Welcome author Shea Balik and her new release, Purring With His Mate, Miracle Book 1
Welcome to Miracle!
In a world where everyone was against them, they needed a Miracle. What no one had expected was to find their salvation in an abandoned town that was ready to collapse. Yet, that is exactly what happened when they moved to the town of Miracle, Oregon.
In a world where everyone was against them, they needed a Miracle. What no one had expected was to find their salvation in an abandoned town that was ready to collapse. Yet, that is exactly what happened when they moved to the town of Miracle, Oregon.
Edrick Rapp, a mountain lion shifter, wanted to kick himself for not moving he and his friends far from their former pack years earlier. It wasn’t until he came upon one of his friends being beaten to death for their sins that he realized his mistake.
Mouse shifter, Nole Hayward, had been punished by his Alpha. Left for dead, he barely managed to crawl away with his life. He ends up hiding out in Miracle, Oregon until a group of mountain lion shifters show up. Before he could get away he ends up with a building collapsing down around him and his mate rescuing him.
CHAPTER 1
“Please tell me we’re just stopping to take a
piss,” Hudson whined as the rumble of their motorcycles died down.
Edrick Rapp ignored Hudson as he swung his
leg over his treasured Fat Boy S. He
took in the surroundings and tried his best not to wince at what he saw. The last thing he needed was for Hudson to
have an actual good reason to bitch. The
man may be one of his best friends, but Hudson had the unique ability to
complain about winning the lottery as if it were a bad thing.
When Edrick had bought this little town, he’d
known it had been abandoned for some time and would need work. He’d just hoped it wouldn’t look like if they
breathed on it wrong, the whole place would topple over.
There had originally been ten buildings along
the main street of the town, well, the only street the town actually had. The two other roads the town boasted were
nothing more than dirt paths. One led to
a small residential area, while the other led to a large farm that, according
to the real estate agent, no longer had any buildings that were still
standing. There was a second farm
nearby, but the owner had refused to sell.
Scanning the ten buildings, Edrick guessed he
should be glad that only two of the buildings had collapsed. The other eight buildings were still
standing.
Sort of.
Okay, so they may have only been upright
because they were leaning against each other, preventing them from tumbling
into a pile of wood and brick. The point
was, they were vertical – mostly.
Hopefully, the six homes the real estate
agent claimed were still intact that came with the town were in better shape or
they would be camping out - again.
Something they had done the past two nights as they’d run from their
previous pack. Edrick could have gotten hotel rooms, but he didn’t want there
to be any trace of where they had gone.
He only hoped traveling to the other side of
the country was enough to keep his father from hunting them down. Edrick sighed at that thought. Two thousand miles would be a deterrent,
especially if his father’s pack couldn’t follow their movements electronically. But, sooner or later, Lorcan Rapp would find
them, if for no other reason than to prove he could.
But for now, they were safe - he hoped. The last thing Edrick wanted to do was to
fight his father. He had little doubt
he’d win, but he wouldn’t relish killing his old man.
Shaking the morbid thoughts away, he answered
Hudson. “Sorry to disappoint, but this
is our new home.”
“Good,” Lucca growled. “Kellach needs to rest. Riding on the back of my bike as he tries to
heal isn’t helping.”
A stab of guilt pierced Edrick’s heart at the
reminder of his failure to protect his friend.
Striding over to where Kellach leaned heavily against Lucca’s bike,
Edrick cupped his friend’s face and tilted it up so he was looking into his
pretty lavender eyes, filled with so much pain it threatened to send Edrick to
his knees. “I’m so sorry, Kellach. Can you hold on another few minutes? The houses are just a short distance away.”
A much smaller hand landed on top of his as
Kellach tried to smile. “This isn’t your
fault, Edrick. We all knew the
risks. I was careless and paid the
price.”
A rumble pushed up from deep within Edrick as
he thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t of come upon Kellach
getting beaten by his friend’s father when he did. The rage that had been in Milton Alder’s eyes
had a promise of death that would be long and painful. Something Kellach had already gotten a taste
of for far too long before Edrick had shown up.
“If I had just gotten us out of there like I
should have, this never would have happened.”
They also might not have his father’s pack after them, prepared to kill
them.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,”
Hudson called out as he picked up a sign that had been lying on the
ground. “This place is called
Miracle.” Hudson gave a snort of derision. “Miracle the place is still standing.”
“Miracle it remains that way if we breathe
too hard,” Kellach joked, even though he clearly was in a tremendous amount of
pain.
“Miracle this place hasn’t fallen down on top
of us,” Lucca said as he stared critically at their new home.
“Miracle if we can fix it,” Chadwick, the
last of their team chimed in. “Actually,
tearing it down and starting from scratch might be a lot easier.” A light Edrick hadn’t seen in Chadwick’s eyes
for more than a decade flamed to life as their resident handyman started
inspecting the closest structure from the outside. “Although, it would be a shame to destroy the
character each building has to offer.”
How they rebuilt the town wasn’t something
Edrick cared about. As far as he was
concerned, that would be completely up to Chadwick, who was the only one of
them with enough building experience to make that decision. “We’ll follow your lead on this one,” Edrick
told his friend.
Gray eyes studied him for a moment as if
Chadwick was trying to ascertain if Edrick was serious or not. He must have seen the sincerity in Edrick’s
gaze, for Chadwick gave a nod. “First we
need to find these houses you mentioned and see if any of them are livable.”
Edrick agreed. They needed to get some rest. Tomorrow they could make plans for what they
would need to do to restore the town Edrick had bought. “Let’s load up.”
Once more engines roared to life. As soon as Kellach was safely on Lucca’s
bike, Edrick rolled onto the road that should lead them to their new
homes. He just prayed they would have
some time to figure out how they were going to defend themselves when Edrick’s
father caught up with them.
As much as Edrick would like to believe they
were safe, he wasn’t stupid enough to think that was an actual
possibility. Edrick had committed the
ultimate sin in his father’s eyes. He
admitted to being gay. At forty-five, a
mere child in the shifter world, it had been past time to stand up to the
archaic bigotry that ran rampant in the shifter world.
Why a person’s sexuality mattered, was
anyone’s guess.
They were mountain lion shifters. As with all shifters, fate designed
mates. Male or female didn’t seem to
matter to the powers that be, so why did men like his father think it was a sin
to love someone of the same sex?
In the past, same-sex mates had a difficult
choice – ignore the mate pull, which was nearly impossible, or accept their
mate and live the rest of their lives on the run from shifters who believed
they should be killed for their immoral ways.
In the past? Who was he
kidding? The practice was still
occurring.
Case in point. Them.
Kellach had been caught kissing a man by one
of their pack mates. His father had been
told and when Kellach got home, his father started beating him. If Edrick hadn’t of passed Kellach’s home and
heard his friend cry out, he had no doubt Kellach would have died that day.
The rage that had coursed through Edrick’s
veins when Milton admitted why he was beating his own son, nearly ended in
Milton’s death. Edrick had wanted to rip
the man to shreds and would have, if Lucca, who had been with him when they
discovered Kellach, hadn’t stopped him.
By then, it was too late to stop the wheels
that had been set in motion. Hauled in
front of his father for daring to interfere in a father’s right to kill his own
child for his perverted ways, Edrick had to explain his actions.
Refusing to allow his friend to be sentenced
to death for being gay, Edrick admitted that he, too, was gay. His friends had already grabbed their go bags
by the time he’d made that announcement.
Their bikes were loaded up and waiting for them outside of the council
chambers.
They had barely made it out with their
lives. Only the shock he’d caused by
announcing his sexuality had delayed the attack by his father and his
enforcers. By then, Edrick had scooped
Kellach up in his arms and charged out of the council room to where their
friends were waiting for them, bikes ready.
From the beginning, they had known one day
something would happen to out them.
Plans had been made, including a sizeable amount of money saved and
moved to secret accounts that couldn’t be traced. The more advanced technology came to be, the
easier it became to create new identities and hide their actions. But Edrick knew it would also make them
easier to find in the end. The world was
just too small to keep their whereabouts a secret for long.
Turning onto an overgrown road that was more
weeds and potholes than a smooth dirt surface, Edrick groaned as he took in the
six homes that lined one side of it. Two
of the homes no longer had roofs. Two of
them had large sections of walls missing.
While the other two appeared in somewhat better shape, they still looked
ready to fall over from a stiff wind.
He wasn’t sure any of them were livable
enough to give them shelter. It looked
like they would be camping once more.
Turning off the engine, Edrick climbed off
his bike and headed for one of the two story homes that might have a chance of
remaining standing. Chadwick quickly
joined him.
They circled the structure first, looking for
any obvious signs of trouble.
“Considering the other homes, it’s in relatively good shape,” Chadwick
said as they came around to the front of the house.
Carefully, they opened the front door, which
fell to the ground as soon as Edrick pushed against it. “Then again, what do I know?” Chadwick
quipped.
Edrick glared at him. Normally he would be thrilled his usually
reserved friend had been coming out of his shell the further from the pack they
traveled, but this wasn’t the time for joking around. They were all too damn tired. “You’re a contractor.”
Chadwick lifted a shoulder as he carefully
stuck his head inside the door. “Yeah,
but that doesn’t make me psychic.”
“That doesn’t look safe,” Hudson called
out. “Maybe we should find a hotel
nearby.”
Out of all of them, Hudson hated camping the
most. He grumbled the entire time about
how hard the ground was. Then again,
Hudson would have bitched about the thread count of the sheets at a five-star
hotel, so he didn’t pay much attention to his friend. Admittedly, camping wasn’t Edrick’s favorite
way to sleep, but he didn’t mind it, either.
His cat enjoyed being outdoors.
Chadwick looked over his shoulder and gave
Hudson a cocky grin. “Aww, come on
Hudson. Where is your sense of
adventure? If you’re lucky, there might
even be a ghost or two inside.”
Edrick had to stop himself from smacking
Chadwick for bringing up ghosts. They
had enough problems. The last thing they
needed was Hudson becoming obsessed over paranormal activity.
“Do you think so?” Hudson asked as he clomped
up the steps of the porch. “I knew I
should have taken the time to grab my equipment,” Hudson groused. “It wouldn’t have taken that long.”
“For the last time, Hudson, even if you did
have time, you have too much crap for us to have carried,” Lucca said from
where he stood holding a now sleeping, or most likely passed out, Kellach, in
the safety of the yard.
“Enough,” Edrick growled. He was too damn tired to let this inane
argument continue. They needed to find
a safe place to bed down for the night and let Kellach get some real rest so he
could finish healing.
Turning to Chadwick, he asked, “Is this place
safe enough to enter or should we set up the tents?”
Chadwick crooked an eyebrow and
shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.” Before Edrick could respond, Chadwick stepped
inside.
Not about to let another of his friends get
hurt, Edrick entered right behind Chadwick.
As darkness fell, the dim interior didn’t allow them to see much,
although as mountain lion shifters, they could see relatively well in the
waning light.
As they walked further inside, a faint scent
tickled Edrick’s senses. His cock
thickened. He couldn’t explain what he
was feeling, but the need to find the source of that scent became paramount.
Striding through the home faster than was
probably wise, Edrick let the arousing aroma lead him up the creaky stairs to
one of the large bedrooms with an attached en suite. Disappointed to not find the source, Edrick
searched each nook and cranny. He might
have wondered if Hudson was right about ghosts if he hadn’t noticed there was a
disturbance of dust along the floor. It
was more pronounced in one area, as if someone had slept there recently.
“I think it’s safe enough for us to use as we
fix it up,” Chadwick said several minutes later when he’d caught up to
Edrick. “It’s going to need a lot of
work, but it appears sturdy enough.”
Edrick nodded his agreement. “Tell the others and let’s get set up for the
night.”
Once more Edrick’s gaze swept the room,
looking for evidence of who had been there.
Not finding anything, Edrick headed downstairs to help unload.
Based on the faintness of the scent, the
person was no longer there, but if Edrick had to guess, he had only been gone a
couple of days. If he was lucky, whoever
it was would be back. If not, he’d have
to hunt him down, because Edrick was positive that enticing aroma was from his
mate.
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