Free Silk Stalkings: Episode 1 by Cate Troyer

Copyright 2015 - Cate Troyer
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    Excerpt: Rafe Delun stood next to his office window studying the city below and barely listening to his legal counsel. He stroked his lower lip absently, his mind on the curvy girl standing in his lobby, the one who had nearly freed his inner beast in the daytime. When he had walked out of the elevator there had been a scent of something, something intoxicating, something alluring, in the air. It was enough to distract him from John’s yammering about the son of a Saudi prince who wanted a new guard. His inner wolf had immediately started stirring, the smell rousing him, but Rafe had collared it, searching for the source of trouble. That was when he saw her, his new secretary.
    She wasn’t his normal type, a bit heavier than usual, his lips curled in a sardonic smile. Her light brown hair was piled messily on her head, her plump pink lips pursed thoughtfully as she waited politely, submissively, for them to cross. Her blue eyes had wandered over his body, and he had seen the slight flutter of her pulse jump and speed up. Her white blouse was just sheer enough that he could differentiate between flesh and cloth, and as his eyes traveled lower, he had to admit he liked the fit of that skirt on her hips.
    You’d like that skirt better on the floor , his wolf whispered, trying to surge free. The taste of brand new pennies filled his mouth as he fought the change.
    Fighting the wolf and his own libidinous urges while trying to carry on a business conversation was not going to work, he decided, so he had stormed off the floor with his entourage, leaving the bemused looking woman behind. Even now, the scent of her filled his nose, floral and sweet, and Rafe balled his fists to control the shaking.

The wolf, Silk to his pack, prowled the urban landscape. His white fur tipped with light gold protected him from the nip of oncoming autumn, and his yellow eyes glowed in the dim light of the alleyway. He hugged the shadows, knowing too well the human reaction to his kind. The soft click of his claws on pavement as he moved toward his destination echoed off the brick walls around him. Silk was eager to reach the large park which smelled of green, living things, and leave the stone trees behind.
    Buildings , the man inside him whispered. Those are buildings.
    The wolf chuffed in response and peered across the well-lit ribbon of road separating him from his destination. His ears twitched as he searched for the distant hum of oncoming cars. It was late, though, and this park was not in a well-traveled area of town. There was no traffic of any kind. Most of the city was asleep. Even his human form had left his current female sleeping in between layers of soft sheets and driven out here for this purpose, to run free.
    They had been restless recently, the human and the wolf, eager to run and chase. In Silk’s opinion, his human form was too tame, too docile. His version of hunting differed from the wolf’s, but it was still hunting. The human chased quarry down in boardrooms for his business and in clubs for his pleasure.
    His ears twitched again as a night bird called across the street, hidden in the trees. The sounds of the nocturnal animals shuffling through the underbrush, all but impossible to hear with human ears, echoed in the fine-tuned senses of the wolf. He wished his brothers, Storm and Winter, were here. They would run down the prey together and feast. Silk could smell a deer in the woods, the scent as light brown as the fur that invariably covered its body. His muscles