Sunday Snippet: Chaos Burning by Lauren Dane

I love a good Alpha hero. In my humble opinion Lauren Dane is one of the best at writing great Alpha heroes. Today’s snippet comes from her June 5th release Chaos Burning. It takes place just after Simon realizes just who and what Lark is to him.

He dressed carefully and pretended that he hadn’t been waiting for her the last hour when she came in, Naturally he’d constructed a plan. Lark Jannsen was sharp. She didn’t miss a thing, which meant he had to be at the top of his game to make this work. If she got spooked by how fast he was moving or his natural aggressiveness, he’d have to he’d have to remake hard won progress. And patience was not his strong suit.

But she didn’t have her usual sort of burst of color and energy when she came in. The need to take care of her roared into place and he tried not be gruff when he took her coat. His hormones surged as his beast wanted to take over. The man pushed back. He would soothe and protect at the same time.

“I have steaks grilling. Go take a shower. I promise to have a drink and some food ready when you get out.” If he’d told her she looked tired or she needed rest, she’d resist because that was how stubborn she was.

She narrowed her gaze at his smile. “Why are you being so nice? I already let you kiss me.”

Damn, she made  him laugh.

He shook his head. “I’m a nice guy. I’ll take a kiss when I’m ready to. Right now you need to shower and then to eat. Then I’ll see if I can’t get my lips on a few more parts of you.”

She blushed. “Incorrigible.” But she trudged down the hall toward the room she’d be staying in. “Be out in a while.”

She was in his den. On his land. She’d be safe her and he could protect her. This all soothed his agitation as he went out to check the steaks. He looked out over his land as he thought about going home.

It’d been about a year and half since he’d been back, though he’d been in more regular contact with his brother who lived in San Francisco part of the year so he got news about home on a regular basis.

But it wasn’t the same as being there in person.

He missed it. Missed his father’s house and the sound of his family all around. Raucous and chaotic, his siblings and cousins all   over the place. Babies to their elders laughing, fighting, working, living.

He missed it, but he couldn’t fully own his path while he lived there. He’d served his family, his pack. He’d trained and protected and spent hundreds of years in service. But one day he’d woken up and realized he wasn’t satisfied. There was more and he wanted to find it.

He’d had to be away to finally achieve what he was meant to. Where he could build his own history and control his own damned life.

Where he could he be his own Alpha, which suited him just fine. And he supposed suited his brothers too because they could be closer again without the constant tension about who was in charge. Who would lead the pack when their father stepped down. He didn’t want that upset. It had never seriously crossed his mind to challenge his brothers or his father for leadership.

But that didn’t mean he was all right with with settling for a life where everyone else made the rules either. No, he wanted to be in charge all right. And it wouldn’t have been possible there.

So he came here and created his own pack. The woman in his home right at that moment was more than worthy of sharing this life with. Though he had no illusions it would be easy. Especially at the beginning. She was an alpha too in her own unique way.

It wasn’t that she completed him, or that he couldn’t live without her. It was that she filled his life in ways he knew clearly now that she was in it. Remembered the absence of from before she stepped up to him at Sea-Tac the month before.

Lark Jaansen wasn’t just a female he was interested in for a while. She was it. He’d lived a long time, long enough to stop pretending she was anything less than his heart’s and life’s mate.

She was everything he could possibly want in a woman and he meant to have her. Forever.

He found himself excited by the future for the first time in a long while. Anticipating what he could build with his ass-kicking little witch.

If you liked this snippet don’t forget to pre-order it before it goes on sale.

The life of Lark Jaansen, hunter in Clan Gennessee, has been shaped by violence and unrest and it defines her future. Well-trained and resilient, she’s met her militaristic match in Simon Leviathan, a warrior not of this world. Locked in mutual admiration, and a desire so hot it burns, Lark and Simon have something else in common: they love the dark, and as a shadow is cast over their world, they’re each coming into their own.

A mysterious war has been waged among the Others. As witches and humans turn against each other, as fae retreat in fear, and as vampires rise, Lark and Simon discover that an unseen force is behind it. A single, hungry entity older than recorded history has returned to gorge on the magick of his victims. He is the Magister, nothing less than the end of time. Finding him is Lark and Simon’s first hope. Surviving him is their last.