inches of honed muscle, she held her hands at her side, her claws elongated and ready for action. She watched him come, blinded by his rage and lust. At the last moment, she stepped sideways, sticking her foot out to trip Jeffrey as he went barreling past, but such a simple move didn’t stop him. Recovering almost instantly from his stumble, he rotated with a snarl, only to find his face getting intimately acquainted with her fist. His head rocked back from the blow, but she didn’t let her small victory slow her. Aiming careful punches, she pummeled him, hitting him in the stomach and face. She didn’t emerge unscathed, not with an alpha of Jeffrey’s stature. He landed some blows, one shot to her jaw, making her teeth bite her inner cheek so that the salty tang of blood filled her mouth.
Deciding she’d played with him enough, Deena stepped up her pace, until Jeffrey stumbled back from her. His arms lifted to block her shots, but he couldn’t prevent the slash that opened his face from brow to chin, four lines that immediately turned red as blood filled them then rolled down his face. Oooh that’s going to scar. Most wounds her kind sustained healed without a trace, but Lycan to Lycan injuries didn’t, an odd trait of their species.
“Bitch,” he spat, when she finally relented.
“That’s Ms. Bitch to you,” she replied with a cool smile, licking the blood from a claw. Yummy. “Now that I’ve warmed up, shall we fight?” She did so enjoy a good workout.
But alas, like so many males before him, when faced with a female who could take care of herself, better than all the men she’d ever met, he ran, shifting into his wolf shape, which only missed his tail between his legs for a true victory.
Next time I’ll make him cry. Because she knew Jeffrey would never allow his humiliation to rest. Men could be so predictable that way.
Chapter One
A year later at a hotel lodge for Lycans in the Rocky Mountains…
The scent hit Deena like a shot to the gut, sucking the breath from her the moment she walked into the crowded auditorium, a faint whiff of soap and cologne that made her inner bitch stir with an excited whine. Scanning the crowd, she tried to pinpoint the location of the intriguing aroma, however, the mass of bodies made it impossible. Striding into the throng of Lycans, gathered for the upcoming eclipse, a magical moment for her kind that led to a stupid amount of births nine months later, she rotated her head from side to side, inhaling deep. She didn’t need to push or excuse herself to move through the dense bodies. As an alpha, her invisible power radiated before her, parting the crowd and allowing her to march the length of the room only to arrive at the other end stymied.
Given her bitch’s exuberant yipping in her head, she’d expected to find a male of importance, a beta at the very least, someone of consequence to explain why her nipples tightened and her sex moistened. Instead, she stopped before a nondescript fellow wearing glasses, a collared shirt and khakis. She eyed him up and down, from his diminutive height of five eleven, to his pale skin, which obviously didn’t see the sun often, to his slim build. Where were the muscles, the height and the power she’d expected? Why on earth did her canine—spinning in wild circles in her mind—find this male so interesting? And why oh why, did she want to throw him over her shoulder and drag him off to a corner to have wild, sweaty sex?
“Who are you?” she barked, vexed and not afraid to show it. To his credit, the nerd in front of her didn’t piss himself, or faint. Instead, he did the worst thing one of his weak nature could do. He ran.
And dammit it all, despite the lack of dignity, the turmoil in her head—and the carnal hunger she couldn’t explain—she chased him. To her credit, she managed curb her impulse to run. She didn’t need to, not when stalking would do the job.
Despite not understanding the strange urge
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