Feast your eyes on the gorgeous, wild creature on this book jacket – and then take a look at the wolf, too! Must Love Wolves is my first foray into the well-trodden genre of werewolf fiction, and I hope I’ve brought my own particular slant to it. The idea to write about wolf shifters originally came from a review I received of one of my BDSM stories, where the reviewer mentioned that I’d obviously never met a master in real life, because no real master would behave the way my character had. So I thought I’d write this novella, then sit back and wait to be told that I’d obviously never met a real werewolf…
Anyway, Must Love Wolves is the story of university lecturer Neil, who is researching the subject of wolfmen in literature and folklore for his doctorate, while trying to forget about a disastrous cyber-affair that has seriously dented his trust in men. His solitude on the outskirts of the village of Lochailde is broken when he finds a young man in his cottage garden, half-naked and bearing the marks of a vicious beating. What he doesn’t realise at first is that the man, Logan, is actually a wolf shifter who’s been exiled from his pack.
This is Logan’s reaction to meeting Neil:
Someone was patting gently at his shoulder, trying to wake him. He whined, low in his throat, shifting away from the touch, wanting only to sleep till all his aches were eased. Then that maddening, arousing scent hit his nostrils again, and he blinked open his eyes.
‘Hey, are you OK? Who did this to you?’
The blond stranger’s voice held a mix of concern and fear. Hardly surprising, he thought, raising himself to a sitting position with less difficulty than he’d expected. He was afraid himself, never having been quite so close to a human before. There’d been brushes with hunters in the woods, but he’d always had Lennox, or one of the older pack members, to keep him safe, and from them he’d learned to keep a respectable distance from a man with a gun. This man was different; unarmed, and wearing a short, striped towelling robe from which his legs emerged, lean and bare. He bore no immediate threat.
‘Are you OK?’ the stranger asked again.
‘Aye, I’m fine.’ His words sounded gruff, even to his own ears, and for the first time he became aware of a powerful thirst. Quite how far had he run the previous night, and how much punishment had he put his body through? At least his cracked ribs were healing; he no longer felt that sharp little hitch of pain accompanying every breath. Rising to his feet, he added, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know this was your garden. I just needed somewhere to rest.’
‘That’s not a problem.’ The stranger’s eyes, soft blue-green behind the lenses of his spectacles, blazed with concern. ‘I’m more worried about how you came by those injuries.’
‘I – I got into a fight with my brother. We – well, I think it’s safe to say we’ve come to a parting of the ways. But honestly, this isn’t so bad.’
‘Not so bad? We should be reporting the bastard to the police.’
That was the last thing he wanted, anyone other than this man knowing even a fraction of the truth about what had happened. He shook his head. ‘Like I say, it’s over and done between us. There’s no need to get anyone else involved. Maybe I should just be on my way.’
‘No way. You need a bath, and some breakfast at the very least.’ The stranger made to usher him inside the house, then stopped, proffering a hand in welcome. ‘I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Neil. Neil Affleck.’
He grasped Neil’s hand, fighting the urge to squeeze as hard as he would when greeting a fellow pack member. A human hand’s bones would crack under the force, or so he’d always been told. Though this man’s bones didn’t feel fragile; his whole body seemed to fizz with a subtle power that was most appealing. A jolt of lust shot straight down to his groin, needing to be slaked as urgently as his thirst. ‘Logan Grayling,’ he replied, even though he’d given up his right to use the pack name when he’d been banished from Grayling territory.
‘Come on, let’s get you inside.’
Though in truth he needed no assistance in walking, he accepted the invitation to lean against Neil’s body as they entered the cottage. His mating instincts had been roused beyond endurance by the man’s nearness, and it took all his willpower not to throw the man to the floor and fuck him. But that wasn’t how things worked in the civilised world – and, like it or not, once he’d left the pack he’d become part of that world.
If you want to know whether wolf and man can co-exist, and what happens when Logan realises he’s not the only shifter in Lochailde, check out Must Love Wolves. It’s available from Amazon, and I hope you’ll think it’s howlingly good…
