Jonah, who's always in trouble, lands in even deeper water when he meets Jinx, but suddenly trouble doesn't look so bad anymore, in fact, it looks perfect.
Unwilling to forgo final respects even from a distance, Jinx sneaks to the funeral of a mother she hasn't seen for fifteen years, and lands in the worst trouble of her life. The alpha of the Washburn Valley pack never stopped searching for her and now he has Jinx, he's not going to let her go. She's extraordinary breeding material—a super wolf in every way; fast, smart and an exceptional shifter—but she'd rather eat her own eyeballs than mate with him. She just needs to figure out a way to escape.
Jonah's been in trouble all his life. The faery is currently under an indenture punishment for theft, but the idea of doing an extraction from the Washburn Valley pack fills him with dread. The wolves know his face, know he stole their gold and if they catch him, they'll eat his guts, with or without ketchup. But saying no when he's ordered north isn't an option. His plan to get into the compound works, but that's the only thing that does. He's staked and wrapped in iron without even getting a glimpse of his target.
For a pair born to trouble, a shifter and a fairy could be perfect for each other, if only they survive long enough to do more than run.
General Release Date: 15th November 2013
Damn, I stink.
The sickly scent of Ever Yours, the cheapest perfume she’d been able to find, enveloped Jinx in a thick, suffocating cloud. It had been an hour since she’d sprayed the contents of the bottle over her body and she had the horrible suspicion it was going to take more than a long, hot shower to get rid of it. But it was the best protection she had against being recognised for what she was.
A werewolf.
Lurking in the cover of a large tree in Harrogate’s Stonefall cemetery, she watched as her mother’s coffin was carried towards a mound of earth. Even from a distance of a hundred yards, she knew the six pall bearers were wolves. In fact, the only person in attendance who wasn’t a wolf was the priest. This was the closest she’d been to so many wolves for fifteen years and she felt conflicted, tugged towards her kind yet strangely repelled by them.
If only she’d been able to talk to her mother before she died. There’d been so much she wanted to ask, and now it was too late.
A lump formed in her throat. The last time they’d been together had been on Jinx’s twelfth birthday. Jinx had thought they’d been going to the cinema and instead, her mother had taken her to the train station and handed her a heavy backpack containing gold and a purse with a hundred pounds.
"Buy a ticket to somewhere you’d like to live," she’d said. "Destroy the ticket when you arrive. Don’t tell me where you end up. Hide the gold until you’re older. Give yourself a new name. You can’t be Lizzie Cole anymore. Don’t tell anyone anything about where you came from. You have to start living as another person from this point."
Jinx had stared at her in bewildered horror, but her mother had held firm against her pleas for them both to run.
"You can only be safe without me. I’m too easy to track. You’re not. Not yet. Never look for me, but remember I’ll always love you. You’ll never leave my heart."
And her mother had stayed in Jinx’s heart too, which was why she’d had to come today.
The priest’s voice carried across to where Jinx stood. "We therefore commit her body to the ground—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust—in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life."
Jinx swallowed hard, but the lump didn’t shift. What did ‘certain hope’ mean? How could hope be certain? She didn’t believe in another life. She didn’t believe in God because if he existed, she wouldn’t have had to spend all these years away from the one person who loved—Jinx froze as one of the wolves swivelled round. He looked directly at her and sniffed.
Oh hell. David Morrison, the alpha, who’d hardly changed in fifteen years. Tall, dark haired, with lots of muscle, and a complete bastard, he was the reason Jinx had been sent away. She knew at the precise moment their gazes collided, that coming anywhere near him had been a mistake. She hoped it wasn’t the biggest one of her life.
But then, he returned his attention to the grave. Jinx exhaled and calm returned. He couldn’t have recognised her. The last time he’d seen her she’d been a twelve year old shrimp with long brown hair. She sighed. Okay. I’m still safe. But the fact that this was a mistake hadn’t changed. What was the point of a final goodbye to someone who could no longer hear her? Her mother knew she loved her. Distance couldn’t break that bond, nor could death.
The pack home in Derbyshire where she’d lived with her mother had burned down within a few weeks of Jinx leaving. She’d sat in children’s home miles away watching the blazing mansion on the TV news, relieved no casualties had been reported. But she had no way of knowing where the pack had gone after that. Too many questions might have brought trouble to her door. Though she’d quietly searched over the years, hoping to at least reassure herself that her mother was happy, but found no trace until a week ago. She’d broken down in tears when she’d seen the article in the newspaper about her mother’s death and the time and date of her funeral.
She should have mourned without leaving her home, but instead she’d done expressly what she’d been told not to do all those years ago—she’d come back. Her wolf had persuaded her to come, and for once, she’d not questioned why. Now she did. The quicker she left the better.
Yes, her wolf responded.
Bit bloody late now.
Get out of here.
Okay, okay, we’re going.
"Bye, Mum," she whispered.
She slipped away from the tree and headed down the path towards the gates. Hopefully her taxi still waited outside.
Two big guys in dark suits, both wolves, moved onto the track ahead and Jinx forced herself not to falter but to keep walking. Her attention snagged on their leather gloves. On a summer’s day? That wasn’t good.
"You a friend of Sonia’s?" one of the men asked as she approached. "You’re welcome to come to the house for the wake. We can give you a lift." He sniffed and recoiled.
Good. "I’m not here for a funeral. Sorry if I intruded. I’m doing a research project on World War Two cemeteries." Jinx smiled and kept walking, willing her heart not to race, her wolf to stay calm.
Another guy stepped out of nowhere to block her path. She thought about running, she even thought about shifting, but went for confused human instead and frowned. "Excuse me." She sidestepped and when he moved the same way, she forced out a chuckle. "Oops."
Before she could try again, arms wrapped around her from behind and squeezed hard. She kicked back and was rewarded with a yelp but not freedom.
Barbara Elsborg lives in West Yorkshire in the north of England. She always wanted to be a spy, but having confessed that to everyone without them even resorting to torture, she decided it was not for her.
Vulcanology scorched her feet. A morbid fear of sharks put paid to marine biology. So instead, she spent several years successfully selling cyanide.
After dragging up two rotten, ungrateful children and frustrating her sexy, devoted, wonderful husband (who can now stop twisting her arm) she finally has time to conduct an affair with an electrifying plugged-in male, her laptop.
Her books feature quirky heroines and bad boys, and she hopes they are much fun to read as they were to write.
Reviewed by The Romance Reviews
I liked that the story was filled with wolves, vampires, faeries, and other creatures. As the plot started to wrap up nicely, I was quickly flipping the pages to see how everything would turn out....
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