LUST UNLEASHED by Desiree Holt

LUST UNLEASHED by Desiree Holt

Night Seeker Series - Book One

Jonah Grey, driven by a lust for the blood of the legendary Chupacabra who murdered the woman he was to mate with, jumps at the offer to leave the FBI and join Night Seekers, who are dedicated to hunting and killing the devil beast.

Jonah encounters a woman and there is such explosive chemistry between them that neither can turn away from it, and the sex that follows brings them to a level of pleasure neither has ever known before. He divides his time between tracking the Chupacabra and erotic bouts of orgasmic sex with Dakota. But he’s a wolf and the devil beast must still be dealt with.

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Prologue

Craig Stafford sat at the head of the huge oak table in the dining room of the isolated ranch house and looked at the other people gathered there. He’d chosen carefully and he hoped wisely. The atmosphere in the room crackled with tension and expectancy. The eight men and women who stared back at him were all seasoned law enforcement veterans of one kind or another. But what really bound them together—what had really drawn them to answer his invitation—was an unsatisfied thirst for vengeance, much like his own.

“Thank you all for coming.” He nodded at the tall woman in jeans and plaid shirt. “Angie has made a large pot of coffee, but we also have tea for anyone who prefers it, as well as something a bit stronger.”

Everyone indicated coffee would be good and Angie distributed full mugs to them.

“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I asked you here,” the billionaire began, scanning faces again.

“You said it would be about the Chupacabra.” This from Jonah Grey, FBI agent. The Chupacabra had killed Jenna, the human he was about to mate with.

The legend of the Chupacabra occupied a huge place in folklore. Some believed it to be just that—a legend. Others, like Craig Stafford, who had seen its handiwork, knew it was real. The first sightings were reported in Puerto Rico, where a farmer found his goats slaughtered, hence the name, literally translated to “goat sucker”. People who claimed to have seen it reported a hellish animal with the head of a wolf and sharp fangs. For those sitting at the table who were shapeshifters, this degradation of the wolf was a personal insult.

Now the legend’s infamy had spread through both North and South America, reported from places as far apart as Maine and Wyoming. But Texas and Mexico had the most incidents, which was why Stafford was basing the team here.

“Yes. That’s correct.” Stafford was aware that Jonah was a shifter, another reason he’d been included. He stared at his coffee cup for a long moment. “You all know that my wife, Julia, and my daughter, Andrea, were killed several months ago. Slaughtered.” The pain, always near the surface, stabbed through him like hot metal. He’d been the one to find them in the north pasture of their ranch, a scene he’d never forget no matter how long he lived. One that opened the gates of hell for him every night.

“By an animal of some sort,” Jonah said.

Stafford turned his piercing gaze on him. “I won’t sugarcoat this. Here in this room I’m going to tell you that it was the Chupacabra. It has every sign of that beast’s usual attacks, despite what the authorities wanted me to believe.”

Everyone knew what that meant—puncture wounds at the throat, every drop of blood drained from the body, abdomen ripped open. They all looked at each other. They’d seen it before, too. Up close and personal.

“It’s been months since they died,” Stafford continued, bitter memories choking him. “I’ve been stonewalled and placated by every law enforcement agency in this state and this country. Scientists and zoologists have argued with me. But no one has stated positively that the Chupacabra is the killer or that they have any clue to what happened. I know, and each of you knows, because it happened to you.”

Everyone shifted uneasily, but they had their attention fixed on their host.

“Another point. Besides everyone at this table being in some area of law enforcement, six of you are shifters, with pure wolf ancestry. I think that’s important in tracking this hellish beast.” He paused, staring into his coffee. “I’m going to share something with you that very few people are aware of. I, too, am a shifter, separated long ago from my pack.”

Chelsea Roland, a private investigator, leaned forward. “I’m in the same situation you are.” She looked at the others. “Maybe we all have the same story in one way or another. My sister was a victim.” She swallowed hard.

A soft murmuring of sound filled the room.

“And that’s the basis for this gathering.” Stafford let his gaze travel around the table, studying each one in turn. “I propose we form our own pack. A group that will incorporate all the law enforcement skills you bring with you plus the highly developed senses of the shifters.”

“What about those of us who aren’t shifters?” The question came from Dante Martelo, Chicago Police Department. “My wife was killed by the beast while we were on vacation, so I’m definitely in, but are we the odd men—or women—out?”

Stafford shook his head. “Not at all. You bring specially honed skills with you that I consider very valuable to this team. If you all agree to form this team, you will each resign your current positions and relocate here to this ranch. I own the property. It’s isolated enough to keep prying neighbors away and as secure as technology can make it. Angie will take care of all the cooking and household chores, and two of my best hands will handle the heavier chores as well as providing additional security.”

“Besides the similarities in the killings, there’s one more thing we need to be very aware of.” Chelsea looked around the table at everyone. “I Googled everything I could find about the beast and the killings. There isn’t a lot because people usually try to deny it.” She stopped, took a breath. “But I did pick up a couple of very valuable pieces of information. The killings usually come in threes. And the sites are not too far away from each other.”

“I discovered that, too.” Mark Guitron, former deputy sheriff in Montana nodded his head. “Always three before the beast leaves the area to hunt somewhere else. And always in an area partly isolated from the other people.”

“Jenna and I lived right outside the city where the land became pretty rural,” Jonah put in. We liked being away from other people.”

Dante Martello leaned forward. “My wife and I were staying at a vacation cabin in Maine when it happened.”

Voices murmured around the table as others shared bits and pieces of the circumstances of their own tragedies.

“What all this means,” Stafford told them, “is that when we get a report of a killing we need to be vigilant and know the devil beast isn’t through with that area yet. It’s impossible to predict where it will strike so tracking it will be difficult, but we can make educated guesses. We just have to do the best we can.”

“Will you be providing the money?” someone asked. “This looks to be an expensive operation.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I will fund the entire operation and there will be no limit to what you can spend.” He waved his hand in the air. “This house has ten bedrooms and sits in the middle of five hundred acres. It’s surrounded by an electrified fence and we have a state-of-the-art alarm system so we don’t have unannounced visitors.”

“So we’re isolated here.” This from Ric Garza, former Texas Ranger and another shifter. “Not that I care. I haven’t mingled well in society since I found my mother’s body.”

Stafford nodded. “Yes. And the place has an appropriate name, both for its location and the situation. Desolation Ranch.”

“What about personal funds?” Garza asked. “If we leave our present jobs we’ll need some way to earn a living.”

Stafford nodded. “A good point. You will each be very well compensated.” He pointed to a stack of papers in front of him. “I have a contract here for each of you to sign if you’re in that spells everything out very clearly—what you’ll be paid, how, what your responsibilities will be. But you must agree to be in this for however long it takes to track this monster down and kill him.”

“Does this group have a name of some kind?” Martelo wanted to know.

Stafford looked around the table. “Yes, it does, and I hope you all approve. I’m calling it Night Seekers. Because while all your skills are sharp at any time, you operate especially well at night. And that’s when this devil does his murderous work.”

“And our purpose?” Jonah Grey asked.

Stafford gave them each his steely gaze again, studying them one at a time as if to assure himself they would all understand the directive.

“Find and destroy the Chupacabra.”

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LUST UNDONE by Desiree Holt

LUST UNDONE by Desiree Holt

Night Seekers Series - Book Three

Returning to her home state of Maine to investigate a possible Chupacabra killing, Sophia Black meets Clint Beaudine, lean, dark and sexy. The heat between them is incendiary, the sex erotic and the pleasure beyond her imagination. Clint fulfills all her fantasies and teaches her ways to please him. The Maine air might be cold but in Sophia’s motel room it’s beyond boiling.

Clint helps her with her case, using his knowledge of the area in which he grew up. As they learn each other’s secrets it’s obvious to both of them that they are meant to be together. Mated. But the Chupacabra is out in the snow, hunting human prey.

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An Excerpt From: LUST UNDONE

Copyright © DESIREE HOLT, 2010

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Prologue



“I’d like to propose a toast.”

Craig Stafford raised his champagne flute and looked at the people gathered around him.

“We look entirely too somber for a wedding party.”

“You’re right,” Logan Tanner, a former Montana deputy sheriff, chimed in. “This is an important occasion and we should be celebrating it.”

“To Chloe and Mark.” Craig smiled at the couple standing near him. “Sunshine in darkness. May you have a long and happy life together.”

The others echoed him and then lifted their glasses to drink to Mark Guitron and Chloe Hansen. Mark’s arm was tight around the shoulders of his very new bride, the gesture both loving and protective.

This very specialized group of people called Night Seekers was all standing on the patio of Desolation Ranch. Set up as their headquarters, the ranch had been purchased by Stafford, the reclusive billionaire who was dedicating his life to the eradication of the Chupacabra. The devil beast.

El Chupacabra!

The name of the creature inspired a combination of rage and frustration in every one of the eight members of the Night Seekers. Each of them had lost at least one person close to them to the beast that killed in a horrendous way. Victims’ throats were punctured, blood drained and internal organs ripped from their bodies.

Twice now, in two different locations in Texas, the members of the team had thought they’d killed the Chupacabra, only to have a report of new killings pop up not long after that.

Each time the team was sure it had killed the murderous creation, Stafford maneuvered to get the body whisked away to his secret lab. There his scientists did their best to identify where this abomination had derived from. For years, before Stafford became involved, other scientists had operated on the theory that it was the result of two distinct species mating. Now they were slowly coming to the realization that, while that may have been the origin, it was much more than that. Possibly even the result of human genetic engineering.

There was no readily identifiable DNA. And circumstance had led them to also believe the creature was some sort of shifter, able to assume other forms, not just human.

The legend of the Chupacabra was one that had been handed down for decades, the stories stretching from South America to North America. Sightings were recorded in many places and it had been written about and speculated over extensively. Sophia Black, a former detective with the Maine State Police, had read all about the ranchers who swore they’d killed it only to have it turn out to be a mutated goat or coyote.

But the killing spree continued—animals and humans alike. Was it a wild animal of some sort because of the way the bodies were mutilated, sliced open with the entrails pulled out? Or a vampire, as some thought, because each body had puncture wounds at the neck and was drained of blood? Talk about your way-out-there theories. And each time someone was sure the beast had been killed it turned out to be a false alarm, just as it had for the Night Seekers in Maverick and Zapata Counties in Texas. Because the killings continued and the bodies piled up.

And the legend continued to grow.

Every member of the team was frustrated by the inability to track the beast to its actual lair. Since the Night Seekers had been formed there had been nine more killings—three in Georgia and six in Texas. A depressing thought for everyone. Twice now they’d thought they’d had it, only to learn it was still loose. Or another one like it. And that was an even scarier thought. That someone, somewhere, was breeding these creatures which could assume different shapes at will.

If there was a bright spot in all the pain, it was the knowledge that on the first Night Seekers mission, in Maverick County, former FBI agent Jonah Grey had found Dakota Furcal, now Dakota Grey. An herbalist, among the things she grew were the special herbs that six members of the group needed to maintain their genetic balance. The six who themselves were shapeshifters. Wolves.

The most recent mission had brought Chloe and Mark together and she had returned to the ranch with him when he finished in Zapata County.

The event tonight should have been a joyous one. Weddings were supposed to be a time of festivity and filled with merriment. But an underlying sense of anguish gripped everyone and unfortunately took the edge off the celebration. Subdued the happiness.

Mark Guitron and Chloe Hansen stood in the fading sunlight, accepting the good wishes of their teammates.

It wasn’t difficult, however, to read the sadness in Chloe’s eyes. Despite the best efforts of the team her friend Melinda was still missing. Her disappearance in Zapata County in Southwest Texas on the Mexican border had been too coincidentally close to new Chupacabra killings not to tie them together.

While no one except Chloe wanted to say it out loud, they all suspected that if humans were behind the latest evolution of the devil beast they had captured Melinda for their own devious purposes. That her fate might be worse than death.

Stafford, standing to one side of the patio, put down his empty champagne flute. Everyone knew the story of his wife and child, killed by the Chupacabra when they were all vacationing in Mexico. Now he dedicated his life and his billions to wiping the beast off the face of the earth. Night Seekers had been his idea. All the members, from various states and various law enforcement agencies, had been specifically chosen by him.

“I hate to bring this up at a wedding party,” he began, “but I think we need to put something on the table that everyone’s thinking and no one wants to say.”

“I’ll say it.” Chloe removed her hand from her husband’s arm and stepped forward. “It’s my wedding—well, Mark’s and mine—and my friend everyone’s thinking about.” She glanced over her shoulder at Mark who smiled and stepped up beside her. He put his arm around her and pulled her into his side.

“Everyone’s thinking it,” she repeated, “and so am I. It’s obvious there are more of these creatures out there than anyone ever suspected. So either they’re crossbreeding with other species or someone’s screwing around with genetics. And Melinda’s been taken to wherever this hellhole is.”

“I think we’re all aware,” Craig agreed, “that we’re seeking something far beyond what we originally thought when we started this project. It’s not only impossible for one creature to be in so many far-flung places, but we’ve killed two and yet the destruction still continues.”

“I can’t imagine what kind of deranged human being would breed creatures like this.” Logan Tanner, the former Montana deputy sheriff, had seen more of the Chupacabra death trail when Craig sent him to check out bodies in Georgia. The horrific pictures he’d brought back were now scanned into the main file on the computer. “And to what purpose?”

“To kill,” Craig said. “To destroy. Think of the power someone would have if they had an army of these devil beasts.”

Jonah Grey swallowed the last of his champagne. Next to him stood his wife Dakota. Now he linked his fingers with hers.

“Those of us who are shifters know that around the world there are others like us who live only for power and control, and are driven by a bloodlust. It’s obvious one of them has decided to harness that power and enhance it.”

“Are you sure it’s a shifter?” Chloe asked.

Jonah nodded. “I’d say that odds are weighted in that direction. A shifter who knows the power he or she controls would want to crossbreed and enhance it. With an army of shifter killers at his or her disposal that person could wreak havoc on society.”

“You’d be amazed at what some people will do,” Logan agreed. “Or maybe not. In Montana we had a bunch of what you’d call mountain men. Guys who lived at the back of beyond and thought civilization was a dirty word. Three brothers, for example, used to kidnap people and take them up on the mountain they owned and chase them for sport. With rifles. And kill them.”

Ric Garza, the de facto leader of Night Seekers, refilled his champagne flute. “So it seems someone’s decided to create their own wild animals. Shifters, maybe with human DNA if they can achieve it. And what? Turn them loose?”

Craig shook his head. “Sell them. Look at any of your Third-World countries with vicious dictators. Think what they could do with a pack of these devil beasts to exert control over the people. And if they can assume not just human form but that of domestic animals, people would never know when there was one in their midst.”

Everyone stood quietly absorbing the enormity of that statement. The silence was broken only when a cell phone played The Maine Stein Song. Sophia Black’s phone. A former investigator with the Maine State Police, she used the state song as her ringtone. Everyone looked at her as she pulled it from the pocket of her slacks and pressed talk.

“This is Sophia.”

They all watched as she listened, the color slowly leeching from her face. Her twin nephews had been killed by El Chupacabra and she was viciously dedicated to its eradication. She’d been one of the first to be convinced that, rather than migrating to other states from Texas and the South American countries, there were indeed more than one of the creatures. Now, with the increased number of killings all over the country, the entire team was convinced.

“All right. I’ll get back to you shortly.” She disconnected the call and shoved the phone back in her pocket. She looked around at everyone. “That was my sister Rebecca. Sorry to break up the party but there’s been another killing. Up in the woods in northern Maine. And as before, no one there seems to have a clue what they’re dealing with.”

“There’ll be plenty of time to celebrate when we bring this to an end,” Mark said.

“And when we find Melinda,” Chloe added. “I’m for anything that brings us a step closer.”

“Then let’s go into the command center,” Craig said, “and see what we have.”

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