The Mating Game
Melissa Snark
Genre: Erotic Paranormal Romance
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Date of Publication: June 20, 2014
ISBNs:
978-1-62830-378-0 Paperback
978-1-62830-379-7 Digital
ASIN: Not Yet Available
Number of pages: 344
Word Count: 82,508
Cover Artist: Rae Monet
Book
Description:
Two males…two friends…a
competition for the right to claim The Heart of the Iron Stone Pack.
An alpha female at her core,
Theresa Sanchez struggles to protect her young daughter, but rivalries and
politics create volatility in the pack. As Theresa comes into heat, lust and
need rule her body. Her pack demands only the most virile male have her. How
can she choose only one mate when her body craves two—the virile beta and the
man she loves?
Zachary Hunter will do
anything to take Theresa as his mate, even if it means killing his best friend.
However, Robert Blane is just as determined to ascend to Alpha. Both their
beasts howl to mark her flesh, but only one can survive to claim her.
But with enemies circling,
they must fight…for the pack, for Theresa, and for a future together.
Warning: Book contains wolf shifters, pack politics, gritty fight
scenes, offbeat humor, and sizzling sexual adventures between a ménage of
partners.
Chapter Five (PG-13 excerpt)
Monday afternoon,
Zach showed up fifteen minutes early to Isabel’s school, preferring to wait
over the possibility of being late. He stood outside the fenced playground with
the other parents, mostly women, who had congregated in groups of twos and
threes. Pine trees ringed the grounds, providing shade for a variety of smaller
bushes.
The school’s buzzer
sounded, announcing the release of school and a swarm of small people poured
from the building. Zach spotted Isabel waiting with her teacher and headed
toward them.
“Hi, I’m Zach
Hunter,” he said, offering Isabel’s young female teacher a friendly smile.
“Ms. Spaulding,” she
said, shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Isabel, do you have all
your things?”
“Yes, Ms.
Spaulding,” Isabel said, gathering up a pink and white kitty-covered lunchbox
and matching rolling backpack. “Hi, Zach.”
Zach took Isabel’s
hand and led her toward the parking lot. “I didn’t realize you are such a fan
of cats.”
“Not usually, but I
make a special expectation for this kitty.” Isabel tilted her head to stare up
at him. “Fairies hate cats. Even if Mama let me have a kitten, I couldn’t keep
it because my friends wouldn’t like it.”
“Exception,” Zach
said. He settled Isabel into the child booster seat Theresa had given him and
got her seatbelt fastened.
Isabel frowned.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“I don’t like it
when you talk to me like I’m a kid.” Isabel had long ago mastered the petulant
pout.
“Isabel, you are a
kid.”
“Zach, you
promised.”
He sighed. “All
right. You make a special exception. Not an expectation.”
“What’s the
difference?” she queried in confusion.
“An exception occurs
when something doesn’t conform to a general rule; an expectation is something
that is anticipated.”
The drive from
Isabel’s elementary school to the ice cream parlor took less than ten minutes.
The child filled up the time with animated chatter, topics ranging from her
favorite color of green to the superiority of chocolate pudding over vanilla.
“Without a doubt
chocolate is vastly superior. Which reminds me, have you eaten lunch?” Zach
asked.
“Yeah,” Isabel
scoffed. “We eat at school.”
He frowned,
following her into the ice cream parlor. “Well, how am I supposed to know that?
And what’s with the attitude—you don’t talk like this around your mother.”
Huge dark eyes
considered him. “Mama would ground me. You won’t.”
Zach chuckled.
“Can’t or won’t?”
He received no
answer. Isabel’s attention was riveted upon the rows of candy, bins stacked
high
with every sugary treat imaginable. He attempted to herd Isabel past the
confectionary section of the store but, in the end, he bought her a half pound
of mixed hard candies in addition to a cotton candy-flavored ice cream cone.
“I don’t know how
you can eat that,” Zach muttered, eyeing her ice cream with disgust. The neon
pink-and-blue swirl drew his imagination to toxic nuclear waste.
“It’s my favorite.
Chocolate is boring.” Isabel cast a pointed glance at his cone.
“Except when we’re
discussing pudding,” Zach said with plenty of bite. “Speak for yourself,
Munchkin. Chocolate happens to be my favorite. It’s a classic.”
“Borrring.” Isabel
rolled her eyes. “Chocolate’s only better because they don’t make cotton candy
pudding.”
“As you said.”
They moved outside
with their ice cream to enjoy the warm afternoon sun. The September heat melted
the ice cream, rendering it perfect for licking. The grassy areas of the Main
Street Park were an oasis of green beneath patches of pine trees. A children’s
playground was located on the north end. They sat on a park bench to eat and
Isabel swung her feet back and forth.
“Do fairies like ice
cream?” Zach asked.
Isabel frowned. “I
don’t know.”
“I thought you knew
everything there is to know about the Fae.”
She looked at him in
that disquieting way of children and lunatics. “No one believes me. Not even
Mama.”
“Adults are
skeptical of what they can’t see with their own eyes,” Zach explained. “Most
grownups don’t believe in fairies.”
Isabel giggled.
“Most grownups don’t believe in werewolves but we are werewolves.”
He snorted. “Your
logic is impeccable, chiquita. You must never tell non-shifter adults
what you are, but even if you do they probably won’t believe you anyway.”
“Because we hide,”
Isabel said.
Zach nodded.
“Because we hide.”
“Like the fairies.”
“Like the fairies,”
he agreed.
Isabel tossed her
half-eaten cone into a trash can. “I’m full.”
“Me too.” Zach ate
the point of his cone and disposed of the wrapper.
Isabel made a
beeline for the swings. Zach diligently followed, prepared to push for all he
was worth. He enjoyed the brief, albeit temporary, respite from the child’s
relentless curiosity.
Would his child with
Theresa be so precocious? Zach’s straying imagination took him on an unexpected
turn into the realm of possibility. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about
having a family, but before it had always been an abstract concept. Now, he
envisioned Theresa round with his child…and it pleased him beyond words.
“My fairy friend,
Nikki, says that it’s okay for me to talk about fairies because the grownups
won’t ever believe me,” Isabel said.
“I believe you.”
Zach gave a big push that sent her swing higher.
As she swung back,
Isabel flashed him a quick, disbelieving glance.
He shrugged. “I live
in my imagination so I know what it’s like. My characters talk to me too.”
“What do they say?”
He flashed a wry
smile. “Right now, not a whole lot.”
“But they’re still
in your imagination,” Isabel stressed her point. “My friends aren’t.”
“They seem real to
me.”
“That’s not the
same.” Isabel pouted but pursued it no further. Eventually, she asked, “Have
you figured out who killed the taxi driver yet?”
He grunted. “I think
so.” Then, “No, I’ve no bloody idea.”
“I think it was his
wife.”
Zach stared at the
girl’s dark mane of hair as it lifted from her shoulders. He waited until she
swung back and asked, “How do you figure?”
“Because, it’s
always the wife or husband. You told me so yourself. It was the wife in your last
book—Abandon All Hope.”
Zach groaned.
“Isabel, please tell me you’re not reading my books.”
“No, but Mama reads
them. And you talk to me about them all the time. Mama wants Inspector Anders
to fall in love with the pretty lady from the place where they take the dead
people.”
“The morgue,” Zach
said. “Theresa and most of my female readers seem to want those two together.”
“Zach!” A familiar
Spanish-accented voice called out his name.
Zach turned to find
Mary, Theresa’s mother and Isabel’s grandmother, hurrying toward him. He smiled
in greeting. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sanchez.”
“Nana!” Isabel
jumped off the swing, landing confidently on both feet, and flew into her
grandmother’s arms.
“Izzy, my little
love bug! How are you? Let me see you.”
“You’re an hour
early,” Zach said, checking his watch.
“My doctor’s
appointment let out early. Has Izzy been good for you?” Mary regarded Zach with
the sort of motherly approval that set his ears burning.
“An angel,” Zach
said.
Isabel promptly
launched into a long-winded, furiously-paced account of their afternoon
together. Zach waited patiently until the girl wore herself out.
“Thank you so much
for watching my Izzy. Do you need to be going?” Mary asked.
“I should,” he said.
“I haven’t written a word since yesterday and I still need to pack. My plane
leaves tomorrow at seven.”
“Bye, Zach,” Isabel
said, waving her hand.
“I’ll see you, chiquita.”
“Bring me a
present?”
“Promise.” He
crossed his heart.
Back at his car,
Zach dug out his portable tape recorder that he used for keeping notes. He
brought the microphone to his mouth and turned it on. “Not the wife.”
