Fugitive Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 1)

  FUGITIVE MATE

  (Silverlake Shifters Book 1)

  by

  Anastasia Wilde

  Fugitive Mate

  Copyright © 2016 by Anastasia Wilde

  Copyright © 2016 by Anastasia Wilde

  First Electronic Publication: October 2016

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, uploading, or distributing via the internet, print, or any other means, without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover by Jeanne Gransee Barker

  Come to Silverlake Mountain and fall in love…

  Smokin’ hot shifter men with hearts of gold; the strong, passionate women who love them; secrets, lies and danger; naughty, steamy love scenes—and happily ever afters.

  Silverlake Shifter Series:

  Fugitive Mate (Book 1)

  White Wolf Mate (Book 2) (Coming in October)

  Tiger Mate (Book 3) (Coming in November)

  Chapter 1

  Emma Wilkes drove the silver Chevy Malibu down the darkening highway. She kept compulsively checking her rearview mirror, even though she knew it was pointless. Every pair of headlights looked alike. There was no way to tell if one of them was following her.

  But she knew someone was. He might not be right behind her. He might not be near enough to see. But he was there.

  An oversized SUV roared up behind her, its headlights blinding. Emma punched the accelerator, instinctively hunching her shoulders like somehow that would make her invisible. The piece of shit Malibu whined louder than a guy forced to ask for directions, but it didn’t go any faster.

  She should have stolen a better ride.

  The SUV swerved and blew by her with an annoyed honk, and Emma relaxed a tiny bit. Just some typical asshat road rage. Alexander Grant hadn’t caught up with her.

  Not yet.

  She just had to get to Hawkeye Mountain before he did.

  She should have known better than to get involved with Alexander. But then, when had she ever done the smart thing when it came to guys? She liked danger and excitement—it was why she raced dirt bikes and jumped off mountains in hang gliders. And she liked her guys hot and wild and a little bit crazy. Usually they didn’t have as much money as Alexander did, but hey, who would have known that would be a bad thing?

  Although it wasn’t the money that was the problem. It was how he got it.

  And the fact that she’d fallen in love with him.

  For the first time in her life, Emma had thought she’d found what she was looking for. An exciting, scorch-your-panties-sexy guy with an actual job, capable of sticking with one thing—or one person—for longer than five minutes. One who was passionate and adventurous, but who would still be there for her when she needed him.

  Her safe harbor.

  Alexander had wanted to be her harbor, all right. One where her boat stayed tied up at the dock and never left. Cocooned inside his money and fancy houses, cut off from everyone and everything else that made her happy.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. She’d learned that Alexander Grant made his money by cheating people too powerless and too trusting to defend themselves. If any of them tried to complain, they were silenced by a barrage of lawyers—and if that didn’t work, by hard-eyed, heavily armed ‘security specialists.’

  But he hadn’t counted on Emma Wilkes. He hadn’t counted on her stealing his laptop and his passwords. And he hadn’t counted on her having someone to take them to—someone who could persuade the FBI to launch an investigation to bring his whole rotten empire down.

  If she could only get to her contact before Alexander realized what she’d done and sent someone to stop her.

  Chapter 2

  Jace Monroe was spending his Saturday night sitting alone in a truck stop bar. Which pretty much described the fucked-up state of his life in general.

  He tried to tell himself he was just a typical guy passing through Colorado on his way home from a business trip, grabbing a bite to eat and a beer before crashing out in his motel room across the parking lot. Not pathetic at all. He was enjoying the lights and the music and the people, the uncomfortable barstools and the smell of sweat and stale beer, not to mention the burn-up-the-night looks from the local babes hanging out by the jukebox.

  Too bad he was totally lying to himself. Except about the local babes—one of them was definitely checking him out.

  A year or two ago, he would have already been over there, offering her a drink, a dance, and with any luck, a red-hot night between the sheets. That was how he rolled. At least, he used to.

  But now all he wanted was to finish his burger and get out of here.

  The wolf inside him felt like it was clawing the inside of his chest. He wanted out of the heat and the noise and the press of people—to run through the cathedral-like pines on top of Silverlake Mountain, the fresh earth soft under his paws, the air sharp and clear, his pack ghosting through the forest behind him.

  With a mate at his side.

  And that right there was the problem.

  Finding a mate—a true mate—wasn’t as simple as picking up hot babes in bars. Especially not for a brand-new alpha wolf trying desperately to establish a territory.

  A place to gather his shattered pack. To make up for his father’s failures. To rebuild what they’d lost, and seal it with magic so it could never be taken away from them. But he couldn’t do it without a true mate and the magic that would bond them.

  In the last two years Jace had traveled to every state west of the Mississippi, and met with at least two dozen potential mates and their alphas. Plenty of those women would have been happy to come back to Silverlake Mountain as the mate of the pack’s alpha. There were a few that Jace had thought he could fall in love with, given the chance.

  But his wolf had rejected them all. And now he was running out of time.

  He and his pack brothers Rafe and Jesse—and later, Kane and Israel—had put ten years of blood, sweat and tears into finding a territory they could call their own. After their pack had been attacked and decimated when they were sixteen, they’d been on their own. Nearly destroyed by anger and grief, they’d roamed the west, doing anything they could to survive, and to save money to buy Silverlake. They’d worked in logging camps and mines, and on oil rigs—jobs that paid a shit-ton of money in exchange for dangerous, lonely, backbreaking work.

  When Jesse turned out to be a computer genius, Jace and Rafe had worked extra shifts to put him through college. The additional money from the apps he designed, plus Kane and Israel adding to their income, had finally put them over the top. They’d bought their mountain. In ones and twos, they’d begun gathering their pack home.

  But if Jace didn’t find a mate soon, it would all be for nothing. The rules of the Council stated that after claiming his territory, Jace had three years to bond the pack to him and to the land. And the binding magic only worked with a mated pair at the head of the pack.

  Once the deadline passed, it would be open season on Silverlake. His mountain. His pack wasn’t big enough or strong enoug
h to defend it—not if he didn’t bond them.

  He couldn’t let them down. He couldn’t let his pack be destroyed all over again. He’d fight to the death, and end up beaten and broken on his mountain with the taste of bitter failure in his mouth, like old blood.

  This last potential mate—Mindy—had seemed like a real possibility. Younger than he would have liked, at barely twenty, but she was sweet and funny, and with the kind of lush, rounded figure that made him want to lay a woman down, wrap her around him, and bury himself in her. He’d stayed in Salida over a week, taking her out every night, and when she’d invited him to share her bed, the sex had been just as sweet and hot as he’d imagined. And he genuinely liked her.

  But his wolf was not impressed. There had been no sign of the intense magical bonding that happened when a shifter wolf met his true mate.

  He wanted to scream at his wolf, What the fuck do you want from me? But his wolf was a part of him. Yelling at it would be a sign that he was already halfway to crazytown.

  And it covered up his real fear—that it maybe it wasn’t his wolf that was the problem. Maybe it was him. After his mother’s betrayal and his father’s destruction, maybe he couldn’t open himself up to a mating bond. His ability to trust a woman had been destroyed.

  Jace sighed and took another pull on his beer. He couldn’t let his mind go down that road; he had to keep trying. There was a pack in Missouri that had a couple of eligible females. Maybe he should go over to his motel room and email the alpha about arranging a visit.

  The door to the bar opened, and a cold rush of spring air hit him. With it came a scent that made his inner wolf prick its ears up.

  He swiveled on his barstool. A woman walked into the bar, dressed in a short-skirted outfit that said she was out for a night on the town. Her platinum blonde hair cascaded over one shoulder in sexy curls. As she strolled up to the bar he could see her checking the place out in a way that said she was looking for somebody to hang out with—or maybe more.

  But his wolf nose scented something else. A subtle scent of tension. Maybe even desperation?

  Underneath that, though, she smelled like a fucking goddess. Like a warm lazy summer afternoon, with a hint of pine and wildflowers, and the promise of dark wild nights to come. And she was smokin’ hot. Heart-shaped face; huge dark blue eyes fringed with black lashes. As she got closer he could smell that the platinum hair was fake—a wig. But her tight shirt showed off her full, ripe breasts, and the skirt clung to her gorgeous, rounded ass like a second skin.

  His wolf growled deep inside his chest. Like.

  She’s human, he told his wolf. Not mate potential. But still, Jace couldn’t take his eyes off her as she made her way up to the bar and chose a stool a couple of seats away from him. She hung her oversized bag on the back of the stool, and then hitched herself up onto the seat with a sexy wiggle that made him imagine that perfect ass straddling his lap. His wolf practically howled.

  The woman turned toward Jace and their eyes met. It was like getting an electric shock; he felt like every hair on his body was standing on end. Not to mention a few other things. She let a smile curve the corner of her mouth, and raked him up and down with her gaze before deliberately turning away to check out the menu posted on the chalkboard over the bar.

  A shiver went through him, deep in his chest and down into his belly.

  What the hell, he told himself. He deserved a little fun to take his mind off his problems. The Missouri alpha was probably asleep by now anyway. Or running in the moonlight with his pack. That email could wait until morning.

  Jace signaled the bartender. “Another beer,” he said. He gave the goddess a slow smile. “And get the lady whatever she wants.”

  Chapter 3

  It only took Emma one drink and a plate of mozzarella sticks to realize she was in way over her head.

  She’d started out with a plan. 1) Find a truck stop with a dinosaur-era pay phone, so her 11:30 check-in call to Grizzly couldn’t be traced. And 2) find a guy to flirt with, obviously and publicly, while she waited.

  Alexander’s hired guns would be scouring motels, restaurants and truck stops all along her route. They might even have figured out what kind of car she was driving now.

  But they didn’t know her personally—Alex didn’t mix socially with the sociopathic help. All his ‘security specialists’ would have was a photo of her, and the knowledge that she was on the run. They’d be looking for a dark-haired woman who was nervous. Scared. Who kept to herself and tried to pass unnoticed.

  A bleach-blonde who looked drunk and hooked up with a stranger at the bar wouldn’t even register on their radar.

  She just wished this particular stranger wasn’t quite so… cover-me-with-whipped-cream-and-eat-me-with-a-spoon hot.

  His clothes said biker—faded jeans, Harley jacket slung over the back of his barstool, leather vest over a gray thermal shirt that clung to muscular shoulders. Not to mention the kind of abs that made her want to straddle his bike, slide her arms around them, and snuggle up close. He had wavy dark hair just begging for her to run her fingers through it, and his mouth curled in a way that suggested a wicked sense of humor. Even worse, he had that lithe, predatory, melt-your-panties bad-boy attitude she could never resist, that always got her in trouble.

  And the last thing she needed right now was more trouble.

  But it was his eyes that kept her from finishing her drink and walking away. Not just the color, though their hazel depths held intriguing glints of pure gold when he turned his head to the light. But the way they drew her in, made her want to know more about him. To know everything about him.

  Down, girl, she admonished herself. You’re on the run from Alexander Grant, not looking for your next relationship disaster.

  “So, Darlene,” he drawled in that deep, sexy voice of his.

  ‘Darlene’ was the first name that had come to mind when he asked, and now she was stuck with it.

  His name was Jace. At least, he said it was. Hell, for all she knew he was lying about everything too.

  He went on, “I can’t believe a woman as fine as you is all alone on a Saturday night. Please don’t tell me you’ve got a boyfriend or a husband that’s gonna come slamming in here and call me out for all the thoughts I’m thinking, just lookin’ at you.”

  It was a bullshit line, and she knew it. Unfortunately, it was all too close to what she was afraid would happen. Except it wouldn’t be Alexander slamming in here, it would be one of his psycho minions. She just hoped it didn’t happen before 11:30. If she had to run, she’d miss her check-in. And if Griz thought she’d been captured, he might go off the grid where she couldn’t find him.

  She was so close. Just a few more minutes, and then she could make her call and bolt. “I had a boyfriend,” she said casually, stirring the little straws around in the dregs of her margarita. “He’s so evil he gives the devil a hard-on.” That wasn’t a lie, anyway.

  The corner of Jace’s mouth lifted, and one eyebrow went up. “Hell, don’t sugar coat it, darlin’, tell me how you really feel.”

  Emma stopped swirling her little straws in her drink and pointed them at him. “If I see his evil face again, I’m going to shoot him in it. That’s how I feel.”

  He shot a wary sideways look at her bag. “You got a gun in there?”

  If only. She shook her head. “Nope. Unfortunately. But if you’ve got one, I’ll let you shoot him for me. You don’t even have to ask nicely.”

  “No thanks,” he said. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer,” he added, his eyes dancing. He was clearly not taking her seriously. “You’ll have to think of some other way to get back at him.”

  The smoldering look he gave her left no doubt as to what kind of revenge he had in mind. And on another night, she probably would have been happy to let him be the path of retribution. But not tonight.

  “I already got back at him,” she said. Which was true. Just not nearly as much as he deserved. “He had this ca
r. Some kind of special-edition Ferrari. Cost so much it should’ve been gold plated.”

  Jace paused with his beer halfway to his mouth, clearly sensing where this story was going. “Keyed it?” he asked.

  Emma snorted. “Not even. That’s amateur night.”

  He put the beer down. “No way. You couldn’t have crashed it.”

  She nodded. “Thelma and Louised it right off a cliff,” she said. She made an arc with her hand down to the bar, ending with a finger explosion, complete with sound effects. “Except without me in it,” she amended. “So, not so much like the movie.”

  Jace was staring at her, looking half-horrified, half-awed. “Tell me you didn’t,” he begged. “A Ferrari?”

  “Yup,” she said. “Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of car, smushed to scrap metal.” She licked the last of the salt off the edge of her margarita glass. “It was very satisfying,” she added. Also not a lie.

  He shook his head. “Remind me not to piss you off,” he said.

  She just smiled at him. It never hurt to let a guy know you wouldn’t put up with any shit.

  Yeah, like you and Alexander? a little voice said in her mind. You sure put up with a lot of shit from him before you wised up.

  To shut the voice up, she ran her fingers down one of Jace’s tanned, muscular forearms where it rested on the bar. His sleeves were pushed up, and she traced the tattoos on his warm skin. “Awesome tats,” she said. “It’s like, a whole wolf pack.”

  A line of running wolves, each one slightly different, started at his wrist and spiraled around his arm, disappearing up his sleeve. On the other arm were two mountain peaks with a lake between them and a full moon overhead.

  “It kind of is,” he said. “My crew.”