Moira Rogers - Deadlock

He’s no one’s hero. She’s no one’s pawn. And now they’re caught in the crossfire…

Southern Arcana, Book 3

Abandoned by her wolf shifter father and raised by her human psychic mother, Carmen Mendoza can’t deny she’s different. She craves things most women shy away from — and she has a trail of shapeshifting ex-boyfriends to prove it.

Working at a clinic for supernatural creatures, she’s escaped the notice of her father’s legacy-obsessed family. Until they need a pawn in their bid for power. Snared by a vicious spell designed to wake her inner wolf, Carmen’s only hope is to trust the one man strong enough to soothe her darkest instincts.

Alec Jacobson was once the heir apparent to the wolves’ ruling elite, until he walked away to marry the woman he loved. She paid with her life. Now he lives as a rebel, a black-sheep alpha who protects the supernatural residents of New Orleans from the wolves’ barbaric class system. Too bad he can’t protect himself from his need for Carmen.

Yet staking his claim on his enemy’s niece will turn his city into a battleground. Unless he can find a way to stop breaking the rules — and start making them.

Warning: This book contains a renegade alpha wolf, a smart empathic doctor, very dirty sex with psychic safe-words, the occasional dominance game in and out of the bedroom, and a group of supernatural citizens ready to take on the corrupt leaders of their world.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

Macon GA 31201

Deadlock

Copyright © 2011 by Moira Rogers

ISBN: 978-1-60928-325-4

Edited by Anne Scott

Cover by Kendra Egert

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2011 www.samhainpublishing.com

This is dedicated to all of our Twitter peeps, who get us through the day with name suggestions, informal polls and laughter. And to all of Alec’s fans, who’ve waited so patiently for his well-deserved happily-ever-after.

Alec wrenched himself out of the path of a flying fist and acknowledged, for the first time in his increasingly long life, that he might be getting old.

It didn’t help that his opponent was a young, strong wolf. Andrew might still be adjusting to the new power inside him, but Alec had no doubts where the man would stand once he’d acclimated to life as a shapeshifter. Age would give the boy experience. Training would give him confidence.

Alec’s days as the strongest wolf in New Orleans were numbered.

Instinct rebelled at the treacherous thought, and Alec threw a little something extra into his next swing, catching Andrew with a fast, brutal jab that landed on the younger man’s chin and snapped his head around. Alec pressed the advantage out of habit, spilling his opponent to the thick mats lining the dojo floor.

All right, maybe his years were numbered.

Andrew lay on his back and blew out a long breath before rolling to his knees. «That won’t happen again.» It sounded more like a promise than a boast or threat.

That won’t happen again. It was a promise Alec had heard plenty of times over the last six months, quiet and focused and always accomplished. He’d been told that surviving the transformation from human to wolf was like being born again, forced to navigate a body beyond one’s control and instincts that were anything but human. In his lifetime Alec had mentored a dozen transformed wolves, but none of them had been like Andrew.

He held out his hand. «You’re doing fine.»

The third person in the room laughed, her rich voice echoing off the mirrored walls. Zola was dark, dark skin and dark hair and gorgeous chocolate eyes, a dangerous woman who moved with a grace that never failed to put Alec’s instincts on high alert.

She prowled toward the center of the room as if she owned the place — which Alec supposed she did. The dojo was her home and her life, and though the rare shapeshifting cats in the area tended to be uninterested in the strict hierarchy under which the wolves thrived, she never passed up an opportunity to remind Alec that him being the top wolf in town didn’t mean much to a lion.

Like now. «You are not doing fine like you could be,» she declared. «Not if you are letting an old man like Alec beat you. You watch with your mind still, thinking too much. With humans, with other wolves like you, you can waste time thinking. Not with shapeshifters born. Alec does not think. Alec does not need to think, and so Alec wins.»

Andrew smiled a little. «Then I guess I need to learn how not to think.»

«Yes.» After a moment, Zola unbent enough to return Andrew’s smile. «You are good at learning. Alec can teach you to be a wolf, but soon he will be done. You will come to me, three days a week. My mate and I will teach you to fight like a lion.»

She didn’t wait for a response, as if she couldn’t imagine a person turning down an offer of private lessons. Instead she pivoted and deigned to catch Alec’s gaze. «I will be having a lesson in this room in one hour. You may stay until that time.»

Alec nodded his thanks and waited until she strode past him and reached the stairs before turning his attention back to Andrew. «I’d think pretty seriously about taking her up on those lessons. She doesn’t offer them often, and her man might be the only person in New Orleans more scary than she is.»

«I know. I’ve asked…before.» His eyes clouded for a moment, then he shook his head. «She turned me down flat. Guess I’m more interesting now.»

«Times are more interesting now.» Alec stretched slowly and could console himself, at least, with a lack of nagging aches. Damn impressive for a forty-four-year-old man who’d spent the last hour sparring with a man nearly two decades his junior. «If it helps, I don’t think it’s being a shifter that made the difference. Plenty of those get turned down too.»

«So I’ve heard.»

Not surprising. As far as Alec knew there was only one other person receiving Zola’s exclusive, private tutelage at the moment, and he was too old and too jaded to believe it was a coincidence that Zola had offered the same to Andrew. Not considering who that other student was.

Following that train of thought would lead to a headache and an emotional quagmire Alec had no intention of stepping into this afternoon. Instead he gestured to the middle of the floor. «Ready for another go?»

Andrew answered with a quick right and left. Neither punch landed, but too late Alec realized they were meant to distract him. The other man came in low, hit him in the solar plexus, and knocked him onto the edge of the mat. «Yep. Ready.»

Zola had one thing right — Andrew learned fast.

By the end of their practice, Andrew had dumped Alec on the floor twice, something that would have bruised Alec’s ego a little more if he hadn’t set the boy on his ass a round dozen times. He was extending his hand to help Andrew up from the latest fall when a creak on the stairs reminded him that he had very good reason to hustle them out of the room before Zola’s other private student showed up — the one person Andrew didn’t need to see.