Not
the Leader of the Pack
by Annabeth Leong
Blurb:
Rival
alphas Juli Gunby and Neil Statham want to tear each other apart — but will
they do it in battle or as mates?
When Juli Gunby left Missoula, Montana,
she didn’t intend to come back. Not to her exacting alpha werewolf father, and
certainly not to Neil Statham, the beta who rejected Juli’s girlish advances.
Her father, as usual, has other ideas, using his dying breath to pass pack
leadership to his daughter. Juli resolves to carry out her duty to her father
and her pack, but the one man she wants on her side has made himself her enemy.
After years of loyal service to the
pack, Neil expects to take over as alpha when his mentor dies. As good as it is
to see Juli again, he knows he can’t trust her. After all, she abandoned both
him and the pack years ago and never looked back. Neil determines to fight for
his rightful position in the pack, even if that means going up against a woman
who fills him with an overwhelming urge to mate every time she walks into the
room.
Someone needs to lead, and the more
Neil and Juli fight, the more they attract interference from those who would
control the pack and destroy the ties between them.
Buy
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Excerpt:
"Juli. We're the only pack members
who saw your father pass that ring of leadership to you." He paused to
allow the significance to sink in, the bar noise around them rising to fill his
silence. "You have another life in Lewistown. You have a career. You've
made it clear you're not interested in this pack. We can say whatever we want
about what took place in that room. He could have passed the ring to me as far
as anyone else knows. No one would question that."
He
would have kept talking, except that Juli wrenched herself violently out of his
grasp at that point. "Not interested in this pack? We can say whatever we
want?" He heard her just fine over the music despite the new distance
between them. In fact, he worried who else had heard her mention the pack. And
who else had seen that furry paw she'd thrust into his face.
They
both froze for a second, staring at her latest lapse of control.
"Damn
it." Juli's curse came out more as a growl than as words.
"We
need to get out of here," Neil said. "You just focus on staying
cool." She knew better than to argue with him. He grabbed her hand and
pulled her out, leaving their beers behind. They could finish this conversation
in his truck.
They
ran for the truck like the rest of the world was on fire, and slammed the doors
behind them once they got there. Juli writhed in her seat, gasping, her wolf
form rippling just on the other side of her skin. Neil panted in response. He
didn't normally have trouble controlling his shift, but with her beside him, so
close, too much of him wanted to meet her in a place of complete abandon. He
wanted to run with her under the moon, fight her for supremacy until neither
cared who wound up on top or on the bottom. Then, with one last vicious pounce,
he wanted to surrender to the merging of their bodies. He swallowed hard.
Stats.
He ran through the winning World Series teams for the last three decades. He
tried to calculate his total career RBIs. The stream of data calmed Neil down.
He started the car. "I'm going to drive us somewhere a little more
private," he told Juli. "Just in case."
"Back
to the hospital."
"You're
in no shape—"
"Back
to the hospital." She showed fangs. Neil didn't need that so soon after
he'd regained his own control. He stopped arguing and pressed the gas. They'd
go somewhere. He just needed to be driving so he had something to concentrate
on besides the idea of Juli giving herself up to the beast. He needed a really
good reason to remain in human form.
The
truck's cab filled with her labored breathing. Neil turned on the radio to
distract himself from the sexual images the sound called up for him. He'd
always avoided being alone with her, afraid to give even the appearance of
impropriety. Right then, Neil wasn't sure if he was grateful for the trouble
he'd saved himself or sorry as hell for what he'd missed. The instinctual
attraction he felt for her was off the charts.
He
got so caught in his reverie that only Juli tugging at his sleeve alerted him
that her struggles had become sobs. "Neil, can you pull over?" Her
voice sounded deflated. "I'm sorry I insisted about the hospital. I'm not
ready to go back there yet."
Her
obvious misery immediately pierced his sexual fog. Neil pulled the truck into a
convenience store parking lot and looked at her. "Do you want a minute? I
can go get some water."
"No,
it's okay." She hesitated, chewing on her top lip. "I'm obviously way
out of control."
He
watched her face carefully. "About what I said in the bar... I didn't mean
to offend you."
"You
just think I don't care about any of this."
"Well,
do you?"
Her
head snapped up and a bit of the wolf flickered behind her eyes again.
"How can you ask me that?"
Neil
blew out a long breath. She wanted him to make his case? He could do that.
"You know being pack alpha doesn't pay. What about your fancy job in
Lewistown? The one that was so important you couldn't come back here to visit
your dad?"
She
rubbed her eyes. "Can you try to keep the venom out of this, Neil? Jeez,
you're so bitter, you'd think I failed to visit you." Bingo. But Juli
continued speaking, oblivious. "Gabriel's not going to like it if I
resign. He talked a lot about developing new talent when he hired me. But it's
not like the Council can't run without me. This was my father's last request.
Besides, the pack probably needs me more."
He
swallowed, unable to believe she had the nerve to say these things. "Maybe
I'm underestimating how good you are at walking away from things. Foolish of
me, since I have personal experience." Neil shook his head, uncertain if
the anger surging through him was directed at himself or at Juli. "The
pack needs someone really committed, Juli. Not someone who will leave again the
next time it's convenient."
She
snapped her gaze to his, her eyes widening with understanding. A wave of fear
rushed through him. He'd revealed too much of his personal feelings. They
needed to decide about the pack first. "You were the one who rejected me,
Neil," Juli said, her voice so soft he almost couldn't hear her. "All
I did was move on."
~ * ~
Bio:
Annabeth Leong has written romance and
erotica of many flavors -- dark, kinky, vanilla, straight, lesbian, bi, and
menage. Her titles for Breathless Press include Not His Territory, Not the
Leader of the Pack, and a contribution to the Ravaged anthology. She enjoys writing about the tension between
passion and control that werewolves embody. Unfortunately, when Annabeth loses
control of herself, she does not gain the power to change shape. She lives in
Providence, Rhode Island, blogs at annabethleong.blogspot.com, and tweets
@AnnabethLeong. She loves talking books on Goodreads, too: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5295946.Annabeth_Leong
~ * ~
Buy
One, Get One Free Offer:
Not
the Leader of the Pack stands alone, but Annabeth has written
in its world before. She’d love to share the previous title, Not His Territory, with current readers.
If you’d like to participate, e-mail proof of purchase of Not the Leader of the Pack, such as an Amazon receipt, to annabeth
dot leong at gmail dot com and let her know your e-book format of choice.
Annabeth will buy a copy of Not His
Territory for the first 25 people who respond.
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