Free Southern Shifters: Lone Wolf Wanted (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Jessie Lane Page B

second in command, Greer, had taken one look at her upon arrival and muttered something about cranky women. Chrissy didn’t care how tough the rather large wolf-cougar hybrid was. If Greer said the wrong thing to her tonight, she might cut him with her claws. His bear shifter mate could suck it and patch him up when she was done.
    And Calder, the bar’s security bear, was watching her every move as if she were trouble waiting to happen. Well … She sort of was trouble waiting to happen, but he didn’t have to look at her that way! Besides, she was ticked at him for being the latest to get mated to a pretty little human.
    Not that she was prejudice against shifters mating humans or any hybrid babies they might have. How could she be? Chrissy was a hybrid herself. Sure, she was all feline, but she was a mixed breed feline. Her mother was a lynx, and her father was a cougar. They had been happily mated for thirty years now with three cubs, including herself. However, since Chrissy and her two sisters were not “purebred,” neither her mother’s Canadian lynx pride nor her father’s Washington state cougar pride would accept them. That was how the Leroy clan had ended up living in the neutral zone. And Chrissy loved everything about living here except for one thing: the pickings were slim!
    It wasn’t like she could go to a man meat market and pick out a slab of good-looking with a six-pack set of abs to screw silly every Friday night. Plus, she had to be careful about what male she decided to get naked with. It seemed like half of them were ready to say “mine,” put a mate bite on you, and then puff up like an inflated peacock, having secured a mate.
    Chrissy had been wooed, screwed, and practically stalked by males who wanted a mate. Not everyone was lucky enough to find their fated mate, so sometimes shifters gave up and settled with other non-mated shifters. Thankfully, all it took was a few well-placed cat scratches near their most prized man possessions to scare them all off.
    Being so quick to cut a dude had a downside to it, though. It was getting harder and harder to get laid. And that was why she was sitting here at the bar, irritable and in desperate need of a good time.

Chapter Two
     
    Ezrah cruised down the shoot off from the highway, heading toward the neon lights. It led him to a huge gravel lot where he pulled in and parked in front of a place boasting the name Dark Moon bar. It sure didn’t look like just a bar from the outside. The building itself was two stories high, a bit on the large side, and the upper windows had curtains instead of blinds. All in all, there was something that said “homey” about it. At least, that was what Pearl would have said.
    Ezrah had learned a long time ago to mimic what others felt or how they described places or people since he lacked those normal responses.
    Climbing off his motorcycle, Ezrah brushed off the memories of his great-grandmother as he headed toward the front door. Once he pushed through the entrance, he scanned the area, using his shifter senses to search for possible threats. While the outside might have made him question whether or not this was a bar, the inside let him know he was in the right place for a cold beer.
    Two large rooms were decorated in rich stained wood and lit with low lighting. The room he stood in now seemed to be the main room with a bar at one end of it. From the scent and size of the hulking man by the front door, he knew there was at least one bear shifter here. Ezrah didn’t sense him as a threat at the moment, though. Therefore, he took in the other patrons scattered throughout the space.
    The scents of various shifters assaulted him: wolf, feline, plus the bear behind him. That was an interesting mix he wasn’t used to. Apparently, the rumors about the neutral territory in Deals Gap held some truth. Supposedly, they were outcasts for one reason or another from their respective groups. It was odd enough that, if he felt