Brandi
Authors: Donna McDonald
| Brandi |
| Number II of Nano Wolves |
| Donna McDonald |
| (2015) |
He says they’re mates. She says they’re done.
Agent Brandi Jenkins likes being a werewolf. It’s great to be stronger, smarter, and more sexual. It’s also great being part of family group for the first time in her solitary life. As the Nano Wolves beta, she must protect the other women in her tiny pack. She can't stop until she learns the truth about who funded the crazy scientist who made them.
Being a living science experiment is not easy, and it’s starting to shift her priorities. Sometimes the new awareness sucks too, like learning her former handler didn’t rescue her from Crazy Crane on purpose. Before she can leave her old job though, a new government apprehension group decides to blackmail her into working for them. She wants to kill a few backstabbers and leave for good, but she can’t. She has no choice except to take the freaking job. It’s the only way to save herself and her pack mates from becoming government pets.
What she can’t do though is ever forgive Gareth Longfeather. The deceptive, lying, manipulative Gray Wolf beta had almost convinced her he was a man she could love and trust. Gareth says they’re mates. She says they’re done.
Brandi
NANO WOLVES 2
by
Donna McDonald
* * * * *
Copyright 2015 by Donna McDonald
Cover by
Black Raven’s Designs
Edited by
AJ at Black Raven’s Designs
Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should delete it from your device and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.
This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my beta readers for helping me with this one. Your feedback was very helpful.
Thanks to Black Raven’s Designs for their dedication and hard work on this series.
Thank to my critique partners, Robyn Peterman and JM Madden, for their steadfast support of my writing journey. Your feedback keeps me honest and keeps me going.
Thanks to my husband Bruce for at least saying my werewolves were interesting. I know shifters are still a character stretch for you to accept. I love you for trying to understand them… and me.
Chapter 1
Brandi slid gently out of bed, careful not to disturb the male still sleeping quietly in it. She gathered up her jeans and slipped them on, sighing when they barely fastened. Gareth’s cooking had been typical high-fat, mostly-protein guy fare. During her time with him, she had packed on a few extra pounds that not even their vigorous nighttime activities had kept off her butt.
Good thing she was leaving before the meager clothing supply she had purchased no longer fit. Her fake death had temporarily suspended her access to her normal accounts. She couldn’t afford to spend any more of the emergency rations her field handler had wired to Anchorage for her. Money was not something she craved in large quantities, but she appreciated the comfort it could buy at times.
She pulled on the bra she barely needed before covering it with a faded t-shirt she had fished out of the donation tub in Matt’s office. She would top the outfit off shortly with a new black leather jacket. Gareth had insisted she get the heavier coat to match the short, dark dyed hair he still professed to hate.
Lastly, she picked up her new Colt 911, acknowledging its welcome weight in her hand. Along with wiring her money, her handler had also express shipped a gun to a Federal Firearms License Holder near the Anchorage bank that had received her funds.
Both the money and the weapon had arrived five days ago, along with a plane ticket back to Virginia, a new burner cell phone, and a shiny new Federal Agent ID. A replacement driver’s license and passport had also been included to round out her return to reality.
She felt a twinge of guilt thinking about the woman listed on all the various pieces of her identification. Each was proof to the world that Agent Brandi Jenkins had returned to the land of the living. She found her reluctance to use them ironic for seveal reasons.
For one, this was not the first time in her agent career that her death had been faked. Secondly, unlike the other undercover incident, this time she’d actually enjoyed being dead.
All the rest of the reasons could be attributed to the man she’d left warming the bed she’d crawled out of this morning.
Since weapon holsters had never worked for her, Brandi hadn’t wasted her scarce resources buying one. She checked to make sure the gun’s safety was on before tucking the loaded weapon into the back of her snug-fitting jeans.
Finally, she turned to study the sleeping man in the bed. One of Gareth’s silvered temples gleamed in the early morning light. Even asleep he looked confident and sure of himself, which he nearly always was around her. Whatever Gareth had done when he’d been younger, it had tightened his jaw and put a stubborn glint in his eyes, especially when things didn’t go his way. Rather than putting her off, his grounded personality drew her in and tempted her to let him try and ground her, too.
In sleep, Gareth’s body was sprawled over most of his king-sized bed. Though he wasn’t a large man in girth, he still took up a lot of space. Maybe it was because every inch of him was honed, hard muscle and he knew exactly how to use it to his best advantage. His toned and taut form was admirable, and very appealing to her werewolf side, though she’d never actually told him. Compliments and revelations would have only complicated today further.
Brandi walked to the bed, looked down, and felt regret grab her by the throat harder than it had when she’d made her phone call earlier in the week. It was a bad, bad idea to feel this way about a temporary lover, but she couldn’t kid herself about not liking Gareth. Because of her uncharacteristically high regard, she owed the man a real goodbye, not the typical sneak-away she did to most of her bed partners when the time came to exit their life.
Reaching out her hand, she shook Gareth awake, stepping back in case he woke up reactionary. “Gareth… it’s time for me to go.”
Gareth groaned and pried one eye open. “
Go?
Does that mean last night didn’t change your mind? What kind of sexual bliss does it take to content you, woman?”
Despite how sexist Gareth sounded, Brandi chuckled at his complaints. He was protective and argumentative and demanding. But it was nothing she couldn’t handle… and she still really liked him.
She lowered herself to the edge of the bed, hip checking him until he moved his toned ass over enough to make a space for her. “Great sex doesn’t have that effect on me. Sorry, Stud. I’m shipping out today.”
“Damn it. I don’t want you to go.” Gareth shifted a little more to let her lean in his direction. “I think you should call your boss back and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”
Brandi smiled. She reached out a hand and ran it over his face. “We had a good run, didn’t we? You saw me through my transition, and I’ll always be grateful for that. But I have to go back to where I started this adventure. I need to see if I can get to the bottom of it.”
Gareth lifted his hand and cupped her breast, enjoying the feel of her instantly peaked nipple through her shirt. Her reliable reaction to his touch meant she was already his as far as their wolves were concerned, but persuading her human side of that fact was not going to happen in the next ten minutes.
“I’d like to get to the bottom of you again,” he whispered.
Her companionable snort of laughter over his boob grab was worth suffering the uncomfortable glare she also sent his way. Just once he’d like to touch the prickly woman and know for certain she’d welcome it. They’d had a lot of sex over the last couple of months, but never once really made love to each other. It had taken him most of that time just to get Brandi to sleep an entire night in his bed.
And now she was leaving him. How the hell was he supposed to just let her walk out his door? Especially since he knew exactly what she was heading back to deal with? Gareth cursed himself and life in general. It didn’t change things, but it gave the frustration writhing inside him a voice.
“You’ll come back to see Ariel and Heidi, right?”
Brandi nodded. She was pretty sure she would. Those women were part of her now in a way she didn’t really understand, but had finally stopped trying to. Wherever those women chose to live was going to be a place she’d have to return to now and again. They were like family… an intimacy to other people she was not used to having, but had decided she didn’t want to give up.
Gareth’s voice was sleepy rough as he sighed, and at the same time, soothing to her soul. Her fingertips travelled over his bristled jaw to his talented lips.
“Maybe I’ll even come back to see you, Gareth. I’ve never done that with a man before, but I guess there’s always a first time.”
Gareth grabbed her wrist and used it to lever his body upright until he could wrap his arms around her. For once, Brandi let him without resisting. He sighed as he hugged her close. “Damn it. It took you long enough to admit you liked me.”
Brandi chuckled into Gareth’s shoulder. “Is that your jaded way of saying you actually
want
me to come back and see you?”
Gareth pulled back and put a hand into her hair, yanking softly to get her gaze to meet his. “Do you want me to admit how tempted I am to tie you to the bed and keep you here with me forever?”
