I finished Impossible last night and submitted it to R&P. I don't have a release date or anything like that, but we can at least say that it will be soon!

Here's the cover, blurb and an unedited excerpt to whet your appetite:

Blurb:

Alexander Dieson always knew that he was different. Yes, he could shift like the other wolf shifting cowboys on the Tate Ranch, but he could also make fire and a host of other things. When his parents move him to California from Texas he resolves himself to spending a life alone.

Ross Barber discovers the scent of his mate hours after the younger man moves away with his family. He spends ten years searching for Alex and finally finds him just after Alex’s life has been completely turned upside down.

Ross promises Alex that he will help find his mate’s missing siblings but in the process of their search they learn the truth about Alex’s DNA and are completely shocked by the way their lives and the Tate Ranch changes because of it. And when they learn how high up the plot to kidnap and sell paranormals actually goes, the Tate Pack will never be the same.



Excerpt:

Alex, age 16 

ALEX glared at his parents as he placed his hands on his hips. “Are you shitting me? We can’t leave! I can’t move. What about Ton?” he asked desperately.

His mother sighed heavily as she brought her hand up to his cheek and stroked lovingly. “Honey, you’ve told us, more than once I might add, that Ton is not your mate. Why would you persist in having a relationship with him when he is not the one that Fate intended for you?” She shook her head as if he confused her. “It just makes no sense to me at all.”

Of course it didn’t make sense to her. She was old and had found her mate when she was a little younger than him. While they hadn’t mated immediately, they’d at least known who the other was. Alex was adrift in the sea of hormones, lust and destiny. He wanted to find his mate, he really did, but at the same time he just wanted to get his dick sucked, or have Ton pound his huge cock up his ass. Alex knew that his mother would be horrified if he shared that piece of information with her so he crossed his arms like a petulant child and kept his mouth shut.

“Come now, Son, don’t be that way,” his father stated with a small chuckle as he rubbed the top of Alex’s blond head affectionately. Alex scowled at the older man and reached up to smooth his hair back in place. He really hated it when his dad did that, treated him as if he were still just a little boy. Alex knew he was anything but a little boy. He was mature in the pack, finally having become a full grown wolf a few weeks back. He was having sex with his boyfriend, Anton “Ton” Forrester, and had already been told that when he grew old enough he would be trained to be a council member. Hell, in light of all that information, Alex was practically a grown-up. Why couldn’t his parents get that? He could live on his own if they were determined to move away from Tate Ranch.

Alex loved Texas, loved Wichita Falls, and especially loved Tate Ranch, home of the Tate pack. There were a lot of advantages to being a wolf-shifter. Speed, strength, simplicity of life when he was in his wolf form, having a fated mate who was created just for him and him created just for them. While those things were great, the best thing about being a wolf shifter was the pack. Alex had a family that he loved, but his family would never be able to take the place of his pack. A pack was a family as well, closer, bonded, who all followed the rules, wishes and direction of their Alpha. A pack was a family who shared your secrets and always had your back. It was an amazing thing, having a pack. Alex wouldn’t trade the Tate Ranch for anything in the world. Nothing.

“We can’t move,” he tried his argument from a different angle. “You have to have permission from the Alpha to leave his pack and the approval of the alpha whose territory you’re moving into.” He nodded, proud of himself for remembering that mandate from his shifter class.

His parents merely laughed as they continued to grab his clothes before packing them in different suitcases. Alex wanted to be indignant, he wanted to fight back, but they were his parents and knew best. If they said that they were moving for his own good, for the good of their family then he had to take their word for it.

He knew the real reason they were moving though they would try to deny it. Alex was a weird kind of wolf shifter. He had powers and gifts as if he were a witch and had magic at his disposal. He could toss fire, the more tumultuous his emotions were the hotter the flame was. He could make himself invisible and could change into the form of any animal that he chose if he focused on it hard enough. His parents had taken him to the council and the elders had condemned him as an abomination and demanded for his parents to kill him or to cast him away from the wolf shifter community. His parents had refused and they’d lived in fear since then. Only weeks after they’d taken him to visit those horrible men, they had come to him and mentioned moving to California. This would be the sixth time they would be moving since he’d shifted for the first time at the age of thirteen.

Alex really wanted to keep protesting but he knew they were doing it for his good and for that reason he couldn’t and wouldn’t fight against moving, but he would leave a note for Ton, the older boy he was in love with, one of the biggest shifters Alex had ever seen, even though the other boy wasn’t his fated mate. Ton was the closest thing Alex had to having a happily-ever-after and he refused to give that up.

****

Ross, age 21

ROSS stepped out of the back door of his parent’s new home on the Tate Ranch and stretched his arms out. They had traveled quite a ways to get back to these pack lands and he was exhausted. His father had not only made him drive the whole way, he’d made Ross unpack the truck and trailer… by himself.

It wasn’t that his parents were bad people, they were in fact known for being some of the greatest wolf shifter trackers in the world, but as parents? Well, they spent more time trying to find people, more time with their gadgets and meeting Alphas than time with him and his older sister. Although his older sister, Audrey was following in their footsteps now and would soon join them full time in the “family business”.

Ross wouldn’t mind helping his family find people, but once, just once, he wished they could take a weekend and instead of trying to find some whiny Alpha Mate or pup who got mad at their Alpha, they could stay home and play board games. He wasn’t asking for much, he didn’t think, but he did wish they were more of a family than roommates. Ross sighed and leaned back against the wall of the house, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. When he found his own mate, who he hoped was a man, please, please God, let it be a man, he would make sure that he put them first. He would never let his duties take precedence over the man that fate had created just for him.

He shook off his melancholy thoughts and stood to his full height. Reaching for the hem of the black shirt that he wore, Ross pulled it off over his head before shoving down his jeans and boxer briefs. His parents had met with the Alphas and had been accepted back into the pack, which included their children and Ross was certainly glad about that. It had been quite a while since he’d been on the Tate Ranch. He and his parents had left over five years ago and though they’d lived on the Tate Ranch for years before that, they’d only spent forty percent of the time actually on the ranch. The rest of the time they were off finding people and bringing shifters to justice. But being back on Tate Ranch brought back lots of memories. Preschool with the Alpha pups and other children of the pack members. Coming out to the son of the Alpha and then losing his virginity to said son, shifting for the first time. Ross sighed. He loved shifting into his wolf and allowing the beast to run free. There was nothing like feeling the wind rushing through his fur and pounding the earth beneath his paws.

Taking a deep breath, Ross pulled up a mental image of his wolf. The large beast with its deep brown fur, huge paws, and dark brown eyes. As the shift started to pulse over him, he groaned as he went down on all fours. His body shivered as fur replaced skin, his hands and feet became paws as his bones shifted, creaked and realigned to form into the massive form of his wolf. His face elongated as a muzzle appeared and soon his mouth filled with huge canines. Shifting was always painful for him, which was something he didn’t understand. His parents and his sister always told him that while shifting was an uncomfortable sensation it was never painful for them. They thought that perhaps something was wrong with Ross’s wolf and that’s why shifting was painful for him. Ross didn’t think there was anything wrong with his wolf, though he did think there was something that his wolf was waiting for. Maybe his physical pain stemmed from something emotional or spiritual. His thoughts came to a halt when he opened his eyes and his sight was monochrome, the shifting complete finally.

The smells and sounds of the Tate Ranch surrounded him. The smell of the fresh Texas wind, dirt, trees, horses, pigs, cattle, sheep and goats filled his nostrils and Ross chuffed out a breath of satisfaction. He pawed at the dirt beneath him and wriggled his body as he crouched low to take off running. Before he raced forward the light smell of honey, rainforest and vanilla assaulted his nose and he froze. The scent wrapped itself around his body and he shivered as if the tantalizing aroma was caressing his body.

Mate.

The word flooded his mind and Ross tossed back his head and let loose a howl of joy before racing off in the direction of his mate’s scent. Dirt and grass flew underneath his paws as he raced across Tate lands. His mind kept up a litany of the word mate as he ran faster and faster, intent on finding the man—or woman, dear god let it be a man, he had no idea what to do with a woman—that Fate had created just for him.

His tail whipped the air as he drew closer and closer to the building, the home, that contained the intoxicating scent. Upon reaching the back door of the home, he shifted back into his human form and looked through the dark window at the back of the house hoping to catch a glimpse of the one he was made for.

He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end when his nose caught the distinct scent of a group of wolves, males, inside the house. None of the young, tall, broad shouldered men who currently walked around inside smelled like his mate, at least not that he could tell. He’d have to get closer to them, but his wolf lay idly within him, not feeling the pull towards any of the men. Ross tilted his head to the side as he noticed that all of the young men appeared sad, the biggest one holding a young, black toddler in his arms who sobbed against his shoulder.

Ross felt his heart clench in his chest as he watched them. They were all extremely attractive, all four of them, and Ross knew that if he hadn’t been looking for his mate, who lived or used to live in the home he currently hid behind, that he would have hit on one if not all of them.

He pulled away from the window and nibbled his bottom lip. What should he do? He knew that his mate’s scent had drawn him to this home, but what if the group of young men were holding him hostage or had killed him? Or worse what if his mate were sexually involved with all of them? Ross felt his gut clench even as a low, menacing growl reverberated in his chest. Would Fate really do that to him? What had he ever done to deserve something like that?

“Hey! You!”

Ross looked up at the shout and found himself facing the throng of men who had left the house and now spread out to surround him. The man holding the toddler walked back to the front of the house before he returned. Ross looked around at them all, testing his odds and figuring out his best course of action. His father was a former Green Beret and his mother had been a Navy Seal, she’d had to pretend to be a man for the twelve years that she’d served but she’d told him time and again that she didn’t regret it. Ross had been trained from the crib in hand-to-hand combat, just like his sister. They’d been trained to kill when they had no other options and his parents had always made sure that they knew how to get themselves out of any situation they ever found themselves in. Most people would think his parents had done him a disservice by raising him to be a fierce killing machine, dominant, aggressive… mean as all get out, but Ross didn’t see it that way. There were some fucked up things out there, and not all of them were in the paranormal world. Ross, his sister and their parents had come in contact with evil in its purest form and he would be damned if he was ever caught unaware.

He tensed his muscles, completely ignoring the fact that he was completely nude because of his shift and waited for the first man to come charging at him. That was always where people went wrong. They immediately went on the offensive, when it was defense that won games, no matter what his football coach had told him.

“Hey, look, we don’t want any trouble,” Vernon said, the new Alpha, if the power that swirled around him, almost bringing Ross to his knees was any indication. His hair, which looked black in the darkness blew in the late night breeze and his scent wafted up to Ross’s nostrils. Ross took in a deep breath and wrote the Alpha off as his mate again. He hadn’t been back at the Tate Ranch in quite a while. Even though much of it was like returning home, there were still aspects of the pack lands that were new to him. Namely the fact that the men before him were older and their scents while at the core were still the same, had subtly changed. Ross knew Vet. They had in fact gone to preschool together, come out to each other, lost their virginities together and had shifted together for the first time. It was shortly after losing their virginities to each other that Ross and his family had left the pack to assist in a rescue mission.

Apparently the pack had added lots of new members since then. One of them was his mate, but Vet, even with his new, more powerful, cloying scent wasn’t his mate. None of the men who currently watched him warily were. Which meant that his mate was in the house. “We just want to know what you’re doing skulking around the Dieson home. I am the new Alpha of this pack and I would have you identify yourself.”

Ross tucked away the name Dieson for later and bared his neck to the Alpha in a show of submission. “My apologies Alpha. You may not remember me, but my name is Ross Barber. My family and I just re-joined the pack today. You met with my parents earlier.” Ross waited for the Alpha, Vernon Tate, to nod before he continued. “I smelled my mate and came to find him,” he finished simply. He noticed the large man who had been holding the toddler earlier tense and immediately turned his attention to him. “Do you know who my mate is beta?”

Ross grinned when he saw the big man blink at him in stupefaction. He wasn’t sure how he was always able to know exactly what someone’s position was in a pack, coven, herd, company or wherever, but from the time he was a child it had been a gift of his. He could either peg what they currently were or what they would end up being. It freaked people out all the time, he just saw it as a fact of life.

The larger man recovered from his shock and growled low in his throat, showing a small measure of aggression at Ross’s tone with him, before his shoulder drooped and he whimpered in the back of his throat. The sound was one of despair and Ross felt his blood run cold. Had something happened to his mate? And what did the beta mean to the man who belonged to Ross?

“His name is Alex Dieson. Alexander Mitch Dieson. He’s not here any more,” the beta answered.

Ross felt his heart stop in his chest. Had these men killed his mate? He would kill them all. He crouched low to the ground, a growl rumbling up from his belly and bursting forth from his lips. He didn’t know why the beta sounded so upset by the fact that Alex was gone since he’d obviously had something to do with it, but Ross didn’t care, the beta would be the first to go. The other wolves crouched low and Ross ignored the small, niggling voice at the back of his mind that pointed out that there was no smell of blood in the air anywhere. Ross’s eyes took in the other wolves and noticed that the Alpha remained standing.

“Hold it guys. He doesn’t understand,” he said, power in his words causing them all to freeze. He stared Ross in his eyes and sighed. “Alex isn’t dead. At least we have seen no evidence that he is. We came to invite him out for our weekly bowling party and found his home deserted. All of his stuff was gone, as well as those of his parents. We believe they left town sometime earlier today. They didn’t leave a note or a letter behind, though Alex did leave something written on his wall for us to see.”

Ross didn’t allow the Alpha to continue talking, instead turning and yanking off the doorknob to the back door in his rush to get inside. He ignored the shouts of the men behind him as he ran upstairs. He followed the scent of his mate and charged into the room where the smell was heaviest. He stopped as he saw the words written on the bare blue wall. There, written in large, black permanent marker were words that filled Ross with hope and a determination to find the man that belonged by his side.

I’ll be back.

Ross would make sure of that. He would find his mate and bring him back to Wichita Falls, where he belonged, no matter how long it took to find him.