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    Guarding Mari
    Guarding Mari
    Guarding Mari
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Guarding Mari

    By Ella Grey

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Three years is a long time to be away from your mate...

    Mari was a doctor before she was infected with the werewolf virus, a target of a deranged serial killer. The night held one bright moment. She met Daniel Greyborn, the other half of her soul. But she’s been living a half-life away from him.

    Daniel wants a lifetime with his mate...

    Daniel made a difficult decision when he left Mari with the Black Paw Pack. When he finds a body on his compound, he knows that Ryback is back and it’s time to finish what happened three years ago and reclaim his soul.

    Are they about to underestimate a killer?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDecadent Publishing
    Release dateJul 28, 2014
    ISBN9781613337196
    Guarding Mari
    Author

    Ella Grey

    Ella Grey is an Australian writer with a bachelor’s degree and a hunger for romance. She can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Smashwords.

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      Book preview

      Guarding Mari - Ella Grey

      The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

      Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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

      Guarding Mari

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright © 2014 by Ella Grey

      ISBN: 978-1-61333-719-6

      Cover art by Lacey Savage

      All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

      Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

      Look for us online at:

      www.decadentpublishing.com

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      Also by Ella Grey

      Saving Kat

      Guarding Mari

      A Black Paw Pack Story

      By

      Ella Grey

      Chapter One

      Three Years Ago

      The rogue wanted to lose him in the deserts straddling the Nevada California border. Sand and dust tickled his wolf nose, masking his target’s trail. Skidding to a halt, he shook his head and tried to catch Ryback’s distinctive scent. A growl of frustration escaped him when he came up empty. Wolves relied heavily on their noses, and his had never failed him before. Time slipped away, and the distance between him and his target only got bigger.

      Daniel closed his eyes and breathed out. As the pack enforcer, he tracked down and killed rogue wolves, not a cub wet behind the ears. As soon as a wolf tasted human blood, blood lust consumed them. The rogues craved it, and no cure existed. It would follow them like a black shadow—an addict needing their fix. The only way out was death. He killed a lot of wolves. Some had begged for their lives. Others tried to bribe him, but the ones that hurt the most were the ones who asked for help.

      Adam Reece, the pack alpha, had given him a file prior to the hunt. Wild, vicious animal attacks were being reported in the Las Vegas area, and they couldn’t be anything but the work of a rogue. Ten women butchered and killed. Whispers circulated in government circles that a mass culling of wolves would go into effect soon if the deaths didn’t stop.

      Daniel needed to stop him before hundreds paid the price for the rogue’s madness. He’d narrowly managed to prevent him from claiming victim number eleven before he’d tracked his scent here. The surrounding smells of sand, dust, and desert flowers still danced around his nose. He strained his ears and cut out the sounds one by one, splitting his focus. Small animals scurried across the sand. Cars cut through the air at speed. A rustle from a fur-covered body. The rogue stalked him. Ready for a last stand? Only one of them would leave the desert. The monster murdered defenseless human women. He didn’t deserve mercy, and Daniel needed to take him down hard.

      He tested the air again, trying to pinpoint the rogue’s approach. He missed the grassy hills around the Rocky Mountains. As far as the local townsfolk were concerned, the compound was home to doomsday preppers and the wolves didn’t bother to correct them. Nobody believed in shifters these days, and it was safer that way. Katherine Moon, their resident earth witch, made certain they were never short of vegetables or food. They hunted bears and other large game but never in the same place. They preferred to protect their mountains and the animal populations, rather than deplete their resources.

      The sound of stones tumbling down the uneven rock face warned Daniel scant seconds before a hard body slammed into him. They rolled together off the path and deeper into the sand, snapping at each other’s throats. Ryback tried to pin him, his legs bent down into his underbelly. Instead Daniel darted out of the way of the rogue’s snapping jaws and pushed out with his paws, throwing the rogue off. They both got up, snapping and snarling at each other. The rogue’s eyes were cold and calculated. Not what he expected at all. A werewolf with a taste of human blood was borderline crazy. The fact the killer acted differently worried him. How could he be in control? Did he plan out his attacks? That would explain his trouble chasing him down.

      Lunging, he knocked the rogue off of his feet, revealing its soft underbelly. He lashed out with his claws, and the bitter aroma of blood filled his nose. A howl tore through the air, and the rogue jerked forward, sinking his teeth into Daniel’s shoulder. He growled, white-hot pain pulsating through him.

      Ryback took off again, leaving a path of blood in the sand. The rogue ran to the road and the cars on it. Beams of light traveled left and right, cutting through the dark. Everything happened in slow motion—a split second dragged out—the rogue planned to dart through the traffic and outrun him. With his torn-up shoulder Daniel couldn’t keep up. Ryback didn’t let up his pace, but a wounded wolf couldn’t outrace a truck.

      A screech of brakes, and then everything went to hell.

      ***

      Chaos and screams filled the emergency room. A pile up on Route 66 had seen all of the hospitals in the surrounding areas flooded with bodies, broken, bruised, or dead. Mari Stonewall excelled under the pressure even if she worked on too little sleep. It still hurt, though, emotional pain to see bodies too young to go through the trauma of a car crash. No one deserved it.

      A brutal shift, the life of an ER doctor. Mari pulled the blood-stained scrubs off and threw them into a waiting bin. Her last patient had been a little girl with a dislocated arm. She’d arrived unconscious after being pulled from one of the cars. Mari closed her eyes, as if it would help block the memory. The smell of alcohol came off him in waves, impossible to miss. What kind of parent got drunk and then got behind the wheel? The little girl—he’d called her Julia, his words slurred—with light-blonde hair in pigtails and a Hello Kitty T-shirt on under pink overalls.

      She’d wake up to a very different world. Her arm would need to be set in a cast. Her father would be in police custody.

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