CougarHeat

Marisa
Chenery

Book one in the Cougar Surrender
series.

After four years of banishment from
his cougar shifter family group, Taylor finds himself called home to take his
rightful place. On the trip to Anchorage, he runs into some unexpected
trouble—trouble with long legs and a body to die for. Suddenly the long drive
doesn’t seem so bad.

Abandoned at a truck stop diner by
her now ex-friend, Aspen seeks the help of an unwitting hottie when a trucker
makes unwanted advances. Good thing the hunk is willing to act as her
boyfriend. And to plant a panty-melting kiss on her lips to drive the point
home. As things heat between them, she’s determined to see how far they can
take it.

Having taken on the responsibility
of heir apparent, Taylor settles into his family group. Though dating a human
is frowned upon, Taylor refuses to lose Aspen. The pleasure he finds in her
arms isn’t something he’s willing to turn his back on.

A Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from
Ellora’s Cave

Taylor looked at the three men who
sat with him at a table inside one of Juneau’s coffee shops. He’d thought he’d
never see their faces again. Not after being kicked out of his cougar shifter
family group. He’d been banished, never to be welcomed home. Or at least that
was what he’d been led to believe four years ago.

He looked at his younger brother
Blaise. There was only a year between them in age. “How did you know where to
find me? And how did you get my cell phone number?”

Blaise shrugged. “You’d be amazed
at what you can find on the internet as long as you know how to go about it.
Luckily I have a friend who does.”

Taylor shook his head. It figured
his brother would have the means to track him down. Blaise always “knew”
someone who could fix whatever problem he had. Taylor shook his head as he
looked at Blaise. His brother hadn’t changed over the years Taylor had been
gone. They both had the same tawny-blond hair, though Taylor’s was shaggier and
Blaise’s was on the long side but more controlled. They also had the same
light-brown eyes that verged on gold, a mark of a cougar shifter.

He looked at the two other men at
the table, his cousins Grady and Jase. “And you two decided to just tag along?”

Jase smiled and nodded. “Of course.
We’re here to give Blaise support, and to make sure you don’t brush him off.”
Grady nodded as well.

Taylor took a sip of coffee, then
sat back in his chair. “All right. Why did you come looking for me when you
know you’re supposed to act as if I no longer exist?”

Blaise met his gaze. “You’re aren’t
banished anymore.”

He snorted. “Really? And I’m
supposed to take your word for it? There’s no overturning banishment.”

“Maybe not in the past, but yours
has been. It was Father who made that decision.”

Taylor schooled his features not to
show any of the emotions he felt. The mention of his father had all the old
anger he’d thought he’d left far behind rising to the surface. As the head of
their family group, his dad was the one who had made the ultimate decision to
banish Taylor and send him on his way. All because Taylor had gotten into a
fight with a werewolf who had attacked one of his human friends. It wasn’t as
if he’d set out to kill him while in cougar form, risking the close-guarded
secret of what he was to the outside world.

As the oldest son, before he’d been
kicked out of his family, he’d been in line to take his father’s place once he
died. “And why would he do that?” Taylor asked in a low voice.

“He’s dying.”

It took Taylor a few seconds to get
over that bit of news and regain his composure before he spoke again. “I’m
sorry to hear that. I hope you didn’t come all this way just to tell me. You
could have called or even sent a text.”

Blaise scowled. “You really don’t
care that our father is close to dying?”

“What do you expect? The man turned
his back on me, not caring what happened as long as I stayed away.”

“You know he had no other choice.
You broke one of the laws of our kind. His leadership would have been brought
into question if he hadn’t done what had to be done.”

“Yeah, well that makes me feel so
much better about it all. I can now overlook the fact he kicked me out in the
middle of the fucking winter with nowhere to live and no clue where I would end
up. And it wasn’t as if he gave me any money to start a new life either. With
no job and used to earning my living working with the family, I wasn’t prepared
for anything.”

“You don’t look the worse for wear
now.”

Taylor glared at his brother, his
anger no longer at a low simmer. “You have no idea what I went through before I
ended up where I am now. I thank my lucky stars that Meadow—the woman who gave
me a job and a place to live—took me on to look after her place. Since my
banishment, I count her as my only family.”

“She no longer needs to be,” Grady
said. “You have to come home.”

He turned his attention to his
cousin. “The hell I do. I like the life I have. I don’t have to answer to
anyone but myself. And I sure as shit don’t have to worry about archaic laws
that say we have to remain hidden from humans and werewolves.”

“You have a responsibility to the
family,” Jase said.

Taylor shook his head. “Haven’t you
been listening? That ended when my father banished me. I’m no longer in line to
take over.”

Blaise sighed. “That’s changed.
Father wanted me to take his place and I refused. You were always better suited
for the position than I’ll ever be. It didn’t take much for me to convince Dad
that you were still the one up for it.”

He met his brother’s gaze. “That’s
too bad. I don’t want it anymore. So that means you’ll have to take it, Blaise,
or some other member of the family will have to.”

Blaise slammed his fist on the
table, drawing the stares of the humans around them. His brother took a deep
breath, then said in a quiet tone, “This is not something you can just say no
to. There is no one else. After Dad decided you were once more in line to take
his place, no one else in the family would dare to step up.”

Taylor cursed under his breath.
Once the head of the family made a decree, it was final. That was why Taylor
couldn’t understand why his banishment had been overturned. It put him in a
spot where he didn’t want to be. Blaise was right. Taylor couldn’t tell them to
fuck off and go on as if they’d never spoken to him. Now that he’d been found,
others would come and take him back to Anchorage where his family lived, by
force if necessary.

Having lived in close proximity to
the werewolf sentinels, the very first werewolves, Taylor preferred the wolves
over the company of his kind. Edensaw, the alpha of the sentinels, didn’t rule
over his wolf brothers with an iron fist. He also didn’t think humans needed to
be kept in the dark about them at all costs. Christ, all of the wolf brothers’
mates had been human—or mortals as they called them—before being turned.

A cougar shifter having a human as
a mate was unheard of. Taylor had no idea what would happen if a male or female
of his kind ended up with one. That human sure as hell wouldn’t be welcomed
with open arms like the sentinels’ mates.

Taylor saw the determined looks on
his brother’s and cousins’ faces. They weren’t willing to let him walk away. He
had a feeling they were more than ready to drag him to Anchorage, no matter how
he felt about it.

“You’re not going to walk away and
leave me to live my life the way I want,” Taylor said as a statement rather
than a question. He already knew what the answer was.

“We can’t,” Blaise replied. “Father
wants you back home…before the end.”

“He’s that bad?”

His brother nodded. “Yes.”

“How? He isn’t close to his time.”

They weren’t as long-lived as
modern-day werewolves, who could reach the age of three thousand, but they
lived longer than humans. A cougar shifter’s life didn’t end until he or she
was close to two hundred years old. His father was only sixty-five.

“Caleb doesn’t know. It’s some kind
of illness he’s never seen before. It makes Father grow weaker almost by the
day, and nothing Caleb does counteracts it. Father is wasting away before our
eyes.”

Caleb was another cousin, and a
doctor. Taylor scowled. An illness? Their kind never got sick. Ever. Human
ailments like cancer and other diseases of that nature didn’t affect them
either. “How can he be ill to the point of dying? It shouldn’t be possible.”

“We don’t know how. We just know he
is, and has been for over six months now. So you’ll come home with us?”

Taylor sighed. “You really haven’t
left me much choice.”

Jase smiled as he placed his
now-empty coffee cup on the table. “Then let’s go to your place, pack up your
stuff and be on our way home. We should be able to catch a flight later this
evening.”

He held up his hand. “I never said
I’d go with you right now. You three can fly to Anchorage. I’ll drive.”

“Why would you want to do that?”
Grady asked. “It takes a little over twenty-one hours to drive from Juneau to
Anchorage. That’s if you don’t include any rest breaks.”

“I don’t mind.”

Blaise shook his head. “You might
not, but we do.”

Taylor sat up straighter. “What?
Are you afraid I won’t show up if you let me do this?”

“I can’t say the thought hasn’t
crossed my mind.”

“Well, you can stop thinking that
way. I go back on my terms, which means all three of you will fly home and I’ll
arrive by myself. And it’s not as if I can up and leave where I live now on
such short notice. Plus, I have my things to pack. I promise I’ll be on the
road sometime tomorrow. You either accept it or don’t expect me at all.”

His brother slowly nodded. “Fine.
Have it your way. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to make that long-ass drive.”

“Then it’s a good thing it isn’t
you,” Taylor said as he pushed back his chair and stood. “I’ll see you in
Anchorage in a day or so.”

He turned and walked out of the
coffee shop without a backward glance at his brother and cousins. Taylor
continued down the sidewalk to where he’d parked his pickup truck. He shook his
head as he thought over the conversation he’d had with Blaise, Grady and Jase.
When he’d first been banished, he would have been more than happy to be
welcomed back into his family group. Now, not so much. He was used to being on
his own, and liked it. Since he was content with the way his life was, of
course someone had to come along and fuck it up for him.

* * * * *

The next day, Taylor was on the
road headed for Anchorage as promised. Leaving Meadow behind had not been a
thrill ride for him. She hadn’t taken the news of his departure very well. He
was just glad she had her mate Durlach to lean on. She wouldn’t be alone, and
as part of the sentinels’ werewolf pack, she had more than enough family to
look after her, which was one of the reasons he found himself able to walk
away. Meadow was like a sister to him.

He’d spent the rest of the day
after leaving his brother and cousins packing up his belongings and preparing
for the long drive to Anchorage. While he’d done that, Taylor found himself
thinking of what he would be getting himself into.

At one time, he’d been prepared to
eventually take his father’s place as the head of their family group. He’d been
groomed for it since he was old enough to remember. It was something he’d taken
pride in, and had strived to learn all he could from his father so one day he’d
be just as capable. That included Taylor following all the outdated rules that
came with what he’d been born.

He hadn’t dated humans, and
definitely hadn’t gone near any female werewolves. He’d stuck with his own
kind, though none of the females he’d slept with had ended up being his mate.
Unlike werewolves, a male cougar shifter couldn’t tell if one of the opposite
sex was his mate with a single sniff of her scent. It took more than that for
his kind.

Each male, once he hit adolescence,
was given a cougar head pendant hung on a gold necklace that was made with a bit
of magic embedded inside. If a female was meant to be his mate, the ruby eyes
in the male cougar’s pendant would glow. That occurred once the male had
accepted the female as his, even if only he knew it subconsciously, which
caused an increase in his testosterone level. It wasn’t something that took
place with a first meeting, or even the first time the couple had sex. It
sometimes took months before the eyes revealed the truth. Once it happened it
was the female’s decision to accept the necklace as hers, which would create
the mating bond, joining the mated pair’s souls.

If the female didn’t take the
necklace after the eyes started to glow, the male ended up walking a fine line.
He’d be unable to eat or sleep, basically only able to think about having sex
with his newfound mate to hopefully tie her emotionally closer with each bout
of lovemaking.

After being banished, Taylor had
taken off his necklace. Being kicked out of his family meant he had no chance
of finding a female cougar shifter who would want him. Plus, it was part of the
old life he’d left behind. But it now once again graced his neck. It would be
expected of him.

Taylor had put more than a few
miles between him and Juneau when he decided to take a break. He’d been driving
for hours and his butt felt as if it was asleep. He pulled off the highway into
the parking lot of a truck-stop diner. A cup of coffee was in order. He planned
to drive for as long as he could, then spend the night in a motel. He was in no
hurry to get to Anchorage.

He sat in a booth that was set
against the large glass window facing the parking lot. Taylor ordered a cup of
coffee and a burger, knowing he wouldn’t be stopping to eat again for quite
some time.

He was just finishing his food when
he happened to look outside. A woman walked across the lot carrying a suitcase.
Taylor couldn’t help noticing how pretty she was. He took a sip of coffee as he
took in her long, light-brown hair that fell over her shoulders. Her body was
slim. His gaze dropped to her shapely ass that was hugged by a pair of skinny
jeans. Before his brother and cousins’ visit, Taylor would have considered
going after the woman to see if she’d be interested in a one-night stand. But
that wasn’t an option today.

Taylor pulled his gaze off the
window and drained the rest of his coffee before signaling to his waitress that
he wanted his bill. He’d better get back on the road. He had a lot more miles
to go before he called it a day and found a motel.

* * * * *

Aspen watched the back of her
friend’s car disappear out of the diner’s parking lot and merge with the
traffic on the highway. Cindy, whom she’d thought was a really good friend, had
just abandoned her in the middle of nowhere with no way of making it home.