Her Professor Mate
Her Professor Mate
Tasha Black
13th Story Press
Copyright © 2019 by 13th Story Press
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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13th Story Press
PO Box 506
Swarthmore, PA 19081
13thStoryPress@gmail.com
Contents
Tasha Black Starter Library
About Her Professor Mate
Her Professor Mate
Curse of the Alpha - SAMPLE
Tasha Black Starter Library
About the Author
One Percent Club
Tasha Black Starter Library
Packed with steamy shifters, mischievous magic, billionaire superheroes, and plenty of HEAT, the Tasha Black Starter Library is the perfect way to dive into Tasha's unique brand of Romance with Bite!
Get your FREE books now at tashablack.com!
About Her Professor Mate
A Second chance at a shifter romance...
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J.D. MacGregor is the beta of the Tarker’s Hollow pack. Respected by his pack-mates, adored by his fellow professors, and crushed on by his female students at Tarker’s Hollow College, all Mac really wants is to be loved by Parker Everly. But the curvy middle school teacher can’t forget his bizarre behavior at a party several years ago. And since he has to keep his wolf-shifter identity secret, he can’t explain what was going on that night. Parker seems to find him cute at best and amusing at worst. Meanwhile, poor Mac is driven out of his mind with lust for his former student teacher.
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Parker Everly has always had a crush on Mr. MacGregor - he’s hot as hell, funny, and crazy smart. But he’s obviously an incurable ladies’ man. And Parker’s got problems of her own, problems that seem to defy the natural order of the universe. As her mysterious dreams grow more frequent, Parker begins to see things in the shadows that shouldn’t be there. She’s always been a light-hearted person, but it’s beginning to feel like the world is closing in.
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When a horse-ride through the darkening woods turns into an impromptu camping trip, Parker and Mac are thrown together. It’s hard to deny the strange happenings around them, and even harder to deny the attraction between them. Will the two manage to restrain themselves? Or will Mac finally profess his love?
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Experience Required. If you like wolves, magic, strong women and alphas with experience, you’re going to love Seasoned Shifters, set in the steamy shifter world of Tarker’s Hollow.
Her Professor Mate
1
Parker
In her dream, Parker Everly searched the ballroom.
It was dim, but the jewel-encrusted gowns of the revelers reflected the faint light from the crystal chandeliers, sending a scatter of tiny rainbows across the crowded floor.
It was warm, and her own ball gown was tight in the bodice. The backings of the pearls and rhinestones that lined the seductively plunging neckline of the dress felt scratchy against her sensitive skin.
But Parker was on a mission. She had to find him.
If only I could remember who…
She pressed through the crowd as the music swelled. But none of the faces were familiar.
Just as she was about to lose her patience, the bodies in front of her parted.
He stood directly under the largest chandelier, wide shoulders set, silvery blond hair shimmering. She knew him at once, even though his face was obscured by shadows.
She went to him, her feet moving of their own accord.
When he stepped forward she could see those blue eyes, that elegant jaw line and the fierce expression, the tousled hair that always made it look like he’d just rolled out of bed.
It was MacGregor. Of course it was.
It always was.
I’m asleep.
But it felt so real, the scratch of the gown, the faint scent of rose petals.
MacGregor took her hands.
“You came back,” he said, one eyebrow arched.
“I always come back to you,” she told him.
In her dreams, Parker always said what she meant. She didn’t hide behind coyness or sarcasm.
When he took her in his arms, the happiness she felt seemed to light up the room.
No.
The room was actually growing brighter, the chandelier above glowing like a campfire.
“You’re mine,” he told her, his voice like smoldering coals.
Parker felt her body flood with need, every cell of her aware of him.
The crowd slid away, watching quietly from the edges of the ballroom as he spun and twirled her, his big hands maddeningly gentle.
Parker met his gaze and nearly lost herself in an ocean of desire. If she thought she needed him, it was nothing compared to the longing she saw in those eyes. He needed so desperately to possess her, it was causing him physical pain. She could feel it.
But the song was far from over.
Parker looked for a clock. Surely there was some ending to this party, some moment of release.
But there wasn’t a timepiece of any kind. There was nothing on the walls at all.
Nothing but their shadows, dancing along with them.
Parker watched her shadowy twin spin and float in the arms of her lover. She and her silhouette moved in perfect tandem.
Until they didn’t.
“No,” she murmured.
But it was happening anyway.
Shadow-Parker stretched and elongated, her hair going off in witchy spikes.
And the shadow of her lover slid out of shape until his ears were pointed and his aquiline nose was snout-like.
Before Parker’s horrified eyes the shadow line around the whole room licked up the walls like flames, pulsing and throbbing with hideous life.
She wrenched herself out of MacGregor’s arms.
Stop, stop, she begged the dark magic.
But the shadows were already flickering along the ceiling, moving to their own rhythm.
Somewhere an unseen clock began to toll.
At the edges of the room, the dancers clung to each other, staring up at the ceiling in terror.
Parker pushed past them, following an instinct that led her toward the doorway, not caring what she might find once she went through it.
Before she reached it, a dark figure appeared, blocking her way.
Where MacGregor’s hair was golden, this man’s was as black as night. His pale skin glowed in the remains of the lamplight.
“Parker,” the stranger said, his voice deep and harsh. “Come with me.”
She gazed into his eyes. They were impossibly dark.
“Parker,” she heard MacGregor’s call from the other side of the ballroom, stirring something in her very blood.
She turned back to him.
But the stranger’s hand closed around her wrist.
A faint humming sound echoed from somewhere far away, and she felt herself being pulled, not out of the room, but out of herself.
She tried to scream, but no sound came out. She was falling, falling…
2
Parker
Parker awoke in a cold sweat.
She reached for her bedside table to find the source of the strange hum.
She felt the familiar cool, smoothness of her amulet under her hand.
It was the only thing on the bedside table, and it wasn’t humming.
She clutched it and sat up in bed, trying to run her other hand thr
ough her tangled curls without much luck.
Outside her window, the moonlight illuminated her view of the college woods. The shadows of the trees were perfectly still and in their right places.
She looked around the room, trying to get her bearings in the still unfamiliar space.
The shadows there seemed to be behaving properly too.
She let out a long breath.
Parker had only been renting this house on the edge of campus for about a week.
The previous tenants had been three grad students who were in town to study the highway project. But they were forced to temporarily relocate when the place needed an emergency termite treatment. And by the time it was ready to be reoccupied, the three had miraculously all met the men of their dreams and didn’t want to rent the place anymore.
As a result, the house had become available in the winter, a terrible time to find a tenant. Parker had been looking for a change, and she’d been able to get a great deal on the place, even though it was three times as much house as she needed.
It was an amazing house, but the mid-century modern style meant walls of glass, most of which didn’t have any coverings.
Parker wasn’t overly modest. But between the frightening dreams and the moonlit forest, she was beginning to miss her old, cozy apartment back in Springton.
She glanced at the clock.
It was two in the morning. And she had to be up to teach at five.
Parker fastened the amulet around her neck for comfort and lay down again.
She wore the moonstone necklace every day. Her birth mother had left it for her when she’d surrendered Parker to the adoption agency.
Once, when she was about five, it occurred to Parker to ask her mom if it hurt her feelings that she always wore the necklace from her birth mother.
“Of course not,” Mom had said. “She brought you into our lives in an act of pure love. I like to think there’s a bit of your birth mom’s goodness in that amulet, a little bit of her kindness and protection, to help you feel brave and lucky.”
Little Parker had smiled and wrapped her chubby fist around the amulet, loving her mom so hard it hurt. Her feelings about her birth mother were vague and mysterious at best. But her own sweet mom was her hero, and she wanted to be just like her one day.
Grown-up Parker relaxed a little and felt herself getting sleepy again.
3
Mac
Mac strode through the streets of Tarker’s Hollow. It was cold outside, but like all shifters he ran hot, so the chill in the air felt fantastic.
The bare branches of the trees shivered overhead in the breeze and people passing him smiled from behind fluffy coats and scarves.
A gaggle of his freshman students from the college headed into the coffee shop as he passed. They waved at him, giggling.
He waved back. While he didn’t especially want his undergrad students ogling him, part of him was still a little flattered that he hadn’t lost his touch.
Life was good in Tarker’s Hollow. It would be better if Parker Everly found him as attractive as his Freshman Seminar class did.
Maybe soon she will, he told himself.
But as he got closer to the gathering at Hollow Hardware, he got the strange feeling he’d been having more and more often at these pack meetings.
He felt a little like an outsider.
The feeling was misplaced. It had to be.
Mac owned Hollow Hardware. And he was the second most important attendee of the meeting he was heading into.
But things had changed in Tarker’s Hollow - changed so much that he questioned his status, and sometimes even his usefulness.
“Mac,” Javier called from behind the counter.
Mac gave a wave to the dark-haired young man. He’d put Javier in charge of the store when it became evident that he had a knack for running the place. One day he would give him the business, if that was what the younger man wanted.
Mac’s time was kept pretty occupied by the course load he taught at Tarker’s Hollow College. He told himself he was busy enough to back off from the pack, except when he was needed.
The others in the small shop broke off their conversation to greet him, and he took a moment to smile back at all those familiar faces.
He wondered briefly what they had been discussing before he arrived.
The little store was packed full. Now that Tarker’s Hollow was home to two wolf packs, Mac figured they really ought to start meeting up someplace else.
Before he could voice this suggestion, the bells on the door jingled once more and in walked Ainsley Connor and Erik Jensen. Their son, baby Michael, sat merrily in the crook of Erik’s arm. An aura of happy certainty anointed the small family.
The hardware store went completely silent as the two packs beheld their alphas, and the little one who would permanently unite them into a single pack one day.
“Mac,” Ainsley said cheerfully.
“Hi, Ainsley,” he replied, averting his eyes slightly to show deference to his alpha.
It was hard to believe she had once been one of his high school English students.
He was very proud of her as his pack leader. Ainsley was incredibly powerful, tough but kind. And on a personal level, he was pleased that she had found an excellent mate and started a family.
Of course there was a hint of pain at the reminder that Parker, his own intended mate, still held him in well-earned disdain. But that was a matter for another time.
“So what am I hearing about a stranger in the woods?” Ainsley asked.
“Carol Lotus stopped in,” Javier replied. “She was running last night and came across an unfamiliar scent.”
“It’s a new semester at the college,” Ainsley said. “All kinds of new people are here. And we all know the kids wander the woods once in a while.”
“She said it wasn’t like that,” Javier replied, shaking his head. “She said it was like…”
Mac looked up as Javier trailed off.
The younger man had an embarrassed look on his face.
“She said it was like what?” Ainsley demanded.
“She, um, she said there was an edge to it,” Javier said, eyes on the counter. “Like when you and Grace have been practicing?”
Ah.
Magic.
Wolves and magic didn’t normally mix. But Ainsley Connor had powerful magic on her mother’s side. And her father had been the alpha of the Tarker’s Hollow wolf pack before her. She’d brought the two worlds together in some pretty unexpected ways.
Ainsley nodded, her lips pressed thin as she gave the matter some thought.
“Has anyone else seen anything?” Erik asked.
Heads shook, feet shuffled.
“Isn’t Carol Lotus kind of getting up there in age?” one of the younger guys asked.
Mac resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Barely. These pups, they had no idea what they were talking about.
“Yeah, I mean she seems like she’s scared of everything,” his companion put in.
“Her voice is always shaking,” the first one added.
“Carol Lotus is a valued member of this pack,” Mac practically exploded. “She’s always had a fantastic nose, and if she says something’s out there, then something’s out there.”
Both packs went utterly silent once again.
Mac cursed himself for piping up. Ainsley could have handled it a thousand times more smoothly.
Before anyone could respond, the bells on the door jingled again.
“Oh my,” Minna Randolf exclaimed, looking around the crowded store with a confused expression that was at odds with the large smiling Santa Claus face on her sweater.
“Good morning, Mrs. Randolf,” Javier said. “What can we help you with?”
“Well, heavens, I just wanted to pick up a bag of salt for my grandson in case the snow comes, but it looks like you’re having a convention in here,” she said. “Oh, hello, Ainsley.”
“Hello, Mrs. Randolf,
” Ainsley said politely, looking less like the most dangerous person Mac had ever met, and more like a typical young mom for a moment.
“Isn’t Michael getting handsome?” Minna asked, smiling at the little fellow who grinned back at her from Erik’s arms.
“If you want to ring her up, I’ll carry it out to the car,” Mac told Javier.
He grabbed a large bag of salt and headed out to the sidewalk.
The sunlight felt harsh after the calm dimness of the store.
When Minna came out a moment later, he followed her to her car.
“Thanks so much,” she said, opening her trunk. “Hollow Hardware is the best. You’ll never catch me shopping at the Home Depot.”
“Thanks for your business,” Mac said as he hefted the salt in. “We really appreciate it.”
He watched her drive off, past the row of shops and into the roundabout. She would bring the salt to her grandson’s place and then head back to Tarker’s Tower, the lone condo building in the little town and home to many of its aging residents.
Mac was still in his thirties, but he was starting to feel like he had one foot in Tarker’s Tower himself.
Maybe there had been too much action at the beginning of Ainsley’s tenure as alpha. Now his everyday life seemed almost boring by comparison.
He turned back to the store, but couldn’t bring himself to go back in.
Instead, he slipped his mobile out of his pocket long enough to shoot Ainsley a quick text that he was needed at work. Then he headed across the little train station overpass toward the campus.
Winter was here - the bite in the air refreshed his spirits a bit.