Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
When he tore my panties off and spanked my ass red, it was punishment. But when he pushed me up against the wall, gave me his knot, and bred my virgin body savagely, it was instinct.
Because the feral brute with his belt around my throat isn't just a masked stalker taking what he wants.
He's an alpha shifter taking his mate.
Publisher's Hunted Mate is the first book in the Stalked Mates series but can be read as a standalone. It includes spankings and rough, intense sexual scenes. If such material offends you, please don't buy this book
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Calista
“They’re real. They’re real and I’m going to prove it.”
I mutter to myself. I have in my arms the evidence I need to put together the final pieces of my exposé on a subject that is going to blow the minds of every person in the world. Aliens are nothing on what I know to be true.
Hart Press
I carry a stack of boxes under the red sign that has been there for well over a hundred years. I am the last in a long line of newspaper men and women, the sole heir of the Hart fortune.
Some people think that makes me lucky. It doesn’t. Others think it makes me rich. They’re right about that. I technically own this paper, and a whole lot more besides, but I don’t run it, and most people forget I matter at all.
That’s how I like it. I am not trying to draw attention to myself. I grew up getting more than enough of that. These days, I focus on my research. My mission. I have known something that the rest of the world thinks is a story for years now. I have seen things that people simply refuse to believe when I tell them. But I’m going to prove once and for all that were—
“Argh!”
My foot hits something I didn’t see behind the big stack of stuff I was attempting to get into the building. I trip forward, file boxes flying out of my hands as my papers fly up in a cascade of evidence and chaos, filling the air with a torrent of intel.
“Easy, tiger!” Before I can hit the floor along with the rest of my things, I am caught in the strong arms of Gray Walkirk. He’s thirty-five years old, has thick, dark curling hair. deep blue eyes, and a broad smile that makes every woman’s heart flutter.
He’s the editor of Hart Press. I was on the committee that hired him a year ago. I assume he’s been doing a good job since then. Print is a hard business, and journalism is curling up on itself like a dead spider. But Gray has managed to keep the lights on. Now he’s managed to save me from smashing my face into the polished concrete floor, too. What a versatile hire.
He smiles at me with laughing eyes. I blink the tears of humiliation I reflexively feel out of mine. It’s one thing to embarrass myself dropping things and having to scrabble around picking them up. It’s something even worse to cry like a toddler who fell over as well. I remind myself that Harts are strong, and the urge to whimper evaporates.
“You’ve got to be careful, Ms. Hart,” he says.
“Call me Calista,” I say, flustered. He’s handsome, and more than ten years older than me.
“Calista,” he says, straightening my blazer for me, giving it a quick shrug down my front. “Are you okay? Nothing twisted?”
“No. Please, could you help me pick up these papers?”
He crouches down with me and helps me collect my documents. I stuff as many as possible into the boxes that are on the floor and I hope that not everything is out of order.
“Still doing your unicorn research, Calista?” Gray asks me the question indulgently, almost like he’s talking to a little girl. I think he’s doing it on purpose. Everybody knows about my pet project. Most of them have the grace to not mock me directly to my face.
I look into his eyes and see a teasing smile on his face. He is messing with me, and he’s looking hot as hell doing it. He has dimples on prominent display as he gives me that charming grin.
“It’s not unicorns. It’s werewolves,” I say quite seriously. I know he thinks it’s a joke, but it isn’t. I have to be serious about this, so other people take me seriously. “There are people who have a genetic mutation that allows them to take animal forms. Wolves, specifically. It’s a story that’s been told thousands of times over thousands of years, in hundreds of cultures. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s actually crazier to not pay attention, if you think about it.”
Gray smiles at me in a way I can only describe as indulgent. He doesn’t interrupt me, or roll his eyes. He thinks I’m crazy, I know. Or eccentric. You get to be eccentric when your parents die when you’re thirteen and leave you an inheritance that includes multiple companies and bank accounts with more zeroes than most people will see in a lifetime.
“I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” he says. He glances down at his watch. He’s still wears a watch. That’s old-fashioned as hell. “I’m sorry, Ms. Hart. I have to get to a meeting.”
He hands me a sheaf of paper. “Here you go. Be careful going down those stairs, okay?”