WE'RE GETTING CLOSE TO THE RELEASE OF DARK INSTINCTS BY SUZANNE WRIGHT!!! THE FAIRIES ARE POSITIVELY ECSTATIC!!!
'DARK INSTINCTS'
(The Phoenix Pack Series, Book Four)
Coming: April 7, 2015
Publisher: Montlake Romance
SYNOPSIS
EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
Opening your eyes to find that
you’re upside down can’t be good, can it?
Through the cobwebs clouding her mind, Roni Axton realized that
it wasn’t just she who was upside down. The car had
toppled over.
Well that sucked. Clearly the fuck-up fairy had made an
appearance.
Strangely, Roni felt no rush of panic, no fear. And despite that
she was pretty sure her head was bleeding, there was no pain. There was only a
feeling of weightlessness. Even the fact that her wolf was frantic didn’t
disturb Roni in this dreamlike moment.
Her brain distantly registered that the car kept leaning
sideways, as if something was repeatedly pulling at it. But it was the various
sounds that penetrated her mental fog: low moans, a phone ringing, a child
crying, and strange voices arguing.
Sensing that the ringtone and the moans were coming from her
left, Roni turned her head to find a male wolf shifter in the driver’s seat,
eyes closed. Tao. Huh. Odd that the Phoenix Pack’s Head Enforcer
was with her. She rarely hung out with anyone outside her pack. In truth, Roni
counted very few people as friends.
Sadly, she was very like her brother, Alpha of their recently
formed Mercury Pack, in that she found social situations uncomfortable. In
Nick’s case, it was because he didn’t like most people. In Roni’s case, it was because
most people didn’t like her. Even when she was a kid, she’d found making
friends difficult, especially at school. It was kind of hard to fit in when you
were a tomboy with a higher IQ than that of your teachers.
It probably made things worse that she didn’t “get” her own
gender. But she just didn’t see the appeal behind constantly gossiping,
shopping endlessly, asking deep personal questions, or having different lotions
for different body parts.
Roni was more comfortable around guys, particularly her two
brothers and her Beta male, Derren. Men didn’t care that she wasn’t a people pleaser,
or that she didn’t know how to satisfy social niceties, or that she preferred
chocolate to living beings of any species. The only female she thought of as a
friend was her Alpha female, Shaya, who—
A succession of memories suddenly hit Roni hard: Shaya singing to
a toddler in the backseat, Tao playfully grumbling about the noise, the sound
of tires screeching, an unexpected impact to the side of the vehicle, a blow to
her head that made everything go black.
Grasping onto those threads of memory, Roni remembered how she
had escorted Shaya—who was two months pregnant—on a daytrip to the zoo with
Shaya’s godson, Kye, and his bodyguard, Tao. The Alpha female had wanted a
break from Nick and his extreme overprotectiveness. It was during the drive
back to Phoenix Pack territory when a car had slammed into theirs.
And then she’d gone and passed out like a girl. How embarrassing.
Blinking rapidly, she swiveled her head as much as she could. She
might have winced at the sharp pain that lanced through her neck if she hadn’t
been distracted by the fact that Shaya wasn’t in the backseat beside a still
crying Kye. That was when Roni noticed the female body sprawled like a ragdoll
on the grass a few feet away from the vehicle. Fuck.
The dreamy quality of the moment disappeared as reality crashed
into Roni, and her wolf howled in fear and rage. One word dominated Roni’s thoughts:
Out. She had to get out.
Forcing a reassuring smile for Kye, who was squirming in his
safety seat and reaching for her, she crooned, “It’s okay, little man. Give me
a second and I’ll—”
The car wobbled sideways again. “This crowbar is a piece of shit!”
griped an unfamiliar voice.
“Hurry up!” ordered an equally unfamiliar voice. “We don’t have
much time before someone shows up. Coleman and Axton will sense through their
pack links that something’s wrong with their wolves.”
The stranger was right about that: she could sense Nick’s rage
and anxiety. She could also sense Shaya through the pack link; she was alive,
but unconscious.
“I can’t open the door, it’s jammed.”
A growl. “Move. I’ll do it.” The car swayed again. That was when
Roni understood what was happening. Someone was yanking at one of the rear door
handles, trying desperately to get inside . . . trying to get to . . . Kye. Oh the fuck no.
Roni awkwardly fought to unclip her seatbelt. It eventually
snapped open, and she cried out at the sensation of falling onto a bed of
glass. She shelved the pain as she righted herself and began to slide toward
the backseat on her stomach. “Tao, wake up! Get to Shaya!” All she received was
another moan.
“Shit! One of them is awake!” Rather than flee, the strangers
redoubled their efforts to open the door.
Their efforts paid off.
Just as the top half of Roni’s body wriggled through the gap
between the seats, the door was yanked open, and a tanned arm reached for Kye.
Roni unsheathed her claws and sliced at the limb, causing it to
flinch away. Her wolf growled her approval. “I swear to God, if any part of
your body tries to touch him again, you won’t get it back intact!”
“You bitch!” Two arms reached inside this time, both sporting
claws of their own. One set of claws acted as a barricade between her and Kye
while the other set cut through the belt that secured Kye’s safety seat to the
car. In a lightning fast motion, the arms caught him before he and his seat
could crash to the floor.
Roni stabbed her claws through one long, muscled arm, past bone,
and all the way into the rear seat, pinning the arm in place. He howled in
pain, hurling obscenities at her. Well, she had warned
him; he’d chosen to ignore her, so there was really no need for that kind of
language.
With her free hand, Roni worked Kye’s belt open. His little body
toppled out of the safety seat and onto her outstretched arm. If her wolf could
have sighed in relief, she would have. Curling her arm around him, Roni pulled
him tight against her body. Only then did she release the would-be-kidnapper
from the grip of her claws.
She was feeling a hint of victory when someone grabbed a fistful
of her hair from behind. Turning her head as much as the strong grip would
allow, she realized that the second male had come at her from the other side of
the car. He held her in place by her hair while the other shifter frantically
struggled to drag Kye from her grasp. The toddler was wailing and clinging
tightly to her, absolutely terrified. When two large hands got a firm grip on
his little waist, panic bit into her. No, no, she wouldn’t let—
Her hair was suddenly released, and a scream mingled with a
familiar animal growl that meant Shaya had shifted into her wolf form. While
Roni was relieved that she was conscious again, Roni did not want the pregnant
female, ruthless or not, fighting a male shifter.
“Don’t shift!” the other male yelled. “A car’s coming!”
Footsteps thudded along the ground as the two males disappeared
from view. Seconds later, there was the sound of a car speeding away, and a
heavy sense of relief surged through Roni.
Hearing Shaya’s wolf pawing at the vehicle, whining, Roni assured
her, “We’re fine.” But, really, Roni wasn’t fine. Her head was now throbbing,
her body ached in several places, and her vision was starting to blur and
darken. If she passed out again, she would be seriously unhappy. Dominant
females did not pass out, dammit.
“Roni, how badly are you guys hurt?” Shaya asked, back in her
human form.
Roni wanted to answer her Alpha female; wanted to ask Shaya how
injured she was and reassure her that everything would be fine. But Roni’s
mouth suddenly felt stuffed with cotton, her chest felt tight, and black spots
were dancing before her eyes. Worse, there was a horrible ringing sound that made
her head pound even more.
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her wolf
began to panic once more as the ringing became deafening and a dark veil fell
over Roni’s vision.
Then there was only blackness.
© Suzanne Wright
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Suzanne Wright lives in England with her husband, two children, and her bulldog. When she's not spending time with her family, she's writing, reading, or doing her version of housework - sweeping the house with a look.
ราคาบอลไหล A complete online betting website is open for service. Mobile online casino The advantages of the web are Register for the first time, the minimum deposit is only 100 baht,
ReplyDelete