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  Wolf Bond

  Lyric Hounds: Book 2

  Mina Carter

  New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author

  Copyright © 2013 by Mina Carter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Also by Mina Carter

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  As it turned out, werewolves were just like anyone else. Barrett Simmons nursed his beer and watched the interaction around him. The green room of the Lyric Hounds, the most famous werewolf rock band in the world, was full to bursting…starlets and fans mixing with seasoned industry professionals and the guys, the Hounds themselves, right there in the thick of it.

  He sat back and surveyed proceedings with an experienced eye. Although dressed in a sharp suit with his hair and beard neatly clipped, he hadn’t come to party. Far from it. Since his sister, Melody, the diminutive figure dressed in black satin chatting to one of the guests on the other side of the room, had married the Hounds lead singer, Aaron Rixx, almost a year earlier, Barrett had been responsible for the band’s security detail.

  A veteran with more tours than he cared to remember behind him, he was more than suitable for the role. Sure, he might be human and no match for a werewolf in terms of speed and strength, but he’d yet to meet any creature that could outrun a bullet. He had no arrogance when it came to his abilities. A member of Special Forces, it had only been injury and the loss of most of his detail in a mission fucked up by bad intelligence that had forced his retirement. The mission he’d lost Sax—

  He rolled his shoulder to make it click, easing the stiffness there. As his mood took a nosedive, he forced thoughts of something else. Anything else. All in all, despite what had happened, he wasn’t in bad shape physically. Since getting out of therapy, he’d hit the gym every day until he’d ended up in the best condition of his life. Muscle-wise anyway. His left knee and shoulder were fucked, but not so much he couldn’t put down any threat in the room. Not with the help of the Glock nestled next to his ribcage anyway.

  A waft of air behind him warned Barrett a moment before he got company. Sav, the band’s drummer, half flopped, half fell into the seat opposite, his beer bottle crashing into the table top with so much force Barrett expected it to shatter.

  “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” Sav slurred, waving his free hand.

  Barrett arched his eyebrow and glanced around in the vain hope of identifying the particular ‘she’ Sav meant. Since that wave seemed to encompass the entire room, with numerous candidates, he was shit out of luck. Taking a swallow from his own bottle, he shook his head at the other man.

  “I give up, which one are you talking about?”

  Because he knew the guy, he cut him some slack and kept the irritation out of his voice. Sav had issues. Some problem the tall werewolf hadn’t worked through yet, which resulted in mood swings and an acerbic nature that pissed Barrett off at times. Others though, when Sav thought no one was watching, Barrett caught the utter loneliness in his eyes. The longing.

  He hadn’t a clue why. The guy was famous and, as the Hounds’ only gay member, had men throwing themselves at him. Some handsome enough even Barrett might have been tempted, had he been that way inclined. What the fuck did Sav have to be lonely about?

  But that expression…the loneliness and longing for something…that Barrett knew well. He saw it in the mirror each morning. The thought softened his manner. Whatever Sav was looking for, he hoped he found it. Soon. Before they had to have a ‘chat.’

  “Tempest!” The half-drunk werewolf exclaimed, sweeping his arm around to indicate the band’s bass player and only female member, and almost knocking out a waitress at the same time. “Oh fuck, sorry, dude…you okay?”

  Barrett flicked a glance over to the woman in question as Sav picked the young girl up and set her right with her tray. Pity it hadn’t been one of the very handsome male waiters circling the room. At least then Sav would have been distracted enough that Barrett could make his escape before the drummer could carry on with his line of questioning.

  It wasn’t that Tempest wasn’t attractive. Totally the opposite. The woman could only be described as gorgeous. Tall and slender, with waist-length black hair, she no doubt had a starring role in the wet dreams of most of the male population. Add to that, the allure of a female werewolf, and most men would have been on their knees in love with her.

  But he wasn’t most men and he had no heart to lose to Tempest. He’d lost his heart on blood-soaked sands, to a petite, feisty soldier with a man’s name, but a woman’s curves. Memories of Saxon burst free from the box he’d tried to lock them into. The tumble of blonde curls around her neck, her green eyes alight with love and laughter as she teased him. She’d always been teasing him for being too uptight and by the book. And he had been, insisting on procedure. And that procedure, reliance on the protocols of the system, had sent them out into the field with bad intel and gotten the woman he loved killed.

  With a gasp, he hauled himself back to the present before memory could fill in all the details of that day. The heat that licked his skin faded away, the hot smell of sand and blood receding from his nostrils.

  Only a memory, he told himself. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t there.

  “I knew you thought so as well.” Sav’s deep voice broke through Barrett’s semi-trance and he blinked, realizing that he was still staring at the female werewolf like a vision sent down from heaven. And she’d seen him, giving him a glance back like he’d sprouted two heads.

  Quickly, he averted his gaze. He’d been told all about female werewolves and their take-charge attitude when they wanted something. Trouble was, half the stories he’d heard made him want to turn whatever moody little madam over his knee and give her a good paddling, then tell her to damn well behave. He sighed. I’m too old for this shit.

  “No, man. You’ve got it all wrong,” he said, watching the grin spread over the Sav’s face with dawning horror. Christ, they didn’t really think he had the hots for Tempest. Did they?

  But Sav wasn’t listening. Instead he looped his arm over Barrett’s shoulders; no mean feat given Barr stood half a head taller than the somewhat stocky werewolf. “Now, what you got to remember with female wolves is that they like to think they’re in charge. But you have to dominate them. Show them who’s boss.”

  He slid Sav a sideways glance. “If the words ‘mount’ or ‘dry hump’ are heading for your lips then I’m taking you out the back and dumping you in the water butt.”

  Sav snorted. “In your dreams, human.”

  “Trent Savage!” Melody’s voice cut through their stand-off. “Behave yourself or I’ll have you waxed and plucked the next time you fall asleep!”

  Sav’s eyebrows winged up toward his hairline as he stared the petite woman down. Barrett stood with his arms folded and watched with amusement. The inevitable outcome wouldn’t be pretty. Melody might be human, or wolf-mated as the furry community preferred to call it, but she was female and therefore any man, human or not, took his life into his own hands if he messed with her. Besides, he knew his sister. She was more than capable of waiting until Sav had gotten himself dead drunk, then dying every hair on his body pink or something equally horrendous.

  “Huh,” Sav grumbled, unhooking his arm from around Barrett’s shoulders and grabbing a fresh bottle from a circling waiter. “Only trying to give him some advice so Temp doesn’t tear him a new one. M
y bad.” Lifting the bottle to his lips, he took a long swallow and walked off, his gaze already scanning the crowd for likely prey.

  Melody bit her lip, concern for the guy written plainly on her features. Barrett smiled to himself, the soft, squishy feeling he got when dealing with his sister filling his chest. Yeah, she was short and bossy, but she cared and that made all the difference. She didn’t do anything without a reason and most of the time she put herself out for others far more than she needed to. Including him, something he had never been more grateful for than when he’d flown home, alone and injured.

  “He’s a big boy, Mel. Whatever problems he’s got, he’ll get through them,” he reassured, lifting an arm to wrap around her shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze.

  “Yeah, I know. But….” She sighed. “You know what I’m like. Mother hen syndrome.”

  He chuckled and dropped a quick kiss on her hair, about the only guy in the room who could do so without Aaron tearing him a new one. Even now, the tall rock star scanned the room, his expression tight until he saw his wife tucked into Barrett’s side. He relaxed and offered a smile before going back to his conversation. Like Barrett was the one person in the room he trusted with Melody’s safety.

  “Perhaps you guys should have a couple of kids, put that mother-henning to good use.”

  The comment was light, meant as a joke, but she stiffened, color flowing over her cheeks. Suspicion creased his brow. “Mel? Are you…?”

  “Shhhh!” She hissed, as though they were discussing state secrets and she didn’t want to be overheard. “We were going to tell everyone next week. After this leg is done.”

  Pleasure flowed through him, both for the parents to be and the fact he was going to be an uncle. “Congratulations!”

  He pulled her tighter in a bear hug for a moment, emotion overflowing, then remembered her condition and set her down like he would bone china. “Are you okay, do you need to sit down? Perhaps some water?”

  “Barr!” She slapped his shoulder. “I’m fine, honestly. I’m not ill, just…well, you know. Besides, I want to talk to you about something else.”

  He lifted an eyebrow in question. What could be more important that his imminent uncle-hood?

  Melody reached into the clutch bag and withdrew a slender, cream linen envelope. He froze. He’d been avoiding that envelope for a year.

  “I really hope that’s not what I think it is.”

  She lifted her chin in determination and held it out to him. “Chance meetings, remember? You told me that.”

  Chance meetings. Ever since childhood that’s what they’d called the good things that happened to them. Their parents’ chance meeting had led to the sort of true love talked about in fairy tales, yet never excluded the children they’d had. Melody’s chance meeting had led to the love of her life…Aaron.

  Slowly, he took it from her.

  “Chance meetings,” he said in a low voice, and tucked it into his jacket pocket to please her.

  It wouldn’t matter. No exclusive one-night stand service would be able to provide what he needed. Would be able to provide his chance meeting.

  Because he’d already met her.

  And lost her.

  “Huh!”

  Saxon jerked awake, heart pounding, body slick with sweat from the nightmare that haunted her sleep. The sheets tangled with her bare legs as she clutched them, shuddering in relief to see her bedroom around her instead of hot sands splattered with blood. Dropping her head, she took deep breaths, bringing her heart rate back down to something approaching normal.

  The door clicked open to reveal a familiar figure. Swathed in a dressing gown, rubbing sleep from her eyes, her mother looked in. Sax picked up the concern in her eyes with ease despite the blackness in the room. Wolves had perfect night vision. Nocturnal predators.

  “The dream again, sweetie?”

  “Uh-huh.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Same old, same old.”

  Since the accident that had stolen her memory almost two years earlier, she’d been having nightmares. Or, more specifically, the same nightmare over and over. Strangely though, it had nothing to do with the crash that nearly killed her. Had killed her in fact. She’d died on the operating table three times, but twice the trauma team had managed to bring her back.

  The third time, it hadn’t been the skill of the doctors that saved her. Instead the latent lycanthrope blood she’d inherited from her father kicked in and transformed her from a ‘potential’ into full-blown wolf. One of the few full-on female wolves in their pack.

  Her mother moved into the room, coming to sit on the bed next to her. Gently she drew Sax into her arms, holding her as though she were still a child and all hurts could be eased with a cuddle and a mother’s love. Sax leaned her forehead on her shoulder and let out a sigh. If only it were that easy.

  The accident had lasting effects, other than her transformation. She’d lost her memory of the last seven or so years. The last thing she remembered was thinking about going in the army, then…nothing. Her parents told her she’d tanked the entrance assessments, which had surprised her considering how fit she’d been, still appeared to be, but they had no reason to lie to her.

  Since then she’d worked in her parent’s hardware store, a job she’d gone back to after the accident, even if it didn’t seem ‘right’. She’d never told them that, the same as never admitting the nightmare wasn’t about the accident, when a semi had plowed into the side of the car she’d been traveling in, killing her two best friends and leaving Sax clinging to life by a thread.

  But instead of visions of trucks bearing down on her, and the scream of metal as the car broke apart, her nightmares were about soldiers and explosions. About being caught in a fire fight and running out of ammunition, bullets flying by her head as she tried to take cover. About blood and body parts on the sand, and a guy. Well, lots of guys, but one stood out. With piercing blue eyes and dark hair, he had to be the most attractive man she’d ever seen. Dressed in combat clothing, and carrying a rifle, he yelled orders despite the chaos going on around him. Even in the dream she was drawn to him, couldn’t stop watching him. Even when the dream began to break up, blood and fire consuming her as it always did, she saw his face, contorted in pain as though he watched everything that mattered to him disappear.

  Drawing a shaky breath, she put the image of her dream guy’s face from her mind. She had no clue who he was, or what sparked the strange dream. Just her luck that the one guy she found attractive was not only human, but a frigging dream to boot.

  “It’ll pass,” her mother murmured, voice soft as she rubbed Sax’s arm. “I promise. Time heals all wounds, even the ones we can’t see. You going to be okay now? You need some rest for tomorro—hmm.”

  “Tomorrow?” she asked. “Why…what’s happening tomorrow?”

  She leaned back. Her mom’s face had gone beet red,

  “Your father invited Robert to lunch tomorrow.” Despite her soft voice, worry seeped from her mom’s pores. “It’ll be good for you, love, to get to know him a bit. You have a—”

  She held up her hand. She’d had this lecture lord knew how many times. “I know, I know. I have a responsibility to the pack. Yadda yadda. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Please be nice. For me?” her mother begged. “We’re a small pack and the Culsons are much more powerful. A link would benefit us all…you know it would.”

  “I know, Mom.” She sighed and nodded. No way out if it. Even if she did think Robert was a jumped-up mommy’s boy convinced of his own self-importance, she still had to play the game. Toe the line. Make nice. Shit. “I’ll be good, promise.”

  She beamed and dropped a kiss on Sax’s temple. “Thank you, sweetie. Now, you get some sleep. Night night.”

  “Sure. Night, Mom.”

  She flopped back on the bed, watched her close the door behind her, then waited for the footsteps along the landing. As soon as her parents’ door clicked shut, she slid o
ut of bed and pushed the power button for her laptop. She might have to play nice for Robert the next day, but that didn’t mean she had to be a total angel.

  The screen flicked on and she opened a browser, searching for the link she’d saved earlier. Some one-night stand service….

  “Well,” she muttered, inputting her requirements, describing the guy from her dream. “I really hope you’re as good as they say you are. Because this is going to take a miracle.”

  Then she hit submit.

  Chapter 2

  He shouldn’t be there.

  Guilt beat at Barrett as he stared out over the twinkling lights of the city below him without seeing them. To his left in the corner of the balcony, a dinner table was set for two, both seats currently unoccupied. Silverware sparkled in the soft candlelight and a breeze rustled the white linen tablecloth, carrying the scent of the roses in the centerpiece across the balcony to him. Soft music played in the background, something classical with pianos and violins, totally different to the heavy rock music he’d listened to for the last year.

  All in all, a scene set for romance and seduction. The perfect location for the one-night stand his meddling little sister and cousin had arranged for him. A wry snort of amusement escaped him. Once those two set their minds to something, there was no getting away from it.

  But he really shouldn’t be there.

  He turned, leaning back against the railing to glance inside. Lifting his glass, he knocked back the couple of inches of whiskey left, hissing when it burned all the way down to his gut. He had to admit, when it came to luxury, the dating service didn’t pull their punches. He’d been given a plush suite in one of the best hotels in town.

  What the fuck am I doing?