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  Ten years ago, federal prosecutor Gianna Lynn let loose in Vegas…and may have married a stranger. A really sexy, wickedly take-charge stranger with whom she had the hottest, kinkiest sex of her life. Obviously, if they’re married, they need a divorce. And, since she has a convicted gang member gunning for her, she also needs to disappear for a few weeks. Taking time off to track down her missing husband in the depths of the Louisiana bayou seems like the perfect solution.

  Werewolf Alpha Luc Breaux sacrificed everything for his Pack. He’ll stop at nothing to keep his wolves safe. Mating with Gianna was a regrettable lack of control on his part and letting her run from him was the only way to guarantee her freedom. When the gang targets his AWOL mate, however, it’s time for Gianna to come home. Luc makes her a deal. Spend seven nights with him in the Louisiana bayou as his mate…and he’ll give up any claim he has to her. Seven nights to convince her to stay with him and seven nights to teach his mate the sweet pleasures of submission to the wolf pack…

  But Luc’s not the only Alpha betting he can convince Gianna to take a chance on him and love. Cruz Jones, the Alpha of neighboring wolf pack is determined to protect Gianna from the gang and make her his. Luc’s dark, dominant sexual lures Gianna, but Cruz tempts her as well. Surrendering to one means giving up the other…and threatens to pull both packs apart.

  Series List

  Contemporary Romance – Smoke Jumpers

  BURNING UP (Smoke Jumpers, Book 1)

  SLOW BURN (Smoke Jumpers, Book 2)

  BURNS SO BAD (Smoke Jumpers, Book 3)

  SMOKING HOT (Smoke Jumpers, Book 4)

  SWEET BURN (Smoke Jumpers, Book 5)

  Contemporary Romance – The Hotshots

  REBURN (The Hotshots, 1)

  HOT ZONE (The Hotshots, 2)

  FIRED UP (The Hotshots, 3, in HOT SHOTS)

  Contemporary Romance – Men of Discovery Island

  WICKED SEXY (Men of Discovery Island, 1)

  WICKED NIGHTS (Men of Discovery Island, 2)

  WICKED SECRETS (Men of Discovery Island, 3)

  Paranormal Romance – Blue Moon Brides

  TEMPTED BY THE PACK (Blue Moon Brides, Book 1)

  PLEASURED BY THE PACK (Blue Moon Brides, Book 2)

  CLAIMED BY THE PACK (Blue Moon Brides, Book 3)

  TAKEN BY THE PACK (Blue Moon Brides, Book 4)

  CAPTURED BY THE PACK (Blue Moon Brides, Book 5)

  Paranormal Romance – The Fallen

  BOND WITH ME (Fallen, Book 1)

  HIS DARK BOND (Fallen, Book 2)

  SAVAGE BOND (Fallen, Book 3)

  Warriors Unleashed

  VIKING'S ORDERS (Warriors Unleashed, Book 1)

  AT THE VIKING'S COMMAND (Warriors Unleashed, Book 2)

  BOUND BY THE VIKING (Warriors Unleashed, Book 3, November 2014)

  Non-Series Books

  THE HUNT

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  Captured

  by the

  Pack

  ANNE MARSH

  Copyright © 2014 Anne Marsh

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, with the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover design by The Killion Group, Inc.

  A very special thank you to the women who stepped up to help me with this book: Zoe York, Kimberley Troutte, Emily Ryan-Davis, Holley Trent and Kate Pearce. And a huge thank you to Gwen R., reader extraordinaire. I appreciate everything.

  1

  Gianna hit the sidewalk, moving quickly. It wasn’t too late—barely nine o’clock—but the Baton Rouge city streets were already dark. Sometimes, even in the safest of cities, bad shit happened. Her expensive and admittedly upscale neighborhood should have been poster child safe, but her car battery had died unexpectedly and without warning a block ago. One minute she’d been zipping along, running over the day’s cases in her head, and the next…nada. She’d coasted to a stop by the side of the road. Since she was less than a dozen blocks from home and her tow service was an hour out, walking sounded good. She’d had a long week at her law firm.

  The weather had already cooled from the baking heat of the summer months. It was time for sweaters and fires, apples and pumpkins and all the stuff she never had time for. Maybe this would be the year she made time. The senior partner’s words replayed in her head. Take some time off. Get out of town for a while. He’d sounded like a bad movie, but the concern had been genuine and she appreciated it.

  Her involvement with the case had been an accident. Her firm did a certain percentage of pro bono work, one of the many qualities that had drawn her to them in the first place. When a local biker gang had threatened a nice old granny and her not-quite-so-nice grandson, Gianna had obtained a protective order for the pair and then gone one step further when the gang had continued to stalk and threaten. Local law enforcement had tried to arrest the offender, who had run straight into the heart of bayou country.

  The running and the subsequent arrest had come with an unexpected bonus. Gianna had met Cruz Jones, the local sheriff in Port Leon. He’d been instrumental in helping take down the defendant when the offender had ended up in Cruz’s jurisdiction. Jones was a big, good-looking man, laidback and with a sense of easy humor. He definitely went on the list of dating possibilities as soon as she got her personal life straightened out.

  Convicting the guy and his bully best friends should have been a case of open and shut. Instead, everything had gone to hell. Despite not playing by the rules, the defendants were still on the streets and…yeah…downright unhappy with her. She’d had threats at the office that she’d duly turned over to the Baton Rouge police department. The brouhaha likely would die down in a week or two—since she’d passed her bar exam, she’d received more than one threat from the losing parties—but something about this particular case triggered every protective instinct she had.

  They’re goin’ to hunt you down, bitch. The feral look in the defendant’s eyes as the bailiffs had dragged his unwilling ass out of the courtroom to start on his five years almost made her think…that hunt wasn’t a euphemism. No. That was crazy and she’d left the crazy behind the day she’d turned eighteen and moved out of her parents’ house.

  People didn’t beat up people in her world. They didn’t go gunning for you or lay in wait for you or key your car when you wore Michael Kors suits and three-hundred dollar heels. She wasn’t naïve—not after growing up the way she had—but the hurting that went on in her firm and the courtrooms was on a whole different level. People played head games or took their anger out on your yearly bonus rather than on your skin.

  Twilight and October made it easier than usual to play Peeping Tom on families through their open windows. Those happy faces crowding around the dinner table gave her a pang of something. She didn’t need a husband or kids, but she had no one waiting for her at her place. She’d been lover-less for ten years because she hadn’t had time to deal with her personal life. Hadn’t made time because, honestly, she had no idea where to start on the mess she’d made. She’d gone to Vegas and…she might be married. Possibly. Or maybe not, but she hadn’t been able to track down her partner in crime from that evening and ask him what he remembered. And, since her own memories were more than a little fuzzy, her Vegas records searches had turned up zip.

  Ten more blocks and she’d be home safe.

  Something dark flickered in the corner of her eye.

  Someone cursed, a harsh, foul-
mouthed word she recognized instinctively.

  Keep moving. The unexpected, unwelcome shush of sound behind her meant she had company. Her heartbeat picked up even as her head jumped into the game, analyzing. This was an expensive neighborhood, the homes set back from the street and surrounded by hedges and old oaks. Telephone poles stretched overhead and there was plenty of empty lawn everywhere she looked. The sidewalk came and went, the shadows stretching over well-manicured grass.

  She dropped to one knee and listened. Pretended to be tying her shoe and never mind that her heels didn’t come with laces.

  Feet padded softly behind her, the quiet slap more doglike than human. She listened for another heartbeat, counting the rhythms that overlaid each other. More than one set of feet and almost certainly canine. She’d never had a problem with dogs here, and she’d paid plenty of attention. One of her least favorite childhood memories involved taking refuge on top of a dumpster behind the trailer park while a neighbor’s dog lunged and snapped. Yeah. She was so not into a repeat.

  She snuck a quick peek over her shoulder as she got to her feet and started moving again. Something darted closer in the shadows thrown by a hedge of sweet olives. Then another shadow moved in, nearer than the first. The streetlight clicked on, illuminating…fur? A feral dog pack? God, she had no idea what she was dealing with here.

  An enormous dog nudged out of the shadows. Did they have wolves in Louisiana? She eyeballed the distance to the nearest house. Two hundred yards and the front windows were dark. Banging on the front door would be unlikely to yield good results. Walking faster, she groped in her bag for her phone and her mace pepper gun. Call 9-1-1. Point the trigger. That was a two-step plan she could work with.

  Wishing she’d stayed in the car wouldn’t help. Wishing never did.

  The smooth voice of the operator was a welcome relief. “9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”

  She inhaled, fingers wrapping around the gun. “I’m being hunted by a pack of wild dogs.”

  The moment of stunned silence on the other end wasn’t completely unexpected. Gianna was a lawyer. She knew exactly what kind of calls the woman on the other end of the line usually processed. Shootings, stabbings, and bloody mayhem were the dispatcher’s day-in-and-day-out. Dogs, however, were more foreign territory.

  She scanned the shadows behind her. “At least four dogs, sixty, maybe eighty pounds each. No visible tags.”

  Her estimate might be on the light side. These animals were large and brutish, muscles moving sleekly beneath their fur. They were also fast. The pack split, flanking her on either side. Jesus Christ. They were herding her.

  The operator regrouped fast. Gianna gave her that. “What is the location of the emergency?”

  “I’m at the corner of Teal and Sanchez. I’m approximately four hundred yards from the open space.”

  Open space summed it up, a slice of odd-shaped land the developer had turned into a neighborhood park. In addition to a play structure painted in primary colors, the local kids had access to three tire swings and a truckload of sand. There were also a couple of benches for the parents and some trashcans. Unless she’d developed a MacGyver talent, nothing there would help her fend off a dog attack.

  Reacting, not thinking, she dropped the phone and slammed her back against the hedge as the first dog lunged at her. Whipping the gun up, she thumbed off the safety, took aim and fired. Her world narrowed to the patch of sidewalk in front of her and the animals racing towards her. Aerosol goodness exploded out of the can, hitting the lead dog in the eyes. Score one for me. The animal growled and fell back, pawing at its eyes.

  Shit. Could dogs communicate? Four of the biggest dogs she’d ever seen moved in, trapping her in a loose ring. With the hedge at her back and their teeth at her front, there was no way out but through them. She’d practiced shooting the pepper gun with water cartridges, but fifteen minutes in her backyard hadn’t prepared her for this.

  The operator was still doing her thing, a tinny, too-far-off voice blah-blah-blahing out of the cracked iPhone. “What is your name?”

  Holy hell. She needed to skip to the “send help now” part of the operator script. “Gianna Lynn. They’re lunging for me.”

  The gun’s weak-ass LED light lit up the nearest dog’s face when she aimed the muzzle again. Lips peeled back from its teeth, the fucker looked almost like it was laughing at her. Undistracted by the gun’s light—the manufacturer was so wrong on that count—the dog paced toward her.

  ***

  Fuck, but Luc hated the city. There were too many humans and, since The Breed had claimed Baton Rouge as their territory, there were also far too many wolves who would just as soon tear out his throat as have some kind of civilized conversation.

  Not that Luc was jonesing for conversation, civilized or otherwise. Non. His wolf snapped and growled, the beast too close to the surface for quiet. Fate was a son of a bitch for the wolf shifters because, if a male didn’t find his true mate and bond with her, eventually shifting back from his wolf form became impossible. Luc had seen his Pack brothers mated and saved. Now it was his turn because each time he shifted, it took longer and longer to come back. If it had been just him, he would have let it all go. Running wild in the bayou on four legs wasn’t such a bad end. His brothers, however, wouldn’t let him slip away even if he’d been willing to dump his responsibilities as Pack Alpha on their broad shoulders.

  He was the Alpha, the goddamned leader of the lot, and so here he was in Baton Rouge rather than deep in the bayou with his Pack, looking for a female he’d met, fucked and mated ten years ago in Vegas. In this particular case, what happened in Vegas had definitely stayed there. He’d let Gianna go, because she’d deserved better than a lifetime stuck with his surly ass, but now…now, he needed to reconsider that decision. Each day the shift from wolf to man got harder and harder. He was hanging on, but will power could take him only so far. Maybe there was something the two of them could work out. Maybe the miracle had occurred, and she really was in the market for a werewolf mate and happily ever after in the Louisiana bayou.

  And maybe hell had frozen over.

  Which was why he’d stood outside her house—a very nice piece of upscale property—waiting for her to come home from work like he shifted into a pet poodle and not two hundred pounds of feral wolf. Hell. Maybe she’d bring him one of those little pink collars with the faux diamonds and bells, because he didn’t like this situation, with him needing her and her needing absolutely squat from him. He’d kept an eye on her these last ten years through a private security detail he’d hired to keep her discreetly safe. Their reports emphasized her success in the legal profession. She’d be an Alpha there in her own way in another year or two.

  She was smart, driven—and always, always on track. So, the fact that it was now thirty-four minutes past seven o’clock was a red flag he couldn’t ignore. Gianna arrived home like clockwork at seven. Fuck. He shouldn’t have dismissed the security detail until he’d actually made the hand-off and taken her himself. The cause could be simple. Car troubles, a late night at the office, a slow takeout pick-up. Whatever. But…Gianna liked her schedules.

  He was part wolf. He never ignored his instincts. He’d backtrack her route, house to office. Ten blocks later he had his answer. Gianna was on foot, suggesting car troubles were indeed the root cause of her delay. What he hadn’t expected was to find her starring front and center in an ambush.

  The stretch of sidewalk was perfectly ordinary, bordered by ruthlessly pruned green hedges and lots of big-ass trees and houses. This was most definitely not the kind of neighborhood where shit went down. Nevertheless, Gianna had her back to a hedge, a small gun in her right hand.

  She fired, the pop pop pop an unmistakable call-to-arms, although instead of bullets, the muzzle launched a cloud of vapor. Unfortunately for his mate, using pepper spray to face down a werewolf attack was like adding A1 to the steaks and thinking that might put off the lions.

  The stink of the wo
lves told him plenty. The Breed ran a ruthless biker gang out of the city’s dive bars. They made their money from a combination of drug-running, arms dealing, and old-fashioned intimidation. When the gang rolled up on their bikes, the local business owners ponied up their cash rather than risk a beat down. And that was without knowing that the shakedown came from a bunch of wolves. Baton Rouge wasn’t Luc’s territory but he’d still come up here once, maybe twice a year.

  Because fuck him if he could walk away from his mate entirely.

  She’d sent him a message, asking to meet. Not directly, of course, because she was pretending he didn’t exist. She also hadn’t said why she wanted the get-together. Instead, she’d sent not one but three private investigators after him, which was only fair since he’d pretty much done the same to her. None of those men had found Luc because he hadn’t wanted to be found.

  The woman on the sidewalk was every bit as buttoned up, ironed and pressed as she’d been ten years ago. She wore a power suit and ridiculous shoes and, from his spot in the shadows, he could read the tiny, shiny label on her leather bag. Kate Spade. She’d always liked things that came with names of their own.

  He’d sent a few messages of his own, namely by depositing funds into her checking account twice a year. She belonged with him and, if he couldn’t have her in his home, he’d make sure she never went without. He bet it had driven her crazy. She’d changed banks three times in ten years and had never spent a dime of his money—except on those crazy-ass, impossible shoes of her. There was a fuck you right there, except when he looked at her shoes, he didn’t see a waste of money or a scrap of leather that cost more than the rent on some apartments. Non. He saw her heels digging into his back, hanging onto him as he slammed inside her sweet, tight channel.