Crave: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Blood Moon, Texas Shifters Series Book 2) Read online

  CRAVE

  Kat Kinney

  Copyright © 2020 Kat Kinney

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, scanned, photographed, transmitted or distributed in any printed or electronic form without explicit written permission from the author.

  Disclaimer: The book cover uses a model image. There is no connection between the model in the image and the character in the novel. The individual depicted is a model and used only for illustrative purposes.

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

  www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  Cover Photography by:

  ©Lakhesis/Dreamstime.com

  ©ViorelSima/Dreamstime.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Epilogue

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Books By This Author

  1

  Dallas

  “NAME ONE THING THAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.”

  Cranking down the lid on a bottle of tabasco sauce, I switched to speaker and tossed my phone onto the counter. At just after 10 p.m., most of the lights were off in my pit-style barbeque restaurant, The Rusty Spoke, a vacuum cleaner whirring somewhere off in the background.

  “With telling my best friend I’ve spent the last nine years wishing we could hook up?” I scoffed. “Gee, let me think—"

  On the other end of the phone, my brother West sighed. “I get that this is epic—”

  “Like, wreck our friendship epic.”

  “—but you have to admit things have been getting a little out of hand.”

  “As in?”

  “As in every time one of you hooks up with someone else, the entire pack has to go to Threat Level Red trying to keep your special brand of crazy contained.”

  “Total exaggeration.”

  “So that time someone TP’ed your house like a giant cupcake?”

  I coughed. “It was close to Halloween. Probably high school kids.”

  It had been March.

  “Uh huh.”

  I could practically hear my brother’s smug smirk on the other end of the line. West Caldwell could be summed up in three sentences. Addicted to social media. Spent his weekends writing fanfiction without bothering to pause for sleep. No snark filter. Every Monday morning he put on his Clark Kent glasses and assumed his boy scout English teacher alter ego until the bell rang the following Friday afternoon. Which naturally we all gave him shit about.

  “And the fact that they slashed your front door with blood-red Blair’s Bakery frosting?”

  Yeah. There was that.

  “Lacey Blair is a grown-ass woman. She can date whoever the hell she wants.”

  “Funny how that time she tried to go out with the bartender from Austin, dude walked out to the parking lot at the end of the night and found the bumper ripped off his truck.”

  “Wouldn’t know anything about that.” I bared my teeth, a growl creeping into my voice. Because guess what? No meant no. She’d told that guy to back off and he’d gotten handsy. Asshole was lucky he hadn’t lost more than his bumper.

  “And now you and Ethan are having a standoff. It’s been what, three weeks?”

  Four, but who was counting? I jammed the heels of my hands into my eyes, feeling a headache coming on. And yeah, that was pretty much a given any time we started talking about our younger brother, Ethan. There were seven of us Caldwell boys. Brody and Cal, the twins, were the oldest. Then came me and West, followed by Ethan. August was finishing up his engineering degree down at the University of Texas and River was currently off working as a bounty hunter and enforcer for the werewolf council.

  “We’re not discussing him.” Checking the meat we had seasoned and set to go out to the smokers, I took things off speaker. “You said earlier something tripped the perimeter sensors the past two nights out at the ranch?”

  West sighed, but let the subject of Ethan drop. “Yeah, and I’m telling you, I don’t like it.”

  “Dude, this is Texas. Even the roadkill comes back to life after sunset. Don’t give yourself wood over some mangy ass coyote.”

  “Can you be serious for once?” West started ticking off points. “No tracks leading in or out. No scent trace. We know the bloodsuckers are looking for Topher—”

  “What did Brody say when you called it in?”

  West growled under his breath, giving me my answer.

  Most months not much happened in our hometown of Blood Moon, Texas. We were two hours outside of Austin, tucked up in the Texas Hill Country on the shores of Lake Buchanan. Pretty much the only thing that put Blood Moon on any map other than the one listing all the Dairy Queens in the state was the fact that we were only ten miles from the infamous exit sign where three years ago, supernaturals were outed to humans everywhere when a vampire panicked during a traffic stop, sank fangs into the neck of the closest deputy and vanished into thin air.

  What happened next was pretty much what you might have expected. Mass raids. Government crackdowns. The price of silver and garlic supplements skyrocketed. Debates raged on social media. What sort of stake was best to carry? Silver? Oak? Ash with a garlic-infused leather grip? You’d think werewolves having witnessed this fanged clusterfuck would have redoubled our efforts to keep things on the down low. Instead, a year after #DashCamVlad, a bunch of hipsters from the Portland pack, not to be outdone on the supernatural head-desk meter, let things get a little too recreational at a campsite out in Oregon and got caught on camera shifting into two-hundred-pound werewolves.

  Kind of hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube on that one.

  Most of the time things in Blood Moon stayed pretty quiet. Although the paranormal craze had turned our tourist town into a destination for everyone who thought they wanted to meet a werewolf at the full moon (seriously, they didn’t) or have a meet-cute with their very own Edward Cullen (your average vampire looked nothing like Pattinson), we were far enough removed from the political infighting and backstabbing of the urban packs not to have to worry every time we went out alone at night. Most of the vampire covens kept to the major cities. The Feds were hunting for us every day and our governing council was doing everything in their power to keep us from being turned into lab rats.

  Then last year, a rival pack from Austin had started abducting runaways around Central Texas and our pack had gotten caught up in the crossfire. Long story short, after a fight out in a corn maze at the local Harvest Moon Festival the night of a massive thunderstorm, we’d uncovered their link to a vampire coven that had been trafficking humans and forcibly changing them into shifters to use as blood slaves.

  Topher Greer, one of the feral wolves the North Austin pack had abducted and held captive for over a year, had been assigned by the werewolf council to our pack with West as his temporary sire until he was stable enough to live on his own. Probably as our Uncle Guillermo’s sick idea of a joke. He’d trashed the safe room we were keeping him in three times, managed to break out twice, an
d channeled his best #WestCaldwellMustDie resting bitch face every time Cal came by for therapy sessions. Fun gig.

  “I’m not wrong,” West said, and I heard the strain of the last few weeks in his voice. “Brody checked out that stretch of the perimeter both times the alarm pinged and said there were jackrabbits popping up like crazy. But you know when you get that feeling in your gut and every instinct you’ve got is screaming something just isn’t right?”

  “The North Austin pack has been trying to rattle our cage for weeks. The Council just assigned them a new Alpha and they’re pissed as hell to be under sanctions. Someone pulled the fire alarm at Hayden’s gig downtown last week. Sold out crowd. We’re pretty sure they bought off one of the bouncers. And you should see the freak deliveries that keep showing up at The Spoke. This morning it was a hundred pounds of frozen salmon.”

  “The first two I get. That’s some epic level pranking even for you.”

  “Touché.”

  “But who drives two hours out to the middle of nowhere just to trip a sensor then doesn’t wait around to see our reaction?”

  Point, West Caldwell.

  “Tell you what.” I grabbed the printed pages off the counter, scanning over the inventory list I’d been neglecting all day. “I’m on pit duty tonight, but first thing tomorrow, I’ll head over to the ranch and check things out.”

  There was a pause, and then—

  “So look. About Ethan—”

  “For the love of all that is fanged and holy, can we drop this?”

  “It’s been three weeks. Even by middle school girl standards, you’re both being total drama queens.”

  “Okay, first? I’ve been busy. Some of us actually have businesses to run—”

  “Right. Because I didn’t just spend my Friday night up to my ass in papers to grade.”

  “—and second, we both know he’s the one who made this personal.”

  “He screwed up.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  West ignored that one. “I mean, I think he gets it. Now, at least.”

  I scoffed. “He actually said that?”

  “You know E’s not exactly a talker. It’s one reason this mating with Hayden has been so good for him. He’s even been going to a therapist, trying to work through some of the stuff that happened before he came to live with us.”

  “Are you seriously going to defend him?”

  “Not defend. Total Switzerland here.” There was a pause. “But everyone makes mistakes.”

  And there it was.

  “Because I’m one to talk, right?”

  “Dally, c’mon. You know that’s not what I meant.”

  Except it was. And both of us knew it.

  I let my head thump back against the cool metal industrial refrigerator, staring at the employee schedule taped up on the wall. Not that I needed to. Third week in November. Nine years ago, tonight.

  As pretty much anyone in town could have told you, I got banished to the foothills of the Canadian Rockies outside cold, snowy Calgary the fall of my senior year. What almost no one knew was the truth. Suffice it to say the details included stupid as hell seventeen-year-old thinking, a party, way too many wine coolers, and a night in the back of my truck I would have given my right nut to take back.

  And Lacey Blair.

  There’s no excuse for what I did that night. Let’s just get that out of the way. It’s easy to get twisted up in a cascade of bad decisions, so much so that you’ll tell yourself just about anything to justify your own reckless behavior. You grow so desperate to believe your own lies that eventually they start sounding like truth.

  Until you don’t realize you’ve become the villain in your own story.

  Lacey Blair stormed into my life on a cold January day in zero-hour athletics. I noticed her the second I stalked out to the track, not only because with her long dark hair tied up in a high ponytail and her lean runner’s build, she was undeniably gorgeous, but mostly because she was hopping around on one foot in a pair of purple Nikes, trying to stretch out her quads while texting one-handed.

  Or hell, maybe it was because as a werewolf I’d been subliminally conditioned by years of bedtime stories to fall all over myself at the sight of a girl in a sour-cherry red hoodie. All those fairy tales couldn’t be wrong.

  I hopped up onto the track. Pale gray eyes the color of that endless January sky caught mine. I sucked in a breath, feeling like I’d just been punched in the sternum.

  “Must be a pretty intense status update.”

  A faint flush of color rose on her cheeks, and I took note of a tiny constellation of freckles just below her left eye. “That your best line?”

  “You’d prefer the one where I offered to help you stretch?”

  She smirked. “Okay. Except can I record this? I love being mansplained to by a guy I’ve just met whose gym shirt is on inside out.”

  Beside me, West choked back a laugh. Flipping him off, I stole a glance at hoodie-girl’s screen.

  “Little early for strawberry lemonade cupcakes.”

  She scowled, clutching the phone to her chest. “Nosy much?”

  “Because something they sell downtown at Blair’s is a state secret?”

  “Don’t you have any other girls to annoy this morning?”

  A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth. “Just you.”

  “My aunt’s giving me an after school job. I baked these for her over the weekend and she said we could try selling a dozen this morning, see if they have any takers.”

  “What kind of frosting?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Frosting, Blair. Try to keep up. It goes on top of the—”

  She bared her teeth, looking like she wanted to bite me, and damn, if that didn’t send tingles exploding across every inch of my skin. My wolf arched within my bones, desperate to get out. Closing my eyes, I dug my fingernails into my palms until I smelled blood.

  “Strawberry. You didn’t get that from the pink?”

  “Buttercream? Cream cheese? Royal icing?”

  “You wouldn’t use royal icing on a cupcake.”

  I tapped the end of her nose. “Just checking.”

  That earned me another growl. I took a delicate sniff to make sure she wasn’t part werewolf.

  “You bake?” she asked disdainfully.

  “Don’t sound so surprised, sweetheart. Having a dick doesn’t mean I can’t figure out the temperature controls on an oven.”

  “Pretty sure there’s something wrong with introducing your dick into a conversation before your name.”

  “Dallas Caldwell.”

  When I raised an eyebrow, her eyes narrowed. But instead of giving me her name, she crossed her arms. “Lightning round. Ten seconds. Top three cupcake flavors.”

  “Damn, sweetheart. Will I need to fight off a dragon or make a party dress out of trash bags during the commercial break?”

  “Only if you behave yourself.” She didn’t even blink. And fuck, I was so in trouble. “No chocolate. No fruit.”

  “Hard core from a girl who got strawberries and lemons.”

  “Only way I roll, Caldwell.”

  So here’s the thing. I’d been whipping up pancakes since before I could see over a counter. My mom swore my first word after the usual babbling all little kids do was cilantro. According to my dad, I had more recipes in my head than common sense.

  I so had this.

  “Maple bacon with a hazelnut frosting,” I ticked off on my fingers, eyes locked with Cupcake Girl’s. “Vanilla bean with an espresso buttercream.”

  “Five seconds,” West announced, clearly enjoying this far too much.

  “—and a zucchini tomato bread spice cake with a cream cheese frosting.”

  The entire track team burst out in applause. Coach blew the whistle, shouting at us to move our asses and stop acting like idiots.

  Cupcake Girl glanced my way. “Wow. I’m kind of fangirling a little. You actually can cook.”


  “So do I get your name?”

  I glanced over to West, whose expression had changed from amusement to wariness. He was right, of course. No way could this happen. She was human and I was a shifter, which meant she was off-limits, for my protection, but mostly for hers.

  Completely oblivious, she smirked, taking off around the track. “One small problem, Caldwell. Check your biology textbook. Tomatoes?”

  And, crap. She was right. I’d used fruit.

  “Okay, but I’m just gonna make up a name until you give me yours.”

  “Why am I not surprised.”

  Our eyes met. Held. And despite the distance between us, I heard her heart fluttering like a caged bird caught in my outstretched hands. And I knew then that she felt it, too, the link between us thrumming like a live wire in a lightning storm. My blood caught fire, my wolf clawing in the cage of my ribs. Raw, chemical desire rushed through my veins. My eyes flared gold. I inhaled the burned rubber tire smell of the track mixed with unwashed gym clothes and Axe body spray, desperate to short-circuit my brain.

  The girl took off around the track, that dark, luscious ponytail whipping behind her red hoodie like a flag. I clenched my fists, taking long breaths, the instinctual male urge to chase shredding my insides until it felt like the wolf was going to crack my bones trying to get free.

  West jabbed me hard in the ribs. “Death wish? Dad will—”

  “Yeah. I get it.”

  But the moment the girl stole another glance at me at the halfway marker, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, I knew I was in trouble. I’d never felt anything like this before. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to survive it.

  Lacey Blair was trouble, and the tingling, primal rush beneath my skin was telling me to do anything except run away.

  The following day, someone ran my gym clothes up the stadium flagpole. I knew it was her, even before I hauled them down and the faint scent of vanilla and coconut caused the wolf to stir in my blood. I filled her locker with balloons. She hosed down my math book with that same vanilla-coconut body spray. Which, epic. My brothers made me do my homework out in the barn for a week. West continued to give me suspicious looks, but kept quiet. My lunch was stolen and replaced with a sack of radishes. Her Nikes? Shaving cream.