Perfect Mate (10 page)

Welcome to Shiftertown!

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed Nell and Cormac’s story in “Perfect Mate”!

Revisit the Shifters Unbound world for Graham’s story (
Wild Wolf)
, and Jace’s story (
Feral Heat
), both available now. (Keep reading for an excerpt from
Wild Wolf
.)

If you’re new to the Shifters Unbound world, welcome! Shifters have been “out” for
twenty years, collared and controlled by humans, and tamed from their violent ways.
Or are they?

Shifters are made to live in Shiftertowns, restricted as to where they can work and
what they can do. But Shifters being Shifters, they find ways to get around the rules,
especially when it comes to protecting their mates!

The story begins in
Pride Mates
, in the Austin Shiftertown. After a few books, you meet the Shifters of the Las Vegas
Shiftertown in
Wild Cat
and
Mate Claimed
(both of which introduce Nell). Onward, the action takes place in either one or the
other Shiftertowns, usually with characters from both towns interacting (this is especially
true in Jace’s story,
Feral Heat
).

Come to Shiftertown, and stay a while! There’s always an adventure or two, along with
steamy romance!

Best wishes,

Jennifer Ashley

http://www.jennifersromances.com

Graham McNeil slammed his massive fist into the jaw of the attacking wolf just as
his cell phone rang.

He got the wolf into a headlock and tried to reach for the phone, but the wolf fought
and clawed, drawing blood, its breath like sour acid. Graham’s Collar sparked heavy
pain into his throat, while the Collar on the wolf he fought was dormant.

Was this where things were going with the stupid-ass idea that all Shifters should
have their pain-shocking Collars replaced with inert ones? Shifters at the bottom
of the food chain would use their fake Collars as an excuse to try to claw their way
up, like this Lupine was. The shithead was from the family of one of Graham’s trackers
and was supposed to be loyal to Graham, but today the wolf had decided to wait in
Graham’s house until Graham walked in alone, and jump him.

Idiot. Graham had territory advantage, even if he still wore his true Collar, which
blasted pain into him with every heartbeat. Time to show the attacking wolf who was
truly alpha.

Graham’s phone kept ringing against his belt. Because Shifters were only allowed to
carry “dumb” phones, he didn’t have a fancy ringtone to tell him who was calling.
The damn thing just rang.

Graham grabbed the Lupine by the throat and threw it against the wall. The wolf howled,
but did it stay down? Not for long.

As the wolf prepared another attack, Graham yanked the phone off his belt and flipped
it open. “What?”

“Graham,” came the breathless voice of his more-or-less girlfriend, a human called
Misty.

Everything slowed. Graham saw in his mind the curvy young woman with light brown hair
she wore in ponytail, her soft face, and her sweet brown eyes. Every thought of her
was like a breath of air, snaking into his messed-up brain and trying to soothe him.
Graham wished he was with her now, teasing her, kissing her, instead of trying to
beat an insubordinate wolf into submission.

“I’m a little busy right now, sweetheart,” Graham said loudly as the wolf landed on
him. A wooden chair smashed under them as they both slammed to the floor—damn, he
liked
that chair. “You break my TV, you’re dead,” Graham snarled.

“What?”

“Not you, sweetie. I’ll have to call you back.”

“You can’t. Graham, listen, I need you. They’re . . . Oh, crap.”

“What?” Graham bellowed. “Slow down. What are you saying?”

“I have to go. I don’t know when I can call you again.”

Graham’s shift was coming. In a few seconds, he wouldn’t be able to hold the phone,
let alone talk. “Wait!” he yelled at her.

“I can’t. I’ve got to go. Graham, I lo—”

The phone clicked, and Graham was shouting at a dead line. “What? Wait! Misty! Fuck.”

He threw the phone across the room and lifted the attacking wolf by the scruff of
the neck. “Would you stop, you asshole?”

The wolf snarled, teeth snapping at Graham’s throat. The wolf in Graham responded.
He felt his body change, muscles becoming harder and leaner, face elongating to accommodate
teeth, claws jutting from fingers that quickly became paws.

With an ear-splitting snarl, Graham went for the other wolf’s throat, snapping teeth
around fur.

At the last minute, the alpha in him told him not to kill. Graham was this wolf’s
protector, not its enemy. The wolf needed to be taught its place, not destroyed.

Not that Graham wouldn’t rough it up a bit. But quickly. He needed to find out what
was wrong with Misty. The fear in her voice had been clear, the desperation palpable.
They’re . . .
What?
Here? Coming? Killing me?

Graham’s Collar kept snapping arcs into his neck. He held on to the throat of the
fighting wolf, not letting the Collar stop him.

Dominance didn’t have anything to do with Collars, or pain, or fighting. Dominance
was about putting full-of-themselves, arrogant Lupine Shifters in their place. Graham
got the wolf on the floor and stepped on it, and then shifted to human again, breathing
hard, his clothes in tatters.

“Stay down.” The words were hard, final.

The wolf snarled again, then became human—lanky, dark-haired, gray-eyed—typical Lupine.
Except this one was female.

She looked up at him, rage in her eyes. “This isn’t over, McNeil.”

“Famous last words. Your dad sent you, didn’t he? Thought maybe I’d mate-claim you
if you couldn’t best me, right?”

The way she looked quickly away told Graham he’d hit upon the truth. She was naked,
and not bad, but Graham hadn’t been able to think about any other female since he’d
met Misty.

He hadn’t mate-claimed Misty, or even had sex with her. Graham had never had sex with
a human before, and he feared he’d not be able to gentle himself enough for Misty.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

Also, his position as leader of the Lupines in this Shiftertown was precarious. His
wolves expected him to mate with a Lupine, to provide a cub who would be their next
leader. If he went into mating frenzy with a human, the more old-fashioned of his
wolves might try to solve the problem by killing Misty.

But Misty’s phone call had his gut churning. Graham climbed to his feet. “I’ve got
to go,” he said to the woman. “I want you out of here by the time I get back. No more
ambushes. If you want a mate, go chase some bears. They’re always horny.”

Graham turned around and walked away. The best way to show submissives they were submissive
was to indicate you didn’t fear them jumping you the minute your back was turned.
Making them know that if they did jump you, you’d stop them. Again.

His heart hammered with worry, the wolf forgotten, as he detoured to his bedroom to
grab clothes to replace the ones he’d shredded with his shift.

Graham left through the back door, mounted his motorcycle, started it, and rode noisily
away from his house and Shiftertown.

***

“I’m asking you one more time, where is he?”

“I said, I don’t know.”

The gang leader who held Misty against the wall by the throat didn’t believe her.
He’d caught her running out of the back of the shop, and he’d taken her cell phone,
thrown it to the ground, and smashed it with his boot heel. She’d never seen the man
before, but she guessed who he was—a guy called Sam Flores who’d been in prison with
her brother—and why he’d come.

“You do know.” Flores’s breath was foul with cigarettes and beer. “That him you had
on your phone?”

“No—” Misty broke off with a grunt as her head smacked into the wall. “I don’t know
where Paul is. He took off.”

“Lying bitch.” Flores had blue eyes in a sun-darkened face, and dark hair streaked
by strong desert sunlight. “I’m going to beat you until you tell me where that asshole
is. Then my boys and me will make you understand why you don’t mess with us.”

Misty was so cold with fear, she couldn’t feel anything anymore. She struggled, though
she knew she’d never get away. Paul had been out making deliveries, and Misty really
didn’t know where he was. She’d called him before she’d called Graham, but she’d had
to leave a voice mail, telling Paul to lie low. Paul had hiding places, but Misty
didn’t know where all of them were.

Flores held her in place, the prison tatts on his fingers up close and personal. Behind
him, his friends were smashing up her flower shop. Baseball bats smacked into the
clear glass refrigerator doors that held her stock; pots filled with arrangements
were thrown against the counter. Glass splintered and flew, the flowers, innocent,
scattered everywhere. Broken stems and a river of petals littered the floor.

The gang boys got into the refrigerators and smashed the vases there to the floor.
Water gushed across the cement and tile along with all the flowers. Cool, dank air,
scented with roses, carnations, calendulas, daisies, and baby’s breath wafted across
the shop.

“You know you aren’t walking out of here,” Flores said. “You might as well tell me
where he is.”

Misty didn’t bother to answer. If she would die here, the last thing she’d do would
be to keep her little brother, Paul, safe. She’d taken care of him all her life, and
she wasn’t about to stop now.

“I don’t think you understand,” Flores said. “It won’t be easy. You’ll be in so much
pain by the time we’re done with you, you’ll be begging to die.”

Fine, then Misty would beg to die. At least she’d been able to hear Graham’s gruff,
take-no-shit Shifter voice one last time. She thought about his strength, the tatts
of fire on his arms, his hard face, and buzzed dark hair. Everyone thought Graham
too tough, too mean, and too wild to tame, but Misty had seen what was in his eyes
when he was around the two orphaned wolf cubs in his pack.

She’d started to tell Graham the secret inside her heart when the man with the callused
fingers had snatched away her phone.

They were going to do whatever they wanted with her, and Misty would die. She was
scared, but at least Paul had gotten away, and Graham’s voice had given her strength
to face what she had to.

Not that she’d give up without a fight.
Go down swinging,
her dad had liked to say. He should know; he’d had to fight for everything his entire
life.

The men in her store—five of them—were armed, carrying pieces stuffed into back holsters,
knives in boots and on belts. Misty had nothing but her fists and her flowers.

“Cops’re coming,” one of the men by the door said.

Misty heard sirens. Probably Pedro at the convenience store across the lot had seen
the break-in and called the police. But Misty knew better than to relax and be thankful
the police were on their way. There would be a standoff, probably a gun battle, and
someone would be shot. Most likely Misty.

She struggled to get away. Flores punched her twice in the face. Misty’s head snapped
back, and blood flowed from her mouth.

Flores clamped his hand over her throat, cutting off her breath. He squeezed, not
enough to choke her, but blocking off enough air to make Misty dizzy and sick.

He dragged her with him out the back door to the alley, the other four following.
Two of the guys had motorcycles, the other two, including the man who held Misty,
went for a pickup—a Ford 250, all shiny and new. Big enough to shove Misty down into
the back of it, tossing a cigarette-smoke-infested tarp on top of her.

The truck rumbled under her as it started. Then the pickup jerked, tires squealing,
as it headed down the alley that ran behind the strip mall. Another turn onto the
street, and they were off, carrying Misty who-knew-where.

***

Misty’s pickup wasn’t in her carport. Graham killed the engine on his Harley, stepped
away from the engine’s smell, and inhaled.

Every hackle he had went up, the wolf in him starting to snarl. Misty was gone—Graham
could scent how she’d left the house through the back door not long ago, got into
her truck, and drove away. All as normal. She’d have gone to her store, as early as
it was, to do whatever it was she did before opening for the day.

Why hadn’t the woman told him where she was calling from? Graham’s cell phone had
indicated what number had called him, but Misty had been on
her
cell, which meant she could be anywhere.

Graham scented no struggle here, no fear or worry. Just Misty’s fresh scent, overlaid
with the flowers she worked with all the time. Graham couldn’t catch a whiff of roses
these days or the strong odor of what she said were Asiatic lilies without thinking
of Misty.

No,
thinking
of her wasn’t the right way to put it. The scents conjured up her sultry voice, her
uninhibited laughter, her soft face, and brown eyes that went shiny when she looked
at him sometimes.

The images, sounds, and scents of her woke up Graham’s needs too. He hadn’t touched
the woman, but he dreamed almost every night about running his hand up the loose skirts
she liked to wear, freeing her hair from the ponytail, licking between her breasts . . .

Misty had sounded terrified. Someone had been coming for her, and she was scared out
of her mind.

Graham swung back onto his bike, started it, and roared down the street again. He
saw the people who’d come out of houses to watch him, wondering what the hell a Shifter
was doing in their nice corner of the city, but Graham didn’t care right now what
they thought.

He turned out of the neighborhood and joined traffic on the 215 before he raced off
on Flamingo, heading to the flower shop in this middle-class side of town. Shifters
didn’t come here much, confining themselves to the north side of Las Vegas and the
desert not far beyond. The big hotels on the Strip and downtown didn’t want Shifters
scaring away tourists, so Shifters mostly stayed away, even though some Shifter women
danced at nightclubs as the entertainment. Pissed Graham off, how Eric Warden, the
Shiftertown leader, was all right with Shifter females doing exotic dancing for humans.
One of the many reasons Eric was a dickhead.

Misty’s flower shop—Flamingo Flowers—was in a strip mall with other small retailers,
which should have been quiet this early on a Saturday morning. Graham knew something
was seriously wrong, even before he saw the smashed glass in Misty’s doorway and the
cop cars all over the lot.

A couple of cops saw him, and Graham hesitated. He should get the hell out of there
and have nothing to do with the city police, but if he left, he’d not be able to help
Misty. She might be in there, and if she wasn’t, he needed to get inside and sniff
around to figure out where she’d gone.

He decided to approach as though he had every right to be there. Shifters weren’t
banned from
every
store in town, just most of them. But not this one. Misty had sense enough to know
that Shifters were good customers.

Graham pulled his motorcycle next to one of the cop cars and dismounted. Next thing
he knew, he was surrounded by five cops, who’d all pulled their weapons on him. One
cop backed those up with a Taser.