Jackson 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

  Chapter 15

  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

  Jackson

  It had been about a month since our clan had saved Lincoln’s mate, Charlotte, from the coyote shifter. We had been kept busy with new protection services clients, along with continuing to monitor the Williams’ family. With Charlotte pregnant, Lincoln had wanted to make sure she was protected everywhere she went.

  And I honestly couldn’t blame him.

  Cubs with humans, were a bit rare in our clan. We had mainly kept to ourselves over the years, especially before shifters were known to the public. Now, that we were out in the open, a few relationships have happened within our clan but none of them ever produced a cub. Charlotte would be the first human to reach full term with a child in the last couple of years. And because of that, all of us were extremely protective over her.

  That’s probably why I ended myself up landing myself in the Stronghold.

  These days, shifters didn’t end up in jail with the normal human population. Once society realized what we were truly capable of, they figured out a different way to detain us when we did something wrong. Humans called it Shifter Detention. Shifters called it the Stronghold because the handcuffs they used limited our abilities to shift. Making us easier to control.

  I couldn’t remember the night I landed myself here too well. Even when I pressed my eyes closed and tried to really think. All I could see was a flashing red light in front of my eyes. The one that set my blood pumping. I knew I shouldn’t have said nothing. I shouldn’t have got up off my bar stool or walked towards the coyote.

  He was a small shifter, no taller than five-five, freckles all over his cheeks and neck, and really bad teeth. I could smell the coyote coming off of him a mile away.

  He’d been sitting there with his posse, chugging back bottles of Heineken because Guinness clearly didn’t suit his stomach. I was with Grant. We were minding our own business. Trying to relax after a long day.

  I definitely hadn’t heard the first thing he said, and he was having none of that. He wanted me to hear. He wanted me to hear what he was saying about Charlotte.

  Word had gotten around the shifter community pretty quickly about Lincoln and Charlotte’s relationship. And every shifter seemed to have their own damn opinion about it.

  The coyote had no business talking about her.

  He was saying things like—she should have ended up with a coyote shifter instead of our bear clan. That she would most likely die during childbirth because bears were too dumb to handle something like that. Then he made the biggest mistake he ever could have done.

  He brought up Skylar.

  Now when I thought about it, I couldn’t remember what exactly he’d said. It was all just a blur to me. All I knew was that the more the coyote spoke, looking over his shoulder at me; the hotter I got under my collar. My bear was itching to put him in his place.

  Grant could predict a storm was brewing inside me. He might have even suggested that we get up and go. But I’d had enough.

  I stood up from my chair, pushing it back with force and I had a pint of Guinness in my hand which I carried to the counter. The coyote was continuing to talk, I think. He might not have even seen me coming.

  I smashed the glass on his head before he had a chance to react. I let out a long growl, and the coyote tried to stand but I lifted him up in the air. He weighed nothing and I smashed him down, he hit the counter and there was blood everywhere.

  That I remembered, the blood. Grant came up to me, and he tried to drag me away. I was on the verge of shifting and he was yelling at me to hold it in. We could hear the police sirens in the background already. I couldn’t stop hitting the coyote.

  I didn’t stop.

  All of my anger towards the coyotes seemed to come out. Our clan had been fighting with their pack since before my time. We had fought over territory mainly, and in the last several years things had been quiet with them. We had thought they gave up. Until the coyote kidnapped Charlotte.

  That stirred things up again with their pack.

  They were responsible for everything. For the shit that all our lives were…for what happened to Skylar. Now that I had him, I was going to beat him to pulp. Make him an example for what they’d done to us…to Skylar.

  Then it was all a blur again. I was being taken away by the cops.

  Nothing about Skylar was a blur though. Even though it was ten years ago that I last saw her.

  She was the girl that got away. Technically, that wasn’t right. She didn’t want to go away. She might never have gone away if it wasn’t for those fucking coyotes.

  These days, I was thinking of her more.

  Her chestnut curls. Even when she was just ten, her curls grew all the way down to her hips and she always left it down. When we played together, out in the backyard of my father’s house—sometimes the breeze would blow her hair in my face and I’d wait a few moments, just breathing in her scent.

  I was just a kid too. We were growing up together. But even back then I knew that what I felt for Skylar was different. It wasn’t the same as what I felt for everyone else, for my other friends. She was special.

  I thought she was my true mate.

  Her blue eyes were large and expressive. All I had to do was just look at her and I knew what she was thinking. She didn’t have to say a word. I felt like we were the same person, like I knew her inside out. I’d always wondered, even though it was a decade ago; if that was what she thought of me too. That when she left Nashville, she had left a piece of herself behind.

  Her father was a member of our clan. They’d moved over from a clan in Indiana just a few years after Skylar was born. Because we were the same age, and because her family couldn’t afford childcare, Skylar was at our home a lot. She played with me and we ended up spending a lot of time together. For all intents and purposes, we were growing up together—and that was how we were treated; as family.

  Our previous Alpha, Nixon always instilled that value in us. Everyone who was a part of the clan, was family—he always said. And that was especially true for Skylar. He must have seen the way I looked at her, because he reminded me often that she was family. Maybe he knew how I felt about her.

  Women in our clan were meant to be respected. If we found our mate in one of them, we were encouraged to go for it. When we we
re younger though, the older clan members would try to discourage relationships. They thought that we were too younger to find our true mates, and they didn’t want us to get attached and lose out on meeting our true mate later on in life.

  But that never changed what I felt. No matter what our alpha told me, I always knew that she was going to be special to me. Deep down I knew that she was true mate. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I just did.

  Skylar Adams was the girl that got away, because since the age of fifteen I hadn’t seen her…but I’d never stopped thinking about her. And every day, I hoped that she was all right.

  Although there was very little I could do now. I haven’t heard from her since she left. And now I was in the Stronghold. When I’d beaten the crap out of coyote, apparently, I nearly killed him. And the cops were looking for any excuse to put someone from our clan in prison; and this was their perfect opportunity to do just that. They wanted to make an example out of shifters.

  Show humans that they still had the control.

  I was their scapegoat, the one they could put in detention and teach a lesson to the rest of the clan. Honestly, even when I look back to that night when they locked me up, I remember feeling nothing. I didn’t give a shit where I went.

  Ever since Skylar was gone from my life, I didn’t care what happened to me. It was like I didn’t feel any pain, just like I didn’t feel joy either. She was gone and she’d taken my feelings with her. Now, all that was left to do was duty. I was a member of the Canyon Shifter Clan. Our clan had ruled Nashville for generations, and that was what I was destined to carry forward.

  Besides, I knew they couldn’t keep me in here for long anyway.

  “Jackson!” someone’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I’d been dreaming about Skylar again, imagining what she looked like now. Imagining her living her life…making coffee in a kitchen, reading a book in her garden. I hoped she was safe and I hoped she was happy.

  I looked over through the iron bars and saw a guard standing there. Mitchell. He usually didn’t give me any trouble.

  “It’s your lawyer, Jackson. He’s here to see you,” Mitchell said.

  I stood up and walked towards the door.

  “What does he want? My parole hearing isn’t till next week,” I said, holding my hands out through the grate so he could cuff me.

  “Beats me. Ask him yourself,” Mitchell said.

  I had no idea what my lawyer could be doing here. We’d discussed the details of the parole hearing already, there was nothing left to discuss—unless something had gone wrong.

  If everything went well at the parole hearing, I was going to be out of this place in a week. But with my lawyer here to see me now, I couldn’t help but wonder if something had screwed my freedom over.

  Funnily enough, that didn’t bother me either. If my lawyer told me right now that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I was going to spend another two years in prison and stay out my full term—I wouldn’t care about that either.

  Mitchell guided me out of the cell and I walked with him. My head was filled with thoughts of Skylar again. I wasn’t thinking about my freedom, I was thinking about what my life might have looked like if she’d stayed. We could have had a family by now.

  If she loved me too.

  Chapter 2

  Skylar

  I hated the uniform they made us wear at the diner. Red and white candy-striped skirt that was short enough for the full length of my legs to be on display. The shirt was the same red color and very tight, making the material stretch over my breasts. We had to tie a frilly white apron around our waist. At least they let us wear white sneakers.

  As much as I hate the uniform, it was a job, and I needed one—now that I was back in Nashville and trying to get a fresh start.

  I’d been waitressing for several years now. It was how I’d put myself through high school and the first year of college. If I could, I would have liked to get a degree in History…but I knew I had no future in it. What kind of jobs did History majors get?

  I was alone in the world. Sure, my aunt and her family tried to look after me as best they could; but I owed it to them to figure out my life and move out of their home as soon as possible. They’d looked after me long enough.

  So, I had no choice but to drop out of college and look for real jobs. Jobs that would help me get an apartment and pay the bills. It was only a month ago; that I realized I wanted to return to Nashville.

  It had been ten years. I’d given it enough time for things to settle down…and nobody had the right to keep me from my home. Nashville was home. It was where I’d grown up.

  Besides, if I stayed away from the world I’d known when I was a kid—I couldn’t get in trouble, could I?

  So, I got a job at the diner. I found myself a small apartment nearby, and I kept my head down and tried to settle in. It felt good to be back. I finally felt like I was home again. Nashville had greeted me back with open arms.

  I carried the tray of waffles and milkshake to table nine. It was occupied by Mike, a seventy-year old regular who I’d gotten to chatting with these days. He looked up from his newspaper with a smile when I placed his usual order down on the table.

  “Thank you, sweetheart. Your face is like a breath of fresh air in this city of ours,” Mike said as he plopped open a napkin on his lap. I stood in front of him with my hand on my hip, smiling back at him.

  “What do you mean, Mike? What has this city done to you?” I asked and he tipped his head towards the newspaper.

  “All these shifters running around the city, look at this! The cops are never going to fix it. This city will never be safe. But your face…is a reminder there is still something beautiful in this world.”

  I tried to keep smiling at Mike. He was being sweet, and his compliments and flirting were always harmless. But I couldn’t keep smiling, not after what he’d just mentioned.

  I walked away from Mike, trying to be polite. Because he had no idea that he was talking about my family, about my past, and I didn’t want to break down in front of him.

  Mike had no idea that I was a shifter myself.

  Well, half-shifter. But a shifter nonetheless.

  I walked through the kitchen, rushing to the back so I could catch a breath of air. Every time I heard about the shifters in the area, even the slightest mention was capable of setting me off. Which was why it had taken me ten years to finally gather the courage to come back to Nashville. I still wasn’t sure if I could handle myself.

  Growing up, I always knew what I was. My mother was human and had died during childbirth, and my father was left to raise me. At least he had the rest of the clan to help him.

  Back then, the rest of the human world has no idea what shifters were. It wasn’t until a few years ago that we came out in the open. When I was a child, my father and I mainly stuck with the clan. I was taught that around humans, I was always supposed to hide what I truly was. Which is probably why Jackson as I got so close.

  My father blamed not being a part of a clan for the death of my mother. They were alone in Indiana, and had no one to help them. When my mother had complications with my birth, he had no one to turn to. Hear feared that if he took her to a human hospital, they would figure out what I was. So, after I was born, and he buried my mother, the first thing he did was find a clan that we could be a part of.

  He never wanted me to be alone like he was.

  I knew I should have considered Jackson a brother. We were growing up together, we played together and teased each other. But Jackson was never that, even as a child I knew he was handsome, that he was charming and strong and he would look after me. I dreamed about growing up to marry him. I dreamed that he was my true mate. But I never knew what he wanted.

  Now, I’d run out to the back of the kitchen and I was trying to catch my breath. Everything inside my head seemed to be a jumble. Not only was I seeing flashes of Jackson’s face, but there were scenes from that fateful night being replayed in my head t
oo.

  The night my father died.

  The night I watched my father dying.

  I shouldn’t have been at the lodge that night, but dad had called to say that he wanted to take me out for burger and fries. I was excited to have dinner with him and I rushed to the lodge. It always made me a little anxious to be away from Jackson, even if for one evening; but I was also looking forward to spending some time with my father. It wasn’t often that we ate together.

  The lodge was in a secluded spot in the wood in the outskirts of Nashville. There was nothing around it for miles, except woods which was perfect for the whole clan. It was a plan we could be our true selves.

  I remembered bounding up the stairs to an office my father was working in and throwing my arms around his neck.

  “I’ll just finish up here, lovely, and then we can go. Okay?” dad said, while he poured over the stacks of papers piled up on his desk. I liked watching him work. He was responsible of helping our Alpha take care of the clan. With his brows crossed in concentration, the sound of the click-click of his calculator. He was a loving and caring father, and I knew he tried to do the best he could for me.

  It was fifteen minutes later when we heard the sound of howls outside. It was late in the evening; the lodge was empty. Dad stood up and went to the window to look outside.

  He turned to me and I could see that the color had drained from his face all of a sudden.

  “Skylar, go to the cupboard and sit inside quietly,” he said. I grinned at him. I was fifteen. I wasn’t a little kid anymore. Did he think I was going to play some silly game with him?

  “Dad, please…” I rolled my eyes at him.

  We heard the sound of the front door being thrashed. Someone was breaking in downstairs.

  “Skylar! Now! Go, stay there and don’t come out till I tell you to!” He was hissing at me, and I’d never seen him like this before. He grabbed me by my arms and pushed me into the cupboard by the side of his desk.

  “Dad…what is going on?” I muttered, but he’d shut the door on my face. I was on my knees, crouched at the bottom of the cupboard, barely being able to see out through the wooden grate.