Make Him Purr: A Paranormal BBW Werepanther Shape Shifter Mail-Order Navy SEAL Romance Read online

  MAKE HIM PURR

  SHIFTER GROVE BRIDES

  BOOK 1

  BY

  ANYA NOWLAN

  Copyright © 2015 Anya Nowlan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Make Him Purr

  Shifter Grove Brides

  Book 1

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover © Jack of Covers

  You can find all of my books here:

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  www.anyanowlan.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  BILLIONBEARS’ NEW HONEY EXCERPT

  WANT MORE?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sonya

  “Come out, come out wherever you are! Here, puss-puss-puss!”

  The mocking tone scraped at Sonya’s ear. She was clinging for dear life to the wooden beams running the length of the large living room, hoping and praying that the owner of said annoying voice would move further, faster.

  “You sure she’s here, Deke?” another voice asked.

  Great. Deke and his doofus in crime, Tate, Sonya thought glumly, readjusting her grip.

  She was almost as if hovering, her hands and legs spread between the two ceiling beams, keeping her well up and out of sight. Her panther growled deep within her, urging her to let it out. She knew she couldn’t – at least not without attracting any attention. As confident as she was in her capabilities, Sonya doubted even she could shift and land on her paws before dropping down from the ten-feet high ceiling.

  “I can smell the bitch,” Deke snorted, his voice slightly more distant.

  Sonya bit down harder on the black velvet bag she was holding between her teeth just as the lights came on in a corridor next to the living room. She’d been just fine with Tate and Deke walking in on her as long as they’d kept things dark and in her favor, but it seemed her luck was slowly running dry.

  Just what I need tonight. Jackals.

  Sonya glanced around underneath her, considering the black leather couch just below. She’d used it to scale up to the ceiling when she’d first heard the two men crashing through the front door. Half-relieved it wasn’t Blade and half-horrified that it was his pair of cronies, she’d been weighing her options for a good few minutes now. It was obvious time wasn’t on her side.

  “Well, she did live here,” Tate offered, his voice muffled.

  “And she was scrubbed out of here with Lysol. If I can smell her here, she’s still here now. You hear me, Sonya? Just come out. I swear I’ll play nice. At least nicer than Blade’s going to if he catches you sneaking dirty,” Deke hollered.

  She could see his awkwardly grinning face so clearly in her head. The man looked like he was constantly in the middle of a particularly painful bowel movement. She’d come to know it as the ‘jackal look’. That didn’t mean that he was any less capable of breaking every bone in her body if he got his hands on her. Years of picking on Blade’s simpleton cronies was bound to catch up on Sonya eventually. She just hoped it wouldn’t quite yet.

  Sonya’s hand trembled. She shot it a glare, but that wasn’t going to fix anything. Any moment now, her muscles would start cramping, and then she’d tumble down like a wounded bird, ripe for shredding between sharp jackal teeth. Especially when they found out that she wasn’t just nosing around her ex-boyfriend’s lavish digs, but taking a keepsake as well.

  Fine mess you’ve got yourself into, Sonya, she chided herself, feeling her legs start to twitch.

  The footsteps moved closer. Mentally, she tracked where they could be. They must have just walked through the bedroom and the master bathroom, and were now making their way through the guest bedrooms. It had been blind luck that Tate and Deke had gone through the living room first, not even bothering to turn on the light as Deke followed his nose. Had he flipped the switch, it would have been pretty hard to miss the curvy, black-clad cat burglar hanging from the ceiling.

  Maybe, just maybe, if she was fast, she could scoot out before they got back. The velvet of the bag brushed against her tongue and the cottony texture made her throat tickle. Exactly what she needed – a sneeze or a cough.

  Now or never.

  With feline grace, Sonya retracted her iron hold and let her body twist in the air, ducking and rolling on the buttery leather as she hit the sofa. She was up on her feet so fast that it was hard to believe she hadn’t just appeared out of thin air. Just as swiftly, her feet were carrying her towards the door leading out onto the porch and the expansive gardens that stretched seemingly forever outside one of Blade’s many homes.

  Moonlight bathed the living room, licking at the nooks and corners. The house was decked out. All fine wood and expensive materials. Only the best of marbles and most obscure artists would do for the premiere shifter drug dealer on the West Coast. Sonya caught herself looking at her surroundings almost forlornly as she passed through the huge living room, lamenting all that she was leaving behind.

  Fuck that. He’s a prick and karma’s going to kick his ass one day, she reminded herself.

  Plenty of time to cry after her shitty choices later. Right now, she needed to focus on getting the hell out of Dodge – or California, anyway.

  Her hands gripped the handle that would let the screen door slide open, but before she could tug on it, the door was ripped to the side and the moonlight blacked out by a huge figure.

  “Shit,” she mumbled into the bag that was still between her lips and stumbled backwards with her mind going into overdrive.

  “That’s no way to greet your mate, baby,” Blade said, wearing a sneer that made Sonya think of anything but warm and cuddly mating.

  The lights were flicked on behind her and a cold shiver ran down her spine.

  “I told you she was here,” Deke called triumphantly.

  Sonya didn’t need to look over her shoulder to imagine the winning grin Deke must have been wearing. Even less did she have to imagine the dopey, confused look that Tate certainly had plastered on his face. He was like a big, dumb puppy, made to do things by people much smarter than he was.

  “Where do you think you’re going with that, Sonya?” Blade rumbled, his voice reverbing back on the walls.

  Just the sight of him could fill most people with dread, and lately, Sonya was no different. She knew every muscle, every inch of his body, and she thought she was intimately acquainted to every face he made, but this one was new. The way he was looking at her wasn’t just dangerous, it was fucking horrifying. His hard, wide jaw was squared and tense, and
his slightly Roman nose looked even more severe now that his nostrils were flared.

  Blade’s gray eyes glared through her, and she thought she would ice up all over. Her shoulders hunched a bit and her muscled were brimming with readiness. Fight or flight? Looking at the gigantic Caspian tiger shifter in front of her, flight seemed like the more reasonable choice.

  She didn’t say a word because she didn’t want to drop her loot. Instead, she did a series of quick sidesteps – just enough to make Blade take a lumbering step to the left – and then dodged right past him. She leapt off the high balcony as if lightning were at her heels and let the shift take her.

  Sonya kept her teeth clamped shut around the bag as the power of the panther undulated through her. Her legs elongated into graceful but powerful paws and her body was quickly covered by short, black fur with just the slightest hints of spots underneath. Her piercing hazel eyes turned to the gold and black of the big cat, and when her paws finally touched the soft grass beneath, the human was safely tucked away inside of the beast.

  “Get her!” Blade roared behind her.

  She didn’t need to be warned twice. With practiced ease, her body fell into the motion of running, her long tail swishing behind her. She covered the grassy knolls of the wide backyard easily, disappearing among the darkness of the night and the bushes that had been planted for the precise reason of giving Blade a chance to be in his tiger form at home. Now, it was going to provide her a chance to get away.

  Faintly, her small round ears caught the sound of the heavy thud of Blade landing on the ground, and she had no doubt that he would be right behind her. But she was faster, leaner and trained by years of stealing and scheming to keep her alive, and he’d been sitting on his plush, thickly hided ass and raking in the billions.

  Screw that guy.

  She moved soundlessly, and when she saw the ten-foot high fence come into view, she only needed to take a few faster steps to gain enough momentum to bound up and grab hold of the ledge. Sonya pulled herself up and disappeared on the other side, her long tail swishing gracefully behind her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Diesel

  “Jesus Christ, man! Go easy on him, you’ll break his neck!” Trey called just as Slate was slammed down on his back like a sack of potatoes.

  “I’m fine,” the large tiger shifter hissed, scrambling back up and curling his hands into fists.

  “Could have fooled me,” Warren drawled mildly, leaning against a sturdy tree trunk with his arms crossed over his chest.

  Diesel took the moment to wipe sweat off his forehead. He’d discarded the shirt he’d been wearing to that particular outdoorsy meeting long ago. It was now lying in a heap along with his wide-brimmed black cowboy hat, his boots and his badge. The golden badge read ‘Sheriff’ over a stylized logo featuring a full moon and a large feline, slinking in the night, and ‘Shifter Grove’ written below it.

  He’d been assured that Rake’s wife Liza had thought long and hard about what would be the best design for the badge of the newest and only lawman in Shifter Grove, and that the final version was understated yet classy. Diesel honestly couldn’t really tell – more than a decade of slugging through deserts and jungles in full battle gear had made him rather poor at establishing whether something was ‘classy’ or ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful’.

  What he did know, thought, was how to disarm a man in fifty-two different ways, and how to break his spine in at least twenty-three ways.

  Diesel leant back slightly, his brown, almost black eyes intently on Slate. The tiger shifter wore a grin on his face, though Diesel was sure he was hurting like hell from the five times Diesel had pinned him down on his back over the course of the last few minutes. When Slate came at him again, Diesel grabbed his arm with practiced ease, stepped out of the way and spun Slate around so fast that the man didn’t know what hit him.

  Diesel’s elbow connected with Slate’s chest, knocking him back. Slate’s fist slammed into Diesel’s ribs, but it was too little too late. With another sweeping move that came to him as easy as breathing, Diesel wiped Slate’s legs out from under him and planted him down on the ground like Slate was taking a lesson in physics and wanted to know what gravity felt like.

  The peanut gallery groaned in unison, though Diesel didn’t miss the chortle that Deacon was trying to hide under a cough. Without a second thought, Diesel bent lower and grabbed Slate under the arm to help him get up. Falling down and getting up came with every practice session. One needed to learn how to get hurt as hell before he learned how to bring the hurt to others.

  The tiger shifter was panting, his face beaming with amusement. Slate thrust his hand into Diesel’s palm and shook it heartily, slapping him on the shoulder. The faintest of smirks brushed over Diesel’s features. It was nice to be surrounded by shifters who weren’t out to cut his throat or carpet bomb his squad’s camp. Especially if said shifters weren’t the type to keep a grudge when a friendly wrestling match turned into a rather one-sided, painful-to-watch display of physical dominance.

  “I haven’t got beaten up this hard since my father figured out it was me going around deflowering all the nice tiger girls. I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’m going to sleep a whole lot sounder knowing we’ve got this guy keeping the peace,” Slate said with a chuckle while picking up his shirt.

  Slate had asked to see some of those Navy moves he’d always heard about, and Diesel had been kind enough to demonstrate – though he made a mental note not to have as many onlookers next time. Wouldn’t do to let the whole town know that he could beat just about every man in town if need be.

  “Just as long as it ain’t me getting into trouble with you, I’m fine with all of this,” Tyler noted with a grin, his hands shoved into his pockets.

  “The hell did you find this guy from, Rake? No offense, Diesel. We just don’t get a lot of ex-SEALs looking to settle down and make a nice life for themselves in the middle of nowhere, Idaho,” Deacon asked, still smiling from the brutal show they’d been treated to.

  Diesel shrugged mildly, standing at rest. He caught himself doing it when Rake gave him a quick look.

  Fuck. At least pretend to be normal.

  Diesel relaxed his body, though it was almost physically impossible to do so with the adrenaline still pounding through his veins and filling every fiber of his being. Battle was part of who he was, and it hadn’t entirely sunk in that he would now have to find something to take its place – sooner rather than later. It felt good sparring with someone again, though Slate was hardly a match for him when they were in their human forms.

  He might not take so kindly to finding out that the result wouldn’t be much different if we shifted, Diesel thought lightly, trying to ignore how damn uncomfortable it was to try and emulate the way the rest of the civilians were standing.

  That slight lean of the spine, that lazy way a heel dug into the grass, fingers hooked in the loops of one’s jeans… Not for Diesel. But it was going to have to become real familiar, real fast.

  “Oh, you know how it is. They find us,” Rake said noncommittally.

  Diesel appreciated that. He wasn’t the kind of guy to share his life story with everyone. Especially not now, when the most recent event had even thrown him for a loop.

  Rake had been a friend for a long time, a good friend. When he’d invited Diesel to join the Shifter Grove extended family, Diesel had found himself hemming and hawing, but eventually agreed to it. It didn’t hurt that the crowd at Shifter Grove included some of the only people he didn’t immediately freak out with his presence.

  At 6’6’’, he stood taller than most of the other shifters. Years of heavy training, always staying at his peak, had molded his strong frame into the perfect killing machine. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him and not a bit of muscle without purpose. He was big and solid like a wall, yet moved with the speed of a cheetah and had the killer instincts of any wolf he’d ever met. It was amazing what military training could do to
a black panther, and what a black panther could, in turn, do for the military – that is, until the military didn’t want him any longer.

  “I was looking for new challenges,” Diesel said, letting his southern, Texas drawl come out in full force.

  He was among cowboys, after all. No need to try and clean up his speech. There wasn’t a general in sight for hundreds of miles who could fault him for sounding like a hick (which he was, and damn proud of it!).

  “And you figured dealing with petty thieves and bears hanging from power lines would be just the kind of challenge to jump into right after the Navy? Man, you’re making me worry about our little town. I thought we had things all nice and calm here,” Tyler said with a grin, rousing a round of laughter.

  Diesel shrugged mildly, keeping the thin smile on his lips. They were standing in a field near the south entrance to Shifter Grove, under the shade of some trees. Rake had invited him to really meet the rest of the founders (and the founder-adjacent, counting Slate), though he’d already been sworn in as sheriff two days ago after a city council meeting.

  Diesel didn’t mind the opportunity to meet the supposed good guys of Shifter Grove. Even if he wasn’t expecting to make fast friends, he’d at least have to get to know what all of these men were about – for their protection as well as the town’s.

  The process of being picked as the sheriff had been a pretty easy one. He’d only had to show up in his full parade uniform, his chest weighed down with medals and commendations from his countless tours (and another just as many stowed away in a box under his bed from secret missions that he didn’t quite want to be seen parading around), and that had been that.

  Diesel knew he cut a nice form in his dress blues, but apparently being an ex-SEAL, and looking like he did, was enough to convince the men and women to trust him. Add in a warm, supportive speech from Rake, and they had things cooking nicely.