Temptation: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 2) Read Free Page A

went from sentimental to distant and even bitter, so she put a hand on his arm.
    “It was good that you weren’t in Montana when it happened,” she whispered.
    He growled at the floorboards, but his shoulders sagged at the mention of
it
– the attack that had annihilated both their packs.
    About the only thing that could defeat a man like Soren was that feeling of failure. That alpha pride, that
I should have been there to defend my clan
loyalty. It would haunt him for the rest of his life.
    A roar of laughter sounded from the saloon, and Soren’s growl went back to one of displeasure.
    “You know better than to mess with a human,” he said.
    She clenched her fists and beat back her wolf before it started crowing about mates and love and forever. Cole was just a crush, right?
    An all-consuming, all-encompassing crush.
    Soren looked toward the front room. “Simon and Jess, they need to be together. Destiny wants that.” His expression went from glad for his brother to mournful. Soren had had a destined mate, too, but she’d been murdered in the rogue attack along with everyone else. “But we have to watch out.”
    Her chin snapped up. “You think they’ll be back?”
    They
, of course, were the rogues who’d ambushed her and Jess a few weeks ago. The same rogues who had wiped out her pack and Soren’s bear clan months ago in a surprise attack.
    “Fucking purists,” Soren spat one of his rare curses. The rogues were part of a movement that called for racial purity among shifters. No wolves mixing with bears, and certainly no mixing with humans. The hard-liners exercised their own brand of terror and vigilante justice.
    Janna shivered, thinking of the inferno Jess had pulled her from in Montana, and more recently, the half-dozen rogues who’d appeared in the saloon.
    “If we give them reason to come back…” Soren’s eyes traveled toward the front room, and the message was clear. Janna flirting with a human could attract another rogue ambush. The rogues would plan their attack more carefully next time, but they’d be back.
    Her wolf snarled inside.
No one will keep me from my mate!
    Not my mate,
she insisted.
Just a whole lot of trouble.
    Mate!
Her wolf chanted.
Mate!
    “Look, Cole is a good guy, but he’s not one of us,” Soren said. “We have to protect what we have here. What we’re building here.”
    She could see it in his eyes: the vision of a new clan. A fair and stable clan — or pack or whatever they decided to call their unusual mishmash of bears and wolves. A clan risen from the ashes of what they’d lost in Montana. One in which it didn’t matter what type of shifter you were as long as you worked hard and played by the rules.
    Rules that said you had to be a shifter and not human. Janna hung her head. He was right.
    Soren gave her a last stern look, then tilted his head toward the door in a weary gesture.
    “Back to work,” he murmured, then gave her a tired smile. “Both of us.”
    She studied him for a moment, wondering why she felt pity for the mighty bear.
    Mighty, but broken, like Simon once was,
her wolf decided.
    No wonder she felt pity. Simon and Jess had found their happiness, and she had her whole life ahead of her, too. But Soren faced a long and lonely existence without his destined mate.
    A whole life ahead of us,
her wolf agreed, conjuring up an image of Cole.
    She strode back into the saloon faster than she’d intended, and her head went right to Cole’s spot at the end of the bar. Now more than ever, she needed the reassurance that he was there. Just one look, one strand of hope. One moment of connection.
    She craned her neck past customers, then took another step. Cole’s chair was empty. Her heart stuttered when she saw the saloon doors swinging on their hinges.
    He’d left? Already?
    Her nostrils flared, tracking his scent. And just like that, her wolf took over and made her race out the door.
    Mate! Don’t go!
    It was all she could do not to blurt it out loud