Grant Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  About the Author - Terra Wolf

  About the Author - Meredith Clarke

  COPYRIGHT

  ©2018 Terra Wolf & Meredith Clarke

  Jackson (Canyon Hollow Shifters #2)

  All Rights Reserved worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without permission from the author. The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this book at the authorized online outlets.

  This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Some may be used for parody purposes. Any resemblance to events, locales, business establishments, or actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

  Chapter 1

  Grant

  I loved the rush of running through the woods. Whenever I let my bear take complete control, I felt like all of my worries washed away. It was as if a weight was lifted from my chest, and I could feel a sense of freedom shoot through my body.

  But lately, that rush was harder to come by.

  My bear was on edge, and I couldn’t fully explain why. No matter how many times I ran off into the woods I never felt truly satisfied, like I once did. It was as if he was frustrated. Every little thing seemed to irritate me. Which I hated. Because normally, I was a pretty easy-going guy.

  I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that the coyotes never retaliated against our clan for the death of their Alpha Liam and his son Braden. Most of the guys in the clan had relaxed about everything, especially Lincoln and Jackson. The seemed to feel that everything was over and done with. And while I agreed with them that there was no immediate threat to our clan, my bear still wouldn’t relax.

  Today was a particularly bad day.

  I had just shifted back to my human form, threw some clothes on, and walked into the clan’s lodge. I felt my bear twitch underneath my skin, still agitated. I ignored it and walked into the kitchen to grab a beer. I was just sitting down on the couch when I heard Jackson and Skylar in the other room.

  “Jackson, quit it!” Skylar squealed.

  “I can’t help it, Sky. I told you that you shouldn’t have worn that dress today,” Jackson replied.

  I rolled my eyes and got up. I didn’t need to hear what happened next with Jackson and his mate. My bear shifted angrily under my skin again. I downed my beer and headed back to the kitchen to grab another. I stopped suddenly as I entered the room. There Lincoln had Charlotte pushed up on the counter. Her legs were wrapped around his waist and his lips were on her neck. Her eyes were closed and her head was leaned back.

  I let out a frustrated growl, and Charlotte’s eyes flung open.

  “Oh gosh! Sorry Grant!” She quickly pushed Lincoln up and he let out a laugh.

  “Sorry man, we didn’t think anyone else was here.”

  I clenched my fist, fighting to contain my bear. “Other people in the clan hang out at the lodge,” I said.

  Lincoln nodded quickly noticing my clenched fist. He backed completely away from Charlotte as she meekly slid of the counter.

  “Grant,” Lincoln said. “Just chill out man. We didn’t mean to offend anyone.”

  All I could do was let out another frustrated growl and I slammed my empty beer bottle on the table. I had to get out of here.

  I stalked back outside and pulled off my clothes. I shifted instantly, and pushed my claws into the ground. I could hear Lincoln and Jackson calling out after me, but I needed to get the hell out of there. I ran off into the forest hoping this time it would clear my mind.

  Why the hell was I so angry about this? I should be happy that Lincoln and Jackson had found their true mates. It was something that was celebrated in our clan. Instead, I was fighting my bear each time that they were around.

  As I ran through the woods, I tried to calm myself down. But with every stride I made, the angrier I got. I couldn’t be jealous of the fact that they found their mates, could I? I dug my claws deeper into the ground. No, I couldn’t be jealous of that, because I never really cared about finding my mate.

  I loved living the single life too much.

  I was a charmer when it came to women, and I used that to my advantage. It was a game to me, seeing who I could get that night, and I had fun with it. I treated every woman with respect, but I always made it clear that I was a no strings attached kind of guy. I would be with someone new every couple of nights and that is what used to make me happy. But lately, I had gotten tired of the games. Every woman at the bar just seemed too eager to jump into my bed. It wasn’t as exciting to me anymore.

  I pushed myself to run faster as I powered through the woods. Maybe I just needed a different bar scene, and not my normal hangouts where the women were looking for a shifter for the night. Human women, while they were fun to throw around, were just getting tiresome. Ever since shifters came out it was like all these humans were dying to try a shifter for a night to see how different it was. It was fun for a while, but now I was just tired of having them ask me to growl and hold them up against the wall.

  I felt my muscles start to grow tired as I slowed my run to a walk. Maybe I could get Ford to go out with me somewhere tonight. With all the drama of the coyote pack and his responsibilities as Alpha of our clan, he needed a break just as badly as I did.

  I strolled back to my place which was a cabin I built in the middle of the woods. I shifted back into my human form and headed inside. I grabbed my phone and called Ford.

  “Hey man, what’s going on?” Ford answered on the first ring.

  “Not much. I wanted to see if you wanted to go out tonight?”

  Ford let out a long sigh. “I don’t know, with all this shit that happened with the coyotes, I just want to make sure we are on the alert.”

  “Quit being a pussy, Ford. It’s been a few months and the pack has done nothing. Trust me, it irritates the hell out of me too that they haven’t tried to retaliate. But I think we can head out for just one night.”

  “Fine,” Ford sighed. “But if we run into the pack and shit goes down, be ready to fight.”

  I let out a loud laugh. “Trust me man, I’m itching to put the coyotes in their place. If shit goes down, I got your back.”

  Chapter 2

  Violet

  “I’m heading to work, sweetheart,” my father said.

  “Didn’t you just get home a couple of hours ago?” I asked.

  “Not for the diner. For the school. The on-call janitor called in sick, so I have to go fill in.”

  “The on-call janitor is sick. Then what good is putting him on-call?” I asked.

  “I know I promised you dinner. I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, okay?”

  My father kissed me on top of my head as I sat on the couch.

  “You don’t have anything to makeup, Dad. I promise,” I said.

  “Yes, I do. And I will. Your mother won’t be home until late. She picked up a double shift at the restaurant. Which is good for us since your birthday’s coming up.”

  “You’re
not spending your extra money on me, Dad. You hear me!?”

  “You’re our only daughter, and we’ll spoil you however we wish,” he said.

  “Put it in an account. Get yourself some new clothes. Take Mom out to dinner. Do something other than spend it on me. Okay? I got myself taken care of.”

  “We’ll talk about this later. Love you, princess.”

  “Love you too, Dad.”

  I sighed as my father slammed the door behind him. For as long as I could remember, my parents had worked multiple jobs just to make ends meet. They were a part of the Canyon Hollow Bear Clan, however, they wanted to make livings on their own. They didn’t want to have to depend on the clan to survive.

  When they joined the clan, Nixon was the Alpha. He was Ford’s father and he tried to convince my parents to let the clan help them when they hit hard times. But they refused. I never really understood why they did. I tried to talk to them about it several times, but they always said that being a part of the clan’s work put a target on the family. By working on their own they thought they were protecting my brother and I.

  They were good people. Hard working and dedicated. No job was below them when it came to providing for my brother and I. But the more I grew up, the more I saw how much they struggled. My father was graying at his temples, and my mother’s hair was completely white. Even though they were reaching retirement age, nothing of the sort was in sight. It made me ache for them, watching their weakening bodies running around like they were still thirty.

  It was why I had been so intent on paying for my own schooling.

  Growing up, we were the kids no one wanted to associate with. Thinking back on it, I feel like the main reason was the human kids always knew there was something different about us. At the time, humans didn’t know about shifters. So, the kids picked on stuff that they could see, like the fact that we were poor. My brother, Ford, always kept his guard up in case people started to tease me. We lived out of thrift shops and hand-me-down clothes from others in the neighborhood, and it got us teased a lot. There was no room in our budget for nice toilet paper, much less fashionable clothes. I didn’t indulge in makeup because we couldn’t afford it. Ford never got the chance to try on his first suit because it was too expensive. Even with the money my parents made, we always had some sort of government assistance to help us with food and bills and internet.

  Which made us the target for a lot of ridicule.

  “Stop living off the government.”

  “Make something of yourself.”

  “If you’d stop purchasing new phones, maybe you could afford shoes that fit.”

  Those were just some of the insults hurled our way all throughout school. We were constantly judged and berated for the few things we did have. Mom and Dad tried their hardest to save up and give us a decent Christmas. Sometimes we could afford a few things, like a new stuffed animal for me or a button-down shirt for Ford. Sometimes Mom could splurge and get Dad some of that good chocolate he adored, and if Dad took a few extra jobs, he could get Mom that perfume she was always sniffing in Macy’s.

  But the one year my father fell into some extra cash, he decided to branch out and get us new phones.

  Granted, they weren’t new. Someone was selling a family of phones online that we could hook up to our provider. But they were in wonderful condition and worked fabulously. The seller cut my father an awesome deal. Three hundred bucks and lawn care for a month for the four phones.

  It was the first Christmas I could remember feeling like we really belonged.

  Until we went to school and tried to interact with the kids.

  The teasing took a toll on my brother. While I kept my nose in my books and earned a full ride to the Vanderbilt University, Ford started to get more involved with the clan. By the time I was in school, shifters were out to humans. Things between the coyotes and our bear clan had been heated for a while and with Ford’s involvement, he did his best to keep me and our parents out of it. Ford kept me very separate from the life he had cultivated for himself, but I wiggled in when I could.

  I knew the clan ran a legitimate protection business, but I also knew they did things that required those hushed tones I heard whenever I came home. I didn’t know what they had gotten themselves into with the coyotes, but I figured it was bad. Ford tried to keep my nose clean of it all, even as I fraternized with the guys. But throughout the years, I was able to piece together a few things.

  Like what ‘muscle for hire’ really meant.

  When I went off to college, I missed the guys. Sometimes I would stop by the lodge just to hang out and talk with everyone. Mainly the older guys. Ford never really let me near his core group of friends in the clan. Usually, it was when things with Mom and Dad got tense. They were good parents, but with the two of them working two and three jobs, tensions were bound to explode. The lodge was my escape, and the guys welcomed me with open arms.

  Ford always kept his eye on me, but I knew it was just because he was worried.

  College had been different. I felt out of place again. Like I didn’t belong. Whenever I hung out with the guys, it felt like a family. I could see why Ford had gravitated to them so quickly, and I think it worried him that I was doing the same. He tried to put as much distance between them and I as he possibly could, and it fueled many fights between us. I went off to college mad at him and punished him by not seeing him whenever I did come home to see Mom and Dad.

  As I typed away on my laptop, applying to jobs and hoping something stuck, I wondered where Ford was. We had repaired things between the two of us over the past couple of years, but things were still tense whenever we were together. He came to my graduation when I accepted my Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering, but he didn’t stay long. He came to congratulate me, hug me close, then he ran off.

  It warmed my chest that he came, but it hurt that he hadn’t stayed.

  I never told Ford about it, but I got teased a lot in college as well. I was one of the very few girls in the computer engineering program, and because of my looks, I always had guys trying to dumb down concepts for me. It was annoying, listening to them talk down to me. Like a child trying to figure out how to work a toothbrush. Little did they know that I could probably snap their neck with my bare hands. It was exhausting, and I was so glad when I graduated.

  I loved proving everyone wrong. I loved showing them that I was more than just a set of green eyes and wild red hair. I loved showing them that beyond the striking looks that turned more heads than I cared to admit, there was an intelligent mind who could bury the finest computer engineers in their own graves. The stunned look on their faces was something I gained my energy from. My confidence flowed from the confusion that percolated behind their eyes when they found out I was more than a pair of nice tits they couldn’t stop staring at.

  I sat on the couch for an hour applying to jobs before there were no more in the immediate area to be found. I had taken a job right out of college at a large consulting firm, but it wasn’t where I wanted to stay. I moved back in with my parents to save money and help them with some things, hoping I could shoulder some of the financial responsibility they were still trying to upkeep. I paid off the rest of their home and got their mortgage off their back and told them I would take over the electric bill since it fluctuated so badly. My parents were insistent that I didn’t have to do anything, but I told them I wasn’t moving back in unless I could help.

  So, they caved.

  I stretched my arms and legs as my stomach growled. An hour’s worth of applying to other jobs left me hungry and wanting food. I closed my laptop and slid off the couch, steadying myself onto my feet. Since no one was going to be here for dinner I didn’t feel like cooking, I decided to head to the Milo’s.

  Some good seafood and a drink or two would do me some good before I got back to applying for more jobs.

  I was looking for anything from Nashville to Lebanon. I loved the area I grew up in, but I sometimes wished I was somewhere el
se. Being a computer engineer would give me the ability to afford that kind of lifestyle.

  And if I played my cards right, I could fund my parents’ retirement so they could enjoy the rest of their years instead of working themselves to the bone.

  I grabbed my things and headed out the door, locking it behind me. I drew in the muggy Nashville air as a grin crossed my cheeks. The consulting firm was a decent gig with a decent paycheck until I could find something I really enjoyed. Or better yet, it gave me the time I needed to start a freelance business of my own. Ideas were swirling around in my mind as I made my way to my car, my stomach screaming at me for food.

  I wondered what Ford was doing, considering he hadn’t lived at home in years.

  Cranking my car up, I pulled out of the driveway. The drive to Milo’s was therapeutic, and it gave me time to think. Time to figure out where I wanted my life to go and what I wanted to do with it. I was one of the few young adults that came out of college with no debt to her name, scholarships helped me with that, and I was hellbent on keeping it that way. I paid for my old ass car with the money I saved while working at a bar during my college years, but now I had the paycheck to do anything I wanted.

  At least, that was what it felt like.

  I did miss those days. I missed the smoky bar I used to work in. I missed the guys whistling at me and tipping me far more than they needed to because my ass looked great in a pair of jeans. Most women found that sort of thing degrading, but I loved the attention. It helped build my confidence after years of being relentlessly teased for the way my parents made ends meet. I built relationships with those customers and flooded the bar with regular customers. My boss loved that shit so much he promoted me over the other waitresses, putting even more money in my pocket before I graduated.

  It was why I enjoyed Milo’s so much.

  That bar had been home to me during college. And now? Milo’s reminded me of that bar back at college. Where I was confident, beautiful, and at the top of the food chain.

  Now, all I had to do was find a way to replicate that in the real world. Even if that meant starting at the bottom of the totem pole with this ridiculous consulting firm.