The Sweetest Mercy (Sexy Shifter Shorts) by amanda bonilla Page B

said, holding out her hand.
    “You wanna get out of here, Kiera?” the man asked without so much as a handshake.
    She smiled. Like shooting fish in a barrel. “Do you have someplace in mind?”
    “I’ve got a motel room down the road and a bottle of Jack. We could take this party over there.”
    Perfect. She hated playing games, going through the motions and rituals of the hook-up. This guy wasn’t about getting to know her or easing into anything. Maybe he needed a woman to erase the pain of a broken heart. And she could be a soothing balm for him. No emotional connections. No awkward conversation in the morning. No, “I’ll call you.” All Kiera needed was an hour or so of sex to get her through the night.
    “I think a change of venue sounds like a great idea,” she replied as she scooted out from the bench seat. “Let’s go.”
    Too bad her judgment had been clouded by a fog of desire and mind-numbing lust. She might have realized that there was something off about this mystery guy who’d been so willing to take a perfect stranger to his motel room. Maybe if she hadn’t been so busy undressing, she would have realized that she hadn’t persuaded him to do anything. In fact, her voice had no effect on him. She might have noticed the glint of metal as the knife slashed down on her arm. If she’d paid an ounce of attention, fear wouldn’t have frozen her in place as his fist swung around and caught her in the face.
    Her sister, Erica, had always considered their parentage more of a curse than a blessing. She’d taken lovers with caution, chatting with her potential bed mates, extracting information out of them with her siren voice, making sure they were safe. She’d never been swept away by passion. Kiera, on the other hand had, without guilt, indulged and partied her life away. Kiera couldn’t help but think she should have taken a cue from her younger sibling. Because Erica wasn’t sitting in a dark, freezing cold cave in the middle of nowhere waiting for her kidnapper to return and decide if he was ready to kill her or not.
    There was something to be said for caution.
     

Chapter Two
    CARTER LIFTED HIS NOSE nose to the air, inhaling the female’s scent and holding it in his lungs. His beast stirred in his psyche, growling with appreciation. He’d been told that the female he’d been sent to fetch was a wood nymph, but since he’d never met one he didn’t recognize her scent signature. Logan warned him that she’d be out of sorts due to a full-moon heat but it hadn’t worried him in the least. No female had managed to attract his attention for decades. Besides, this was a job, not a blind date. What was more disconcerting than Reece’s absence, though, was the way the female’s scent called to that primal side of him, urging him forward toward the mouth of the cave even though years of training—and a fair amount of common sense—advised caution.
    He circled the area twice, being sure to keep downwind. Reece wasn’t an idiot, he had to have known Logan and Drew would send someone after him. And though Carter had fully expected an ambush, the site was absent of any other scent save hers.
    Damn it.
    The situation had become a hell of a lot more problematic than he liked. His original plan had been to take out any henchmen with the sniper rifle and then immobilize Reece. Once the fugitive was in his custody, he’d retrieve the female and they’d all travel back to Logan’s compound together. So much for his carefully orchestrated plan. As of now, the ambush he’d expected was nonexistent. The male he’d been tasked with bringing back to his alpha was nowhere to be found. That left him with the female… whose scent was driving him absolutely fucking crazy.
    Carter swore under his breath as he approached the cave. The best course of action would be to leave the female exactly where she was, keep watch from one of the trees uphill, and wait for Reece to return. But for the past hour or so,