Now that we’re back to working on the Last Pack stories (which we’ll be releasing as Kit Rocha going forward) it’s time for me to actually spend a little time talking about the Last Pack! Which means for the next few weeks, I’m going to introduce you to one badass pack member per week.
(Remember: Part One is currently on sale for just $0.99! , or you can get the complete bundle of the first serial for $4.99 here.)
This week we’re going to talk about BLAKE!
Blake is the hero of Protecting their Mate. He’s the alpha’s second-in-command, a very accomplished cage-fighter and an all around badass. Unlike some of his pack brothers, Blake isn’t very good at navigating the human world. He finds humans annoying and confusing, and has a hard time leashing his less human nature when he has to engage with them. As a result, humans tend to be uneasy around him–most sense the inner predator.
But being in touch with his inner-beast makes him the perfect person to help his heroine, Ashley, as she tries to understand her own suppressed nature. And even though he longs to claim her as his mate, he knows that Ashley is the one who gets to decide–and he’ll do whatever it takes to help her discover herself.
Here’s an introduction to Blake in his own POV…
* * *
Whatever had killed Landon Todd had done him a favor. Because if Ashley’s father had still been alive, Blake would have found a very, very painful way to relieve him of the condition.
The girl was starving, maybe literally. God only knew how long she’d been trapped in that basement, burning up with the fever of the mating heat. She was still flushed with it, but the rules of survival—food, then sex—seemed to have taken the edge off for the moment.
But watching her eat her cheeseburger wasn’t taking the edge off his rage. It wasn’t hard to starve a werewolf. A few hours without food ramped up his temper. Four days would have him chewing through concrete. And that was just the latest of too many atrocities, the final fucking outrage.
She burned with magic. Burned so, so bright. Dumbing themselves down with human lives and human urges might have worked for the Todds, but they were idiots for thinking it would work for their daughter. Blake could feel her wolf from here, a wild, hungry creature determined to break free.
He wondered if she’d ever changed. Most of the wolves who lived along humans didn’t. They forgot what they were, where they came from. They forgot how to be anything but helpless sheep, and they raised their offspring to be ashamed and controlled.
If you stifled magic long enough, it died like a flame deprived of oxygen.
Usually.
Ashley finished her burger. He dragged her empty plate toward him and pushed his own into its place. “Eat that, too.”
Her dark brows drew together over darker eyes. “No, thank you.”
The defiance grated. He could only handle so much, and he’d been choking down his instincts since setting foot in that basement. She was in pain. So many different kinds of pain, and the worst—
Even here, in the restaurant, surrounded by sleepy waitresses and even sleepier truckers, she was turned on. He could smell her arousal. He could damn near taste it. He wanted to slide under the table and shove her thighs wide. Then he could taste her for real, feel that sweet wetness on his tongue. Make her come hard enough to ease the fever.
Or maybe getting off without getting fucked would just make it worse. Maybe the only way to ease it was to work his cock into her. He didn’t know. Most wolves wouldn’t. That had been the first sign of the failing bloodlines—fewer and fewer females going into heat. Fewer and fewer wolves finding mates.
She had an ache he couldn’t fix, but there was one hunger he could cure. Meeting her gaze, he leaned across the table and put the harsh edge of command in his voice. “Eat the burger, Ashley. You need it.”
Fire sparked in her eyes, and the faintest growl formed low in her throat. She broke the spell a moment later by looking away. “I haven’t had a meal in days. If I eat too much, too fast, I’ll be sick. Trust me.”
Rage spiked again, not at the words but at the resigned experience behind them. She knew. She knew because it wasn’t the first time she’d been starved.
He wanted to drive back to her house and kill her worthless father a second time.
“Fine.” He was too pissed off to mess with the waitress. Some of the others in the pack could pass, even when they were angry, but Blake wasn’t one of them. Humans sensed the predator in him, and had a tendency to get nervous, even call the cops.
He couldn’t afford that hassle, not tonight. So he dug too many bills out of his wallet and dumped them on the table. That was the useful thing about humans—they ignored their survival instincts when you waved enough money under their noses.
The room wasn’t far. The motel was a dump, but dumps were useful for the same reason—a lot of cash up front and no one spared you a second glance. Blake steered Ashley toward their room and didn’t relax until they were both locked on the other side. “I’ll pick us up something else to eat in a few hours.”
“Okay.” She nodded too fast. She was breathing too fast.
Her arousal was inescapable. Her flushed cheeks, her tight nipples, the unsteady gulps of air that lifted those full, beautiful breasts. Somewhere, lost under his rage and the hunger triggered by her own, he knew it was wrong. She was on shaky ground, weakened by the mistreatment and neglect of a father she was probably still mourning. Those were excellent reasons not to put his hands on her.
But she’d like having his hands on her, and that was one reason to do it anyway.
Six years before the Beyond series started, an ambitious bootlegger named Dallas O’Kane caught a very pretty thief named Lex with her hand in his safe.
