Enigma (33 page)

Warning: Contains endless summer road trips, family drama, redneck werewolves, sexual power games and a taboo love affair between a submissive coyote who’s among the last of her kind and a dominant wolf who loves his heroine’s ass. Literally.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Impulse:

If he didn’t do anything else right, at least he could do this. “We’re going to keep you safe. Whatever it takes.”

“Any of them would have kept me safe.” She unbuckled her seatbelt with a soft
click
and slid across the bench seat until she was tucked against his side with one arm wrapped around him in a half-hug. “You’re keeping me sane.”

Sane.
Exactly what he wasn’t as he cupped the back of her head and tilted her face to his. Insane, that was more like it—for a thousand different reasons.

He kissed her anyway.

She had soft lips. Soft and warm, and they tasted like the cherry ChapStick she’d tossed into her bag a few miles back. Her hand slapped against his chest, fingers splayed wide, then fisted around his shirt as she moaned, low and hungry.

He wanted to delve deeper, bite her lip and slide his tongue into her mouth. Instead, he lifted his head and fought to slow his breathing. Sera’s fingernails dug into his chest as she voiced her protest in a snarl of loss and caught his lips again.

He reacted without thought, tightened his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. “Sera.”

She went still. Not just quiet, but utterly still. Even her breathing stopped for one tense moment, and in that moment her power washed over him in a shuddering wave. An alpha’s magic challenged. Hers was sweet and accepting, clinging to him even as her breath escaped on her rushed apology. “I’m sorry—”

“No,
I
am.” He stroked his thumb over the shell of her ear. “Not about kissing you. I’m not going to apologize for that. But I shouldn’t have done it here. Now.”

“I don’t have very good control.” A confession. A tortured whisper. “I’m so freaking tired of fucking humans. I eat them alive.”

He knew there were human men who could handle fucking shifters—people did it all the time, Mackenzie for one—but Sera seemed caught up on what she wanted versus what she thought she should want. “What you want isn’t so complicated, sweetheart. You’ve just got to let go.”

She shivered. “Letting go is how you drown.”

He still had the taste of her on his tongue. “Not letting go isn’t worth it.”

“No one’s ever caught me.” Her whole damn body trembled with nervous energy. “Last time I let go, I fell forever.”

Her eyes were deep and still despite all that energy. “Does that mean you’re going to hold back now?” he asked.

She fought the grip on her hair, tugged against it until she could nuzzle his chin. Not a very human gesture, and he could feel the feral edge of her coyote beneath the surface. “I don’t know how to let go a little. Don’t ask for it if you don’t really want it. It’ll change this trip. It’ll change everything.”

It sounded like an ultimatum and a promise. It sounded like a warning. “We’ll find out,” he whispered. “Tonight.”

Warm breath feathered across his ear. She licked the lobe, then closed her teeth on it with a quiet growl. “The clerk inside is staring at us.”

“Do you blame her?” After another heartbeat, Julio released Sera and started the car. “Probably wondering whether she needs to call the cops on us.”

After retreating to her side of the car, Sera gave the attendant a cheerful wave. “Maybe she was enjoying the show. You’re hotter than any of the softcore stuff on cable.”

“If you say so.”

“You don’t fool me, mister. You look like a man with a healthy stash of porn.” Her seatbelt clicked into place before she turned to eye him. “I’m thinking…busty cheerleaders in short skirts? Or is that too vanilla?”

“I’m all about variety,” he told her solemnly. “Busty cheerleaders are well-represented in my collection, but I would never limit myself so severely.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught her grin. “I stick to the Playgirl stuff. Oiled-up men aren’t really my thing, but at least they go for the hunky ones.”

He flashed her a knowing grin of his own. “And you like the men in uniform, right? All the ladies do.”

“You mean like McNeely?” She whistled as he steered the car out of the parking lot. “That is one fine hunk of wolf. Too bad he’s got a big dumb crush on Giselle.”

After Wesley Dade’s conveniently telling remark, they’d probably spent the weekend in bed together. “That’s your type, huh? Tall, dark and handsome?”

“You have to ask, when I just tried to climb into your lap in a parking lot?”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

She laughed. “
You’re
tall, dark and handsome, Mendoza.”

“You’re mostly right, Sinclaire.” He adjusted the rearview mirror so the slanting sunlight wouldn’t blind him and pressed his foot harder on the accelerator. “I’m not particularly tall.”

“You’re taller than me.” She reached across the seat, and her fingers brushed the back of his neck in a caress almost as teasing as her words. “But not too much taller. Which would come in handy, if you’d ever considered bending me over furniture for dirty sex.”

The car swerved as his grip tightened on the wheel. It wasn’t hard to call forth images to match her words—her naked, rounded hips, pale skin under his hands, and the smooth, endless expanse of her back stretched out before him.

Her fingertip snuck under the collar of his shirt. “If you were taller, I’d have to stand on phone books or something.”

That bare touch on the back of his neck hardened his cock. “Arrive alive, honey. Hands to yourself.”

Another laugh, but she eased away. “And this is why everyone in New Orleans thinks we’re going to spend the next week having sex. They all know I can’t keep my hands off you.”

Love as strong as the tide. Betrayal as cruel as an undertow.

The Deepest Ocean

© 2014 Marian Perera

Eden Series, Book 2

Moments before he sets sail into pirate waters to rescue prisoners, Captain Darok Juell receives additional orders—to take a mysterious woman on board who will help him in his mission.

When she arrives, she is unlike any woman he has ever seen. A cold, controlled operative of Seawatch, Yerena Fin Caller wields an iron hand over her emotions, and an almost magical control over a great white shark.

On the surface, her orders are simple: use her shark to guide Darok through dangerous waters, attack any pirates who interfere. Her emotions must remain under lock and key, lest they travel along her delicate connection with the finned killing machine below.

As she and Darok navigate the Strait of Mists into the Iron Ocean—and evade a killer-whale-controlling traitor—Darok’s generosity and warmth coax Yerena to give in to desire. But they have no future together. Especially if Darok’s legendary recklessness forces her to obey a secret order to send his ship to the bottom of the sea…

Warning: Contains naval battles, a shark that enjoys winning races, a woman who can control the shark—sometimes, the captain who wants her in his bunk, and hot sex on the high seas.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Deepest Ocean:

Behind the oarsman stood a figure wrapped and hooded in a grey cloak. Darok couldn’t tell if the figure was female, but when the barge drew up to the hull and the oarsman called for a ladder, he knew it had to be her. He wondered what her duties on board would be, since
Daystrider
already had a full complement. It would not be beyond the Admiralty to plant an agent on his ship, but this was too obvious by far.

The ladder unrolled and Darok put a hand on the rail, trying to get a good look without actually leaning over. It wouldn’t do to appear interested. The figure began to climb.

Even at that distance, with the hood falling halfway over her face, her arms were too slim to be mistaken for a man’s. The crew continued with their work—those on deck were mending sailcloth or polishing the brass, and ship’s discipline would not have tolerated any open slacking as they stared—but everyone was aware of the new presence.

Since Darok didn’t move to acknowledge her arrival, no one else did so either. Unassisted, the woman climbed over the rail.

The bell tolled the twelfth hour as she set foot on the deck, though Darok doubted he would have heard her if the harbor had been completely silent and the water frozen. Her grey shoes were made of some soft cloth, and her cloak wrapped her like smoke. Not someone who wanted to call any attention to herself, except she had done so only too well by being assigned to his ship and by boarding it so late.

He crossed the deck and approached her. Her head lifted, the hood slipping off to reveal her face.

“Captain?” Her voice was low, devoid of accent or emotion.

She has a tattoo.
Darok barely noticed anything else about her face, because all he saw was the black triangle that completely surrounded her left eye, curving slightly at the peak. He had seen tattoos before, but on men, not women, and it was jarring compared to the traditional and trying-not-to-be-noticed quality of her clothes.

Abruptly he was aware of the silence on the deck. “Yes. Captain Darok Juell.”

He’d spoken more tersely than he’d intended, but the full formal introduction which included his ship’s name and status as a Weapon of Denalay would have accorded the woman too much importance. Besides, he didn’t need to impress her—it was the other way around.

“My name is Yerena Fin Caller,” she said.

Obviously that wasn’t her real name, but before he could say anything, the woman shrugged her cloak back. A small pack rode between her shoulders, leather straps crossing over her chest, and she swung the pack down, pulling it open at the same time. She drew out a folded piece of paper and extended it to him.

Darok took it, noting with dismay the seal of the Admiralty in blue wax. He broke the seal.

The Admiralty of Denalay hereby charges, in the name of the Unity, all loyal men of the Guardian Fleet to give their aid and assistance to Yerena Fin Caller, a Weapon of Denalay and bearer of this letter.

He read that twice to be certain he’d understood it. This woman, with her strange appearance and stranger, concocted name, was a Weapon of Denalay? She enjoyed the same status as his warship, which was second only to the flag of the fleet and had sunk four Turean galleys? He still had no idea what on Eden she could do for his mission.

Lady Lisabe drew closer and Alyster came up from the lower deck. Darok would have preferred they found some activity more gainful than being spectators, but he paid them no attention as a new possibility occurred to him. No one on the ship knew what Yerena Fin Caller was supposed to look like, and the woman who stood before him had arrived late.

“How can I be certain you are who this claims you are?” he said.

The woman had waited with no change in expression, and there was none even after he spoke, not so much as a furrow touching the smooth skin between her brows. She seemed completely indifferent to everything, and to his annoyance, Darok had difficulty holding her gaze. The black wedge of her tattoo kept making him focus on one eye rather than both of them, and the tattoo itself reminded him uncomfortably of a shark’s fin.

“I am an operative of Seawatch,” she said, “and my duty is to guide and to guard.”

Seawatch
.

In the near-silence on the deck, the men who were closest heard that, and a whisper swept through the crew. Seawatch served the Unity but did so in secret, through sabotage, assassination and other methods less savory. That explained why the letter was from the Admiralty, since Seawatch would not have put anything in writing.

Though unless the tattoo washed off, this operative would make a very obvious assassin. Darok doubted the little pack she carried held much in the way of secret devices or equipment, and her only evident weapon was a knife at her belt.

“How exactly will you guide or guard anyone?” he said.

“I have a mental link to a shark.” The tone of Yerena’s voice didn’t change. “The shark may be used to scout ahead, to transport and to attack.”

That explained the tattoo. And her name. A shark would come in useful for scouting, but he didn’t think it could ram a Turean galley and live to swim away.

“What kind of shark?” he asked.

“The white death.”

That time the crew’s murmurs were a little louder, and a few of them traced a protective circle over their hearts. Darok wished he had questioned the woman in private, but taking a stranger—and he didn’t trust her, no matter what documents she carried—to his quarters wasn’t a good move either.

“Can you prove it?” he said.

A flicker of emotion disturbed her composure, and she looked at him as though not sure she had heard correctly. “How do you want me to prove it?”

Darok shrugged. “Show me this shark.”

Her dark brows came together, but she spoke quietly. “Captain, it’s a shark, not a dog. It can range a hundred miles away, and I don’t summon it unless that is absolutely necessary.”