[Siren Publishing: The Lynn Hagen ManLove Collection: Alternative Contemporary Paranormal Romantic Suspense Romance, MM, shape-shifter, werewolves, HEA]
Raven McCoy is in hiding from his pack. He has no desire to take over the mantle of leadership when his father steps down. But Robert McCoy isn’t taking no for an answer. His father sends his best man to track Raven down and bring him home. But Raven isn’t going anywhere. Not when he’s just found his mate, and not when Jet has trouble on his heels.
Jet Atherton leaves the dark realm once a month to visit his cousin. But on his last visit, something went terribly wrong. Jet is missing two weeks of his life, and he has no memory of what happened to him. All he knows is that he showed up at a mechanic shop, and the owner saved his life. There’s just one problem. Raven is his mate and Jet has to get away from him before the wolf shifter discovers that Jet is unseelie, the most hated fae in the preternatural world.
Lynn Hagen is a Siren-exclusive author.
STORY EXCERPT
The old Buick came to a stop, and the driver stumbled from the car. The stranger looked like death warmed over as he stared bleary-eyed at Raven.
Cocking his head to the side, Raven looked the guy over. Had he been crying, or was he sick? “Can I help you?”
Please make this quick. I don’t have the patience to deal with anyone right now.
The rainbow-haired man swayed as he walked, and he was sweating profusely. Was he drunk?
“Do you need help?” Raven forgot about his shitty day as he moved forward. “Hey, can you answer me?”
The guy groaned, and Raven rushed forward, catching the man in time as he passed out in Raven’s arms. What the fuck? The human—he was definitely human. Raven could scent that under the odor of sweat—was burning up.
“Fuck.” Raven scooped the guy up and rushed him to his truck. He slid the stranger into the passenger side before he made quick work of locking up his shop. One might think him a dick for taking the time, but he had thousands of dollars’ worth of tools inside.
“Hang on. I’m taking you to the clinic,” Raven said when he jumped into the driver’s seat. He backed from the lot and sped down the street, barely making it through one intersection when he ran a red light.
It took him less than five minutes to reach the clinic. Raven pulled the guy out and carried him inside. The stranger had yet to open his eyes, and he felt even hotter as Raven yelled for the doctor.
He knew who Dr. Cormack was from the time he had to rush Kenny into the clinic when he’d sliced his hand open.
The doctor was standing by the reception desk, black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose as he looked over a file. When Raven rushed in, the doctor looked up with a surprised look on his face.
“What’s wrong, Mr. McCoy?”
“I don’t know,” Raven said. “This person pulled into my lot, got out of his car, then passed out.
Dr. Cormack looked at the receptionist. “Tell Nurse Betty to have a look at Timmy’s sore throat. I’ll be in exam room three.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the receptionist said as Dr. Cormack waved for Raven to follow him.
Raven should’ve dropped the guy on the bed and left. His good deed was done, but for reasons he couldn’t fathom, he stayed, crossing his arms over his chest as he waited for the doctor to exam the guy.
“First things first.” Dr. Cormack checked the guy’s pockets and came away with a wallet. Why hadn’t Raven thought of that? Then again, he’d never had anyone pass out in his arms before. He wasn’t exactly thinking straight.
“His name is Jet Atherton.” The doctor set the wallet and ID aside. He looked at Raven. “Since you’re not a relative, I’m gonna have to ask you to wait in the waiting room.”
Raven’s wolf snarled, and he couldn’t seem to get his feet moving. He stared down at Jet, and before he knew what he was doing, he brushed aside the guy’s hair from his face.
Too late Raven realized his mistake. He shouldn’t have brought Jet to the clinic. He brushed Jet’s hair back in place and quickly walked from the room and closed the door behind him. Raven pulled out his phone and dialed Moose. He was the only guy Raven knew to call.
“What’s up?” Moose asked when he answered. The guy sounded as though he was eating.
“I got a major problem.” Raven kept his voice low so no one heard him.
“Personal or worldly?” Moose smacked his lips. “And can this wait until I’m finished with my dinner?”
He told Moose about Jet and what had just taken place. “The thing is, when I brushed his hair from his face, I saw the tips of his pointy ears,” he said with urgency. “The doctor is human. I have to get Jet out of here, but I don’t know how.”
“Pointy ears?”
Raven rolled his eyes as he growled. “Yes, as in a fairy or elf, moron. Who else has pointy ears?”
“First, you don’t have to call me names. I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes, especially on a full stomach. Second, I’m on my way. We’ll figure it out when I get there. Try and stall the doctor from drawing blood if you can.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” Raven asked. “I got kicked out of the room. What do you want me to do, shift and let my wolf run wild in the waiting room as a distraction?”
“That sounds like the perfect plan,” Moose said. “And while everyone is going crazy, I can slip Jet out of there.”
Raven frowned. “You can’t be serious.”
“You got any better ideas?”
As if fate was intervening, the town ambulance pulled up and a guy was wheeled in, all bloody and banged up. The receptionist flew down the hallway and opened the exam room the doctor was in. Dr. Cormack hurried to check on the guy who was strapped to the gurney.
“An opportunity just fell into my lap. I gotta go. I’ll be at your place in a bit.”
Raven slipped his phone into his pocket and went into Jet’s room, scooped the guy from the bed, and rushed out the back door. He felt like he was stealing a fucking body from the morgue or some shit. This wasn’t right on so many different levels.
He rounded the building and shoved Jet into the passenger seat. As soon as he was in his truck, Raven took off to Moose’s house, praying the bear shifter had a better solution than the last one.
ADULT EXCERPT
Raven was dying to claim Jet, but it could wait. His mate was still recovering from whatever drug he’d been given, and Raven wouldn’t take advantage of him.
Jet shook his head, his rainbow hair tickling Raven’s nose. “My head has been cleared enough. You have no idea how scary it is to lose a chunk of memory.” He turned over in Raven’s arms and looked up at him with those pretty amber eyes. “I need to find out what happened to me in those fourteen days.”
Raven glided his hand over Jet’s hair, moving the strands from the side of his face and tucking them behind his pointy ear. When his thumb brushed the tip, Jet shivered and moaned as the point twitched.
“We’ll piece everything together.” He pressed his lips against Jet’s forehead, reminding himself, and his wolf, that Jet wasn’t ready for sex. The guy couldn’t even stand without falling over. Jet needed time to heal, not get ravished in bed.
But Jet had other plans. He slid his hand down Raven’s bare chest as he bit his lower lip. Raven couldn’t hold back the moan that escaped and filled the air between them. “If you keep this up, my honorable intentions of letting you get some rest will be gone.”
“I’ve rested enough.” Jet’s hand moved downward, teasing Raven’s navel with small circular patterns. “More sleep isn’t what I need.”
A bolt of lust shot through Raven’s body. “What do you need?”
Jet slid a leg over Raven’s hip and used his hands to steady himself. Fuck, he looked beautiful sitting atop Raven. “I need you.”
As much as Raven wanted Jet, wanted to be inside his mate, he pressed his hand on the man’s hip and shook his head. “You need your rest.”
One of Jet’s dark brows arched. “Are we going to argue about this all night, or are we gonna get down and dirty?”
With a growl, Raven spun until he had his mate on his back. “If you get dizzy or if anything else goes wrong, you better tell me.”
Raven’s honorable intentions had flown out the window, especially when Jet wiggled out of his clothes, his hard length jutting between his legs. Raven’s canines threatened to lengthen, but he held them back as he crawled backward down Jet’s body.
His mate’s eyes widened seconds before Raven took the man’s cock down his throat.
“Oh my god!” Jet arched his back as his legs spread wider, giving Raven more room to play. Raven ran his fingers up Jet’s inner thighs and palmed his balls, giving the wrinkled sac a light tug.
Raven pulled back when the room faded and he found himself on a sandy, deserted beach. Palms trees swayed, and the ocean lapped at the edges of the sand. The sun was setting, creating a breathtaking view.
“I’m sorry.” Jet propped himself on his elbows as he looked down at Raven. “It’s a simple illusion. I promise it’s not dark magic. I wasn’t even aware I could do this right now, with the way I’m screwed up. I was just thinking I wished we were somewhere nice, and then poof, here we are. But we really haven’t left the room. I just wanted privacy so Moose and his mate couldn’t hear us.”
Raven pushed to his knees, staring at the sand on his hands. It felt real as fuck to him. He even felt the soft breeze coming off the ocean. “This is one hell of an illusion.”
“Are you freaked out or mad at me?” Jet asked. He looked so vulnerable lying there, staring up at Raven. There was hesitation and fear in his amber eyes.
“I just hope I don’t get sand in unmentionable places.” Raven winked at him.
“Oh, I can take care of that.” Jet smiled as a large blanket appeared beneath him. “Better?”
Raven didn’t want to confess that he was a bit freaked out. Jet already looked so unsure of himself. His mate was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Don’t fuck this up. He’s already terrified that you know he’s Unseelie. Let him know everything is okay. Raven stretched out beside Jet and tugged at a strand of his rainbow hair. “Much better, buttercup.”
Jet blushed. “No one has ever called me an endearment before,” he confessed.
If Raven’s cock wasn’t rock-hard and he hadn’t wanted Jet as badly as he did, he could have fallen asleep to the sounds of the lapping waves. But he wanted to be inside Jet, wanted to claim his little fairy—nope, he couldn’t stop using that word—and a nap would come later, after he soldered their souls together.
He pulled Jet into his arms and carried his mate to the edge of the sand.
“What’re you doing?” Jet clung to Raven. “I can’t swim!”
“But I thought this was an illusion?” Raven nuzzled Jet’s neck. “Besides, I don’t plan on letting you go.”
The water was warm, surprising Raven. It felt wet and wonderful as he moved deeper into the waves. The water reached his hips before he stopped and maneuvered Jet until his mate was straddling his waist.
He loved how Jet was staring at him, as if Raven could do no wrong, as if Raven made the sun rise and set. He cupped Jet’s cheek and fused their lips together, devouring his mate’s mouth as Jet wiggled against him, moaning against Raven’s lips.
“We need lube,” Raven whispered.
Jet held out his hand, and a bottle appeared in his palm. Raven wasn’t going to ask how he’d done that. He wasn’t going to boggle his mind with those questions. All he wanted was to bury his cock in his mate’s ass and bring them both so much pleasure.
Raven held out his hand, and Jet squeezed a good amount onto his fingers. With a snarl, and attacking Jet’s mouth again, Raven slipped two fingers inside the man’s tight ass. He closed his eyes and breathed out a long breath. Fuck, Jet was so damn tight that the ring of muscles clenched around Raven’s fingers.
The water swirled around their bodies as fireflies appeared, making the late evening even more magical as Raven stretched Jet, readying his body.
“Take me,” Jet begged against Raven’s lips. “I want to feel you inside me.”