CougarHeat by Marisa Chenery

Chapter One
     
    Taylor looked at the three men who
sat with him at a table inside one of Juneau’s coffee shops. He’d thought he’d
never see their faces again. Not after being kicked out of his cougar shifter
family group. He’d been banished, never to be welcomed home. Or at least that
was what he’d been led to believe four years ago.
    He looked at his younger brother
Blaise. There was only a year between them in age. “How did you know where to
find me? And how did you get my cell phone number?”
    Blaise shrugged. “You’d be amazed
at what you can find on the internet as long as you know how to go about it.
Luckily I have a friend who does.”
    Taylor shook his head. It figured
his brother would have the means to track him down. Blaise always “knew”
someone who could fix whatever problem he had. Taylor shook his head as he
looked at Blaise. His brother hadn’t changed over the years Taylor had been
gone. They both had the same tawny-blond hair, though Taylor’s was shaggier and
Blaise’s was on the long side but more controlled. They also had the same
light-brown eyes that verged on gold, a mark of a cougar shifter.
    He looked at the two other men at
the table, his cousins Grady and Jase. “And you two decided to just tag along?”
    Jase smiled and nodded. “Of course.
We’re here to give Blaise support, and to make sure you don’t brush him off.”
Grady nodded as well.
    Taylor took a sip of coffee, then
sat back in his chair. “All right. Why did you come looking for me when you
know you’re supposed to act as if I no longer exist?”
    Blaise met his gaze. “You’re aren’t
banished anymore.”
    He snorted. “Really? And I’m
supposed to take your word for it? There’s no overturning banishment.”
    “Maybe not in the past, but yours
has been. It was Father who made that decision.”
    Taylor schooled his features not to
show any of the emotions he felt. The mention of his father had all the old
anger he’d thought he’d left far behind rising to the surface. As the head of
their family group, his dad was the one who had made the ultimate decision to
banish Taylor and send him on his way. All because Taylor had gotten into a
fight with a werewolf who had attacked one of his human friends. It wasn’t as
if he’d set out to kill him while in cougar form, risking the close-guarded
secret of what he was to the outside world.
    As the oldest son, before he’d been
kicked out of his family, he’d been in line to take his father’s place once he
died. “And why would he do that?” Taylor asked in a low voice.
    “He’s dying.”
    It took Taylor a few seconds to get
over that bit of news and regain his composure before he spoke again. “I’m
sorry to hear that. I hope you didn’t come all this way just to tell me. You
could have called or even sent a text.”
    Blaise scowled. “You really don’t
care that our father is close to dying?”
    “What do you expect? The man turned
his back on me, not caring what happened as long as I stayed away.”
    “You know he had no other choice.
You broke one of the laws of our kind. His leadership would have been brought
into question if he hadn’t done what had to be done.”
    “Yeah, well that makes me feel so
much better about it all. I can now overlook the fact he kicked me out in the
middle of the fucking winter with nowhere to live and no clue where I would end
up. And it wasn’t as if he gave me any money to start a new life either. With
no job and used to earning my living working with the family, I wasn’t prepared
for anything.”
    “You don’t look the worse for wear
now.”
    Taylor glared at his brother, his
anger no longer at a low simmer. “You have no idea what I went through before I
ended up where I am now. I thank my lucky stars that Meadow—the woman who gave
me a job and a place to live—took me on to look after her place. Since my
banishment, I count her as my only family.”
    “She no longer needs to be,”