Tank
Authors: Ronin Winters,Mating Season Collection
Tags: #Romance, #Fiction, #Paranormal
Blue Collar Wolves #6
Mating Season Collection
Ronin Winters
Romantic Geek Publishing
TANK (BLUE COLLAR WOLVES #6) (MATING SEASON COLLECTION)
Romantic Geek Publishing
Copyright © 2015 Ronin Winters
E-book ISBN 978-1-938593-31-4
Kindle Edition
Publication Date: November 2015
Editor: Sara Lunsford
Cover Design: Croco Designs
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons – living or dead – is purely coincidental.
What is The Mating Season Collection?
Mating Season – Books Released so Far
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The Mating Season
The mating moon is rising…
Blue Collar Wolves
The Pleasure Chronicles
Sexy Sci-Fi about Warrior women and the Alpha Males who love them
Pleasure Satellite
–
To the Strongest goes Everything…
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FACEBOOK FAN GROUP FOR THE MATING SEASON
The Mating Season began when six friends (who also happen to be Paranormal Romance Writers) got together and started talking about how it was funny authors could take the same premise but make such different stories around it.
A little more talk (and perhaps a little more wine – no telling) and they began to brainstorm about a werewolf world revolving around The Mating Season, a special time of year which would be the only time a werewolf could take a mate. One author suggested she would take a story this way while another laughed and cut her off and said, nope, she’d tell a story like this.
And then they all stopped and thought,
Hey, why don’t we write these different stories and release them all together in one collection?
So they did.
Six Authors. Six Different Packs. And all of it revolving around One Premise – The Mating Season.
We are proud and excited to have worked on this project together. I hope you enjoy my take and my pack as they navigate The Mating Season, and please check out my friend’s packs and their takes on it as well.
–Ronin
‡
S
he was struggling
in his arms, a wildcat, all flailing limbs and nails raking against his flesh and brown hair brushing his face as her head whipped around, and it was turning him unbelievably the
fuck
on.
Tank sucked in a breath, which was a stupid move since all it did was let her scent float through him, hitting the pleasure centers of his brain and making it damn hard not to bury his face into her neck to breathe it deeper.
He grit his teeth. Damned fucked up, stupid timing for finding his true mate.
Her elbow hit his stomach, and more in fear of her hurting herself than doing anything to him, Tank wrapped her in his arms to stop the struggling, which proved she wasn’t a fighter since she had no idea how to break the hold. She was still screeching and wriggling against him, and whatever smelling her started, the feel of those amazing curves against him finished, because his body was now primed to claim its mate. He was hard and ready, and he already saw it in his mind, her on her knees, head resting on her arms as she screamed out her pleasure as he plunged into her.
Bringing every bit of control he ever had to the fore, he gritted his teeth and spoke low in her ear, not allowing himself to scent her any more than he had to. “Listen to me. Are you okay? Where’s Beth? I heard yelling. I’m a friend of hers and Regan’s and Steel’s.”
She stopped struggling but her body still held onto the rigidness of flight or fight. She looked at him over her shoulder, and
damn
if she wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, with eyes so big and blue that even under dim streetlights their color was clear. “These dogs started chasing us, and she told me to run while she held them off. She’s still back in the alleys behind the buildings.”
Everything in Tank was screaming not to leave his mate, that it was too dangerous and she wasn’t aware of the dangers of their world and couldn’t protect herself. But Beth was facing down wolves by herself, and there was no scent of rogues here. Tank stomped down the desire to take her and run that was even now rising within him. Releasing his hold and stepping back, he said, “You stay here. I need to get Beth.”
Her hand came out in reflex, landing on his arm. “You need a weapon.”
“Got one,” Tank said, leaving before she could ask for details and refusing to look back at her, because if he looked back, he wouldn’t be able to walk away.
It took only a minute to see Beth surrounded by three dead wolves, splashes of blood over the side of the building and on the alley. She was curled up in a darkened corner of a building, her arms around her knees and her eyes wide and scared and fixed on one of the wolves. “Beth?” Tank called out, soft as he could so not to startle her.
Beth’s head reared and her gaze now went to him. “Another wolf,” she said, answering the unasked question. She breathed deep and seemed to come back to herself as she rose from the ground. “He never shifted to human, so I don’t know.”
There were too many overwhelming smells here, so whoever this other wolf was, friend or foe, Tank couldn’t get anything to help find out. “You hurt?” Tank didn’t see any injuries on her, and the shake of her head confirmed the visual once over. Not physically hurt, but she had a scare, and so did… Tank swallowed hard, his mind now going back to his new-found mate. “Your friend? She know anything? Anything happen to her I should know about?”
He tried to keep his voice casual, but one thing about Beth, the same thing that could be said for Regan – they picked up on things real quick. A lingering fear still held on in Beth’s eyes, but it was shoved to the side as a smug knowing started to take up space. “My
friend’s
name is Jess, and did you see something you liked? Something to do with the season, perhaps?”
“Stahp.” Tank rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to show any other sign of discomfort. Yep, just like Regan, she was way too insightful. “And if I was interested cause of that? There any problem?”
The amusement on Beth’s face lowered, and a more calculating look descended, straightening his back as he watched her. He had no problems with Beth, but truth was, he didn’t know her all that well, nor Regan for that matter. Both of them were taking care of the pack – that was true – but like a lot of the wolves, he couldn’t let go of the lingering discomfort that Regan hadn’t taken Steel’s bite, and it made him a little cautious around them.
Her eyes closed and she nodded, obviously having come to some inner decision. She opened them again, looking him dead in the eye. “Here’s the deal. Jess is in a relationship she shouldn’t be in, but it’s the type of situation where it could go on for years – hell, she might even marry the guy. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened. So I’ll help you because if she sees someone is interested in her, it might give her the push to get out of her current situation and take steps to better things.”
“Why isn’t it good? He hurting her or something?” Hackles were rising and the wolf was baring its teeth at the thought of someone laying a finger on the woman he’d so recently been holding in his arms.
Beth shook her head. “Nothing like that. She’s just insecure and caught up in the ending of a fairy tale. That combination can be tough to escape.”
“Insecure? What the fuck would someone like her have to be insecure over? She’s fucking perfect.”
“I love those true mate goggles you wolves wear.” Now Beth was smirking, and a blush was again threatening to take over, which was fucking ridiculous. He beat the shit out of people for money. His ass hadn’t blushed since puberty when he got caught sneaking into the girl’s lockers and saw Mrs. Taylor in all her post-menopause glory instead of Charity James like he’d been hoping. He refused to be blushing now under the smirking eye of his alpha’s sister-in-law. “She’s gained weight since high school and her boyfriend comments on it. It gets to her sometimes.”
“And she stays with the asshole?” Now he had a real reason to hate the douche, and not just because he was in the way. Jag-off shouldn’t be talking to a woman like that.
“That’s what I’m saying, and it’s why I’m helping you. If you do nothing else except make her see she has other options than that idiot, it’s a win.
But
,” and here Beth pointed her finger at him, her eyes serious and her mouth unsmiling, “you gotta promise me you won’t bring her into our world unless it’s real love. Not just bite her because she’s your true mate, and don’t know nothing else about her.”
Beth might be smart, and she might have grown up as a hunter, but there were things she couldn’t understand about wolves. Like how his skin was itching with the desire to get back to Jess. Like how her scent was already a permanent fixture in his memory. Like how thinking on the shade of blue of her eyes was enough to make him half hard. “You don’t understand–”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I get it’s something I’ll never really know, but I
do
know you can have a true mate you don’t love. She’s my friend, so you need to promise that you’ll be able to swear, hand to God, you love
her
and not the thought of having a true mate. That you won’t take any steps unless you would be with her
even if
she never took your bite.”
“Promise,” he said, and if he wasn’t sure that was possible, that was okay. Beth was smart, but she wasn’t a wolf, and she didn’t understand what she was asking. How Steel did what he did with Regan – well, no other wolf would ever have done that.
“Okay,” Beth said, nodding and taking him at his word. “Let’s get to her then.”
Best idea he’d heard, and his ass was in gear before the words finished leaving her mouth. Jess was standing where he’d left her, and he released the tension he didn’t know he was holding as he took her in.
How the fuck could her boyfriend – and goddamn if he didn’t want to bare his teeth at the word connected to her? – not think she was perfect? She had a body of a 50’s screen goddess – curves for days, thick in areas he really liked thick, and a bosom that made him want to kneel before it in worship.
Was what she was wearing because of her asshole of a boyfriend, those loose black slacks and a sweater that did its best to not show a hint of cleavage, as well as the ugliest shoes he’d ever seen on anyone outside of a nun? She should be wearing tight-fitting, knee-length skirts, and those stockings that had the one line running up the back. Spike heels, definitely, heels that would make her impossibly long legs crush all male willpower around them. And for her top, shit…if she wore a corset, he’d start coming in his pants as soon as he laid eyes on her. That, or maybe tight, low cut sweaters. Red, because it would set off that sexy, shoulder length brown hair of hers and make everyone aware of the sex goddess she was, especially if she would also wear red on those dick-draining lips.