Jordanna [Eminence Shifters 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read online

  Eminence Shifters 4

  Jordanna

  Cougar shifter Gabriel Prentiss is working as a paramedic when he finds his mate, Jordanna Morland, after she's mauled by a wolf. A wolf she witnessed kill after shifting from his human form. Calling his family for help in protecting his mate, Gabriel is shocked to find Jordanna is also mate to his brothers and cousin.

  Jordanna's attack proves life altering. Not just because she is introduced to the existence of shifters, but because her attack has left her blind.

  Her mates battle to get her to accept that her blindness doesn't lessen their love, and to keep her safe from the continued threats from the wolf.

  The entire pride is then put at risk when the wolves decide to kill them all to get to Jordanna.

  Ultimately, the strength and honour of the pride brings them a new ally who may help them to save Jordanna when the Alpha wolf finally succeeds in taking her from her mates.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Shape-Shifter

  Length: 60,033 words

  JORDANNA

  Eminence Shifters 4

  Ashley Malkin

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  JORDANNA

  Copyright © 2015 by Ashley Malkin

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-320-7

  First E-book Publication: May 2015

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Jordanna by Ashley Malkin from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Ashley Malkin’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ashley Malkin’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  DEDICATION

  To my wonderful family, who continue inspire me with their unconditional love and acceptance.

  This book is also dedicated to all of us who have survived domestic abuse. Not everyone gets their happily-ever-after, but I write this book with the hope that it’s truly a possibility.

  Love Ashley.

  JORDANNA

  Eminence Shifters 4

  ASHLEY MALKIN

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter 1

  Jordanna found it hard not to explode with anger as her boss told her to stay back. Again. She loved her work, but not her boss.

  “Of course, Clive, I’ll do the prep and lock up when I’m done.”

  “Good. See that you get here by nine tomorrow. The fishmonger is coming at nine thirty, and then you can finish the day’s prep.”

  Jordanna just nodded her head. If she tried to speak, she knew nothing nice would come out. He headed out for the night and left her to work alone in the kitchen.

  Jordanna had been working at Pescare’s, an Italian seafood restaurant, since starting her culinary arts degree two years ago. She was still the most junior, which meant she got to stay the latest and arrive the earliest each shift.

  Thunder sounded overhead. “Great, now I’ll miss the last bus and get to walk for an hour in the freezing rain. I am so lucky.”

  Dreams of opening her own restaurant and treating her staff better than she was treated made the hours of extra work fly past.

  It was past one in the morning when she was finally locking the kitchen door. The streets of Sheridan were deserted. The rain was coming down in sheets and the cold December air steamed her breath as she huffed out a curse.

  Pulling her thin coat tightly around herself, she set out down the alley and started for home. She may have been heading to a tiny studio apartment on the very outskirts of Sheridan, but it was all hers.

  She’d managed to hang on to the apartment by working long hours, hardly eating, and getting very little sleep. Her husband’s death from cancer two years earlier had left her with huge medical bills that she was still paying off.

  “Just two more years. Just two more years.” She chanted the words over and over as her teeth chattered. But it kept her going as she trudged home in her soaked clothes. According to her strict budget, that was how long it would take to finish paying off her debts. Then she could begin to save for her dream.

  The sound of raised voices broke into her thoughts. Wiping the rain from her eyes, she saw two men on the sidewalk ahead of her. She slowed her steps. From their body language and their shouting, it appeared as though they were close to throwing punches.

  Jordanna was not a small woman, but these men were both big. She wasn’t about to wade in and attempt to break up their fight.

  Deciding it was best to avoid them, she crosse
d to the other side of the street. When they began to exchange punches, she slowed her pace and contemplated calling the police.

  She was reaching for her phone when one of the men howled. It wasn’t a cry of pain—it was the howl of an animal. It froze her on the spot. She watched, transfixed, as the impossible happened.

  One of the men exploded. That was the only analogy her brain could find to explain what she was witnessing. He exploded in a shower of light, and was replaced by a giant wolf. A wolf that was now tearing at the other man’s throat. Blood joined the deluge of rain that fell to the sidewalk.

  As the man fell to the ground with a wet splash, the giant wolf leaped on his chest and clamped its jaws around his throat. Even over the rain, she heard the wolf’s vicious growl as it shook its head and ripped away the man’s flesh.

  The sight was so horrifying that she was incapable of stopping her terrified scream. The wolf lifted its giant head and fixed its glowing red eyes on her. Its lip curled, and it snarled as it stalked toward her. Its muzzle was red with blood, its exposed fangs long and gore-stained.

  A sudden rush of adrenaline unfroze her muscles and she ran as fast as she could down the sidewalk. “Help! Please help!”

  She hadn’t gotten but a few steps when a tremendous weight on her back pushed her to the ground. The sound of a sickening crack plunged her into darkness.

  * * * *

  Gabriel and his partner, Mark, were restocking their ambulance when another call came in. The night’s torrential rain and freezing temperatures had already caused a number of car accidents. As a result, they had just finished delivering their third casualty of the shift to the emergency room.

  “Another busy Saturday night,” Mark said as he went to answer the call.

  “They always are,” Gabriel muttered. He closed the back doors and joined Mark in the front of the ambulance.

  He had trained as a paramedic after retiring from the army eight years ago. He’d been an army ranger, and needed to do something that would soothe his battered soul after seeing so much death, a lot of it at his own hands.

  As a mountain lion shifter, he didn’t look ninety-three, but he felt it. He was weighed down with guilt, and the last eight years helping to save lives hadn’t eased that weight as he’d hoped it would.

  “Apparently there have been two people injured in a dog attack. One of them appears to have been killed,” Mark said sadly. “I hope they’re not.”

  “You and me both.” Gabriel had seen enough death in his long life. He worked extremely hard to prevent seeing more.

  As they drove up to the scene, the police were already there. Only a couple of bystanders were braving the weather to watch the proceedings.

  As Gabriel opened the ambulance door, he was hit with a wave of scent that struck him like a body blow. The scent of human blood was not a blow to his senses after all the years he’d spent as both a soldier and a paramedic. It was the scent of this particular human blood that hit him so hard.

  “Fucking hell and damnation,” he said, wobbling on his legs as he got out of the truck. Was fate so cruel that he would finally find his mate, only minutes after she’d been killed? His cat was wild in its distress. Gabriel was fighting the shift with every ounce of his strength. He could not shift here.

  As he fought his cat for control, Mark ran to the side of the closest victim. “You take the other one, Gabe.”

  The rain was making it hard to tell which side of the street his mate’s scent was coming from. The sweet feminine scent seemed to be everywhere. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his kit and ran to the farther of the two bodies. A policeman was standing near the body and he nodded to Gabriel as he approached.

  “I couldn’t find a pulse. I’m pretty sure he’s dead,” the officer said. Gabriel sagged in relief. He wanted to kiss the officer. He. This was not his mate. Which meant Mark was with his mate.

  He continued to fight his cat. It wanted to turn around and go to her, and honestly, so did he. But he had to see to this victim first. Gabriel had to see if there was a chance he could be saved before he went to his mate. Once he was by her side he knew he’d never find the strength to leave her.

  As he got closer, he could see the body was clearly that of a large male. Kneeling by his side in a bloody puddle, he saw that the man’s head had nearly been severed. His throat and spine had been torn out completely, only a small section of skin keeping his head connected to his body.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Officer. You can call the coroner.” Gabriel took a minute to cover the body with a plastic sheet before he sprinted, at human speed, to his mate.

  He was scared of what condition he may find her in after witnessing what was done to the large male victim. This was not a dog attack. Gabriel had clearly scented wolf. Both the dead man and the attacker had been wolf shifters.

  Chapter 2

  Gabriel squatted on the opposite side to Mark and he looked at his mate for the first time. His mate. He felt unworthy of the gift that fate had just granted him. But now that he’d received that gift he would do everything in his power to becoming deserving of her.

  She was unconscious, tall, skinny, wet, and covered in blood. Both sides of his nature were at war within him. Both he and his cat wanted to find and kill the wolf responsible for harming its mate, and they also wanted to hold her and never let her go.

  “She’s got some deep lacerations to her back, but the head injury is what’s worrying me,” Mark said. He had already started an intravenous line and connected the heart monitor.

  Gabriel forced himself to remain professional. It was how he could best help his mate. “Her heart rate and rhythm is stable,” Gabriel said, lifting her eyelids to examine her honey-colored eyes. “Pupils equal and reactive.”

  “I’ll get the gurney and we’ll transport her now.” Mark jogged back to the ambulance.

  “Did she have any identification, Officer?”

  “We have her purse, and her wallet was still inside. Her name is Jordanna Morland. There are no medical alerts noted.”

  “Thank you, Officer. We’ll take that with us.” Gabriel reached for his mate’s hand as soon as the officer looked away. He took her delicate hand in his and a growl quietly rumbled through his chest. He was swamped with feelings of both joy and possession in equal measure.

  How the fuck am I going to leave your side?

  The skin of his hand heated. His entire body began to buzz with excitement. With life. After nearly a hundred years, he finally knew what it felt like to be alive.

  He stroked the long wet locks off his from his mate’s face. She was young, with only a few lines around her eyes. Her skin was a light, creamy beige. Mark had placed a dressing to an injury on her left temple, and it was already soaked through with blood.

  His own blood heated in anger as he gazed at the injury. There was soon going to be a very dead wolf if he had his way.

  “Let’s get her to the hospital,” Mark said, as he moved the gurney alongside her. “She needs a CT scan before they can work on those lacerations.”

  “Fuck, I’d forgotten about those. Are they bad?”

  “Her back is pretty torn up. She’ll need a lot of suturing. But it looks as though her head took a serious blow.”

  After applying a neck brace, they lifted her onto the gurney and took her to their ambulance. “I’ll ride back here with her,” Gabriel said. He needed help and he needed it now.

  He would not to be allowed to stay with his mate once they got her to the hospital, but he was not capable of leaving her.

  He’d left his pride eight years ago, searching for a way to deal with the crushing guilt that consumed him. He hadn’t spoken to a single member since. Not even his family. But that was before he found Jordanna Morland.

  Everything changed the instant he met his mate. He would call on all of his family, all of his pride if necessary, to keep him at his mate’s side.

  * * * *

  Caine was woken from a deep sleep b
y the sound of his cell phone. He was tempted to just let it go to voice mail, but work might need him to cover a shift, so he reached blindly for the phone.

  “This better be life or death,” he said, his voice a deep grumble.

  “Caine, I need your help.”

  Recognition shot to his brain, followed rapidly by fear. “Fucking hell. Is that you, Gabe?”

  “Yes,” came the terse reply from his brother. Gabriel had left Eminence eight years ago, saying only that he had to get his head on straight.

  “Are you hurt?” Caine may have gone to bed with a few too many beers under his belt, but he was stone-cold sober now.

  “No.” Caine heard his brother sigh, and knew without having to see him that he was running his hand through his hair.

  “Good,” Caine said, calming a little now he knew his brother wasn’t hurt. “Just tell me what you need, Gabe. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.” Caine didn’t want his brother to feel that the eight years with no contact would in any way prevent Caine from helping him.

  “I don’t deserve you, Caine. But I thank God I have you as a brother.”

  “Drake feels the same, so does Rowan. Tell me what you need.” Caine knew that his younger brother Drake and their cousin Rowan would also drop everything for Gabriel. They all missed him terribly. They had all been waiting for the day he’d come home again.

  “I’ve found my mate.”

  “Gabe, that’s fantastic. But I need to tell you she may be”

  “She’s hurt, Caine,” Gabriel said, cutting him off.

  Gabriel couldn’t know how those words affected him. Gabriel had been gone this past year while some of their pride mates had found their mates. Mates that all the siblings shared. He was therefore unaware that he’d most likely found his and their brother Drake’s mate as well.