Fated to a Cougar: 4 (Cougar Surrender)

Marisa
Chenery

Book four in the Cougar Surrender series.

Out on the hunt for the fairer sex, cougar shifter Grady
doesn’t expect to run across his other prey. As he follows
Caleb on a mad dash through Anchorage’s dark streets, Grady ends up on the
receiving end of a metal pipe to the head. When a police cruiser arrives on the
scene, Caleb takes off, leaving Grady in the dirt.

As a cop, Sage’s job is to protect and
serve. But she doesn’t expect to be kissed senseless by the sexy man she’s
trying to help. She can’t resist his charm—or his touch on her body—and agrees
to see him again.

A relationship started on passion changes
quickly when tragedy slams into Sage’s life. But with Grady by her side, Sage
finds the one thing she’s been missing.

A
Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Grady took a swig from his beer, then nodded in the
direction of a group of women who’d just taken a table close to where he and
his friend sat. “What do you think about any of them?”

Draven turned his head for a look before focusing back on
Grady. “Not bad, but I think I’ll pass. They aren’t exactly what I’m looking
for.”

“I have to say the same thing.” Grady watched one of the
women put a plastic tiara on the head of another that had “Bride” on it. “It
looks as if it’s a stagette, which means they wouldn’t be interested in a guy
trying to pick them up, anyway.”

Draven chuckled. “True. They’re here for a good time that
involves lots of alcohol. Don’t be surprised if their table gets noisy after
they have a couple drinks.”

There was a loud outburst of laughter from that direction.
“It’s already started,” Grady said with a smile.

Both he and Draven were single cougar shifters who had no
interest in dating the females of their kind. Human women held more appeal,
especially now that both his cousins Taylor and Blaise, along with his brother
Jase, had ended up mated to humans and were extremely happy. Grady wanted that.

“I think this night is going to be another bust,” Draven
said after he finished his bottle of beer, then signaled their waitress that he
wanted another.

Grady first met Draven three months ago, after Jase
introduced them. Draven was Blaise’s go-to guy for anything to do with
computers and the internet. And when Jase had needed a way to track Caleb,
Blaise’s cousin who’d tried to poison Blaise’s father, Draven had been the
logical choice. He’d given Jase a computer program to track Caleb’s location
every time the other shifter used his cell phone. It’d worked for a little
while, but Caleb now appeared to have gone deep into hiding. And it was
Draven’s project to see if he could find any clues as to where Caleb had gone.

“Maybe the bar scene is getting old,” Grady said. “We should
try the mall or something like that instead. After all, that’s where Blaise met
his mate Harley.”

Draven nodded. “I guess we could give that a shot. There
definitely would be a lot of women there, but a grocery store can be just as
good.”

“You’re welcome to try that, but you’ll be on your own.
That’s not exactly my ideal spot to pick up a woman. I can just picture getting
slapped if I went up to one and asked if I could compare her melons to the ones
the store has for sale.”

His friend barked with laughter. “That’s what I like about
you, Grady. You probably would do something that stupid just because you can.”

“Damn right.”

Another loud burst of laughter came from the women who were
having the stagette. There was a tray of shots in the center of their table and
they were pounding them back pretty fast. One looked at Grady and winked while
she pursed her lips in a kiss. He smiled but made no move to go over there.

The waitress brought Draven a fresh beer. She asked Grady if
he wanted another, but he shook his head. She then left to wait on another
table. “So, any progress on finding where Caleb has slunk off to?” Grady asked.

“Nothing yet. The asshole has done a better job of keeping
his tracks hidden than he did a few months ago. I think Caleb smartened up
after his last encounter with Jase, which isn’t working in our favor.”

Jase had managed to track Caleb to an older apartment in the
low-income section of Anchorage, a place none of them would have expected him
to go. His brother had come close to capturing their prey, but Caleb had used
Katarina, Jase’s mate, to make good his escape. She’d been the superintendent
of the building at the time. And that had been the last time they’d seen Caleb.

Now it was Grady’s job to bring him in. As a cat shifter,
Caleb wouldn’t be facing human law enforcement. No, his fate would be decided
by Taylor and Blaise’s father Nate, the leader of their family group. Even
though Caleb wasn’t Grady’s cousin, he was cousin to Taylor and Blaise. Their
father was the older brother of Caleb’s father.

“Well, let’s hope he didn’t smarten up too much,” Grady
said. “I need to find him.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not giving up yet. He’s bound to make a
mistake. It’s only a matter of time.”

Grady hoped so. He was afraid that as time went by, the
chances were Caleb was no longer in Anchorage. If that happened to be the case,
it was more than likely that Caleb would never be found.

After Grady downed the rest of his beer, he said, “Since
nothing is happening here, I’m going to head home.”

“All right. I’m going to finish my drink, then I’ll go home
as well. I have a new game that’s calling my name. I’ll probably stay up all
night playing it.”

Grady shook his head with a grin. Draven was a huge computer
geek, but he didn’t look like one. He was the largest cougar shifter Grady had
ever seen. At six-foot-seven, with a body thickly padded with muscles, Draven
had the build of a werewolf.

“You’re going to fry your brain if you do that too often.”

Draven chuckled. “Not a chance.”

“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. I’ll give you a
call in a couple days to get together again.”

“Sounds good.”

Grady stood, pulled on his jacket, then headed for the bar’s
entrance. As he passed the stagette’s table, the same woman who’d blown him a
kiss let out an appreciative whistle. He smiled and shook his head as he kept
walking. There was no way he was going to get involved with that. A group of
women who’d been drinking large amounts of alcohol usually spelled trouble.

He zipped up his winter jacket once he stepped outside. A
fresh layer of snow had fallen while he’d been in the bar. Now that it was mid-winter,
the white stuff was piled high on the sides of the streets from the plows.
Grady shivered as a gust of cold wind blew his way. He shoved his hands deep
into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He wished he could shift to his
cougar form. His thick fur did a better job of keeping him warm than the jacket
he wore.

Another gust of wind hit him, bringing the scent of another.
Grady let out a low growl as he jerked his head in the direction the scent had
come from. He took a quick look around to make sure no one was around, then put
on a burst of speed no human would be capable of.

Grady followed the scent to the end of the street, which was
a parking lot. He saw two men standing in the deepest shadows. He recognized
one immediately. It was Caleb. And the man with him was human.

Not caring who saw him, Grady put on another burst of
preternatural speed and ran toward his quarry. He’d be damned if he let Caleb
slip through his fingers after having no leads on his whereabouts for months.

The wind suddenly changed direction and blew from Grady’s
back and toward Caleb, who jerked around. Grady caught a flash of teeth as
Caleb snarled and made a run for it. Grady didn’t give it a second thought as
he gave chase.

His prey led him through backs of buildings and down
alleyways. After turning onto one of the latter and coming out on a street that
was lined with industrial buildings, Grady swore under his breath as he slowed
to a fast walk. Caleb was nowhere to be seen. His prey had gotten a little
ahead of him, but he hadn’t thought he’d manage to get away.

Grady came to a stop and looked around. Caleb hadn’t gotten
that much distance between them. He had to be around there somewhere. A cougar
shifter didn’t have the ability to just disappear into thin air. They had magic
inside them, but not to that extent.

Something slammed into the back of Grady’s head, knocking
him to the ground. A second hit came before he had a chance to gather his wits
about him enough to roll out of the way. The blow made him see stars, and darkness
hovered around the edges of his consciousness. It felt as if his head had
almost cracked in two.

The sound of a police siren coming saved Grady from another
blow. Dazed, he vaguely heard a metal pipe being dropped to the ground near
him, then footsteps running away. A car came to a screeching stop a few feet
from where he lay at the side of the road. The door opened and another set of
feet hurried toward him.

Grady reached up and felt the back of his head. Wetness came
away with his fingers, and the smell of blood filled his nose. He groaned.
Caleb had done a number on him. And he knew it was his prey who’d gotten the
jump on him from his scent.

“Don’t move,” said the person who crouched beside him. The
voice was female. “Let me check you to see where you’re hurt.”

“I already know where I am. It’s my head.”

“Let me have a look.”

Grady turned his face in the woman’s direction and had a
split second to see she wore a cop’s uniform, and how beautiful she was, before
she clicked on a flashlight and aimed it at him. He closed his eyes as the
light hit them and sent a surge of pain through his skull.

Fingers gently touched the spot where Caleb had beaned him.
Grady sucked in a sharp breath when she hit a particularly sore area. At least
his head had to still be in once piece. The woman cop surely would have said
something by now if it wasn’t.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just want to see how bad this is. I
think I should call an ambulance. You’ll more than likely need stitches.”

That had Grady surging to his feet. He moaned and clutched
his head. The quick movement made it feel as if it would fall off. “No
hospital. I’ll be fine,” he said with his eyes closed as he concentrated on
stopping the world from spinning.

She grabbed his arm to steady him as he swayed a trifle in
place. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. The doctor will want to keep you
in the hospital for observation. I’m going to make the call.”

Grady snapped his eyes open and took hold of the cop’s hand
that held her radio. “Please don’t do that. It might look bad, but it really
isn’t that serious.”

It probably was as bad as she thought, but as a cat shifter
Grady healed a lot faster than a human. By tomorrow the wound would be almost a
hundred percent gone. And because of what he was, there was no way he could go
to a hospital. One little blood test and the doctor would know there was
something different about him.

“I have to disagree with that,” she said.

He focused fully on her face. Able to see in the dark as
well as if it were daylight, Grady had no problem seeing her. She wasn’t just
beautiful, she was very, very beautiful. Her eyes were an unusual light blue.
What he could see of her hair that wasn’t tucked under her uniform’s hat was
auburn. And she was tall. He guessed her to be around five-foot-nine. Being
six-foot-three, he liked his women not to be too short.

He looked at the nametag pinned to the front of her jacket.
“Well, Officer Sage Moran, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. There’s no
need for an ambulance.”

“What’s your name?”

“Grady.”

“Grady, I have first-aid training.” She lifted her
flashlight and shone it into his eyes, which caused him to groan. “And from the
looks of you, my assumption of you having a concussion has to be correct. You
really need to see a doctor.” She jerked her hand with the radio out of Grady’s
grip. “I’m calling an amb—”

Grady took hold of Sage’s hand again and tugged her to his
chest before he brought his lips down to hers. He couldn’t think of anything
else to distract her, and the thought of kissing her had come to mind more than
once since he’d seen her face. He kissed her deeply, pushing his tongue between
her lips to get a good taste of her. Not sure if he could get arrested for
coming on to a cop, he decided to get as much as he could.

He licked and sucked and couldn’t hold back from purring
like the big cat he was as Sage’s fingers gripped his arm harder and kissed him
back. Grady’s cock grew hard. The scent and taste of her filled his head,
pushing some of the pain away. She sighed into his mouth and it took everything
in him not to take her to the ground and see how far she’d let him go.

The scent of Sage’s arousal wafted around them. From the way
she continued to kiss him as if she were going to crawl inside him, Grady had
the feeling she wasn’t going to put an end to this anytime soon. He wanted
nothing more than to let their kiss go on, but the pounding in his head
reminded him all too well where they were.

He lifted his head and looked at Sage. Her eyes were closed
and she breathed at a fast rate. Her lips were also puffy from his kisses.
Damn, even wearing her cop’s uniform she looked delicious enough to eat. He
definitely had to see her again.

“See? I’m okay,” he said. “Will you go out with me?”

Sage blinked open her eyes, suddenly aware of where she was
and what she’d been doing. Talk about totally unprofessional. She’d been so
completely involved in sucking face with Grady that anyone could have snuck up
on them—like the guy who’d hit Grady with the metal pipe—and she wouldn’t have
cared. This was the first time since becoming a cop she’d let her guard down
while on duty.

She looked at Grady and had to admit his gorgeous looks were
mostly to blame for her bad behavior, as well as the toe-curling kiss he’d laid
on her. Even when he’d been down on the ground, Sage had to have been blind not
to see he was a hunk. He had features a male model would kill for. His
tawny-blond hair was on the long side, perfect for a woman to bury her fingers
into and hold on as she kissed him for all she was worth. And his eyes. They
were such a light brown they were damn close to gold. She’d never seen anything
like them, and right now they appeared to be eating her up. Plus he was tall.
She had nothing against shorter men, but at her height, she wanted to be able
to wear heels and not feel as if she towered over the guy she was with.

It then dawned on her what Grady had asked. “You mean like a
date?”