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Authors: Kathi S. Barton

Brock

Brock
Golden Streak [4]
Kathi S. Barton
World Castle Publishing, LLC (2014)

Emma Cole has had a rough life. She’s a deaf mute on the run from her family. Rayne Golden’s flower shop is as good a place as any to blend into the background and remain anonymous. In her silent world she has no friends and wants to keep it that way. She especially doesn’t want the attention of the huge handsome man claiming to be her mate. 

Brock Golden is a Weretiger and the streak’s enforcer. From the moment he sees the beautiful, petite, Em Cole, he’s pretty sure he’s found his mate. He just has to touch her to be sure. When he does his tiger isn’t the only one to respond. His beast does as well. Brock isn’t like his brothers―he harbors a dark beast. A beast he can’t control. A beast even Ryland has trouble reigning in. 

Brock will do anything to protect his golden beauty―even taking on a nest of vampires. This group is on a killing rampage, and even their friend Peter isn’t sure if the streak is strong enough to stop them. Will the force of the streak be enough to protect Em? Can Brock reign in his beast and not harm the ones he loves? 

Find out in the fourth installment of the Golden Streak Series―Brock

Brock

Golden Streak Series Book 4

 

By

 

Kathi S. Barton

 

World Castle Publishing, LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

WCP

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Kathi S. Barton 2014

Print
ISBN: 9781629890807

eBook ISBN: 9781629890814

First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, April 06, 2014

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor:
Eric Johnston

Chapter 1

 

Brock opened his eyes
, and the first thing he saw was a tattooed ankle. He knew he wasn’t in his own bed, much less his own home, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember whose home or bed he was in; or for that matter, who the woman was next to him. He rolled to his back and felt a woman behind him well.

“Fuck.” He looked up and saw the mirror over the bed just as the woman rolled
over. He still had no idea where he was, but the woman’s feet told him two things. First, she didn’t care about herself overly much, as the polish on her toes was chipped and peeling; and second, they weren’t going to be happy with him if either of them woke before he got out of there. After sliding to the end of the bed, he was standing there pulling on his pants when the woman at his back spoke softly.

“You could stay and fuck me again.
Millie won’t even know if you’re quiet.” She let the sheet drop to her waist and lifted her breasts up for him. “I’m game if you are.”

Millie and Margaret Caldwell
were the names; he’d seen their pictures and names in the paper a few times for prostitution and other unsavory things. He shook his head and told her that he had to go. “No thanks. I’ve got to…I’m sorry, but I must have been really out of it last night to have…how did I get here?”

“Millie decided to dope you up
, and we took you here. You’re a really big man…well your cock is, but I couldn’t tell how tall you were until now. But you didn’t wanna have sex with us.” She pouted at him. “But we had some fun with each other. Millie and I did it like we always do while you slept away. But now that you’re awake and you’re not all doped up, we could have some fun. Right?” Brock stared at her for several seconds as she sat there.

“You kidnapped me and brought me here to have sex with me?”
She nodded, and he had to sit down. “Did you have a plan, or was just sex all you had in mind?”

“Well, we did hope you’d get one of us knocked up after tonight.
Having some of that money you seem to have bunches of would have been really great.” She stood up and ran her hands down her body as she moved toward him. “You can still get me pregnant; if you don’t, we’ll just find someone else, but I’d really like for it to be you. We seen that truck you drive—it’s really expensive.”

“I bet you would. But I’m afraid that I can’t help you with the baby part.
You’re not my mate, and until I find her, I can’t get anyone pregnant.” He stood up. “You should have planned this better before trying to get someone like me to have a kid with. What if I would have hurt you or raped you?”

She told him she liked pain a whole lot.

He pulled off his pants and tried to ignore her as she moaned. He didn’t even want to think about what she might be doing right now. He folded them neatly and put them on the chair next to his shirt. Taking his shirt and laying it on the floor, he put his boots, pants, and other things in the middle. Then, after making sure he had his wallet and cell phone, he tied it all up in the shirt and tied it loosely around his waist.

He looked at both women now as Millie had
woken up. She was looking at him as if she’d never seen a naked man before. But he had a feeling that the two sisters had tried this before, and no telling how many times they’d succeeded…or how many diseases they carried on or in them. He shuddered to think about what a human might have gotten from them.

“I’m going to have to leave here.” They looked at the shirt tied
around his waist and then up at him. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one when I say you’re not going to want to fuck with me again—or anyone else for that matter—or else.”

“You think we’re going to just walk away from this? I got news for you
…we’re experts at this shit, and you’re just going to be another notch on our bank account.” Millie stood up and walked to the other side of the bed. “You hit my sister and raped her. It was all I could do just to pull you off her after you comed in her. You’re an animal.”

Her fist was out before
either he or Margaret could react. When Margaret hit the floor and blood erupted from her nose, Millie kicked her several times in the ribs before turning back to him. She was enjoying this…both of them were apparently. The harder her sister kicked her, the louder Margaret’s moans became. He had to get the hell out of there.

He
smiled at her and let his cat take him. They were about to find out just how right they’d been in calling him an animal. He felt magnificent as a cat, stronger and meaner, too.

Brock snarled at them as they both moved back from him.
He wanted to scare them a little more and waved his paw at both of them with his claws extended. When they started to scream, he looked to the window and moved toward it. Shifting to himself, he opened the window and turned to them.

“Fuck with me again and I’ll come back here and have you both for dinner. And if I ever hear of you doing this again
, or even hear of someone doing this to someone, I will come back here and kill you both. Do you understand?” When they didn’t answer, he made a lunging sort of move, and they screamed again. But they both agreed that their doping days were over.

Looking out the window
, he realized that he was in a very bad part of town and nearly didn’t shift to leap out the window. In the end he jumped and moved quickly to another building before anyone saw him. Being naked in this part of town could get you more than killed; a person could end up with body parts all over the city. While he was in the building next to where he’d been taken, he was pulling on his clothes when he heard the first sirens.

Laughing to himself
, he made his way out to the main street and walked toward town, where he hoped his car was. He was nearly there when he heard his phone ring. He answered it with a grin, knowing that whatever his brother Ryland was up to wasn’t going to compare to his night.

“You need to go over to t
he project house on Tenth. Mom is there with some of the contractors, and they said there’s a problem. I’m on my way to a board meeting and can’t leave unless it’s a really huge problem. I’m hoping it is and you call me to come to you.” Brock picked up his pace and was just getting to his car at the Lazy Stein when he thought of everything that could be going wrong at a construction site.

“Any idea what’s going on so I’m not going there blind
?” He was snapping his seatbelt into place after putting his cellphone on his headset when he started the engine. “You know how much I hate walking into something that I don’t know. And if Mom is there, I can only assume she was on one of her missions to see to it that everyone was on time to work. You know how much I love this, right?”

“Yes
, I do, and nothing about what is going on. Mom was a lot upset, if that tells you anything. But other than that, I have no idea.” He paused, and Brock waited. “You’re coming over for dinner tonight, right? Jules is coming home from his show, and we’re on for his homecoming dinner.”

“I’ll be there.” He had a few things to discuss with his brother as well
, like when the hell had he put in that security system, and why didn’t he tell him. He’d nearly gotten arrested when he’d gone by to check Jules’s house the day before yesterday. It had taken a call to Alistair as well as his mom to get them to back the fuck off and stop waving their guns around.

“Good. I’m going in
to this meeting now, but call if you need me. Please?” Brock told him he’d do his best and hung up. He pulled into the lot a few minutes later. There were three trucks and an assortment of other cars, including his mom’s limo and her driver. Brock tipped his hat at him as he walked by. He could ride in a limo if he wanted, but he preferred to drive himself. He went inside and up to the second floor.

The scene looked like something out of a nightmare.
Not that he watched all that much television, but it was still a mess. He had his mom go out of the room where all the blood was and asked one of the workers to stay with her. They knew that it wasn’t human blood, but still it had shaken her up a bit. Someone was using the room to send a message to the Goldens. He pulled out his phone and called his brother.

“You don’t have to come down here
, but I think you should know now because the police have to be called in. Someone has threatened us again, and this time they’ve done it with blood…pig blood if my nose is correct.” Ryland asked what it said. “Basically what it says, or actually what it says?”

“Christ, is it that bad?
It’s not satanic is it?” Brock told him it wasn’t. “Actually what it says. And don’t let the police in until I can get there. If we have to be threatened, we might as well show them that we’re a family, and not afraid of some small-minded person who has to use blood to make a statement.” Brock agreed and read him what was on the wall.

“This blood
represents the blood of all you’ve spilled in the name of progress. The next time we do this it will be the blood of one of you, and it won’t be to trash your buildings but to show you we mean business. You’ll stop your persecution of the underdog now.”

Brock laughed. “What sort of
persecution are we making against the underdog again? You’re not still trying to hire little kids to polish the silver, are you?”

“Damn
, and I thought I was being so careful.” Ryland laughed, then sobered. “You’ve called the cops, but don’t say anything until I get there. I’ll work on my speech to them on the way over. I’ll sound completely confused, which I am, and sorry that we have to deal with this, which again I am. Do you have a clue what might have done this?”

Brock bent down
, and using one of his pens, pushed around some papers until he found a pop can. “No, but I think we might get one. They might have left us something to find them with. I’ll get it to a friend of mine tonight and see what we can find. Might be one of the workers here that missed the trash can and was too lazy to bend over and pick it up, but you never know.”

Ryland said he’d be there soon
, and Brock did a little more looking around before the police arrived. They only managed to make the scene worse by walking around like they had their heads up their asses. He found another empty can, as well as some empty blood bags. They’d gotten their “paint” from the local vet if the label on the bags were any indication. It was time to make some calls.

~~~

“I hired someone.” Rayne looked up from the planter when her mom spoke. “She’s going to be working at the Pretty Flower Two. It’s closer for her. And she doesn’t drive. I’m not sure why she doesn’t, but she doesn’t. I would bet it has to do with her childhood, but I can’t be sure.”

Rayne waited.
Her mom was babbling and that wasn’t a good sign. She had hired a few people since she and Peter started running Two, and she wondered why she felt the need to tell her about this one. When her mom sat down, then stood again, Rayne wasn’t sure she was going to like whatever it was and nearly told her mom just to spill it.

“Her name is
Emma Cole, but she goes by Em. She has a great personality once you get to know her. But that’s hard if you don’t take the time to do it. She’s really shy. More shy than any other person I’ve ever met.” Rayne watched her mom pace some more before she continued. “Do you think all people are just mean, or just most of them?”

“What happened to
Em, Mom? Did someone hurt her before or after she started working for us?” Her mom sat again and wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Mom?”

“Both
, I think. Actually, I know that she’s been hurt before by the scarring she has, but something happened yesterday, too. She’s a very lovely girl, but she’s…I thought I could keep an eye on her, but I just can’t. And Peter tries, but I think she knows what he is, and she’s a little afraid of him. He keeps his distance because of what someone has done to her, but—”

“Mom?
You’re scaring the shit out of me. What happened to her, and why do you feel the need to keep an eye on her?” She stood up to pace again, and Rayne nearly told her to sit. But she was her mom, and she knew better.

“She’s a deaf mute.
I don’t know how it happened, but I would assume she was very young. Someone…something tore at her throat and left a large scar there. As for her deafness, I don’t know what caused that. I’m not even sure that she can’t talk because of the scar, but she can’t. Talk I mean. I’m not even sure that whatever hurt her to leave that scar made it so she couldn’t talk either. But when Peter comes around her, she…she nearly cringes.”

Rayne thought about how that would hurt her friend
Peter. She was on the verge of telling her mom to get rid of the girl but waited to get more information. Something else was going on. “Why is it do you think people are so mean? What did someone do to her that would have you say such a thing? You’re normally better around the public than I am.”

“One of the customers tried to get her attention by…by screaming at her. When
Em didn’t turn quickly enough for this person, he grabbed her by the arm and jerked her around. When he did, she…she hit him. I tried to soothe it over, but he wasn’t having any of it, and finally I had to call Alistair so he could talk to him. He’s coming down today to speak to Em.”

She and Neal had been working a show on the waterfront yesterday and hadn’t had time to answer their phones even if they would have had service.
They’d known that they were going to have spotty service going in and had asked if Alistair and Ryland could help out if there were any problems. Neither man had mentioned it when they’d talked to Neal last night.

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