Prey

Copyright © 2023 by Sarah Spade All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Cover by JoY Design Studio CONTENTS Foreword Prologue 1. Blood 2. Winter Creek 3. Welcome 4. Remy 5. Grandmere 6. Town Square 7. Tristan 8. Curse 9. Beast 10. Rescue 11. Huntsman 12. Little Red 13. Arguments 14. Breakfast 15. Kiss 16. Warning 17. Whoops 18. Lucas 19. Secrets 20. Run Pre-Order Now Never His Mate Available Now Keep in Touch Also by Sarah Spade FOREWORD Thanks for checking out Prey! This is the first of three books that will feature Fallon Witt as an unsuspecting human woman navigating her way through the secretive world of supes. Up until this series, all of my paranormal romances in this overarching universe featured wolf shifters and vampires as the two types of supernatural creatures. In Wolves of Winter Creek, there will be wolves (obviously), but I’m also introducing witches! In this world, supes are an open secret. In Fallon’s case, she has no clue what she’s dealing with until she arrives in Winter Creek… and, even then, she still doesn’t quite understand. Not yet, at least, but by the time her trilogy is done… she will. While this series is a standalone, the books in the trilogy are not. Each one will be an important arc in Fallon’s story, set directly after the one before it. There will be cliffhangers, a brooding, secretive hero you’ll want to throttle (even as you desire to drag him out into the woods—though maybe not to do what Fallon wants to do to him), a chaotic bisexual heroine who is blissfully unaware of who she is, what she wants, and who she’ll happily spend forever with until she isn’t, and a found family to replace that one that would happily tie her up to a tree to sacrifice her to the beast of Winter Creek… CWs: mentions of a parent’s death due to illness (five years prior to the start of the book) as well as being an adoptee, bloodshed & hemophobia, an open door sex scene, plenty of cursing, a primal chase, and a cliffhanger ending that will be resolved in book two (but will probably piss you off until you can read Pack—and while this book is only the beginning of their story, there will be a HEA at the end of the series). And if all that hasn’t warned you off, please enjoy! xoxo, Sarah PROLOGUE My estranged grandmother first made contact with me through a telegram of all things. The fact that it was a telegram was weird enough. Who does that? An email, yeah. Text? Sure. Even a letter would’ve made more sense, but given how often I check my mailbox these days, it probably would’ve been weeks before I got it. A telegram, though? To be honest, I didn’t even know they still had them anymore. It was hand-delivered, too, one evening after a long day at the office. Brought right to my door on the fourth floor of my building by a hunched old man who smelled vaguely like the fresh mulch laid out in front in the spring, and who looked like he might have been around the last time telegrams were the fashionable way to send off a missive. But there he was, holding out the yellow bulletin with a solemn, "Message for you, miss." Raising my eyebrows, I jokingly asked if he was going to sing it. In mournful voice, he murmured for me to go on and give him a key. That took all the fun out of it. With a more serious expression befitting his bright red messenger outfit—complete with an honest-to-God bellboy cap—I took the telegram. I even thanked him. He didn’t leave. Instead, he just stared at me with a pair of watery brown eyes as if waiting for something. The messenger whistled as he breathed. It was a little freaky. Thinking he was hanging around for a tip, I handed him a five and slowly shut the door in his face. After hesitating for only a moment, I locked it. Another moment and I slid the deadbolt across. I watched him through the peephole. He stayed there for almost five minutes; I know because I kept anxiously checking the time on my phone. I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to text my landlord for a little help when he finally shuffled off and I exhaled in relief. My back against the door, I held onto the telegram for a few more seconds after he finally disappeared if only because it took me that long to figure out how to open the stupid thing. Fold the sides, fold the bottom, gently ease open, don't tear— Oops. I just about ripped the telegram in half, and when I finished reading the message printed inside, I wished that my hand had slipped further. Like all the way. My whole life, my mother never hid the fact that I was adopted as a newborn; as an adult, I appreciate that. I’ve never once felt unwanted, and I rarely thought about what led me to live with my mom. I’m only glad that I did. No one could have loved me more. Mine was an open adoption so technically the telegram was possible, just not likely. At twenty-five, I had long ago given up wondering if I’d ever hear from my bio parents. To have received a telegram from a woman claiming to be my maternal grandmother... I had to read her message three times before I got the gist of what she was saying: I’ve been searching for you... would love to meet you... take the train... you have a home here... Just in case, I looked at the name