Blood Rights [Wicked River 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  Wicked River 2

  Blood Rights

  Moira Gilson has always been different, though she never fully understood why. Dedicating her life to protecting a sibling she’d never met was the easy part. Finding her own happiness will take a bit more work.

  Rumors spread like poison when Brock Lancaster disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving behind an alpha legacy. Nearly a year later, he’s back. Not to claim his rightful place as leader of the pack but to protect the woman he loves—and he’s not alone.

  Koba Blackheart would rather avoid conflict when possible. Having two mates constantly at each other’s throats is the epitome of conflict, especially since Brock and Moira have a history and he’s the odd man out.

  Danger creeps ever closer, and their rocky relationship will soon be put to the test. Can the three recognize the true meaning of family? Or will they crumble under their own selfishness?

  Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Shape-shifter, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 48,876 words

  BLOOD RIGHTS

  Wicked River 2

  Gabrielle Evans

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  BLOOD RIGHTS

  Copyright © 2012 by Gabrielle Evans

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-901-9

  First E-book Publication: July 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All art and logo copyright © 2012 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,

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  DEDICATION

  A big thank you to Tina for being my sounding board and cheerleader. This one’s for you.

  BLOOD RIGHTS

  Wicked River 2

  GABRIELLE EVANS

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  “Son of a bitch!” Picking up a large, fallen tree branch, Moira jabbed it toward the offending metal, growling when the steel teeth clamped together, crushing the wood between its powerful jaws.

  It was the fourth foothold trap she’d found on her property that week, and heads would roll when she discovered who was endangering her pack. With the full moon scheduled to crest in just a few hours, she was running out of time to make the grounds safe before it was time to hunt.

  She’d never asked to be chosen to lead, but it was a job she took very seriously. When their alpha had mysteriously disappeared two months prior, she’d naturally assumed that one of the betas would rise to the challenge and take over the pack. No such thing occurred, however.

  By some strange flaw in fate’s design, the lycans had turned to her to lead them. On one hand, it was to be expected. She was a predator by nature and had been born to lead. Unchallengeable power flowed through her veins. Strength and authority were encoded in her DNA, and no amount of running would ever change that.

  On the other hand, she’d not been born to lead a pack of wolves. When she’d first arrived in Alabama, she hadn’t been looking for a home. Alpha Lancaster had found her where she was camping out in the hills, though, offered her refuge, and helped her bury the past she’d been trying to escape.

  Would the pack be so openly accepting if they knew her secrets? Moira seriously doubted it, but it wasn’t the time to worry for herself. Someone was endangering the lives of people she cared about, and she wanted their heads on a platter with a nice garnish of parsley.

  “Did you find anything?”

  Moira glared at the offending trap before turning her attention to her two betas. “Just this.” She kicked the rusted metal and huffed. “How did the meeting go?”

  Joss Emerson rubbed a hand over the top of his short, blond hair and sighed. “A couple of the ranchers are complaining about dead livestock. I guess Mike McElroy lost three head of cattle the night before last. Says they were ripped apart pretty bad.”

  “Buddy Jebs said something got ahold of his sheep and one of his sows,” her second beta, Rip Lomack, added, pushing his dark hair back as the wind whipped the long strands around his face. “They’re blaming it on wolves.”

  “That’s crap, and we all know it. Wolves might have gotten to Buddy’s sheep, but I’d be more likely to believe it was coyotes. Neither one took down three of Mike’s heifers, though.”

  While the red wolves still roamed parts of Alabama, they’d been nearly nonexistent since the 1920s. In their little town of Mission Landing, the only wolves that prowled the night were members of the Red Moon Pack. Moira didn’t even have to ask to know that none of her pack had been involved with the ranchers’ dead livestock.

  “Yeah, we know it’s crap,” Joss agreed. “It doesn’t change anything, though. It’s not like we can waltz into a city council meeting and tell them we’re the wolves, but not to worry because we haven’t been turning the local ranches into all-you-can-eat buffets.”

  No, they really couldn’t. Hiding their existence from the humans and maintaining a low profile were high priorities. Not easy things to accomplish when men armed with shotguns were on the lookout for wolves. What was she supposed to do? Call off th
e hunt? Tell her pack they were no longer allowed to shift?

  “Everyone is being careful, right?”

  “They know the rules.” Rip crossed his arms over his broad chest and frowned. “No one shifts where there is even a chance they could be seen by humans, and we only hunt on pack lands.”

  Those were the rules, all right, quoted almost verbatim from the mandate she’d handed down when the whole mess had started before the last full moon. “Have either of you talked to Ten?”

  Tennyson Blakemore wasn’t lycan, but he was one of the few humans in the town who knew their secret. He was also the only vet in town, and as such, would more than likely have already seen the slain livestock.

  “Well, that’s kind of the thing…” Joss trailed off while he stared at some point just over Moira’s shoulder.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Ten’s gone,” the beta blurted. “I mean, just straight up disappeared. His pickup is still sitting in his driveway, but he’s not home. He’s not answering his cell phone, and his receptionist says he didn’t show for work at the clinic today.”

  “Have you checked the river?” It wasn’t that human life meant so little to her, but it was the reality of the situation. Tennyson wasn’t the first person to go missing in Mission Landing in recent weeks, and Moira had no reason to believe he’d be the last.

  “Not yet,” Rip replied. “We thought it might be easier to catch a scent during the full moon tonight.”

  It wasn’t logical thinking, but the idea of her betas being so close to the river at night sent shivers up Moira’s spine. Wicked River wasn’t technically a river, not in her book anyway. It was only a bit more than a stream or a creek, but it ran through three counties before joining with the Chattahoochee River. Maybe it was the mythos that the townspeople liked to spread about the stream. Maybe she’d been brainwashed like the rest of the masses. Whatever it was, the damn thing gave her the creeps.

  “Maybe we should let the sheriff handle this one.”

  “Just like the department has found all the other missing people?” Rip countered. “Ten might not have been pack, but he was our friend. We owe it to him to at least look.”

  Rip was right, and Moira had no illusions that they’d find the vet alive. Something was happening in their little town, something dark and dangerous. Even if she couldn’t put a name to what plagued Mission Landing, she could feel it—cold, vicious, and hungry.

  “Fine, we’ll search the river at nightfall. Stick together and keep it close. No one goes more than a mile in either direction along the banks.”

  “Got it,” Joss answered, but there was a gleam in his eyes, and he looked to be having a hard time hiding a grin.

  “Do you have something to say?”

  “Just that it sounds like you’ve been drinkin’ the Kool-Aid, Mo. You don’t really believe that stuff—oomph!”

  Moira had her beta’s face pressed into the grass and his arm twisted behind his back as she pushed her knee between his shoulders. “Don’t ever call me that.”

  “Shit, Moira.” Rip stepped forward like he was going to physically remove her from Joss’s back but thought better of it at the last second. “What the hell?”

  Her heart rate was too fast, her breathing too shallow, and her gut cramped painfully. Overreaction was a fairly mild term for the behavior she’d just exhibited. Neither of her betas needed to know what a mess she was on the inside, though.

  Releasing Joss’s wrist, she rose calmly to her feet and even offered a hand to pull him up from the ground. “Gather a few more guys to help you search, but keep it quiet. We don’t want to cause a panic. I’ll meet you back here at sundown.”

  If she’d been anyone else, maybe the men would have questioned her. She wasn’t just anyone, though. She was their alpha, and the title afforded respect. So both betas nodded, offered mumbled good-byes, and headed back across the field toward their vehicles.

  “Get it together, Moira.” She couldn’t afford to make mistakes or get emotional every time something was said that reminded her of him. “It’s been eight months,” she reminded herself aloud. “He’s not coming back.”

  * * * *

  Why the hell was he back?

  Crouching low as he slinked through the trees, he was careful to stay downwind of the pack currently gathering in the field. Brock knew the answer to his unspoken question the minute his gaze landed on the breathtaking beauty in the middle of the loosely formed circle of wolves.

  “Things are tense,” she said in a voice that carried on the wind. “You’ve all seen what’s been happening around town. Stay in groups of twos and threes and keep close. No one leaves the pack lands tonight. Understood?”

  Barks, yips, and howls went up around the group of lycans. It didn’t surprise him that they’d chosen Moira as their new alpha. She was strong, capable, and fierce. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to keep those she loved safe. At one time, Brock had been counted among those select few.

  Creeping a bit closer, his paws sank into the moist dirt, the earth clumping beneath his claws. The fur along his spine stood on end, and his muscles quivered in nervous anticipation. Something was coming. He didn’t scent anything amiss, couldn’t hear anything in the woods that shouldn’t be there, but he felt it slithering closer.

  Elders from all over the Southeast Region had gathered to address the threat that was endangering their people. Mission Landing, Alabama was just the most recent in a string of small towns ravished by the Shadow Walkers.

  Considered an abomination by the rest of the paranormal world, Shadow Walkers hadn’t helped their reputation in recent months. Once considered a rare occurrence, more and more were cropping up, forming alliances, and leaving a trail of blood from North Carolina to the Florida panhandle. Now they were moving inland.

  Not only had they slaughtered hundreds of innocent people, but they risked exposing the supernatural world to humans and inciting mass hysteria. Not wanting to dirty their own hands, the Elders had formed a new and temporary force to deal with the threat. Brock had volunteered for the job without a second thought, becoming one of the first Shadow Hunters.

  There were affected towns throughout the region, but he’d asked specifically to be sent to Mission Landing when he’d heard it was one of the targeted areas. He wasn’t there to win back Moira’s affections or take over the pack—though by birthright, he should have been the alpha of the Red Moon Pack.

  No, if Moira didn’t want him, he could live with that. Nothing in the rulebook said that he had to sit idly by while her life was in danger. It wasn’t just the enchanting seductress he was there for, either. Even if some had turned their backs on him, these were his people, and he had an obligation to protect them.

  A warm, furry shoulder bumped against his, and Koba whined softly, pawing at the dirt but keeping his eyes focused solely on Moira. After the many nights of drunken rambling the guy had endured in the last six months, there was no doubt that he was anxious to get a closer look.

  Brock hadn’t been searching for a relationship, or anything that resembled one, when Koba had quite literally dropped into his lap. It still made him smile when he remembered the babbled apology and the man’s pink-tinted cheeks as he tried to scramble off of Brock after running into him and knocking them both to the ground outside of a bar in Atlanta.

  On a downward spiral of self-destruction, he’d not exactly been pleased to discover he had a second mate. Koba had been persistent in his pursuit, however, not willing to take no for an answer, and somewhere along the way, Brock had lost his heart to the man.

  Koba had been more supportive than Brock had any right to expect. In fact, he’d been excited and impatient to meet Moira, insisting that no matter what had happened in the past, none of them would be happy until they were all together. The mating bond between them demanded it.

  Just because Koba and Moira were both his mates, there was no guarantee that the two were also fated to be with each other. Brock
didn’t know what he’d do if that turned out to be the case, but Koba assured him that it wouldn’t matter. Maybe it was the man’s basic nature as an omega to be understanding and avoid conflict, because Brock didn’t know anyone else on earth who would be that accepting of the situation.

  His natural avoidance of confrontation alone should have prevented Brock from bringing him along on such a dangerous assignment. Koba Blackheart wasn’t the typical omega, though. Ten out of ten times, he’d always choose to talk rather than fight, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t handle himself in battle if the need arose.

  Judging by the quiet growls streaming through Koba’s snarling lips at the moment, battle was upon them. Brock could scent the lycan pack still gathered in the clearing, as well as the other four members of his team crouching in the trees behind him, waiting for his signal. A subtle charge sizzled through the air, and something foul drifted on the night breeze, burning his nose until he wanted to sneeze.

  “Okay, everyone, have fun, but make sure you’re home before sunrise,” Moira called to her pack.

  The wolves howled enthusiastically, drawing far too much attention to themselves. Did they know? Couldn’t they feel it? Hell, they were practically ringing the goddamn dinner bell. Forget the Shadow Walkers. The townspeople were going to show up with torches and sawed-off shotguns in any moment. Hadn’t Moira just told them to be on alert and keep a low profile? Idiots.

  Proving that things could always be worse, lightning flashed overhead, followed swiftly by the crack of thunder. As though the violence of the sound alone had split the skies, the clouds opened up in a torrential downpour that flooded the already-soggy ground and ripped the leaves from the tree limbs.