand lightly on
his mate’s. His face turned towards Adam’s mate, and back to his own.
“I’m not going back!” Jex said, his face
ashen, his eyes wide, panicked.
“Back?” Matt blinked, then his head turned
away looking at Jex.
Something clicked. Something that cramped
up Adam’s stomach so hard, bile pushed up into his throat. Hot acid, licked at
his tonsils, his mouth watering, gagging needing to spit up what he was
tasting.
Jex’s hand was stretched out, his fingers
tight around the base. His gun was unsteady. In a way, that wasn’t Jex. The
man’s face was in peril.
For the first time in the history of Adam
knowing Jex, and he knew it wasn’t a long time, but the whole time, the man
hadn’t flinched, not at anything, not for one minute. Now, he was standing
there, his face, his body, scared shitless as a man could get without pissing
himself, and a gun pointing at Adam’s mate.
“No!” Adam screamed, startling himself,
and yet he was more than sure most of the noise he made was inside his head as
no one came near him. No one even seemed to look.
There was a twitch to his mate, though. Had
he heard? Was he as in-tuned to Adam as Adam was to him? He had to be. That’s what it meant, didn’t
it? To have a mate, to be standing this close to the person you intended to
spend the rest of your life with. That had to be heady, and it had to be
affecting his mate as much as it was Adam.
Adam knew it did.
“He needs to die!” Jex yelled.
The words slapped across Adam’s face. His
heart exploded in his chest as everything he knew and would know, rumbled down
to a few worlds.
He
needs to die rang in his ears, repeatedly. The tune that didn’t
make sense, but held Adam’s whole life. He
needs to die!
Adam’s chest hurt, but he was too distressed
to understand he needed to suck in air. The hair along his back spiked up. His
leg muscles shifted, moving in a way they shouldn’t— not in his human body.
The tops of his fingers shifted to claws
as hair grew thicker across their tops, and up his forearms. The summer breeze
caressed them, telling him things Adam couldn’t even begin to understand. He
rolled forward, onto the balls of his feet as his knees ached, wanting
something that just wasn’t possible.
Adam growled, a little sound that caught
in his throat, but had him reflect a breath, easing one ache and bringing about another.
Adam didn’t think. All he heard ringing in
his head was a song of death and a gun pointing at his mate. A mate that he’d
been waiting for since he’d learnt he’d get one. A mate that was going to love
him like no one else would love him. He would be someone who would treasure him
as if he was something special, and not just another mouth to feed.
He wanted someone to be his family, his
lover, his other half, so that he could prove them all wrong.
He was worth a lover and worth a family.
He was worth so much more than those arseholes had said. He was. Was… He had to
be, because if they were right, if he wasn’t worthy of one person to love him
over everything else in the world, then he may as well not bother waking up in the
morning.
The wind shifted. At least that’s what it
felt like to Adam right before something ran into him hard. Hard and hot, it
saturated his right shoulder in pain. So much pain rolled around his mind, as
his body seemed to cringe in on itself, wanting away from it as fast as
possible.
Adam tasted dirt as he licked his lips. He
wasn’t sure how that happened, but apparently, he was on the ground. Face-
first in the dirt. Fucking great.
Pushing up with his left arm, Adam gritted
his teeth around a scream of pain as he rolled himself onto his back. Hitting
the ground hard, he felt as if someone decided to stab fire-heated knives along
his spine. Or they’d not bothered with that time-consuming act and just put a
fire pit next to him that Adam managed to roll into.
His mouth was dry, making him swallow
several times, trying to get his lips wet, but it wasn’t helping. He needed
liquid. He needed pain killers—fuck, what he really needed was to pass out
because he hurt so fucking much.
Warmth saturated him, cuddling around him,
settling him like nothing else could. The only thing he could smell or simply
care about at this moment.
Cracking his eyes, Adam looked up at his
mate. He was on his knees by Adam’s side and looking as sick as Adam felt
before all the pain started. His arm was up over his chest, hand wrapped around
his right shoulder as if he was holding onto something.
He was a fair bit older than them, Adam
suddenly realised. The guy’s face appeared
to be a frown, the wrinkles in his forehead and in the corners of his eyes
aging him.
His brown hair, clean-cut, average to a
point that Adam felt he must had dressed himself to look that way. All Adam saw
was perfection. All he saw was home.
Mate.
“I know you,” he breathed out, needing to
talk and, apparently, that’s all he could say.
Protecting My Werewolf
(Moonlit Wolves #7)
Word count: 30,535
Paranormal erotic romance
Justin is back for one thing, to take Jex home, but
what he finds makes him realise that maybe there’s something more in life than
taking orders from a man who owns his soul.
It doesn’t take a smart man to realise there’s
something different about this group of men, but it’s definitely going to take
strength to walk away. Can Adam show Justin his worth more than going back to
his old life, even when that means stepping into a war he’d never expect, let
alone knew existed?
Note: this series must be read in order.
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