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A Painful Dilemma
Lorelei Moone
Scottish Werebear #5
Publication Date: May 25, 2016
Genres: Adult, Paranormal Romance, BBW
Henry Weston can’t take it anymore. Lately, his job with the Alliance seems to be less about protecting shifters from their enemies, and more about surveilling his own people and making sure they don’t break any Alliance rules. This is not what he signed up for, so it’s time for him to make a change. There’s only one problem: his mate and colleague Margaret isn’t on board at all, in fact they can’t seem to agree on anything lately.
Meanwhile, Alliance leader Adrian Blacke’s new assistant, Gail McPherson is having similar trouble adjusting to her job. The ideals that made her join the Alliance don’t match up with her day-to-day reality and she yearns for something else.
When the two of them meet, sparks fly, and they even start to hear each other’s thoughts, like only true mates can. But Henry already has a mate whom he wants to remain loyal to, despite their disagreements. If Henry and Gail can’t be lovers, at least they can be allies in a new cause: forming a New Alliance. What ensues is a battle between sense and emotion; loyalty and fate.
This paranormal romance novella is the fifth in the Scottish Werebear series. For the best experience, readers are advised to read the series in order.
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Henry hadn't wanted a fight, but things had a
way of escalating between him and Maggie.
"Why don't you trust me anymore?"
Maggie folded her arms.
"Come on; it's not like that!" Henry
argued, taking a step forward to rest his hand on Maggie's arm.
She pulled away just in time and shook her
head. "Well, there's no other explanation. First, you go on the
surveillance mission on your own, then you don't even involve me in the
interrogation of that prisoner you took. Tell me, what am I supposed to
think?"
Henry sighed. In a way, she was right. He hadn't wanted her to come along to Gartcosh
to surveil Matt's house the other day. It's not that he didn't trust her, or
didn't think she'd do a good job. Actually, he expected she'd do too
good a job. She would
have followed Blacke's orders to the letter, so they would have ended up with
three prisoners, not just one. Caroline Pratt was a given, she was a Son's
collaborator after all, but Maggie would have also rounded up Matt and Leah.
He and Maggie had been an item for years;
Henry knew how she functioned.
As for the interrogation, he just couldn't
risk Caroline cracking and mentioning the pictures she'd taken. Luckily, so far
she seemed to hold up quite well and not said a word.
"Blacke gave me the order; it's only
natural that I execute it," Henry excused his decision.
He had to come clean to her about what had
happened, but with Maggie in the mood she was in right now, it wasn't the right
time. She'd always been hot-blooded, and not particularly easy to reason with
when she was ticked off.
"Did Blacke tell you not to take your
partner along on the job?" Maggie demanded.
Henry remained quiet. Of course, he hadn't.
"I didn't think so."
She was hurt, obviously. And Henry couldn't
blame her. But if there was one thing he had to give her credit for, she did
take her work very seriously.
"Look, I didn't mean to step on your
toes, but I can't have you questioning my operational decisions like this. When
we're on the job, I'm in charge. That's just the way things are."
"Fine!" Maggie pressed her lips
together. There was nothing agreeable about her body language.
"Now, shall we have breakfast? Wouldn't
want to be late for work."
Maggie shrugged and marched out of their
bedroom. Although he'd pulled the seniority card on her, this argument was far
from over.
Today was going to be a long day.
--
For much of the day, Maggie made it a point to
steer clear of Henry, which was just as well. They weren't hiding their
relationship as such, but they made it a point to always stay professional at
work.
Henry liked to think of himself as a fair and
capable leader. His agents trusted him - most of the time, in the case of
Maggie - and he ensured not to give preferential treatment to his mate. Plus,
bears weren't the sharing sort. They didn't wear their hearts on their sleeve
like wolves seemed to do. In his unit, one's private life was just that:
private.
Before lunch, Henry interrogated his latest
prisoner - Caroline Pratt - some more. Nothing came out of it, just as he had
come to expect from most of the Sons of Domnall members. Especially those that
seemed to be authority figures of some sort were especially tight-lipped.
Caroline's demeanor, as well as her role in the attempted second kidnapping of
Matthew Argyle, made Henry suspect she wasn't just an informant, but perhaps a
faction leader.
Then again, she wasn't in the loop on a great
many Sons activities at all, or she might have already known who or what Matt
was.
Either way, it was time to close the file on
her and send her and the other prisoners across to Stirling, where the Alliance
Headquarters were located. Henry wrote up a sanitized version of the events
leading up to Caroline's capture, whatever little details he gathered during
the interrogation, and that was that. Case closed. He'd inform Blacke's people
shortly.
Once that was done, he grabbed a fresh sheet
of paper and started to brainstorm about something else entirely. He'd had an
epiphany outside Matt's house that day, but he hadn't taken the time to really
think about it in depth. If he was going to set up a movement to counter
Blacke's Alliance, he couldn't just wing it.
Lorelei Moone is an up-and-coming author of paranormal romance based in London. Her first book, Scottish Werebear: An Unexpected Affair has hit the virtual shelves on Amazon on 25 September 2015, and her second, Scottish Werebear: A Dangerous Business a month later on the 25th of October. A lover of all things sweet, and caffeinated, when she’s not writing about sexy bear shifters and their strong-willed curvaceous love interests, Lorelei can be found baking cookies or cakes for her family.
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