Phane leaned on the porch rail. It threatened to give way. Another goddamn Mr. Fix-it project coming up. “Are you going to tell me just where the hell you’ve been? What was so important when we could’ve used your help? Another set of fists?”
The wolf shifter looked past him, but his face was a mask of impassivity. “Like I told you, I just don’t want any part of this.”
Stubborn bastard. “We needed family and you took off.”
“You don’t know what family is anymore. You think it’s here? You think you fit in with these assholes? It’s just like New York or anywhere else, brother. You, me, Helo, we’re all mutts.”
“Fuck you!”
“No—fuck you!”
Phane heard something crash inside the cabin. Then a female voice shriek, “Hey! Bloodsucking hawk shifter male, where the hell are you?”
What the hell? He turned back to see Dani at his screen door. “Did you just come from inside the house?”
“I flew in from the other direction. Your window was open.”
“Didn’t sound like it,” he said, eyeing her. She looked hot as hell. Nothing new. “What’s going on?”
“Your brother. The water beast.”
His chest went tight at her expression. “What? What’s going on with Helo?”
“Those fucking rogue water shifters. They’re losing their minds. I swear to gods, the faction leaders need to—”
He yanked open the screen door. “Dani.”
“Right.” She stepped out. “He’s been taken by the water shifters. That group that helped the geriatric vampire asswipe, gave him the eel flesh. We need to go. Now. The Water Faction leader is calling a . . .” Her voice trailed off as she noticed who stood near the far edge of the cabin.
Phane nodded at his mutore brother. “This is my—”
“Lycos?” she said. “What are you doing here?”
Phane turned to face his brother. “You know each other?”
Lycos just shrugged, didn’t even glance at Dani.
Phane looked over his shoulder at the hawk shifter. “How do you know my brother?”
“Brother?” Dani looked from male to male, then broke out in laughter. “Well, well, well. This is interesting, and maybe even a little awkward. Lycos is one of the males I’m seeing.” Her brows rose. “He didn’t tell you?”
A low, feral sound erupted from Phane, and he leaped from the porch, shifting into his hawk just as Lycos grew fur and howled.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again and always, I want to thank my incredible editor, Danielle Perez. The sixth is just as sweet as the first, D.
And my amazing and supportive agent, Maria Carvainis. Thank you so very much for having my back.
My wonderful reader friends on Facebook. You make this job rewarding, fun, and oh so fulfilling!
And to my Girl Writer Collective: Jennifer Lyon, Katie Reus and Alexandra Ivy. 1 Hour 1 K? Anyone? Anyone?
Please turn the page for a preview of the first novel in
the Cavanaugh Brothers series
by Laura Wright,
BRANDED
Available from Signet Eclipse in June 2014.
JOURNAL OF CASSANDRA CAVANAUGH
May 12, 1997
Normally we bribed the cowboys five dollars to look the other way when we saddled up one of Daddy’s prize cow horses and rode off. But they’d raised their prices lately, and today it took both our monthlies to pay them off. Damn cowboys. Didn’t even care if it was my birthday.
“You still coming to the movies with me on Saturday?” Mac called over her shoulder. “It’s a PG-13, but I think I know someone who can get us in.”
I wrapped my arms even tighter around her waist as she kicked Mrs. Lincoln into a full-on gallop. “Daddy will never let me go and you know it.”
“It’s just a movie, Cass,” she returned as we cut through the tree-dotted pasture land and headed down for the Hidey Hole, the swimming circle we’d found and claimed when we were seven years old.
“Not to him,” I said. Mac doesn’t understand my family. Never has. It’s just her and her Dad at home, and Travis Byrd lets his daughter run wild and free. Sometimes it made me so jealous I could spit. Sometimes I felt bad she didn’t have a Mama. “To him it’s me sneaking off to meet boys.”
“But that’s not true.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m his baby girl.”
“You’re ten years old, Cass. That’s not a baby.”
A breeze kicked up, making the tall grass shiver around Mrs. Lincoln’s feet.
“Everett Cavanaugh is living in the dark ages,” Mac continued. “What about your mom? Maybe you can ask her.”
“She’ll do whatever Daddy says.”
Mac snorted as she steered the mare down the small incline toward the swimming hole. “I’ll never be that kind of wife.”
The idea of Mac being anyone’s wife was so crazy, I started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Mac asked indignantly. “Whoa, Mrs. Lincoln.” She stopped at the water’s edge, kicked one leg over the gray mare’s neck, and jumped down into the wet grass.
I followed her. I always followed her. “You getting married. That’s crazy.”
“I didn’t mean tomorrow, Cass Cavanaugh.” She wrapped the horse’s reins around the base of a young pecan tree, then sat down, kicked off her boots, and plunked her bare feet in the water. “But, you know, someday I plan on getting hitched.”
I sat down beside her, but kept my boots on. “To who?”
She turned to face me, tossed her blond ponytail over her shoulder and gave me one of those huge smiles that meant she had a secret she was aching to share. “A very lucky guy.”
“Barry Miller?” I asked.
Dark blue eyes filled with heat. “That dope?”
“He’s cute,” I pointed out.
“He doesn’t even know the difference between a stallion and a gelding.”
Behind us, a familiar male voice boomed down from the ridge. “And neither should you, Mackenzie Byrd.”
Both Mac and I jumped, then jerked around. A few feet up, sitting tall on his horse, Friction, his black Stetson dropped low over his forehead—green eyes as fierce as a wildcat’s—was my fourteen-year-old brother, Deacon. It was crazy, but in just over a year that boy had gone from being a beanpole with hair to a big, bossy, thought-he-knew-everything man.
“You two should be home,” he said. “Weather’s getting testy.”
“We like testy weather,” Mac piped up beside me, then tossed me a grin. Nothing Mac liked better than to make my brothers bristle.
Deacon’s mouth thinned and he turned Friction in a circle. “Your party’s been moved indoors, Cass, and while I’m sure Mackenzie here’ll be just fine in ripped jeans and dusty boots, Mom’s expecting you to clean up.”
“I’m fine, too,” I said, raising my chin like I’d seen Mac do a hundred times.
“No. You smell like manure.”
“How would you know? You can’t smell me from there.”
His eyes narrowed. “Because you and Mac always smell like manure.”
“They say shit’s good for the soul,” Mac called out, kicking up one foot and splashing me with cold water. “And for the skin.”
He eyed Mac sternly. “That’s enough out of you, Mackenzie Byrd.”
Mac just chuckled and continued to splash. “It’ll never be enough, Deacon Cavanaugh.”
Once again, he circled his horse at the top of the ridge. “I don’t like you hanging around my little sister. Cussing and stealing horses. You’re a bad influence.”
“And you’re a mama’s boy, riding all the way out here to fetch us,” she called back.
His face went red and he slid his aggravated gaze back to me. “I want you back at the house in twenty minutes, Cass.”
“Takes that long to ride,” I whined.
“Exactly.”
He turned, then gave Friction a hearty “Yup,” and took off at a gallop. Grumbling, I scrambled to my feet and made my way over to Mrs. Lincoln.
“Being the only girl sucks,” I mumbled, slipping the bridle from the tree.
Mac came up beside me, boots on over her wet feet, and gave me a leg up onto the mare’s back. “Good thing you have me,” she said, leaping up to sit in front of me.
I laughed, “You know it,” and wrapped my arms around her waist. “Deacon’s so damn bossy.”
Mac shrugged as we climbed the gentle incline. “He’s the oldest. Comes with the territory, I guess.”
“I know. I just wish he’d ease up a little. Maybe I should find him a girlfriend.”
Deacon had been right about the weather changing. Gray clouds sailed across the sky and the wind was kicking up good.
“Does he go out with anyone?” Mac asked as she gave the mare a gentle kick, setting her into a slow canter.
“Shoot if I know. He doesn’t tell me nothing. But we sure get a lot of calls after six o’clock at night.”
“Well, they can have him for now, I suppose,” Mac said, leaning into the wind. “But come my eighteenth birthday, that boy’s mine.”
“What?” The word fairly croaked out of my mouth. I was sure I hadn’t heard her right. “What are you talking about, Mac?”
“The guy I plan to marry someday?” Mac said with a grin in her voice. “It’s bossy, overbearing, know-it-all Deacon Cavanaugh.”
Shock barreled through me as I turned her words, her declaration, over in mind. But by the time my tongue felt brave enough to work, the gunmetal clouds overhead opened up and cried something vicious, and Mac urged Mrs. Lincoln into a run.