Onyx, a wolf shifter and a member of the Howling Devil’s Motorcycle Club, has always loved to cook, or more specifically, to bake, and during his travels with the club, he’s taken cooking classes, he’s sampled his fair share of different pastries, entrees, lunch items and everything in between and now, he has the opportunity to settle at Comet Lake and backed by his club and the pack, start up a bakery on the pack lands.
What’s important about this is that it provides a gathering place for the members of the pack, but it also provides a much-needed service. The wolves of Comet Lake have created a society in which every wolf is taken care of and provided for. They don’t hold much stock in human money, and while their council will use it for projects to benefit the pack, the individual members work on more of a barter system, meaning Onyx is set up to take anything in trade in exchange for the things he bakes and cooks. Wolves with nothing in hand are still fed and able to pledge goods or services to be delivered at a later date. Bottom line is, no one is ever turned away and each day the bakery provides treats to the school to provide mid-morning snacks for the cubs there, since the wolves have realized that their cubs learn better with full bellies.
Some of the different menu items that are discussed over the course of the book are from my own travels, and it was such fun weaving those adventures and my love of food into the story and in Onyx himself who clearly loves what he does and is passionate about it. Over the years I’ve learned that a good book, and a good meal can truly go hand in hand, so please, check out Outlaw Redeemed and do a little nibbling of your own while you do, particularly on something new and different to you, the experience such a simple pleasure can bring is inspiring and downright mind-blowing, and I hope to share in that with you.
Traditionally, rejecting a mate means walking away. It’s a simple thing, really, painless, except for frayed emotions and a bit of friction between families. In the history of Comet Lake, it’s never led to the level of bloodshed that comes when Emery’s mate, Tobias, decides he doesn’t want him. Not only are feelings hurt, but Emery’s life is left hanging by a thread and Onyx, the mate he finds on the same day his other rejects him, emerges from the encounter pissed off and looking for revenge.
He’ll have to wait though.
Things are brewing around Comet Lake. Things the pack has never had to deal with. There are wolves on their land that don’t belong there. Scents and footprints in the forest that don’t match any enrolled members of their pack. Intruders. Unseen invaders who slink between trees and watch from the shadows.
In addition, the Howling Devils have returned. The motorcycle club, which Onyx has long belonged to, was formed two decades before to protect the Comet Lake pack, only now it’s grown into something more. A family ready to settle in and do what family does. Stay. These loyal outlaws, brave and strong, are so unlike the outlaw club that Emery once belonged to he’s got no way to relate.
Too bad the wolves around them believe otherwise, insisting that the fates brought Emery and Tobias to Comet Lake to help unravel truth and lies, if they can get past their own history. Unfortunately, the only thing they see it as is punishment for being who they were born to be. Can they move past the legacy of hatred and violence that threatens to reclaim them and if so, are they each destined to become an Outlaw Redeemed?
Warnings: Violence.
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Hands shoved in his pockets, Emery stared down at the neon orange words painted in the brilliant white snow, his heart hammering erratically while other wolves gave a wide berth as they passed. A few snickered, but one called out to him: “Give it up, man. It’s beyond sad now.”
The wolf was right, and Emery knew it. He’d managed two weeks without leaving another note for his mate to find. But late last night, after the snow stopped and the rest of the town was silent, he’d crept back to the square. With the way the weather had been changing lately, it was probably the final snow of the season, his last chance to leave a message in what he was coming to think of as “their spot.” A glutton for punishment, that’s what he was. The whole time he was painting his question in the snow, he’d told himself he was being an absolute fool by hoping his mate had reconsidered wanting to meet him.
That message had been drawn through with several angry black lines and stomped with heavy bootprints—clearly conveying his mate’s state of mind. The wolf wasn’t just annoyed now, but angry that Emery kept trying to get to know them, which was made perfectly clear by the second line of his response.
If you were the only other wolf left in the universe, I’d choose to die alone rather than ever spend a single second in your company. Now leave me the fuck alone before I tell the people you’re running from where you are and how to find you.
Shaking, Emery felt the first stirrings of a panic attack kicking in. He knew. His mate knew who he really was. Kicking at the snow, he scattered it, destroying the message, and leaving little more than splatters of orange randomly dotting the trampled mess. Glancing around, he saw several wolves watching from the sidewalks, others with their heads together, whispering. At least they stopped short of pointing at him.
Some faces he recognized; others he didn’t, and one…
He couldn’t breathe. Clawing at the zipper of his coat, he tried to undo it, but his field of vision was narrowing, and his hands fumbled like he forgot what to do. Finally, he just yanked it off over his head, nearly choking himself in his haste. The T-shirt he wore beneath offered no real protection from the elements, not that he cared, as he let the coat slip from his fingers.
Blinking, he struggled to focus, telling himself there was no way in hell the wolf watching from the sidewalk was Sydney. Sy was dead. There was no coming back from getting one’s head taken off by a tow chain.
Logic wasn’t enough to slow his heartbeat or still the twitching in his fingers and the panicked urge to run and hide somewhere no one would think to look for him. Even when the guy moved and sunlight struck his hair, showing the shades of reds and golds shimmering in brown strands that weren’t dull like Emery’s, but alive with colors, it was difficult to separate what he was seeing from his memories.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
The voice in his ear, and the soft touch on his arm? Now that grounded him. Only one person in his life had ever sounded like that, and he was grateful as hell for Zane’s appearance now. The small wolf picked up his coat and handed it back to him. Emery hugged it to his chest when he did. He’d have stood there like his feet were glued to the spot if Zane hadn’t taken charge and steered him away from the square and the remnants of those words.
Zane said nothing as they walked. He just steered Emery down the street and around the corner, directing him the whole four blocks back to the apartment he and Dalton shared, which was a good thing because Emery couldn’t manage to get his brain to kick in gear and take over. Even inside, it was Zane who propelled him to sit at the kitchen table, Zane who put the kettle on for tea, and Zane who hung up both their jackets before getting the mugs ready. His one pause was to pull out his cell phone and type out a simple text, probably to his mates.
“They threatened to tell the Outlaws how to find me,” Emery said softly. “In their message in the snow, they said to leave them alone, or they’d tell the people I was running from how to find me.”
Layla got hooked on writing as a child and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.
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