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Published: January 6, 2014
Length: Novel
Bears of Grayslake #1
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance
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A bear cub sat in her pantry.

Mia squinted and peered into the dim interior. Yup, a bear cub. The small ball of fur shifted, reflective black eyes settling on her with interest.

Heck no, she was not being mauled by a bear.

She slammed the door shut and counted to five, sure it’d been a figment of her imagination. Her mind had been playing tricks on her ever since she’d walked through the door of her deceased grandfather’s home. Part of her wondered if he’d decided to haunt her as he’d always threatened. A familiar pang of grief speared her heart. That fleeting thought brought back the memory of standing at the old man’s graveside less than a week ago, clutching her dad’s hand as her grandfather was lowered into the ground.

Her eyes stung, tears forming and clouding her vision, and she wiped away the moisture as it trailed down her cheeks. He was gone. She needed to push past the grief and live her life. He’d whoop her from one end of the house to the other if he caught her crying over him. The man had lived to a hundred, and he’d been ready for a break already.

A low, barking whine came from the pantry, the solid wood muffling the sound but that didn’t negate the source’s existence.

She had a bear cub. In her pantry.

Gripping the knob, she eased the door open and peeked inside. Yup, still there. Huddled in a tiny ball, little eyes trained on her. Every inch of his fur stood on end.

“Hey, little guy.” Mia kept her voice low, hopefully soothing to the cub. She was either dealing with a wild young one or a baby werebear. She was in Grayslake, Georgia. All werebears, all the time. She glanced at the cub. Mia voted for werebear. Like, really, really voted for werebear.

She hadn’t inherited the ability to shift but her dad easily transformed from man to bear and back. So, she’d grown up knowing about shifters. And he’d told her, and proved to her, over and over again that weres in their animal form still held onto their human thoughts.

She extended a hand toward the cub and kept her voice pitched low. “Hey, sweetheart. Did you get stuck in here? You ready to come out?”

The little cub shook its head and scrambled deeper into the corner.

Crap. Well, crap on one hand and woo-hoo on the other. She was fairly sure she was dealing with a were, but he remained in her pantry.

“Okay,” she sighed. “The thing about it is, you probably belong to someone who is a heck of a lot bigger than you and me put together. Your momma is going to be angry her cub is missing, and I don’t wanna get between you and her.”

Like, really, really didn’t want to get between a cub and its mother. While a werebear had human love in its heart, there was also the bear’s possessiveness and insane drive to kill anything, or anyone, who came between it and its young.

The cub shook its head, and its eyes glistened, shining with moisture that hadn’t been there before. This had to happen on her first day in Grayslake.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna leave the door open. So, when you’re ready to come out—” More trembling and an actual tear escaped the cub’s eye.

Darn it.

“Listen, little guy, or girl, I’m sure you belong to someone and they’re going to be so worried.” She took a chance, and sought to confirm her beliefs. “Why don’t you shift for me and tell me where you live? I’ll take you home—”

The cub whined and clawed the ground, nails digging furrows into the hundred year old wood floors.

“Hey,” she snapped. Cub or not, common courtesy spanned species barriers. “No scratching the floors.” The little bear immediately stopped. “Thank you. Now—”

A harsh, heavy pounding on her front door yanked her attention from the cub. The wood rattled in its frame, reminding her she needed to hunt up a repairman to replace it. The door was original to the house, and she hated to swap it out with something modern, but in a town filled with bears… She’d rather have an extra layer of protection in case one of the residents turned cranky at having a mostly-human in their midst.

The hammering came again, followed by a rough yell, and she sighed. Was everyone in Grayslake intent on disrupting Mia’s move? First the cub and now this guy. She’d only been in town a freakin’ day.

“Answer.” Thud. “This.” Pound. “Door.” Crack.

Aw, the crack did it. She’d buried her grandfather less than a week ago and was moving into his home at his bequest. Now some stranger decided to damage a piece of her memories. She didn’t think so.

Mia looked to the cub once again. “I’ll be right back, little one. Let me…” Her words trailed off as the pungent scent of urine hit her, and a widening puddle emerged from beneath the cub. She didn’t need her father’s shifter senses. The small bear’s stark fear was unmistakable. There was a reason the cub was hiding, cowering, in her pantry, and she guessed it had everything to do with the man darn near breaking down her door.

She held a hand out, palm facing the small one. “Stay.”

The only response she received was a tiny shudder.

More pounding from the front of the house echoed down the hallway, the man’s increasing growls easily reaching her through the old walls. If this guy had anything to do with the cub, like she suspected, then she’d be facing a werebear pretty darned soon.

Which really sucked.

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Published: March 31, 2014
Length: Novel
Bears of Grayslake #2
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance
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Van wondered if killing a wolf would start a blood war. Just one. Not the whole pack. Not even the Alpha. Nope, he had his sights set on the Redby Beta, Morgan.

He leaned against the brick wall, cell phone pressed to his ear, as he focused on the cars entering and leaving the gas station parking lot. He’d stopped for a cup of coffee. Five minutes, in and out. Except his quick break turned into a fifteen minute phone argument with the wolf.

“They’re twenty-five days over the limit,” Morgan growled and Van’s inner bear responded to the low threat.

His beast took orders from one man—Ty—his older brother and Itan of the Grayslake bear clan.

“And as the Grayslake Enforcer, I’m telling you to give them additional time,” he snarled in return, keeping the sound low.

Humans strode past him left and right and it was illegal to expose themselves to non-shifters. Sure, a handful of older humans knew of them, but it was important to keep a low profile.

“The order was twenty-four hours for singles and forty-eight for families. It was issued by your Itan over three weeks ago.”

Fuck. Van wondered if Ty realized the cluster fuck he started by agreeing to work with the wolves. It wasn’t the Itan dealing with logistics, organization, and finally punishment, if his orders weren’t followed. No, that fell to him and the hardheaded asshole on the phone.

It’d been hell since Ty swept into a nearby town, Boyne Falls, and ordered the hyena Alpha and ruling circle killed while also demanding all hyenas leave the area. The Alpha had been involved in the kidnapping of Ty’s adopted son and, as a result of the hyena participation, Ty’s mate Mia had been injured and nearly murdered.

Van didn’t disagree with the punishment—hyenas in general were a nasty breed. The werewolf alliance, however, caused his bear to bristle and balk at following Ty’s directives.

“I’m aware of the order. As you said, it came from my Itan. That doesn’t change the fact that leniency is necessary for those in the hospital who need assistance vacating the town. Helicopters capable of life-flighting someone to another hospital don’t materialize out of thin air and some patients have specific medical needs.” Van’s fingers tingled and warmed, a sure sign his bear was annoyed by the wolf.

One on one, the beast could take the smaller male and his animal was ready to prove it.

“The order is—”

“Oh, fuck the order. I’m telling you they get enough time to ensure they don’t fucking die on the helipad.” He held onto his control by a thread, his whole body trembling with the effort. “Leave them the fuck alone.”

“The order—”

Van closed his eyes and banged his head against the brick wall. “Seriously? I don’t know how it is with wolves, but bears have common sense with a lot less hardheadedness.”

Not a sound came over the line for several seconds and Van wondered if Morgan had hung up.

Unfortunately, the man spoke. “Are you challenging me?”

“Fuck me,” he grumbled and ran a hand over his face in frustration. “No, I’m telling you to leave the patients in the hospital—along with their families—until arrangements can be made. Go be an asshole to everyone else, but quit messing with the injured and ill.”

Another moment of silence.

“I will speak with your Itan.” On Morgan’s lips, his brother’s title sounded like a curse rather than a position of respect.

Van’s bear bristled at the insult. He opened his mouth to ask when he wanted to meet in the pit, but the rapid beep of his phone indicated the call had ended.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled through clenched teeth and a low crack sounded in his ear. He pulled the phone away and glared at the hunk of plastic, metal, and glass. The damned screen splintered, lines marring the surface, making the damn thing useless. “Fuck.”

Screw it. Van finished the job by crushing the device. Taking a little help from his bear, he squeezed until the phone was nothing but jagged bits of its former self.

A soft throat clearing pierced his focus, but it wasn’t until the newcomer spoke that he pulled his attention away from the phone.

“Um, Officer Abrams?” Van recognized the speaker. One of the clan guards, but he was also a Grayslake police officer like himself. “Everything okay?”

He reached for a nearby trashcan and uncurled his hand, letting the pieces tumble into the receptacle. “Just fine.” Van turned toward the other cop and didn’t miss the cautious step the man took in retreat. “Just fine.”

“Sure, sure.”

Damn it. He took a breath and released it in slow increments. It wasn’t the man’s fault the wolf pissed him off. “Sorry. Everything’s fine. How are patrols this morning?”

Van wasn’t just another cop, he was the clan’s Enforcer. If bad things, illegal things, happened within the clan or affecting the clan, he was the one who carried out justice. He did the heavy, bloody lifting. Which was why he was saddled with handling the issue in Boyne Falls.

And normally, Isaac would be around, waiting to patch up their asses when they needed a Healer. But Isaac… he wasn’t going to think about Isaac. Not at the moment, at least.

“Good, good. Pretty quiet, considering.”

Considering the clan had lost four men due to the machinations of Ty’s mate’s family and hyena interference. “How’s everyone feeling? We got any hotheads?”

That was the last thing he needed. The clan was already hurting. He didn’t want to make it worse by punishing someone for letting their beast free and going after the hyenas themselves.

“No, sir. Upset—angry—but we all know you and the It—” A human walked by and the officer coughed to cover his near slip. Damn humans were everywhere.

“We know you and Ty are handling things the way they need to be.

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Published: August 11, 2014
Length: Novel
Bears of Grayslake #3
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance
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God hated Trista and the proof was taped to her door. The evidence fluttered in the breeze, words printed with black ink on bright yellow paper.

The wind picked up again, blowing harder this time. Empty cans clinked across the grimy concrete floor. A plastic bag followed in its wake, flying over the filthy ground. A familiar ball of yellow, much like the one plastered to her apartment door, tumbled by.

Someone else was being evicted. Well, at least she wasn’t the only one who’d be miserable and homeless. Not that she wanted others to suffer, but misery loved company.

Clutching her keys, she traced the page taped to her door. It flapped, as if trying to flee, but she slapped her palm over the thin sheet.

Final Notice of Eviction.

Funny how she’d never received an initial notice. Then again, it’d only been a matter of time, right? She should have expected this after she heard of Bru’s death, but she hadn’t. She’d held onto hope that she could float idly along and pretend her landlord hadn’t been killed and a new owner wouldn’t be coming in to take over.

Trista slid her hand over the notice, letting her palm skim the rough door. Paint flaked off and pricked her skin, reminding her she was alive. And soon to be living on the streets.

Wouldn’t be the first time. Except she hadn’t been alone the first time, or the third or the fifth. No, she’d had her mother then. And now…

Her eyes stung, familiar tears welling, and she blinked them back. The piece of paper danced in the breeze again. Reminding her of what needed to be done. She didn’t have time to cry. Besides, it didn’t solve anything.

That didn’t stop a tear from falling past her lower lashes and snaking down her cheek. It didn’t stop the second either. Or the third.

“Fuck.” She leaned against the door and balled her hand. “Fuck.” She banged her forehead and fist against the scarred surface. “Fuckery Fuck McFuckerson.”

With each syllable, more tears fell. One time, just once in her life, she’d love things to go her way.

“Fuck.” She whispered the word and took a deep breath.

Memories of her mother filled Trista’s mind. She imagined her mom pushing open the apartment door and brushing past her fifteen-year-old self. Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it, Trista Ann. We’ve got work to do and no one but ourselves to do it.

She allowed one last tear to trail down her cheek and one last curse to leave her lips. “Fuck.”

There, now she needed to get her things packed before she left for her night job slinging drinks at the bar down the street. Come morning she’d apartment hunt between when she got off and her day job started.

Okay, she could do this. Even if she didn’t have her mom by her side, she was an adult. She’d lived through worse, she could get through this.

Trista grasped her doorknob, careful to hold it in the right position to get the thing unlocked. It was a finicky bitch and it hadn’t mattered how many times she’d complained to Bru.

It works, don’t it?

God, he’s an asshole. Oh, right, he was dead. Okay, he’d been an asshole.

Unfortunately, when she turned the knob just right—two inches right and then one back left—it didn’t click like it should. Mainly because the door simply opened, swinging on silent hinges to reveal…

A bare apartment. Completely, utterly, empty of her possessions. The sagging couch remained along with the rickety table in the kitchen, but they’d come with the place. Her things were gone. Her pictures and mess of clothing that generally littered the floor. She had no doubt the money she’d hidden throughout the space was gone as well. She and her mom hadn’t trusted banks, especially not those run by her father’s “friends.” When her mom pissed off her dad, their account typically suffered a “computer glitch.”

Now, all of her belongings gone, it… it was too much. The rage that’d burned inside her from the moment her mother disappeared, the anger over fucking life fucking shitting on her every fucking day, boiled over.

Trista tilted her head back and screamed at the cobweb-laced ceiling, opening her mouth as wide as possible as she released the guttural roar. “Fuck!”

The yell went on and on, echoing off the concrete block walls of the hallway. The scream’s never-ending boom mocked her, reminding her over and over that she was alone.

“My mim says you shouldn’t curse. She says it’s bad.” The tiny, tinkling voice came from beside her, the tone of a high-pitched youth. She looked to her right, down at the child, and the little boy stared up at her with guileless eyes.

The part of her that hated being challenged, particularly by a male, roared its displeasure in her mind. God may hate Trista, but she loathed that piece of feral animal inside her even though she knew it’d never disappear.

Snapping her mouth closed she turned her raging attention to the little one at her side. She snarled at him, curling her lip. This behavior wasn’t her, it was its, but she couldn’t halt the aggressive attention she gave the boy. “When she pays my bills, I’ll be fucking happy to quit my fucking cursing.”

Now she was really going to hell. Squeezing her eyes shut, she leaned against the doorframe and slid down its length. In no time she went from standing to a dejected pile on the floor.

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Published: November 3, 2014
Length: Novel
Bears of Grayslake #4
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance
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Isaac understood the definition of “brittle smile.” It was an expression he’d held all day, and he didn’t imagine it would disappear any time soon. It’d been in place from the moment he climbed out of his SUV. It’d remained as he was met by his toddling niece, Sophia, and rapidly growing nephew, Parker. It’d grown shakier when he leaned over his sister-in-law Lauren’s shoulder and stroked her baby daughter’s cheek. It expanded when the rest of the werebear clan showed up for little Sophia’s first birthday party.

Werebear after werebear parked in front of the clan den. Men and women he’d known his entire life quickly made their way to the back of the house. Since his brother Ty was the clan’s Itan—werebear leader—his daughter’s birthday was celebrated by one and all, as it should be. Ty was a good Itan and a better father. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Isaac’s eldest brother.

Isaac just didn’t want to witness it. Not when it burned a hole in his heart. He remembered easing Sophia into the world as he helped Mia—the clan’s Itana and Ty’s mate—with the birth. He remembered Mia’s tears and the shininess of Ty’s eyes. He remembered their wonder and—

The heavy tread of someone approaching drew him from his heaping ball of self-pity and back to the rapidly growing party around him. He did what he always did—tucked himself against the house, in the shadows, away from the crowd. It hadn’t always been this way, but after… well, after, he wasn’t inclined to make a spectacle of himself.

Isaac brought his glass to his lips, tipping it back and swallowing the sweet tea infused with berries. Mia knew he didn’t really drink—a Healer always had to be ready to help—and the woman made sure he got his dose of sugar that soothed his bear. Saint Mia…

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Published: September 1, 2015
Length: Novel
Bears of Grayslake #5
Genre(s): Paranormal Romance
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Reid really wished he had a smoke. Or a drink. Damn, a drink would have been nice. Just a shot to soothe his nerves a little. Unfortunately, his therapist—in another bid to get him to calm down—decided drugs would mask the problem.

Since when did beer and smokes become drugs? It didn’t matter. Mainly because his wolf was even more pissed than normal at not having its beer and smokes. How’s that, Miss Therapist?

He should take a picture of what happened when he didn’t get his “drugs” and text it to her.

Sometimes a patient takes two steps forward and one step back, Mr. Bennett.

A dead body? Huge step back.

Nothing for it, he was gonna have to call it in. The question became, who did he get in touch with first? His therapist since she wanted to be his number one go-to person when he had an “episode” or his boss Terrence, the Southeast werebear Itan?

Considering Reid was a wolf and he’d killed a bear…

With a sigh, he dug in his pocket and tugged his phone free. He sought out Terrence’s number and then tapped the contact. It rang once… twice… and then the male answered.

“What happened now?” Terrence growled.

“Aren’t you merry fucking sunshine this morning?” he couldn’t help goading the bear. The Southeast Itan may have helped him out of a tough spot—taken him in when the Southeast Alpha kicked his ass to the curb—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give the male shit. Pack or not, Reid was still as alpha as they came. Submitting to a bear just wasn’t in his wolf’s skillset.

Killing though… He nudged the bloody body with the toe of his boot.

“Reid, who died?”

Take out one bear before sunrise and everybody thought he was some sociopathic murderer.

All right, it’d been a pack, one whole pack, that day, but the assholes screwed with his family—and then covered it up. Wolf didn’t particularly care for that and showed ’em.

Maybe he was a sociopathic murderer. But if he was, was this murder really on him? Terrence knew he was a fucked up piece of work. If anything, the death of this bear was on his shoulders, not Reid’s.

Now he was thinking like his half-sister and the woman’s best friend.

“Reid,” the other male snapped.

“What?” he snarled.

“You called me. What do you want?”

Right. Wolf hated being challenged. Sorta why he was in this situation.

“You sent me here to Brookfield.”

“And?”

“Just laying out the facts, boss man.”

“Reid…”

“Wolf don’t like your tone,” he growled.

“Your wolf and I came to an agreement, and it’ll get over it until we meet again. What. The. Fuck?”

“Kiss your kids with that mouth?” Now he grinned because giving him shit about cursing around his half-grown children was fun as hell.

“Reid.” The tone, the way the r rolled off his tongue and ended in that rough d told him he should quit playing with the bear.

“We got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

Reid stared down at the male before him. He took in the guy’s size, ignoring the deep wounds that cut to the bone as well as the shallow cuts that marred his chest. Those were from when he’d just been playing with the bear, showing him he shouldn’t mess with his wolf. Pure fact, at the best of times his beast didn’t like being challenged. Without beer and smokes? Like was no longer in his vocabulary. Loathed though… That was a little more accurate.

The wolf did some good work on the man’s legs. One long stripe from hip to ankle. Nice and clean. Part of him—way down deep and almost forgotten—experienced a twinge of regret. Not a big portion, but there was something.

Then he remembered who threw the first punch. And the second. Then the third strike was a kick.

Reid warned him good and hard before he retaliated.

Making a big mistake here. Stop now and walk away. Keep this up and I’ll own all your shit in the next fifteen minutes.

It’d taken eight.

Eight minutes of fangs, claws, and blood and now Reid Bennett—sociopathic murderous werewolf—stood over a dead body.

“Problem’s about six-two, six-three. Between two twenty, two hundred fifty pounds. Hazy on that since there’s a shitton of blood on the ground.” But that sounded about right. Head wounds bled like a bitch. Thinking about bleeding had him looking over his own body. He had a nice set of claw marks down his chest, but it was just a flesh wound. His wolf took care of in no time. His biggest concern was his shirt. He liked that shirt.

Terrence sighed and Reid imagined the male was sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair, and pinching the bridge of his nose as he stared at the ceiling. He’d seen the position often enough. Mainly when Reid had done something. “Tell me it isn’t the Itan.”

“It ain’t the Itan,” he immediately replied. How should he know? It wasn’t like he checked the bear’s ID before the dick took a swing at him.

“Do you even know who it is?”

“No.” He shrugged. Wolf didn’t care who stepped up. Just that it wouldn’t back down.

“Can you please verify his identity for me?” The words were hissed into the phone and he knew Terrence was gritting his teeth.

Reid rolled his eyes and bent down, shoving his hand into one pocket and then the others until he found what he was looking for. “I have Patrick Archer. Huh, guess it is the Itan.”

Well, that sucked.

“Fuck me.”

“Not my type, but thanks, boss man.” He grinned.

“You’re not taking this seriously,” the bear snapped.

Reid tossed the wallet onto the male and then clenched is free hand into a tight fist. “When I found him trying to rape a twelve-year-old bear, I took it very seriously. When I stopped him and that asshole tried to take my head, I took it very seriously. Calling you, looking at that piece of shit and wishing he was alive so I could kill him all over again… Yeah, my wolf is feeling fucking serious.”