Howling for Their Mate [Wolf Packs of Fate 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Wolf Packs of Fate 1

  Howling for Their Mate

  Raven Reynolds is an ex-con. She was set up by her ex-boyfriend to take the fall in a robbery. Years later, she moves to Fate, Georgia, hoping for a home and friends in a place where no one will ever know about her past.

  Werewolf brothers, Drake, Dugan, and Harrin Hardwick, have watched the pretty Raven for a while and have decided that she’s perfect for them. Still, they can’t shake the feeling that she has a secret. Yet they know her secret can’t be half as shocking as theirs.

  When Raven’s ex shows up, the Hardwick men try to back off, but her sleazy ex isn’t listening to Raven’s demands that he get the hell out of Fate. A wolf’s got to do what a wolf’s got to do, and with three wolves involved, that’s even truer. The world explodes as the pack takes on the ex in a fight, not only for Raven’s heart, but for her life.

  Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 43,358 words

  HOWLING FOR THEIR MATE

  Wolf Packs of Fate 1

  Jane Jamison

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  HOWLING FOR THEIR MATE

  Copyright © 2016 by Jane Jamison

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-918-6

  First E-book Publication: January 2016

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2016 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  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 strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Howling for Their Mate by Jane Jamison from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Jane Jamison’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Jane Jamison’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  Dear Reader,

  Howling for Their Mate is Book One of my new Wolf Packs of Fate series. The first four books are interwoven stories of four feisty ladies.

  Howling for Their Mate–Raven Reynolds

  A woman with an ex-boyfriend determined to make her his again. Three sexy cowboys who make her howl with need. Yeah. What could go wrong?

  Joining Their Pack–Heather Dill

  Heather has a secret shame. The Wilson men vow to bring her into their pack no matter what she’s hiding.

  Call of the Pack–Emeline Newsom

  Emeline hears the call of the pack. But will the secret she’s keeping turn the men she loves against her?

  Protecting Their Mate–Betsy Cramer

  Betsy is big and beautiful. She can handle it all. But can she handle the three men determined to make her theirs? Yet another danger is lurking close by.

  Read all four books to see how these ladies and their men forge new lives while battling problems from their troubled pasts.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  About the Author

  HOWLING FOR

  THEIR MATE

  Wolf Packs of Fate 1

  JANE JAMISON

  Copyright © 2016

  Chapter One

  Raven Reynolds dug into the sandwich she’d packed for her lunch. Although working as a clerk in The General Store of Fate, Georgia, wasn’t intellectually stimulating, it paid the bills. Barely. But the best part was that she and the girlfriends she’d made in the past couple of months could gather for lunch in the back room. Babs Lithgow, the owner of the store, didn’t mind one bit as long as “I get to hear the gossip later.” Raven wasn’t much on gossiping, but if it made her boss happy, she’d pass along a few tidbits. It was surprising how many tales ran around the small town.

  “So, Raven, have you seen them today?” Emeline Newsom, who worked as a caregiver to one of the older citizens in town, leaned closer. Her long, copper-colored hair shifted over her shoulders as she drilled her bright blue eyes into Raven.

  Raven’s blonde locks were from a bottle. Next time, she just might try going red. The color definitely worked for Emeline, especially with her blue eyes. At least Raven wouldn’t have to fake those. She had already had the blue eyes.

  “Who are you talking about?” Like she didn’t know.

  Heather Dill, the resident artist, laughed. “Oh, come on. You know damn well who we’re talking about.” Nothing about Heather was fake or from a bottle. Not her short brown hair that framed her oval face so well, not her big brown eyes, not her generous bosom, and certainly not her wind-chime giggle.

  Yeah, she knew who they meant, but she didn’t like talking about them. Thinking about them made her hot enough. If she started telling the girls how much she wanted them, she’d melt into a pool of lust.

  The Hardwick men. Damn, if there were any hotter men on the face of the planet, she’d be shocked as hell, and she’d definitely want to meet them. All three of the Hardwick men stood well over six feet, and had broad shoulders, callused hands, and seriously mesmerizing eyes.

  Drake was the oldest
of the three gorgeous brothers. Although all of the men worked the Hard Luck Ranch, Drake was also the sheriff. As such, he took care of any problems around Fate and a few of the other small towns in northern Georgia. He was one of those calm, cool, and collected men who could, if needed, unleash a firestorm of fury when pushed past his limits.

  Maybe he’d honed his calm resolve during his time as a Special Forces soldier in the Marine Corps. Or maybe he was just made that way. She’d seen him in action only once when a couple of outsiders, young men looking for bad fun, drove into town and started shooting up the place. Like a man who knew no fear, Drake had walked into the danger, ignoring their threats to plug him full of bullets. He’d nearly broken their arms bending them behind their backs to get them to drop their guns. Surprisingly, he let the assholes leave and didn’t throw them into the small jailhouse at the end of town.

  Harrin Hardwick was the middle man in more ways than just his birth as the middle child. He spent most of his time at the ranch, handling the cattle and the horses they raised. He was known to be as good with a gun as he was on a horse. Unlike Drake, he was more interested in taking care of his brothers and their ranch than worrying about everyone else. Still, he was likeable and often joked around while sharing a beer at the local bar called the Wolf’s Den. He seemed more relaxed than Drake and showed it in his easy-going walk and the way he kept his thick brown hair long enough to curl around his earlobes.

  I’d like to chew on those earlobes.

  Raven checked around the table. Thankfully, she hadn’t spoken out loud. She had no business thinking about the Hardwick men, but that didn’t keep her mind from shifting her thoughts over to Dugan Hardwick, the youngest brother at thirty-one, with Drake being thirty-five and Harrin thirty-three. Dugan was the shortest of them, but still stood a couple of inches over six feet, and was just as solidly built. It was obvious that he idolized his older brothers, especially Drake, since he often served as a deputy whenever Drake needed an extra hand.

  Still, after what she’d been through, the last thing she needed was to get mixed up with three cowboy Romeos, no matter how damn sexy they were.

  “She wants us to coax it out of her. Like she’s pretending she doesn’t think about them night and day.” Betsy Cramer, the self-proclaimed “big, beautiful woman” of their group, arched an eyebrow and flipped her rich chocolate hair over her shoulder. Her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Spit it out, girl. You know damn well if Drake and his brothers walked in here right this minute, you’d jump to your feet and ask them what they wanted. Hell, if they ordered you to hop on top of the table and spread ’em, you’d shove us out of here so fast we’d think a tornado had barreled through the store.”

  Betsy was right, of course. Not that she’d admit it.

  “Can we talk about something else? Anything else?” She forced her mind off the brothers which was, in all honesty, a minor miracle. “Does anyone know anything about Pearl Witten?” It was a last-ditch effort to divert the conversation away from the Hardwick men.

  “What about Pearl?” asked Heather.

  Shit. She’d forgotten that Heather and Pearl were close friends. She and Heather seemed to have a special bond. As yet, the rest of them hadn’t gotten to know Pearl well.

  She and the other three women had arrived in Fate around the same time, about two months earlier. They’d found each other in The General Store and then again in the market one day while they were doing their grocery shopping. After a brief moment exchanging information about each other, it was easy to tell they’d become fast friends. Each of them had come from somewhere else and had, through fate or blind luck, wound up in Fate, population six hundred and eighteen. They hadn’t shared the reasons they’d ended up in an out-of-the-way town that wasn’t even noted on a map, but Raven was willing to bet they were running from something as much as they were coming to something.

  “I heard Pearl’s expecting.” Emeline shrugged. “But at this point, it’s only a rumor. So she hasn’t said anything to you?”

  Heather shook her head. If anyone knew the real scoop, she would. “Not yet anyway. Maybe she’s keeping mum until she gets past the first trimester.”

  It made sense. Not that Raven knew anything about being pregnant. She’d stopped hoping for a normal life with a husband and children. Who’d want her once they learned about her past?

  “Don’t look now, but one of your lovers just walked in.”

  Raven jerked her attention from her sandwich, up to Betsy then followed her friend’s gaze past the curtain separating the back rooms from the main part of the store.

  Oh, shit.

  Drake Hardwick’s brawn filled the doorway. Although he was in silhouette with the sun casting a glow around him, she could still imagine his piercing eyes settling on her.

  Please let Babs get back in time to wait on him.

  It was a useless hope. She’d heard the diminutive woman leave through the side entrance several minutes earlier, and knew she wouldn’t get back for at least an hour.

  Damn.

  “Raven, you have a customer,” urged Heather.

  Damn again.

  Putting on a brave face, she pushed away from the table and forced her legs to move toward the hunk of a man. The pulse of her body’s rhythm picked up, sizzling the now-familiar tingle through her that always hit her whenever one of the Hardwick men came around. If it was more than one of them, she had a difficult time talking.

  “Hi, Drake. What can I help you with?” She was thankful her voice sounded normal. Now if only she could keep herself from licking the hollow in his neck, and then dragging her fingers along the tanned skin up to brush along the stubble that always seemed to be adorning his jaw.

  “Hey, Raven, how’s it going?”

  His voice could’ve melted butter on an iceberg. Was he really giving her “the look,” or was her imagination playing tricks on her after all the girls’ talk?

  “I’m fine. And you?”

  “I’m good.”

  God, they were being so damn civil. Never mind that they’d almost hooked up one night at the Wolf’s Den. He’d gotten her to dance and then dragged her into the dim hallway leading to the restrooms. If damn Chayla Warren hadn’t come around the corner at just the right—no, wrong—moment, she would’ve had her dress above her waist and his face against her pussy. No doubt news of it would’ve spread like wildfire around town by the next morning.

  She grew wet again just thinking about it. Since then, she’d steered clear of Drake. The last thing she needed was to get involved with another man. Especially a lawman.

  They stood there, staring at each other like a couple of teens too shy to ask each other out. “Did you need something?” The quicker she got him out of there, the better.

  “Yeah. I need a pair of pliers.”

  She frowned. “A pair of pliers?” As a rule, the store carried a variety of items from food to hardware. Still, his request seemed a little odd. “You know there’s a hardware store a little ways down the street, right?” Of course he knew. He and his brothers were born and raised in Fate.

  He blinked and suddenly acted as though she’d caught him off-guard. “Yeah, sure I do. But I was walking by the store, so I figured I’d check in here before walking all that way.”

  All that way? Like maybe half a block?

  She managed to hold back a smile. “Okay. Well, we don’t have a lot of pliers to choose from. Let me show you what we have.”

  Could he tell how nervous he made her? By the time she’d moved behind the counter, her hands were sweating. She pulled the two kinds of pliers they carried out of the drawer and placed them on the counter.

  He picked up one then held it out to her. “This one will do.”

  She took it, her fingers grazing along his. The touch was merely a touch. Nothing to get excited about. Or at least it should have been nothing. Instead, it was like a firecracker going off in her hand. She grabbed the pliers and jerked back.

  Do n
ot go there. You can’t go there.

  Her gaze settled on the sewn-on patch above the right pocket of his denim shirt.

  He’s the sheriff. Don’t be stupid.

  She swallowed and did her best not to think about how strong his forearms looked in the rolled-up shirt. “Should I put this on your account?”

  “That’d be great.”

  Again, they studied each other. She watched his hard chest rise and fall and longed to place her palm against it. Even though their time at the Wolf’s Den had lasted only a few short minutes, she’d never forget how solid he’d felt. She was a strong woman, a woman who knew how to protect herself, but in his arms, she’d felt a strange mix of vulnerable and safe.

  “Here he is.”

  Her breath hitched in her throat as she turned to see Harrin striding through the door. The chime of the bell over the door went off like the signal heralding the start of a prize fight. Except the last thing she’d ever want to do with these men would be to fight them. Unless, of course, they ended up doing some naked wrestling in the back of a pickup.

  Harrin strode inside, quickly followed by Dugan. How could three men be so handsome? It didn’t seem fair to all the other men in the world.

  “Hey, baby.” Harrin’s dark eyes, so much like his brothers’, slid over her breasts then up to her face. “You’re lookin’ good.”

  She felt her face heat and had to look away. What the hell was wrong with her? She was used to being around sexy guys. After all, she was pretty damn good-looking, too, and was used to guys hitting on her. Still, there was something about these three men that had her needing to cross her legs and squeeze.