Sold into slavery mere hours after his birth to werewolf parents, Tracker spent decades in service to cruel underworlders. Then the fallen angel Harvester transferred his ownership to a human woman who gave him as much freedom as the unbreakable bond would allow. Still, thanks to his traumatic past, he’s afraid to trust, let alone feel love. But when an acquaintance shows up at his door, injured and in need of help, he finds himself longing for a connection. For someone to touch. For someone to care.
Stacey Markham has had it bad for Tracker since the day her best friend, Jillian, was forced to hold his slave bond. At first, the fact that he’s a werewolf seemed weird to Stacey, but hey, her best friend was married to one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so weird is definitely a matter of perspective. Stacey knows the depths of Tracker’s trauma, and she longs to help him even as he helps her, but breaking through his walls isn’t easy.
And it only gets harder when the only blood family he has, the pack that gave him away, lays claim to him…and everything he loves.
Excerpt
A primal surge of protectiveness and possession made Tracker want to sweep Stacey up and carry her to his bed. The urge hit him hard, a rattling, deep tremor so powerful he kind of dazed out. For a moment, he couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, but once his brain engaged again, he got a dose of reality. The full moon was coming and with it, hyper-intense reactions to everything.
He slid a glance over at her, hoping she hadn’t noticed anything. Thankfully, she was glued to the TV, laughing into her wine.
Damn, he wanted to kiss her again. He wanted her mouth on him, not the glass. He wanted his mouth all over her, kissing, licking—
The oven timer went off, saving him from doing something stupid.
Stacey paused the movie so they could dish up and settle back down on the couch.
The cottage pie was a big glop of savory goodness, and the movie was as funny as it was baffling. Humans were complex, strange, and surprisingly humorous. So much he’d learned about them in Sheoul was turning out to be lies.
He stole looks at Stacey often while they ate, committing all of this to memory. It was time to replace all the bad shit, and maybe these new memories would overwrite the old ones. The longer she was here, the more balanced his world would become.
He was actually starting to dread the roads opening up again.
When the movie was over and the credits started rolling, Stacey hiked a leg up on the cushion and turned to him with a bounce. “Did you like it?”
“I’ve never laughed so hard in my life,” he admitted, feeling a buzz that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
“Good.” Stacey clinked her glass against his. “You should laugh more.”
She was so beautiful, her face flushed from laughing, her lips stained red from the wine, and he had to temper a purr of admiration that threatened to come out as an erotic growl of need.
“It’s not just the movie.” He hadn’t been able to temper his voice, and his words came out in a dark, gravelly drawl.
“No?”
“No.” He wasn’t sure what to do now. His heart was pounding and his stomach was fluttering. All he knew was the truth. “It’s you too.”
The look in her eyes, one of raw heat, sparked something new in him. Something savage. Something hot.
Maybe it was the near-full moon. Maybe it was pure male instinct. Maybe it was a sense of freedom he was only now beginning to understand. Whatever it was, it demanded he finally take action.
He put down his glass and then, very slowly, very deliberately, he reached for her, sliding his hand around the nape of her neck as he leaned in and touched his mouth to hers.