Rhys (The Shifters of Eagle Creek Book 3) Read online

  Table of 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

  Donovan

  Maximus

  The Callaghan Clan

  The Alaska Shifters

  The Vampire Huntress Series

  Newsletter Sign Up

  Other Books by Ashlee Sinn

  About Ashlee Sinn

  Copyright © 2017 Ashlee Sinn

  http://www.ashleesinn.com

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences only. All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. If you’ve illegally downloaded this book for free, shame on you. Authors work too hard for you to be stealing their books.

  Cover Design by Ashlee Sinn

  RHYS

  Rhys Murray has paid his dues. He’s been an alpha, a second, an enforcer, and has donated his land to establish the Eagle Creek crew. All he wants to do is relax and enjoy his new life, even if a small part of him wishes he had someone to share it with. Seeing his friends find mates and raise children has stirred up a familiar emptiness he thought he’d buried a long time ago. Rhys has always been responsible for others which left no room for a mate bond. But when an unruly, dangerous, and captivating wolf from his past shows up in his territory, he starts to rethink his future.

  Natasha Dunanski has lived in the shadow of her sister her entire life. Always struggling to fit in, Natasha was the rebel, the bad one, the disappointment. But when she makes a devastating mistake, and her family is forced to deal with the very real consequences, they decide to send her into hiding instead of letting her handle it. Getting thrown into Eagle Creek under the care of the broody and arrogant Rhys Murray is the last thing Natasha needs right now. She’s being hunted, and she doesn’t have time to deal with her growing feelings for the alpha wolf.

  The wolves are out for blood and Natasha is their target. Rhys must decide how to best protect those he cares about without spiraling into the dark places of his past. And when Eagle Creek faces an uncertain future, Rhys and Natasha are forced to make a life-changing decision with lasting impacts on all the shifters in Alaska.

  Table of 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

  Donovan

  Maximus

  The Callaghan Clan

  The Alaska Shifters

  The Vampire Huntress Series

  Newsletter Sign Up

  Other Books by Ashlee Sinn

  About Ashlee Sinn

  With the click of the lawn chair and the refreshing hiss from the cold beer, I was ready to enjoy my night. Sitting on the deck in the middle of camp, I waited for the brawls to begin. It’d become a regular occurrence ever since Micah, Max’s son, had joined our crew and started the evening softball games. We’d created our own league, and today was the playoff event.

  “Can I join you?” Mariah asked, pulling up her own camping chair and positioning it so she could see most of the dirt ball field we’d created. Rubbing her belly, she made a small noise and slowly sat in her seat. The mate of Donovan, our alpha lion, was expecting. Although only two months along, she was already showing a tiny bit.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just a little gas.”

  “Gross.”

  She laughed. “Hey, get used to it. You’re number one on the babysitter list once this little monster is born. Dirty diapers and pee are coming your way. Donovan and I will need date nights.”

  “Nope. No way.” I shook my head. “I don’t do babies.”

  “You play with Micah,” she said, eyes wide with disappointment.

  “He’s seven. He can talk. I don’t know how to be around things that don’t speak.”

  “I imagine it’s kind of like being around some members of our own crew,” she teased.

  “True,” I agreed. “Still, not babysitting.”

  Mariah grabbed the beer out of my hand and held it hostage. “Promise me you’ll watch my kid.”

  “No. And give me the beer.”

  “Promise.” Her smile grew as my own crept onto my face.

  “Fine.” Holding out my hand, I waited until she put the beverage firmly back in my palm, and added, “After he turns five.”

  Mariah smacked the back of my head as we both laughed. In all my years of being in charge of misfits, drug addicts, and worse, I’d never even thought about what it would be like to take care of a tiny baby. It was probably because I never thought I’d have any. Finding a mate hadn’t been a priority. And as far as I knew, I didn’t have any illegitimate children out there like Max.

  Mates were too complicated.

  Children were even worse.

  “So, who’s gonna fight tonight?” Mariah asked, sipping some kind of green drink. “My money is on Mary and Sharon.”

  “Nah. I’m going for Justin and Jo. They’ve been at each other’s throats for a while.” The two wolf shifters definitely had some issues they needed to settle.

  “They’re fighting over Sharon,” Mariah said with a smile. “She’s playing them both.”

  “Really?”

  “I heard she gave them each a month to convince her to mate with them.”

  “And what better way to that than to constantly fight with each other?” I mused.

  “Exactly.” Mariah leaned over the arm of her chair to give me more gossip. “And Mary’s pissed because she wants Jo.”

  “I thought all of the lynx shifters were…together?” It had been a topic of discussion for months—the two men and two women all lived together in one camper, and it was really hard to tell who belonged to who.

  “Oh, they are. But Mary says she’s in an open relationship. And she wants to bang Jo.”

  I thought about that for a second and could only reply with a “Huh.”

  “What? That’s all you have to say? This is like…the biggest news to come here in a while and you can only grunt a response?”

  “Huh,” I said again, a second before Mariah punched me in the arm. She may only be a coyote, small in comparison with my wolf, but she had shifter strength and I did my best not to wince.

  Watching the game begin, I sat back and sighed. My team had been knocked out early, which was just fine with me. I’d rather observe than play, even though I hated that some of the cat shifter teams were doing so well. In fact, tonight, most of the players were some type of cat—lion, lynx, bobcat, panther…we certainly had an unusual mix here at Eagle Creek.

  “Ooh, look. Here it comes.” Mariah bounced in her chair as she watched Mary start yelling at Sharon just a few minutes into the game. As the second enforcer of the pack, Mary was a scrappy little lynx who’d almost made it to the final alpha challenges. Sharon, as a wolf shifter, was rather docile
and certainly not dominant. But Sharon stood her ground as Mary screamed in her face about a bad call or something.

  “Nope. Wait for it,” I said. “Yep, here comes Jo.” The tall, muscular man with his hair held back by a ball cap, stomped over to the two women and tried to calm Mary, but she was furious, and hurt, and reeked of lust. “Wow,” I whispered.

  “We need popcorn,” Mariah said. Her smile stretched wide across her face.

  We watched as Justin, and equally giant man jumped out of his chair in the surrounding crowd and started running toward the center of the field.

  Mariah squealed and clapped her hands together. “This is gonna be so good.”

  I silently agreed with her, even though all this uneasiness reminded me too much of my days as alpha in the super fucked-up Mount Augusta Pack. Those wolves were all assholes and shitty people. At least in Eagle Creek, our crew still had some of their humanity left. As I’d been forced to be alpha in my old pack, I’d lost more and more of myself in the process. By the time I was allowed to leave, I’d been broken and crazy. My wolf was even worse. He constantly craved blood or wanted to start fights he knew he couldn’t win. In fact, Donovan and Max had been victims of his psychotic breaks. But they hadn’t killed him, or me. Instead, they’d helped us both heal.

  Jo and Justin ripped their shirts off and bounced their chests off each other. Mary was holding Sharon’s arms behind her back as she screamed at her fellow wolves, begging them to stop. The feral smile on Mary’s face put my own animal on alert. However, breaking up fights was not my job anymore.

  “Are you going to do something?” Fawn asked. She was a raven shifter and mate of my close friend, Max. Her long, black hair had been pulled back into a braid, and she sat down in her own chair that she’d brought along.

  “Max is the enforcer, not me.”

  “Well, he’s busy with Micah right now.”

  I followed her gaze to where Max had pulled Micah into his lap and was rocking back and forth, whispering something to his son. Micah had only recently started changing into his panther, and he was having trouble keeping the animal under control. In fact, that’s why Micah was still here with us. His mother decided to return to Oregon once Max accepted the fact that Micah needed him more than her right now. When others in the camp would start fighting, Micah had a hard time staying human. Max was holding him tight to help coax his panther to sleep. I’d been impressed with my friend and the natural way he handled becoming an instant father. And it was even more impressive that he really did know how to help Micah. Max should have been an alpha—it was in his blood.

  “Donovan will handle it,” Mariah said, her voice softening at the mention of her mate.

  “Rhys,” groaned Fawn, “Come on. You don’t do anything anymore.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, sipping my beer and raising a brow. “I’m on vacation.”

  “Bullshit,” Fawn snapped. “Since when?”

  “Since right now.”

  “She’s right,” Mariah jumped in. “I’m calling bullshit.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Please help stop this,” Fawn begged again. Jo and Justin were very close to shifting and that wasn’t technically allowed—a rule we’ve been trying to enforce but had a hard time doing when females were the reason for the fighting. Eventually the mates would be settled and they’d stop tearing the place apart.

  “Nope.”

  “Rhys!”

  I closed my eyes and pulled the ball cap over my face, pretending to take a nap.

  “Sometimes I really hate you,” Fawn teased.

  “Feeling’s mutual.” I raised my beer in her direction as she flipped me off. I might hate seeing my closest friends pair up, but Mariah and Fawn fit in well. They’d stolen a tiny, a very miniscule, part of my friendship heart—even if I hated the way they ganged up on me.

  The battle had begun. Hair was flying. Blood splattered against Sharon’s face. She watched with her mouth hanging open and with tears in her eyes. Although I didn’t really know what she expected. I mean, when a woman basically gives men the okay to fight for her, they’re going to fucking fight. She’d brought this on herself.

  Donovan stomped over to the brawling wolves and shouted down at them. They didn’t stop. Even when Donovan kicked one of them in the ribs.

  “Rhys…” Mariah whispered.

  “He’s got this.” But a moment later, I thought I might have to eat my words. Jo tossed Justin to the side with a kick of his four paws, and the massive gray wolf slammed into Donovan, knocking our alpha to the ground. Donovan fell hard onto his back, and it took him more than a few seconds to recover.

  Mariah and Fawn jumped to their feet and wrapped their arms around each other as Fawn said, “Stay here, Mariah. You can’t risk the baby.”

  Mariah kicked my chair. “I know. That’s why I want Rhys to help.”

  “On vacation, remember?” But while I said that, I was evaluating the scene in front of me to see if my alpha needed help. After all, I was his Second.

  Donovan pushed to standing and Justin immediately dropped to the ground at his feet. He was apologizing. The alpha lion stood above him, glaring down at the wolf as though deciding what to do next. He swung back his arm and punched Justin right in the snout—a warning and a punishment. Everyone sucked in a breath when the crack of the hit reverberated over the makeshift ball field. Yet Justin didn’t even cry out, he just accepted the hit and slunk away once Donovan gave him the signal.

  Jo was next, but he didn’t seem ready to throw in the towel just yet. He crouched low, butt pushing up against Sharon and Mary, tail swishing back and forth. His eyes followed Justin as he walked away. The wolf was in a frenzy and he couldn’t even focus on Donovan who continued to shout at him and demand he change back to human.

  “Oh, shit,” Mariah breathed.

  She saw the same thing I did—Jo’s feet sliding under him, readying for a pounce. His tongue tasting the tip of his snout, searching for blood. His tail, smacking from side to side in anticipation of a quick move.

  “Rhys?” Fawn asked.

  “He’ll be fine,” I said about Donovan, although a small wave of doubt crept through me.

  “I don’t know,” Mariah said.

  And then Jo made his move. He pushed up into the air, prepared to soar over Donovan’s head and continue his attack on Justin. But Donovan was a fighter through and through, and he’d seen the move coming. With both hands above his head, Donovan jumped into the air as soon as Jo pushed off the ground. He reached up high and grabbed a hold of Jo’s two front legs, yanking him out of the sky and slamming him into the dirt. Jo landed hard, a small grunt leaving his wolf mouth when he hit. Donovan immediately fell on top of him, pinning the frenzied wolf by pressing his forearms across Jo’s throat. Jo instantly reacted. He panted and wiggled, trying to get air, but Donovan held him down until Jo’s eyes closed.

  “Did he just kill him?” Fawn whispered.

  “No. Knocked him out,” I answered. Donovan Bain was a badass. I’d always known that, but now a small part of me knew that I would never want to be on the receiving end of his anger.

  “Is he okay?” Mariah wondered.

  We all focused on Jo, watching closely to see if he was going to wake up anytime soon. Donovan sat back on his knees and waited. Everyone else in camp stood still—the tension in the air palpable and thick. Slowly, Jo’s wolf shifted back into human form and we all let out a collective sigh of relief, including Donovan.

  Although the fight had been entertaining enough, the sound of a car speeding down our road had me jumping to my feet. I gently nudged the girls behind me as I waited to see who was intruding onto our land. I couldn’t see the vehicle yet, but it purred like some kind of sports car, making me all the more curious. This was backwoods Alaska—everyone from this area drove a truck.

  “Expecting someone?” Mariah asked from behind me.

  “Nope.”

  “Are you still on vacation?” Fawn said
with a hint of snark.

  “Depends who it is.”

  As the girls huffed their annoyance with me, I watched and waited. With a quick nod to Donovan, I signaled that I would handle this one since he was still sitting with the passed-out Jo. The car got louder, and when it finally cleared the trees and turned left onto the road that led into our camp, I swallowed my disappointment. “Oh, fuck,” I mumbled to myself.

  “What? Who is it?” Mariah asked.

  The bright red Audi TT bumped slowly over the muddy drive and the closer it got, the tighter I squeezed my fists. My chest pounded with instant stress and anxiety and I could feel my neck turning red. Grinding my teeth together, I did my best to control my reaction to the car. No, not the car. To the person I knew was behind the wheel.

  Fawn set her hand on my shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, doing her best to calm my wolf. Mariah rubbed her fingers in small circles across my upper back. These girls knew me well, and their comfort did help sooth my beast just a little.

  The car suddenly jerked to a stop, and as the rest of the Eagle Creek crew gathered behind me to watch the new arrivals, we could clearly hear the shouting. Two women. Both furious. Screaming at each other. And while their words were muffled, there was no denying the anger behind their yelling. The driver slammed her hands against the steering wheel, her blonde hair flying forward and covering her face. I squinted my eyes to see the passenger, but the glare on the windshield didn’t give me a good view.

  “Is that Portia?” Donovan asked from beside me.

  I hadn’t heard him approach and a wave of anger surged through me at the mention of her name. “I think so,” I gritted out.

  “What is she doing here?”

  Slowly shaking my head, I wondered the same thing. Portia Dunanski was one of the highest-ranking wolves in North America. And a visit from her could only be a bad thing. I stepped forward, ready to confront Portia and remind her about our agreement. But the second I made it to the end of the deck, the passenger door flew open and a large, white wolf landed on the ground in a cloud of dust.