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  Jace (River Pack Wolves 2)

  Copyright © 2015 by Alisa Woods

  October 2015 Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Sworn Secrets Publishing

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. For information visit:

  Alisa Woods

  Cover by Steven Novak

  Jace (River Pack Wolves 2)—New Adult Paranormal Romance

  His wolf is out of control. She’s a wild thing that won’t be tamed.

  Ex-Army Specialist Jace River has a lock on his bedroom door, but it’s not to keep anyone out; it’s to keep his nightmares from breaking loose. His wolf is an out-of-control killer, which means he can never risk shifting, never truly be part of his pack, and definitely never take a mate.

  Piper Wilding works for the Army as a civilian, traveling the world for her work in counterintelligence and fighting the bad guys while bedding down the good ones. The best part? It keeps her far from her asshole father in Seattle, the rest of the Wilding pack, and the pressure to take a mate. Settling down isn’t her thing, and after what happened to her mother, Piper vowed she would never be tied down by magic or men again.

  While Jace’s wolf keeps him Sleepless in Seattle, Piper returns home to find her missing kid brother. When she breaks into the River brothers’ safehouse, sparks fly and claws come out. Her sexy skills threaten to bring out Jace’s wolf, and Jace’s good-guy hotness reminds Piper how tempting shifter men can be. They’re like fire and gasoline, and as they race to find Piper’s brother, the heat threatens to burn down all their carefully constructed walls. But falling in love has never been so dangerous—and being together means taking risks that neither might survive.

  The flames singe his fur. The screams tear through his soul. But Jace’s beast is wild, uncontrollable, and rampaging through the falling embers of the tiny village. He tries to hold his wolf back, but it dives through a wall of fire to the cowering people inside. The hut is an inferno, and the husband and wife are trapped. His wolf snarls and lunges at them, ramping their screams even higher… somehow, Jace wrestles his beast away from clamping down on their flailing arms and exposed necks. Then a cry breaks through the crackling heat—a child. His wolf hungers to go after the plaintive sound; Jace fights to stop it, but the beast is too strong. It scents the child’s raspberry smell through the acrid smoke and dashes after her. It crashes through a corrugated wall like a demon, the flimsy construction no obstacle for a wolf like him—twice the size of any normal shifter and unleashed from human control.

  The girl shrieks when it finds her. She clutches her doll tighter and shrinks into the corner, covering the stringy black hair on her head with a tiny hand. His beast roars and lunges for her, fangs bared—

  Jace heaved upright in his bed, panting and fighting to keep from shifting. To keep the beast contained within his body and his dream. His claws were embedded in the mattress—he had ripped long slashes deep into the stuffing, and his blankets were a nest of shredded linen. He gritted his teeth and growled as he forced the claws to retract. Too close.

  “Fuck,” he breathed out, rubbing his face with his now-human hands. The moonlight spilled into his bedroom, giving just enough glow to see the door—still locked. He had triple locks installed on his apartment in the city, but here at his family’s estate, he’d only been able to talk his mother into installing one. She didn’t understand, didn’t know what he turned into when the nightmare got hold of him. She was a shifter, too, but she had her wolf under control… like every other normal person.

  Jace’s wolf had always been freakishly strong—twice the size of his brothers, flipping unbelievable in strength, and always a little on the wild side. Even as a pup, he had to work to get his beast to obey his human thoughts—to belong to him, like every other shifter seemed to manage with ease. Then Jace went overseas with the Army and served his country like he had always dreamed of doing… and something happened. He lost it. Lost control. Became the beast.

  And people paid for it with their lives.

  A shudder gripped him, and Jace forced himself to breathe out the last of the nightmare from his system. That was the quickest way to bury the beast deep inside again. The nightmare always brought it out, as if by reliving the scene over and over, he could change the past. But he couldn’t. He could never right that wrong… but he should be able to keep his beast under control while staying in his mother’s house, for fuck’s sake. If not, he might have to go back to the city, something he didn’t want to do. Not until he and his brothers, Jaxson and Jared, had caught up with this Agent Smith character. They’d given him an ass-kicking, and he was on the run, but he’d been kidnapping shifters straight off the streets of Seattle and performing some kind of medical experiments on them. The River pack had rescued a bunch of shifters, but who knew how many Agent Smith still had tucked away in some dungeon?

  That shit had to stop.

  Jace would just have to keep things under control while they figured out their next move.

  He glanced at the clock. 3 am. Too early to get up, but there wouldn’t be any more sleep for him for the rest of the night anyway. Not that he wanted to—slipping back into the nightmare was all too easy once his dream wolf had already been unleashed.

  Jace stretched the aches of his muscles, still cramped from fighting the shift, and swung his legs out of bed. His sleep pants had avoided the shredding, and the warm summer air meant he’d forgone a t-shirt, but the bed was a mess. He sighed and tossed the comforter over the torn bedding. He’d have to fix that later. For now, he needed some chow. Something to eat would wake him up, reset the clock, and hopefully get him through another day.

  Until he had to face the night again.

  The estate was huge—two dozen bedrooms, a massive front room and dining area, enormous kitchen. And that was just in the main house. Out the back, nestled against the Washington mountainside with the stables, there were even more cabins… one with his brother Jaxson no doubt having the time of his life with his new mate, Olivia. She’d come into their lives like a whirlwind, but somehow she’d figured out his brother’s secret and set him free from it… all without Jace knowing until it was all over. Jaxson had always been there for him, ever since he’d been discharged from the Army, but he’d completely failed to be there in return. Jace hadn’t even known something was wrong, too busy dealing with his own problems or chasing after bad guys to try to forget them. He should have known Jaxson was carrying a darkness around inside him. Just another thing Jace’s wolf managed to fuck up in his life.

  Jace quietly unlocked his bedroom door and crept down the stairs, keeping his footfalls silent as he worked his way toward the kitchen. He didn’t need his problems to wake up everyone else. His mom had been taking in wayward shifters for a while, ever since their dad died, and there was always someone staying at the safehouse who wasn’t actually a member of the River family. Right now, the place was full-up, with most of the River brothers’ pack doubling up in the rooms and filling every available bed. They even had a few from the Wilding p
ack staying with them, not to mention the shifter prisoners they had just broken free from Agent Smith’s torturous grasp.

  Even with a full house, the place was silent, except for the occasional creak of the log construction, the squeak of the stairs as he descended, and the whisper of the pines outside. He’d always loved that sound as a kid—felt like the wind was calling to his wolf and saying you are home. Now it just reminded him of how messed up he really was.

  Jace pulled open the massive fridge—his mom was used to feeding the hungry shifter hordes that passed through, so it was well-stocked. He snagged some sandwich makings. The ghostly white light blasted through the expansive kitchen, then shut off as the door swung shut. He blinked as his eyes adjusted, and the house creaked again. Only…

  Jace froze. He grew up here. He knew the house sounds. That was someone on the stairs he just came down. He casually shuffled to the kitchen island and set down the meats and condiments. He held still for a moment, listening. Drawing in a breath. Scenting.

  Light floral scent. No one he’d scented before.

  With light bare-footed steps, Jace dashed back through the open kitchen door, skirted the dining table, and rounded the corner to the great room. Halfway up the stairs was a figure in a black hoodie. Jace knew this house like his own face—he didn’t need to look to avoid the end tables and floor lamps. He reached the stairs before the intruder could even turn around.

  Jace grabbed the hoodie first, yanking it back to get a chokehold, then wrapped his arm around the neck. He pivoted, trying to wrestle the guy down, but his mom must have been polishing the stairs again because his feet went out from under him. They both tumbled the five steps to the landing below. Jace kept his grip, but this must be a kid or something—the hooded figure was lightweight and skinny. No heft to him at all.

  Then he shifted in Jace’s arms, sliding out of his grip and leaving nothing but clothes behind. Jace shoved aside the hoodie and jeans and scrambled after the wolf, who was making time through the great room. Jace knew there was only one way out—through the back kitchen door. He dashed down the side hall, surged through the kitchen side door, and tackled the wolf before it could make it to the back. Which was great for stopping the intruder from escaping, but now he had to keep hold of a wolf three times stronger than Jace’s human form—with razor sharp claws and snapping jaws trying to catch his face. He wrestled it to the floor, holding it from behind. Its claws scrabbled against the low cabinets and pushed them back along the floor. Jace’s head banged against the kitchen door in his struggle to keep hold, and the wolf’s strength was almost too much for him. His brain caught up to what was happening, and he realized—this wolf was being strangely quiet throughout all this. Was this some kind of prank by one of the stray shifter kids his mom had taken in?

  Jace opened his mouth to call for help—he had a house full of shifters who could actually shift and chase this asshole kid down if he got loose—but Jace’s words were cut off when the wolf shifted back to human.

  This was no kid.

  A naked girl—no, she was very much a woman—was suddenly in his arms, struggling against his hold. He huffed out surprise, but before he could let her loose, she squirmed around so her very ample breasts were now pressed against his bare chest. Then she grabbed the back of his head in both hands… and kissed him.

  The man in him froze in shock, but his beast nearly burst out of his skin. While Jace struggled to hold back his wolf, his very human mouth responded automatically to the hot demands of her tongue. Her legs wrapped around his waist, and his cock sprang to life, pressing hard against the naked heat of her body. It took him a full two seconds to make sure his wolf was under control—then he regained control over his human body as well, wrenching his mouth away from hers and grabbing hold of her shoulders to shove her away.

  With her legs locked around him, she didn’t go far.

  “What the fuck?” Jace gasped out the words, breathing hard. The woman in his arms was gorgeous—twenty-five-ish, creamy white skin, black hair spilling down to her heaving breasts, which were large and perfectly round with nipples puckered so tight they made his mouth water. She didn’t say anything, just stared at him with wide eyes, dark as midnight—her lips were slightly swollen and red from their wild kiss.

  If you could even call it a kiss. More like an assault. Who was this girl?

  She blinked, as if she was stunned too—then she shoved away from him.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Jace scrambled after her. He caught her by the ankle before she could get to her feet, then he tugged her off-balance. He cushioned her fall but then twisted to pin her, hands above her head, flat on the cool stone tiling of his mom’s kitchen floor. He’d somehow managed to straddle her in the process.

  She locked gazes with him for an intense moment, then her eyes raked down his chest and landed on his rock-hard erection, which was tenting out his sleep pajamas

  She flicked her gaze back up and gave him a crooked smile. “I guess you’re the kind who likes it rough.”

  What in the actual fuck? “I’m the kind who doesn’t like people breaking into his house.” His voice was still breathy from the fight.

  “Your house?” Her voice was amazingly calm for being naked under a stranger. “Are you one of the River brothers, then?”

  He squinted at her. “Who the hell are you?”

  She glanced up at his hands pinning her wrists to the floor, then smirked at him again. “Are we going to do this interrogation naked? If so, might be more fun if you lose those adorable sleep pants.”

  His mouth fell open. This girl had more brass than most generals he knew. “If I let you up, are you going to run? Because I have an entire house full of shifters who would be happy to hunt you down.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I let you catch me, didn’t I?”

  “Let me—” The wolf in him growled, and he didn’t like how she was getting a rise out of more than just his cock, which was embarrassing enough. He released her wrists and shoved off her. As she slowly got up from the floor, he ground out, “You left your clothes by the front door. But if you run for it, I’m not going to be so nice next time.”

  She threw a flirtatious smile over her shoulder. “Promises, promises.”

  Her hips swayed as she took her time strolling from the kitchen toward the front. He followed close behind, in case she decided to bolt after all. He was pissed—full-on angry at this girl and her attitude and the fact that she had broken into the safehouse with zero obvious remorse or concern—but damn, that walk was doing things to his cock.

  The moonlight kissed her pale skin as she stepped across the great room, no big hurry, and when she bent over to pick up her clothes—holy fuck. He knew she was putting herself on display on purpose, trying to manipulate her way out of this with promises of sex… but the wolf inside him was stirring, and that made Jace’s heart pound with fear more than lust.

  This girl was dangerous to him—in a way human girls never were. Which was precisely why his preferred mode of sexual release was a quick hookup with a human female in a smoke-filled bar in the city. Or more often, his own hand and a hot fantasy about claiming a mate… something that would never happen in reality. But he never tangled with female shifters, even if they were just looking for fun and not actually shopping for a mate. He couldn’t take the chance. But he also couldn’t look away from the show this shifter girl was putting on—every movement was a sensuous tease. She made slipping on jeans hotter than ripping them off. Which was exactly what his cock was twitching for, in spite of the rock-solid knowledge that it wasn't going to happen.

  However, he was definitely going to fantasize about this later.

  When she was finally dressed, her smile shone in the moonlight. “You better wipe up the drool, River boy.”

  He ignored that—it was a show she obviously wanted him to watch, and he needed her to know it wasn’t going to work. Plus he needed to cool this whole thing down, including his raging hard-
on, and find out exactly what she was doing here.

  Jace strode across the great room until he was face to face with her. “Are you going to tell me who you are now? Or do I have to haul out the torture sticks?”

  She frowned at his cold look, then matched it with a defiant one of her own. “Are you going to tell me why you didn’t shift?”

  He mouth dropped open, just for a second, then he snapped it shut and scowled. “Let me be clear about this: you’re going to explain why you’re breaking into my house, and you’re going to do it right now.”

  She leaned back and threw a pitying look in his direction. “Oh… I see… you can’t.”

  He couldn’t help the growl that escaped. “I can shift. I choose not to.” Dammit, how did she get under his skin so fast? He sucked in a breath and tried to regain his calm. “Are you going to answer my question, or do I have to bring in my pack to persuade you?”

  She glanced at the front door, but lucky for her, she decided not to make a run for it.

  She turned back to study him, folding her arms across her chest and cocking her head to the side. “Why didn’t you just shift to catch me?”

  “That’s really none of your business.” He was glad to hear his voice returning to its normal cool. “And you’ve got three seconds to come clean.”

  “That offer of naked interrogation is still on the table.” She smirked at him again.

  “Two.”

  The smirk faded, and her voice dropped. “Look, I don’t need any trouble—”

  “One.” He glanced up the stairs where the River pack was still slumbering away. One howl would bring them down.

  The girl threw up her hands. “Okay, all right.”

  He waited.