***Completely Standalone***

Welcome to the world of the Alpha Claimed.
Each story features a strong woman and the man or men that love her. Every book is standalone, but once you read one you'll want to read the others.

Piper Rain is a romance author that stopped believing in love. She’s been unable to write about it since her divorce and having her heart broken. So she gets away and looks for inspiration out in the mountains. What she didn’t expect to find was a sexy, romantic neighbor that would bring the spark of hope back into her heart.

Zain Lockwood is happy living out in the woods on his own. Though he is the alpha of a clan, he prefers solitude. Until a strong, beautiful but wounded female ends up as his neighbor. Suddenly, teaching her that love exists and that she is the perfect mate for him becomes his sole focus. With problems with a neighboring Alpha and trying to find a way to romance Piper, Zain has his hands full.

Piper’s been emotionally hurt and she’s not sure that she can love again. Even if it means letting go of the only man who’s ever made her feel anything. But it all comes to a head when someone takes his mate. Zain will do anything to make sure Piper’s safe, even if it means killing one of his own.

Chapter 1

Piper Rain grumbled at the drops hitting her windshield nonstop. She should’ve waited until after the storm to go to the cabin, but she was tired of putting it off. Her mom had rented the place for a month for her. To help her be creative. Like that was going to happen. 

Still, she didn’t want to disappoint her mother, so she went. And now she was driving in the rain, or storm, at night, trying to find her way along the narrow mountain road. The GPS said she should be there soon—if it was even correct. The high hills in the area did a great job of blocking phone signals. Which was fine with her. She seldom used it.

It felt like she’d been driving from as high as the clouds, down to as low as the bowels of hell, and back up in the middle of nowhere for hours already. Welcome to Ursuston, Blue Ridge Mountain Boonies, USA! But she didn’t care. After all, what did she have to go back to? Nothing. She’d made sure to sign the divorce papers weeks ago. Long before she left on the trip. 

The phone’s ringing pulled her out of her pity party.

“Piper, darling,” her mom’s voice filled the inside of the Jeep. “Stop sulking.”

She frowned and clenched her teeth. “I am not sulking, Mother.”

“Of course, you are, dear. It’s your nature. You hate losing and this marriage was a loss.”

“Mom, this wasn’t a game. This was my life. Ten years. Ten.”

“I know, love, but you have to understand that Scott never saw you as anything more than a check.”

“Gee, thanks.” She sighed.

“Come on, love. You know I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. But when a man is only interested in you for money, then you know there’s something wrong with the relationship.”

“I know.” And she did know. She knew damn well what a worthless creep her ex-husband was. He’d created a business with her money and then hired someone to run it with him. Then he left her for that someone. One beautiful petite brunette with golden skin and a smile that Piper could never compete with. 

She also couldn’t compete with the bimbo’s twenty-two years. Hell, Piper knew she wasn’t ancient at thirty-five, but she was no perky college graduate with the body of a Barbie doll. 

“Okay, then you also know this was not your fault. You do know that, right?” Her mother’s voice was full of concern.

“I know that,” she lied. She was still beating herself up over taking on so much work and forgetting to give Scott time. She’d all but shut him out in the last few years.

“Piper!” her mother snapped. “You and I know very well he’s been cheating on you for years. This is just the point he decided he didn’t need your money any longer.”

Piper snorted. “Yeah. Apparently, his business is doing better than mine.”

“That’s only because you’re burnt out, honey. And your creative side took a hit.”

Yeah. More like exploded completely out of the water. She didn’t believe in love. Go figure. A romance author who couldn’t write the necessary tropes for the genre. That was definitely going to create some problems for her stories. 

If she could write. Which she couldn’t because she was too busy being either angry or upset that her ex-husband had decided to use her for years for money but never bothered to give her the love and respect he’d agreed to at their wedding. But why was she mad at him? She was the one that allowed it to happen. 

“Piper,” her mother sighed. “you couldn’t have known. Don’t blame yourself. You were a wonderful wife to Scott. You encouraged him to do all the things he wanted. For half your marriage, he didn’t do shit but laze around the house, and for the other half, he spent your money on himself, creating the business he wanted and never bothering to water the tree that gave him everything.”

She sighed. She knew all that. All of it. But that didn’t matter because all Piper wanted was to get away from everything. To forget Scott and his new fiancée. Yeah, he’d gotten engaged thirty minutes after he’d moved out and set a wedding date seconds after their divorce had gone through. Her stomach rolled and anger threatened to boil over.

“Mom, I’m almost there. So I’ll call you tomorrow. The weather is awful, and I want to stay focused on driving.” 

“All right, honey. Just be careful, please. And call me when you can.”

“I will. Give me a few days, okay?” No sound came from the car speakers. “Mom?” Great. Signal gone again.

She hung up and gazed at the cabin in the woods that was supposed to be her sanctuary for the next thirty days. She sat in the car for a long time and gripped the steering wheel, staring at the lit cabin through her tears. 

Why did she even care? It wasn’t that she loved Scott. She’d stopped loving him a long time ago, but she’d made a commitment to be there for him. Which she’d done. But he’d never been there for her. Ever.

What hurt was that he never did any of the things with her that he was doing with his girlfriend. Oh, she’d heard from a mutual friend how he was taking her on dates and on his boat. They were doing so many outings and fun things together. But whenever Piper had asked him to spend any time with her, he’d been too busy. Or not in the mood. 

She swallowed back at the knot in her throat and wiped away the tears. She wasn’t going into that cabin with all that anger and bitterness in her heart. She’d never survive this and find her voice again if she did. 

Scott did her a favor. It would’ve been worse if he strung her along another ten years before he did this. Though, she was mid-thirties, she could still enjoy her life, and hopefully, she could heal her heart enough that she could write again. 

She opened the car door, grabbed her suitcase, and hurried through the rain to the front door. One suitcase. She’d packed only comfortable clothes to hang around in. Clothes to lounge and write in. And some to go into town to buy groceries if the need arose. 

Surely there was a grocery store. On her way through the don’t-blink-or-you-miss-it town, the place had one road: Main Street—and looked rundown. Almost ghost town-like with nobody outside due to the rain.

The security box attached to the log siding holding the key sat exactly where the written instructions said. It wouldn’t have been the first time the information from the renter was wrong. Maybe this owner had some brains and cared for the place more than the dollars. She entered the passcode, pulled open the front plate, and took out the key. So far, so good.

Entrance open, she stood in the doorframe, suitcase dropping from her fingers. The inside of the massive cabin was surreal. Modern, yet, rustic. Rough-hewn beams crossed high overhead. From where she ogled the home, she could see all the way to the stainless-steel kitchen on the other side of the house.

Having the entire place to herself might be a bit intimidating. There could be another person in here the whole time, and she wouldn’t even know. 

Maybe in the guest room, a sexy man leaned against the bed’s headboard, the sheet gathered in his lap. And under the sheet, a long hump that ran to the edge of the covers. His bare chest—

Piper shook her head to get rid of those thoughts. It was all fantasy, based on what she secretly desired from a guy. Her ex-husband never satisfied any of her fantasies, nor did he ever ask if she had any.

Another image popped into her head. One of the last scenes in Basic Instinct where Sharon Stone was in bed with Michael Douglass, and she pulled a knife from the bedside. But instead of Stone, she lay there, and Douglass was her ex. Where the movie ended on a mysterious note, she wouldn’t leave the reader in suspense. 

Her ex would get a knife in his chest. Maybe two or ten times.

No, not really. She’d never stab him. All the blood would be a total mess. She’d just cut his brake lines like a character in one of her books.

She rolled her luggage through the living room to the stairs. The website said all the bedrooms were on the second floor with gorgeous views. Well, being that she could only see a few feet past the window, those sights would have to wait until tomorrow.

Choosing the first bedroom she came to, she laid her clothes on a chair and pulled jammies from her selection of outfits. Exploration of the house and surroundings would come in the morning.