Hot Paranormal Romance/ Fantasy

Look.

No, not here—down there.

See her? The woman behind the rock? The one with a Glock 43 in her hand? That’s Schae Summers, fantasy author. She only came to Scotland to do some book research. Not to be chased over the heather by a wolf. Because everybody knows there aren’t any wolves in Scotland, right?

Well right now Schae’s wishing someone had told the one behind her.

But being chased is one thing—even if it’s by a wolf. Being chaste? That’s something else entirely. Especially where men with storm grey eyes are concerned. Men like Darek Banakar—who just might be more dangerous than any wolf.

So here she is. Schae Summers. She’s smart, and she’s hip. She wasn’t born yesterday - but she’s going to be.

Prologue

It’s quiet now. I don’t know why I like to watch you, afterwards. To watch you sleeping. But I do. And this is after, and before was what it always is—a wonder and, somehow, a delightful terror. A great, breaking wave and you make me into the whole sky and a single flying leaf at the same time. But that was then and this is now. And now?

Now it’s quiet, and I watch you sleep.

I watch you. I watch, and I’m aching and I’m sore, every muscle stretched beyond delicious stretching. But then it happens. That sound. And I’m wet. Not just wet, but soaking and dripping. That one sound and it’s done.

Do you remember? The Day we Didn’t?

You weren’t expecting me. I’d gone, and it didn’t matter what I’d said. We both knew I was never coming back. And I wasn’t. Because I was smart, and it was the right thing to do. To never see you again, and spend every night crying, wishing I could look in your eyes one more time. It was better to leave you, than not to—and have you leave me. But there’s smart, and there’s right—and times when things are neither. They just have to be done anyway. But even then, well, they have to be right, even when they could turn out to be anything but. Yet right or wrong, this thing had to be done if—well, if anything. And the man on the radio, he said that day was it – the day it had to be.

So I got in my car, and I drove. Waylan wasn’t expecting me either, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He looked up at the sky, and he looked at me, and he pursed his lips and he nodded. Like he knew, though there wasn’t any way he could. Then he plunged the horseshoe he’d just finished into the water vat. He tidied up the forge, the way he always did, and we got in his Land Rover. I told him I wanted to walk the last stretch, through the pass and into the glen. Waylan looked up at the sky, and he looked at what I was wearing. He just shrugged, and pulled up. So I got out. When he’d driven off, I took off my heels and I started walking. Somehow I knew it had to be that way—barefoot. Just me, the sky and the heather. I walked, and the wind was already starting to blow. It should have been cold, but it wasn’t. It should have been crazy—but it wasn’t that either. And my feet took me through the pass, until I could see the cottage below. And my feet took me down into the glen. And I was there. There, facing a door much more than the weathered oak in front of me. A door more scary than one into you, or into me, or even into us. A door I could still knock on—or walk away from.

So I did it. I knocked…

Chapter One—What Katya did

Let’s get one thing straight right away. I wasn’t born yesterday. So I know there are no wolves in Scotland. Which didn’t really explain why I was hiding behind the only rocks I’d found, after running more miles than any sane map should know about. Only why my feet hurt so bad. Oh yes. With a Glock 43 in my hand. Just nothing to point it at.

Being chased by a wolf will do that.

Yes. A wolf. Yes, chasing me. Yes, in Scotland. Where there are no wolves.

I know. I can hear it. ‘Scaredy-cat American writers prone to panic attacks shouldn’t go walking alone on Scottish moors. Especially ones who can’t tell the wind in a valley from the sound of a wolf howling.’ Which I’d take, sure. Just as soon as whoever was trying to give it to me could explain the blood-sodden scratch on my hand. The one where the ‘howling wind’ tried to bite me when it sprang out of damned-if-I-know where. Which was about when I started running. And I’ve no idea how far away it was I started, but my feet are telling me I should have let the wolf eat me. It would have hurt less. Now my feet hurt, my hand hurts and I’m hiding in the only hiding place for miles. If ‘hiding place’ is the phrase I’m looking for. But it’s the only clump of rocks on a stretch of heather that looks like it runs clear to New York. I know even the dumbest non-existent Scottish wolf is going to find me in a heartbeat. Find me and—well. ‘And’. Make me into a half-pounder with cheese, only without the cheese. Or the bun. Some girls have all the luck. I know I do—it’s just all bad.

So do me a favour. See me there, crouched behind that rock? Let’s leave me there for now. Then I can stop thinking about how my feet hurt and my hand hurts, and whether wolves can give you rabies. Which, let’s face it, isn’t going to be my biggest issue. Or at least not for long. There’s that whole burger-off-a-bun thing. So pull the camera back—waaaaaay back—and let’s start again.