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  Table of Contents

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  Samantha Leal

  Copyright ©2018 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.

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  The Forsaken Riders series is a collection of novelette and novella length standalone Bad boy romances that fit together to tell the longer tale of the Forsaken Riders – and the woman they love - as they fight to dominate the town of Slate Springs.

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  The Lost Creek Shifters

  The Lost Creek Shifters series is a collection of novelette length standalone Bad boy romances that fit together to tell the longer story of the ancient tale of the bear and wolf shifters in a small mountain town. Enjoy!

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  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  BONUS BOOKS

  MC Romance

  Victorian Mystery

  Bear Shifter Romance

  The Runes of Argyll Trilogy

  Stepbrother Romance

  Billionaire Romance

  Time Travel Romance

  Dragon Shifter Romance

  Dystopian Romance

  1.

  The conversation at the table was running dry, and Hannah had to physically stop herself from yawning right in his face. It had to be the dullest date she had ever been on, and it was showing no signs of improvement. She twirled the stem of her wine glass in her fingers and tried not to daydream. She had to focus on the present and where she was and what she was doing.

  She was on a date.

  She had to at least pretend to be interested, didn’t she?

  She smiled and cocked her head to the side. The guy was cute, in a younger brother kind of way. He was still rather fresh faced, even though his profile had said he was forty, and she was sure there wasn’t even a hint of five o’clock shadow or stubble anywhere on him. He had either lied and run home straight from work, showered, shaved and got completely ready before he met her, or he couldn’t grow facial hair.

  Hannah couldn’t decide which she would find worse.

  A liar who cared too much about how preened and gleamed he was, or someone whose hormones rendered them pretty much prepubescent.

  She tried not to grimace.

  “So, yeah, and then I visited Sri Lanka, because, you know… everyone has to go once, right?” he said with a wide grin.

  Hannah couldn’t help but notice how white his teeth were. It was as if they had been bleached that very morning and they were beginning to clash with the orange of his face.

  Was he wearing fake tan?

  She had to stifle a grin.

  “Yeah, I mean Sri Lanka, of course…” she smiled sweetly, trying not to roll her eyes.

  Not only was he incredibly dull and self-centered, he was also pretentious. He thought he knew it all and had seen it all. But really, behind his eyes, he looked like a scared little boy. He was desperately trying to impress her, and it was coming through in all the wrong ways.

  She leaned forward in her chair and tried to take another mouthful of soufflé. The last thing she wanted to do was eat food she was trying to avoid, and talk to men who bored her to tears, but she had committed to this dating thing, and she couldn’t bail on each and every one.

  “Just give it a chance,” her friend Rebecca had said. “I know you’ve got a warped vision of what dating sites are, but really, once you’ve given it a go and been on a few, it becomes kind of empowering and addictive.”

  It was true. Hannah had felt empowered when she had been on the first few dates. She had chosen who and where, and she had rarely had to pick up the tab. But all the men she had met had looked so good on paper and had turned out to be way too dull or timid.

  Hannah needed a man.

  She needed someone raw, someone powerful, and someone who could show her who was boss.

  As her mind wandered to her perfect ideal, who no doubt didn’t exist, she tried to glaze over the one she had sitting in front of her. He was cute enough, but he didn’t have that edge. He didn’t have that special something she was looking for. And at Hannah’s age, she didn’t have time to be messing around any longer.

  She had made a decision. It was time to find someone who ticked all her boxes, not just one or two.

  “And what about you?” he asked with an innocent smile. “Where outside the US have you traveled?”

  She chewed her bottom lip. She could reel off city after city, continent after continent, but she didn’t feel like she had the energy.

  What was the point?

  She looked at the eagerness in his eyes, at how much he wanted to impress her, at how desperate he was to find a connection between them that was never going to materialize.

  She felt sorry for him, but she had also run straight out of patience and fucks to give.

  She had to look after herself.

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah said as she got to her feet and pushed her chair back. “This has been lovely, truly it has… But…I think I’d like to call it a night, if you don’t mind?”

  He looked instantly crestfallen and got to his feet too. His face was stunned, but also, in a way, a little relieved.

  “Okay…” he said cautiously, almost as if he was asking for her permission.

  “It’s not you,” she said, before she tried not to cringe at how predictable this was all turning out to be. “It’s just, I have some things going on, and I kind of know what I’m looking for in life, and I don’t want to waste any more of either of our time… I hope you don’t think I’m being awful.”

  She almost didn’t dare meet his eye. She knew she was being harsher than she would have liked to be, but sometimes, it was just the way the cards had to fall. She was going to have to be strong to ensure she didn’t run into another clinger. The last thing she needed was another lovesick guy she didn’t have any interest in running around after her, texting and calling and begging to see her again.

  This time, she had to be a little more brutal.

  He still looked as stunned as he had been when the words had fallen out of her mouth.

  “Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said as she picked up her purse, opened it, pulled out forty dollars and lay it down on the table in front of her.

  He couldn’t find a word to come back to her with, and he exhaled and looked down at his feet with wide eyes.

  Hannah stepped backward slowly and turned around before breathing a huge sigh of relief.

  She knew it had been a terrible way to end the night… they had been mid meal and he hadn’t been expecting it… but she just couldn’t keep up the façade any longer.

  He was dull and boring. He was so pretty and fresh faced, he easily could have still lived at home with his mom… and when it came down to it, he just wasn’t man enough for her.

  The hostess passed Hannah her jacket and she pulled it on over her shoulders before she stepped outside into the chilly spring evening. All around her, cabs zoomed on by, music blared, people walked arm in arm, laughing and chatting, and she rememb
ered why she loved living in the city so much. Everything was alive and bustling and right there for the taking. If it hadn’t been such a disastrous date, she may have been feeling more inclined to find a wine bar and have a nightcap before she headed on home, but on this particular evening, all she could think about was going home and crawling into bed with a cup of coco and a good book.

  She would have to fill Rebecca in the following morning of how this night had gone down… and she anticipated plenty of laughs and gasps of horror.

  Hannah really had been a super bitch this time.

  The poor guy, he hadn’t even see it coming.

  “Taxi!” she called as she raised her hand into the air and stepped toward the curb.

  A cab zoomed up beside her and she slipped into the backseat, closed the door behind her and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Out of seven dates, that had definitely been the worst.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone, and she let her finger press down on the app icon until it wobbled.

  “And delete,” she whispered to herself as she watched it disappear from her home screen and vanish into the abyss.

  “No more dating sites, no more drama, no more bad encounters,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.

  “Bad date?” the driver asked as he looked at her through the rearview mirror.

  “Seriously,” Hannah said with a half laugh. “I wouldn’t even ask.”

  They zipped around the city streets and Hannah directed him to her building. When the driver pulled up alongside the street and next to her front door, she paid him and wished him a goodnight before she climbed out and let the door slam shut behind her.

  She stretched and felt genuinely glad to be home. It had been a long and fruitless day.

  She punched the code into the keypad on the door and let herself inside to the lobby, before she wandered slowly to the elevators and waited for one to come down to the ground floor for her.

  The bell tinged, and the doors slid open, she stepped inside and leaned back against the mirrored wall and sighed. She knew she had ended the date and the guy hadn’t in any way interested her, but she was starting to feel just a little bit disappointed.

  When was she going to meet someone who made her feel weak at the knees? When was she going to meet the man who made everything feel as if it all made sense?

  She stifled a yawn as the elevator doors slowly opened and she stepped out into her hallway. Her door was only three from the elevator, and she was glad to get there. As she slid the key in the lock and heard it snap open, she smiled, and when she flicked on the light and saw the familiar sight of home, it was as if she had been wrapped up in loving arms.

  She closed and locked the door behind her, and she kicked off her shoes.

  “It’s good to be home,” she said aloud to her empty apartment.

  She rolled her eyes at herself, and then she made her way into the kitchen area and opened the refrigerator. She had promised herself coco, but the first thing she saw was a half full bottle of wine she had opened the previous evening. She pulled out the cork and set it down on the counter before she grabbed herself a glass.

  She poured it half full and took one long sip. It was cold on her tongue and it had bite to it, but it felt good. She needed it to unwind after all the hell she had put herself through.

  She put the bottle back in the refrigerator, turned off the lights and slinked along the hallway to her bedroom. She lit the bedside lamps, struck a match and put on a scented candle, and then turned the radio on low. This had been her routine for as long as she could remember, and it was always comforting to have some noise around her as she got undressed and removed her make-up.

  As she slid into bed, she stretched out and really appreciated how good it was to be in her own environment. She had had a hectic day at work before she had gone on her date, and she had been looking forward to snuggling up all day.

  She leaned against her pillow and sipped her wine, as she flipped through a magazine and turned over the corners of the pages on which there was something she liked. It had been a long time since she had treated herself and been on any kind of shopping spree, and with the weekend fast approaching, she decided that was exactly what she was going to do.

  “Time for some new outfits,” she whispered to herself. “May as well spend all of this money on something…” she sighed and slammed the magazine closed.

  She leaned over and blew out the candle on the nightstand and turned out the light. As she lay in bed and looked up at the ceiling, she tried not to let the thoughts that always seemed to plague her late at night come creeping back in. They were strong and forceful, and they spoke to her so full of meaning that they were hard to ignore.

  Hannah had always been so independent, but now that she was getting that little bit older, all she could think of was that she craved to be settled down with a man who truly understood her. And not only that, she longed for a family.

  She hated admitting it to herself because she realized how cliched it all sounded. A woman in her mid-thirties and her biological clock ticking… it didn’t get much more predictable than that, but at the same time, it was beginning to happen to her.

  She chewed her bottom lip and closed her eyes.

  “If you want a family, have a goddam family,” she whispered as she tried to relax her mind to sleep. “I guess when all is said and done, you don’t need a man for the majority of that… maybe just the first part.” She laughed.

  Who could be bothered with a man, anyway?

  She was far too busy being fabulous and strong to bother with anyone who didn’t measure up.

  As she drifted off to sleep, a million thoughts swirled in her head. She was thirty-six and still had time, but did she want to wait any longer? She could keep going on bad dates and getting nowhere, but did she really want to waste her energy? Would the boutique on the corner still have the red dress she had coveted the last time she had passed? And if she was going to spend her Saturday shopping, could she extend her spree to the fertility clinic a few blocks away and see what they were offering?

  One thought to the next raced and raced around in her brain. And without any sign of slowing down, she had no idea how, but she eventually fell softly and soundly to sleep.

  2.

  “I can’t believe you actually did that,” Rebecca laughed as she gawked at Hannah with wide eyes. “You actually cut him off mid conversation, in the middle of your meal, and left him sitting there?”

  Hannah nodded her head as she chewed her salad and prodded at a fresh piece of lettuce with her fork.

  “You are the ultimate heartless witch,” Rebecca laughed. “That is savage.”

  “Oh God don’t,” Hannah closed her eyes and covered them with her hands. “I lay awake thinking about it, and I feel awful. But I just had to.”

  Rebecca threw her head back and laughed as she ran her hands through her hair.

  “Jeez, when I suggested you try dating sites, I wasn’t expecting you to be breaking hearts all over the city, Hannah.”

  “It isn’t intentional, I assure you,” Hannah smirked. “I just didn’t want to risk another Mike situation… Remember, the guy that just wouldn’t get the hint?”

  “How could I forget?” Rebecca mused. “How did you finally get him to leave you alone?”

  “I blocked his ass,” Hannah grinned. “Phone number, Facebook and WhatsApp. I like to cover all bases.”

  “Savage…” Rebecca winked. “But a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.”

  “Stop calling me savage,” she said with raised eyebrows. “My conscience is already in tatters, but I just can’t deal with that kind of clinging behavior.”

  “I guess,” Rebecca sighed. “But you’re no further forward.”

  “No, I’m not,” she smiled. “But I’m not going to compromise.”

  “Amen,” Rebecca raised her water glass and Hannah did the same, they clinked them together and Rebecca winked at her affectionately.

  “So, how is married life?” Hannah asked Rebecca with a big grin.

  “Very funny,” she rolled her eyes. “I mean, obviously, I wish we were at that stage, but I don’t know… James just doesn’t seem quite there yet. It’s as if he’s holding back for some reason.”