Taking It Off for the Coyote Read online

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2017 Serenity Snow

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-194-6

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Katelyn Uplinger

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  TAKING IT OFF FOR THE COYOTE

  Serenity Snow

  Copyright © 2017

  Prologue

  Clara Night sprinted through the third floor of the building she’d been working at through a janitorial service. The carpet beneath her feet silenced her sneakers as well as the footsteps of those tracking her.

  The lights had been dimmed leaving her with pale gold illuminations that cast eerie shadows along the corridor. What she couldn’t see, she could feel. The energy was taut and wild as it slithered through the building.

  She would know that wildness anywhere. The shifter species of the spotted hyena had an air about it that left her unsettled. Right now, Clara was downright terrified. They lived in clans and hunted in packs that always took down their prey.

  The survival rate was low in these circumstances.

  “Clara.” The dark voice whispered her assumed name from behind her as Clara ducked into a dark office with wide windows. She couldn’t hear the night traffic on the busy street below, but that eerie cackle of the hyena followed her sending chills down her spine.

  She attempted to steady her breathing, but Clara knew it was useless. The hyena’s sense of hearing was as excellent as its sense of smell and she was leaking fear. It would be sniffed out like the sweetness of a baking cake.

  Clara swallowed tightly as she contemplated her options. She was a psychic who’d always hungered for acceptance but found ridicule and users like Patricia.

  “Come on out,” Patricia Cutter crooned. “You know we’ll find you.”

  She’d escaped the Midnight Howling pack eighteen months ago hoping she’d be able to outrun them and make a new life for herself. This was the sixth time Patricia had found her and it was becoming clear escaping her and her pack of rabid hyenas was something Clara was never going to accomplish—alive.

  “You know I’m not going to let you go, Clara,” Patricia crooned softly. And there was something of the old affection in her tone, but Clara wasn’t fooled. “You belong to me.”

  For three years she’d known Patricia, and for two of those years they’d been lovers, and Clara had ignored the coldness that crept into her lover, the vicious nature, and the obvious hunger for power.

  She’d known part of that cruelty was born of a deep hurt that had scarred Patricia, left her stripped bare and without protection. From those ashes, a deceptive alpha bitch had risen. The woman beneath the anger and hunger for power was who Clara had fallen for until she realized what a manipulative woman Patty really was.

  She pressed her fingers to her forehead, as sweat broke out in tiny beads on her brow. Her skin was cold, clammy, and her stomach knotted sickening making her want to vomit.

  “Clara.”

  She stepped out into the corridor and a five-foot-ten-inch tall female was waiting half way down. Clare’s skin was olive and her body was still a lean muscled form. Her baby blue eyes were fringed by long lashes. She was confident and oozed so much sex appeal the pheromones could be bottled and sold.

  Patricia strolled toward her taking her time, her steps those of a woman who knew she had her prey cornered. “Don’t try to run, Clara,” she said congenially. “I’ll have them run you down like a rabbit.”

  Patty had done that the first time she’d tried to escape, and Clara had regretted it. The claws and teeth had left permanent marks on one of her legs.

  Clara looked past the other woman to the end of the hall where two big scruffy spotted brown animals sat patiently awaiting her orders. Clara’s power pooled in her belly as she stood there keenly aware that she was more or less trapped by the smooth white walls and dangerous creatures.

  Her heart beat sluggishly and the gray shirt with the cleaning company’s name on it paired with khakis was suddenly too hot.

  Patricia would beat her senseless, and she knew the leather the other woman was pulling from her pocket was a leash and collar. Once Patty had it around her neck, she’d be able to control her. The collar contained electrical impulses that could do nerve damage over time. If she tried to escape, Patty would use a debilitating shock on her.

  The shock would leave her unable to think past the pain. She remembered doing anything to get the pain to stop.

  She would not allow the other woman to do that to her ever again. She’d make Patty tear her apart first.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Clara,” she murmured and her gaze heated on Clara’s face before sliding down her body.

  “Right,” Clara muttered. After two years, she’d realized she was just one of many. Patricia had a small harem of lovers to tend to her sexual and emotional needs, and Patty even truly cared for some of them while being attracted to them all.

  They all wore collars and when Patricia tired of them, she killed them, but no one ever escaped and lived long. Clara was the exception, and she imagined that was eating Patricia alive.

  “You’re my favorite, you know that,” Patricia murmured as she held out the collar. “That’s the only reason I’m not going to kill you for making me take time away from my work.”

  Patricia was a real estate agent. She and her pack had a knack for flipping properties, and making a killing off them.

  “Let’s put your collar on,” Patricia said and came to a stop before her. The other woman backhanded her so hard across the face, Clara stumbled into the wall.

  Pain exploded through her cheek and burned its way to her eye. She let out a soft cry as her hand went to her face as Patricia reached for her.

  As the slim hand came closer panic threatened to choke her, but Clara shoved the anxiety that promised to debilitate hers back. Then her power surged from the center of her forehead in an invisible blue shower. Patricia moved to one side and laughed.

  “Clara,” she said in a chastising tone. “I’ll let you go if you do this one important thing for me.”

  Clara studied her warily as she stroked her cheek. “You’re lying.” Patricia would never let her go because she didn’t like to lose. Patricia’s motto was if she wanted it and couldn’t have it, she’d destroy it so no one else could attain it either.

  “Do you want your freedom from the clan?” Patricia asked softly. “Once in, the only way out is death, remember?”

  “All too well,” Clara muttered but her own death wasn’t one she was actually considering even now. Hers was.

  “Then do as I ask, and you’ll be free within the next six weeks or sooner.”

  “You will?” She heard the sarcasm threaded through her words and Patricia’s lips quirked in amusement.

  “I still don’t know how you managed to get away, my sweet,” she said softly. “Who helped you?”

  Clara snorted and tilted her chin up. Patricia had used her to ruthlessly further her agenda until that one fateful moment a mistake had been made that couldn’t be taken back. Clara had been prepared, and she’d run.

  “You will tell me, and this time, you’ll tell me the rest of your secrets too, Clara,” she said coldly.

  “That re
mains to be seen,” Clara told her acerbically. Patricia’s lips twisted in anger and reached for her. At the same time, Clara’s power surged from the center of her forehead in an invisible blue star. The energy slammed into her frontal lobe. Her eyes widened and pain filled her face.

  Clara pushed out another arc of power. “You’re letting me go,” she ordered keeping her voice low and firm. “Tell them.”

  Her power was a telepathic clairsentient force, but she could never hold Patricia’s mind long. The other woman always broke free of her, but in these brief seconds that Clara had Patricia, she had her minions too.

  On some level, way in the back of Patricia’s mind where she kept things she didn’t want to face, Clara knew Patricia feared her power’s vast potential as much as she wanted to own it.

  “Now.” She kept her voice forceful but low.

  Patricia’s eyes glazed over telling Clara she’d penetrated her mind. The frontal lobe was the center of reasoning, of wrong and right. She couldn’t break her will, but she could redirect it. She could bend it.

  “I’m letting you go,” she said complacently.

  Clara stepped closer and put a finger to Patricia’s stomach, the solar plexus. It was the female power center in hyenas. It was the place of energy as well as self-confidence and the need to be in control.

  The touch threw her past her ex’s mental shields—the auric energy around the body protecting it from psychic intrusion. Clara was inside her mind on a deeper level. Thoughts and fears careened into her until she forcefully pulled herself back to the threshold of her shields.

  She focused on Patricia’s animal strengths, and Clara drew some of the energy into herself. The wildness rushed through her, icky and twisted. She shuddered, panting as she grimaced.

  Clara backed away slowly and then turned and sprinted for the stairwell not far away. She always made it her business to know where all exits of each building she worked in were in case she needed to escape in a hurry.

  She took the stairs two at a time and got to the first floor in short order. The men casually holding up walls in the lobby didn’t move as she strolled to the front door. She knew her time was short, so Clara hurried out to her car. The old Pinto had been cheap and ran well, but she’d have to ditch it now which could be a good thing and bad one.

  A six-foot-four male leaned against the side facing the entrance of the thirty-floor building. He straightened as she approached.

  “Clara, you’re such a bad girl,” he said in a gravelly tone. His flat dark eyes washed over her in disdain.

  She knew Patricia had fought her way free and was likely hurrying after her. She sent out a blast of mental energy as she reached him. The blue star slammed into his head with enough force to knock him back onto her car. He hit his head against the window and collapsed.

  He wouldn’t even remember his own name when he woke, and Patricia would kill him. She’d be that much more pissed at Clara too.

  Clara shoved her key into the door on the passenger side and let the seat up. She reached beneath it and jerked her bag free. It had a few changes of clothes, toiletries, and a few of her favorite things as well as cash. She sprinted through the lot and across the street using Patricia’s hyena energy to quickly skirt a car that nearly crashed into her.

  “Clara!” Patricia screamed from the parking lot.

  She felt the vibration of the other woman’s rage inside her, but she hurried down the street. Patricia would be on her in minutes if she didn’t find some shadows to hide in. Her sight was keen in the dark and she was a great hunter but not the best tracker.

  Hyenas were too lazy to stay on a trail too long without the correct motivation. That was a weakness that she could exploit.

  Clara rounded a corner and ran into a crowd coming out of a building. She sent out a whorl of energy as she made eye contact with a single male. The energy settled over the crowd quickly. In his mind, she could see they’d all been at the same party, knew each other.

  She twisted that and broadcast telepathically using the one man and his connection to them all to steal their will to think or act normally.

  “Attack the people behind me,” she ordered softly because screaming sometimes jarred humans out of the compulsion. “They want to hurt you.”

  “Clara.”

  The mob rushed forward, and she threaded her way through it as they descended on Patricia and her minions. She knew Patricia wouldn’t do much damage to them. This was too public a stage for her animal behavior.

  Clara hurried down the street knowing her ability would keep the crowd enthralled no more than a few minutes, but it was long enough with Patricia’s hyena energy inside of her giving her fast feet for quick escape.

  She had no idea where she was going, but she was getting out of this city tonight.

  Chapter One

  The present day

  Sydney Spring drew the pool cue back and eased it forward to bank a shot in the left pocket before glancing to her companion. The young man gave her a nod and lined up his next shot.

  The crowd in Mystic Bar was filled with people she didn’t know, except the guy who’d asked her to meet him here for pool and drinks. The other people around them were enjoying their alcohol, companions, and a game of darts or pool.

  She wasn’t expecting much from him if anything. Her quarry was keeping his cards close to his vest for the time being.

  “The truth is,” he said after banking his shot and then straightening to grab his bottle of beer. “Leah isn’t actually working directly for Sorrento. She’s a member of the pack allied with Sorrento’s, which is called Midnight Howling.”

  Sorrento, leader of a hyena pack, wanted to buy Coyote Closet. The hyena leader also wanted their territory which meant they were all on high alert awaiting his attack.

  “How do you know?” Leah was a dancer at Coyote Closet, the lesbian strip club co-owned by Sydney’s best-friend. They’d heard Leah was working for a hyena pack, but the leader of that pack had been killed by her friend.

  “Friend of mine used to be part of a pack led by Joelle Reacher,” he told her. “His name’s Darden. He was Reacher’s right-hand man. Now, he’s leader of the pack, and it’s called Devil Dogs. Leah used to belong to the pack back when they were living in Washington. He called in a favor, and she answered the call.”

  “How big is the Devil Dogs pack?” She leaned against the side of the table and her gaze slid across the room to the bar. Reflected in the glass wall behind the bartenders, was the pretty face of one of Coyote Closet’s dancers, Baby Love.

  She was drinking alone, and her black hair was pulled back from her face and wound into a knot. She always wore it up, making Sydney wonder what she’d look like in nothing but her hair flowing around her shoulders. She was five-foot-seven with a beautiful body. Her skin was a canvas of chocolate-with-cream and smooth as silk.

  Her face was devoid of makeup except for that pale shade of gloss on her plump lips. She wanted to bite them and suck the sweetness from them.

  “Some of the pack has been brought up on charges in New York for murder so the pack’s size has decreased, but it’s large enough to take out the wolves should it come to that.” He took another sip of his beer. “But he’s not been asked to move against you guys yet. In fact, Sorrento’s just sitting on his plans, keeping his cards close to his vest.”

  Sorrento’s presence here puzzled her pack’s alpha because most hyenas didn’t venture into cold climes for long. When they did it, was to put down some roots away from other hyenas so they could be top dog without competition. However, they wouldn’t be top dog with a strong wolf and coyote pack in the area.

  “Any clues why they want to settle here?” Sydney asked, taking her eyes from the young woman at the bar who was smiling at something a female bartender was saying. The animal inside her, the coyote, growled low in ferocious anger, but she tamped the reaction down. She wasn’t quite comfortable with her strong reaction to the dancer who’d started dancing at t
he club a few weeks ago. And she still wasn’t sure how to handle her coyote’s hunger the sexy human.

  “No.” He shook his head and turned back to the table. “Did hear something that might interest you though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s not running the show alone, but I’m not sure who the partner is right now,” he said. “I’m working on it.”

  “Male or female?”

  “My source wouldn’t say,” he admitted with a frown. “I think he’s kind of afraid, but he did say four people inside your club are on Sorrento’s payroll just awaiting his orders.”

  “Thanks.” She bent to take a shot and the scent of vanilla and arousal washed over her. A hand brushed her ass and the cue slipped just a little to the right causing her to miss the shot. Her companion chuckled and reached for his beer.

  “See you around,” he said as Sydney looked up at him.

  The wolf grinned and tipped his beer to her before moving on, and she turned to look down at the dancer. Her stage name was Baby Love, but her given name was Cambrie Canewater. The girl was cute as a newborn babe with those curious copper eyes, but she didn’t have the same claim to innocence Sydney was willing to bet.

  “Hi.” Cambrie’s copper eyes were bright with humor that made her animal growl in greeting.

  “You made me miss my shot,” Sydney grumbled and gripped the cue to keep from putting her hands on the little dancer’s compact body.

  She often watched her at the club and craved her. However, she’d refused to ask her for a private dance. After all, emotional interest could become a distraction she could ill-afford. The girls counted on her to be fast, and focused in case a patron got out of line.

  “I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing,” Cambrie murmured in a teasing tone and cast a glance in the direction the wolf had gone.