One Night With the Shifter Read online

  A one-night stand with a werewolf has unexpected consequences in Theresa Meyers’s latest romance

  After he is exiled from his pack, Tyee Grayson must learn to make it on his own. But one night with a beautiful stranger who has luminous blue eyes changes everything…. Especially when his instincts shout that she is the one.

  All elementary school teacher Jessica Brierly wanted was a night on the wild side, but when she finds herself pregnant, all the rules change. Not only does her lover have more secrets than she ever imagined, but suddenly they’re both fighting off vampires. When vampires attack the town she dearly loves, Ty must work with his old pack to save them from a ruthless enemy who could kill not only his mate and his unborn child—but the entire human race.

  “What I want is for you to come home with me,” Jessica pleaded.

  Ty’s gaze dropped to the silky damp edge of her lips and he was lost.

  He dipped down and kissed her. Her lips were soft and willing, tasting of peppermint. She tasted so damn sweet, hot and spicy all at once. Ty gripped the edge of the truck’s door frame, nearly denting the sheet metal with his fingertips. But he was determined to keep his hands to himself, even though they itched to touch her. Heat seeped through his shirt, the temperature difference amplified by the chill in the air. The kiss turned deeper, slicker, the tip of her tongue brushing against his. The spicy fragrance of female that spiked the air left no doubt she was aroused. When they broke apart, both of them were breathing hard, their breath creating white misty clouds.

  Books by Theresa Meyers

  Harlequin Nocturne

  *The Truth about Vampires #107

  *The Vampire Who Loved Me #113

  *The Half-Breed Vampire #132

  *One Night with the Shifter #178

  *Sons of Midnight

  THERESA MEYERS

  Raised by a bibliophile who turned the family dining room into a library, Theresa has always been a lover of books and stories. A writer first for newspapers then for national magazines, she started her first novel in high school. In 2005 she was selected as one of eleven finalists in the nation for the American Title II contest, the American Idol of books. She is married to the first man she ever went on a real date with (to their high school prom). They currently live in a Victorian house in the Pacific Northwest with their children, a large assortment of animals and an out-of-control herb garden. You can find her online at her website, www.theresameyers.com, on Twitter, at www.twitter.com/Theresa_Meyers, or on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/TheresaMeyersAuthor.

  ONE NIGHT WITH THE SHIFTER

  Theresa Meyers

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the fourth story in my Sons of Midnight miniseries! You may recognize my hero Tyee Grayson as the beta wolf of the Wenatchee Were pack, who fought against Slade Donovan Blackwolf in The Half-Breed Vampire. A lot of people wanted to know what happened after Slade and Raina took over the pack. Well…here’s your answer!

  Originally I’d titled this story Her Big, Bad Wolf, first because Ty is a werewolf, but second because when you’ve got a one-night stand with a bad boy, the prowling wolf comes to mind. It was just too much of a temptation not to put Jess in a red hoodie and give her three older brothers, as I’ve done.

  I always tend to listen to music while I’m writing, and this book was no exception. Ty’s song for this story was “All American Nightmare” by Hinder, and their song together was “Love Bites” by Def Leppard. It was kind of fitting, given Ty has involved a small-town girl, Jessica Brierly, and her little brother Riley in his paranormal-world nightmare.

  The small town of Sinclair is modeled after my own little hometown of Port Orchard, Washington. (Yes, the same one Debbie Macomber lives in and calls Cedar Cove in her series.) But given that I’m writing about weres and vampires, there’s a slightly different take on it!

  Thanks for sharing this adventure with me.

  Paranormally yours,

  Theresa Meyers

  This story is dedicated to everyone who lives in a small town.

  There are times you love it and there are times you hate it, but you can’t imagine living anywhere else.

  And for Jerry, because I can’t imagine sharing parenting with anyone else. Thanks for helping me build our own little pack. You rock as a dad!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  This was not how he’d envisioned the rest of his life. Not even close. But when the world slid sideways, Tyee Grayson abandoned what he’d always known and jumped into the dark, primal abyss of the unknown.

  The abyss just happened to be located outside the small town of Sinclair, Washington. Through the dark red lenses of his night-vision goggles, he counted four of his trainees hunkered down between the compact huckleberry bushes and the fir trees’ massive trunks.

  He didn’t need the NVGs. He could easily see the men’s body warmth in the cool, misty night air, but it made training easier on the military recruits in his outdoor survival school program if they thought he was just like one of them.

  Truth was, he anticipated that some of them would become just like him. New Werewolves he’d add to his pack of one. Hell, he had to start over somewhere, didn’t he?

  Nash was growing antsy, shifting his weight and looking around as though he was nervous. He would give away the red team’s position if he didn’t sit still. Ty whispered instructions into the mic strapped against his cheek. “Nash, stay low. Wait for Red Leader’s signal.”

  The recruit gave a quick nod—maintaining silence just as he’d been taught. Good. Extra points for red team.

  The other five members of Ty’s training unit that formed the blue team were out in the dark, wet depths of the forest, closing in fast. Survival out here depended on each team staying sharp, using their wits and acting as a coordinated unit. There was no room for hotdogging in combat. You were either part of the team, or you went at it alone.

  Alone sucked. Ty ought to know. A Were unwelcome in his pack and forced to go it alone only had so many choices. He could go stark raving mad and give the mortals a good reason to want him dead, he could isolate himself and die of loneliness or he could form a new pack.

  He wasn’t the solitary or lunatic type. In fact, he’d been groomed most of his life as the Beta, second in command, of the Wenatchee Were Pack beneath its old Alpha, Bracken, to one day become the pack’s Alpha. But that was before the Cascade Clan vampires had interfered in their pack and changed everything. Damn bloodsuckers. If not for those vampires, he could have been the leader of an established, seasoned pack. Instead he was here, exiled, attempting to create a pack of his own.

  Ty tapped his headset, changing channels. “Blue Leader, are you closing in on the target?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good, execute tree flyer.”

  He stood back, watching the blue team shimmy up the trees, preparing to attack the red team from overhead. His outdoor
survival school had been a stroke of genius. He could pick over the finest recruits the military bases around here had to offer, and make enough to set himself up on the outside fairly well.

  Out of all the students in his first season of outdoor survival specialist training, Riley Brierly was the best candidate to become a member of his pack. The kid was smart, tough, knew how to follow orders and had been trained by the finest in U.S. military.

  Mike Johnson was a close second, neck and neck with Collin Campbell. A wolfish smile curled Ty’s mouth in the dark. Three cubs. A nice start to his Olympic Pack. Not bad, especially considering he didn’t even have a mate.

  At least there weren’t any Were packs in the area. Ty suspected it was because the Cascade Vampire Clan was so close. The small town of Sinclair sat directly across the Puget Sound from downtown Seattle, an hour-long ferry ride away from vampire central. No Were in his right mind would want to live that close. But he had little choice. He had to take territory where he could, to form a family of his own. A lone Were wasn’t going to be welcomed into an existing pack, like those that occupied the coast.

  The blue team yelled as they dove out of the trees onto the startled red team. The men rolled about, throwing punches and kicking out at one another. Grunts and the smack of flesh against flesh resounded loudly in the night air.

  “Companies, halt!”

  The men stopped midmotion and turned toward Ty as he emerged soundlessly from the bushes. “Blue Leader. Extra points for your team for executing the overhead attack so well. Extra steak at dinner.” The recruits elbowed one another in the ribs and grinned.

  “Red Leader. What happened?”

  “We didn’t expect them to attack from above, sir.”

  Ty narrowed his eyes and pointed up at the trees. “Out here, danger is everywhere. Where you least expect it. What’s rule number one of survival?”

  “Know your surroundings, sir,” they all said in monotone unity.

  Ty nodded. “Good.”

  “Red team, you need to act as a team. Not a bunch of individuals working in the same group. You should have had one man assigned to watch above, in addition to your sides, back and front. Did you?”

  “No, sir,” the red team responded.

  Ty stopped pacing and stood, pulling his NVGs off his head, then clasping his hands behind his back, his feet spread apart in a wide stance in the soft leaf litter. Moonlight filtered down from above, casting everything in the small clearing in stark relief. He made deliberate eye contact with each trainee as he spoke, letting his gaze linger a little longer on the members of the red team. “Unless you’re a team, a pack, you’ve got nothing. You are nothing. You function as a unit, you live. You go out on your own in the wilderness, your chances of survival drop seventy-five percent.”

  The recruits stood at silent attention.

  “Teams, pack your gear back to the barracks and prep for dinner. Red team, you’re on KP duty. Brierly, Johnson and Campbell, remain. Teams dismissed.”

  The three recruits stayed behind and watched their classmates jog into the dark veil of the night. “You three did really well over this past week. Good enough that I think you deserve a little something extra. You’ve got passes for tonight to go into town.”

  “Yes!” Johnson gave a fist pump.

  Campbell grinned at Brierly. “You’re the hometown boy. What’s a good bar in town?”

  Brierly’s mouth tipped up in a wicked grin. “You could hit the OON.”

  “Want to be more specific?”

  Brierly shrugged. “That’s its name, man. That or the Tavern. The neon sign used to say SALOON, but the neon has only three lit-up letters left. It’s on the main drag. Sinclair isn’t that big. You can’t miss it. I’ll show you how to get there.”

  Campbell turned and looked at Ty. “You coming with us?”

  Ty shifted his weight. “Technically you aren’t supposed to leave the school without an escort, so I suppose I could meet you there later.”

  Campbell’s goofy grin got bigger. “They got hot chicks at this bar, Brierly?”

  Brierly laughed. “Hard for me to know what you think’s hot. It’s not like I can read your thoughts.”

  “We find some hot chicks, you won’t have to,” Campbell shot back.

  Ty crossed his arms. They were still so young. Too full of themselves to be of much use to a pack, but with some training they had promise. “Head back to the barracks, clean up and you can head out.”

  The three young men snatched up their gear and jogged off in the direction of the school camp base. Ty glanced around, making sure they were all gone and well out of sight before he shucked off his clothes into a neat pile, then crouched down, letting his fingers dig deep into the earth. He needed to burn off his excess energy before he went into town. He needed to hunt. Satisfying the wolf half of him now would lower the chances of him spontaneously shifting later.

  With a wet pop and crunch, bone and muscle transformed. His skin tightened and grew hot as hair grew into a thick pelt. His fists turned into paws, his spine extended into a tail and his teeth elongated into lethal fangs. The shift took less than a minute, but in terms of strength and speed, it made all the difference. Ty loped off, disappearing into the night-dark trees.

  * * *

  Two hours later Ty eyed the door of the bar Brierly had suggested with skepticism.

  The whole damn thing looked as though it was about a hundred years old and held up by baling wire and chewing gum. A sagging roof and chipped white paint faded to a pale gray didn’t give him much hope inside would be any better. In fact, the only thing that convinced him to go in was the long row of expensive bikes parked out front. There was even an old Ford hot-rod truck, matte black with red, yellow and orange flames along the sides. To be this popular, the dive had to have something the locals liked.

  A wail of guitar backed up by the pounding beat of rock drums and the stale smell of cheap beer drifted out into the evening air, beckoning him indoors. What the hell. He’d lost everything else. When you started at the bottom, there was nowhere to go but up.

  He trudged up the step and pushed open the front door. A waft of heat and the scent of wood smoke from the black potbelly stove in the corner hit him full in the face. Inside was an assault on his keen Werewolf senses. The music, chatter, laughter and the smack of pool balls were too loud. He took a step toward the bar and heard a loud crunch. Ty glanced down at the tan husks of peanut shells littering the worn wooden planks of the floor. The greasy, hot smell of grilled hamburgers, the yeasty aroma of beer and the pungent mix of perfumes, body odors, cigarette smoke and bike exhaust fumes that swirled in the air were overwhelming to his preternaturally amplified sense of smell. It was hard to suck in a deep breath without getting light-headed.

  He glanced around, looking for the three recruits. The old plank walls were covered in motorcycle posters sporting big-haired, tiny-bikini-clad women draped suggestively over shining chrome-and-leather machines. Old painted tin signs advertising everything from motor oil to soda pop added a rough appeal to the ambience of the place. There were a few booths, covered in cracked black vinyl, and a big-screen TV in the back was blaring out a football game.

  This was definitely not his normal kind of place, but it did remind him a little of Joey’s back in Teanachee—a hometown hangout that the locals frequented. Ty scowled. It wasn’t as if he’d ever see that place again, he thought as he settled onto a wooden bar stool. There was no sign of Brierly, Campbell or Johnson. So either they’d already been here, pounded back a few beers and left, or they hadn’t made it down from camp yet.

  The bartender, a heavyset bald man with a long beard in a sleeveless red plaid shirt that showed off his beefy arms, jerked his chin at Ty. The single diamond-stud earring in his lobe winked in the light. “What’ll you have?”

  “Beer.
” Ty didn’t really care what kind. His ramped-up metabolism would burn off alcohol or anything else in his system in mere minutes. It wasn’t as if he could get drunk. Which really sucked, because that was precisely what he wanted to do after a long week of working with green recruits. He shoved a twenty at the bartender, who returned with a clear plastic pitcher and cup and set both down in front of him. He slid forty more at the bartender. “Just keep it coming.”

  The bartender nodded, a look of understanding flitting through his eyes as he poured out the first glass. Ty took a drink, then snorted. The bartender might have seen a lot, but he didn’t know a damn thing about Ty’s problems.

  Right now the plan was to lie low, drink and keep to himself. A great plan that went to hell in two-point-five seconds.

  A sudden draft of air, laden with the musty odor of blood mixed with decay, tweaked his nose. Ty glanced at the front door. Three biker types walked in. The guy in front wore a black leather duster and the two men flanking him wore black leather jackets, making their pale complexions look waxen beneath the artificial lights. Vampires. The real deal.

  Ty bristled. What the hell were they doing in Sinclair? While he knew he was on the edge of the Cascade Clan’s territory, he sure didn’t see why they’d bother coming to a rural town when there was far better hunting for them in downtown Seattle. A low growl vibrated deep in his throat. He couldn’t seem to get the hell away from the leeches.

  The scent of clean female flesh underscored by a hint of lilac, mint and a jarring note of antiseptic invaded his airspace as a woman sat down on the bar stool beside him.

  Ty did his best to ignore her, but the grazing touch of a hand on his sleeve made him swivel.

  “You planning on finishing that pitcher yourself?” Her voice was light and friendly, reminding him of a teasing summer breeze.

  Ty prepared to fling back a glib answer, then glanced at her. Streaky honey-blond hair, a sweet bee-stung mouth and big blue eyes struck him with the impact of a sucker punch, turning him mute. All he could do was stare.