Cash [Pyrate's Treasure 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Pyrate's Treasure 3

  Cash

  Zoe Shannon Vaughn is the King of Wolves’ human wife in name only. Pyrate’s Island pack Beta Cash Pyrate recognizes his mate the moment he sees her and does not care that she is married. As a gifted seer, Zoe has dreamed of Cash for years and knew this moment was coming long before they arrived on the island for Edward Pyrate’s funeral.

  As a “simple island boy,” Cash mates Zoe first and then realizes she is a lady and deserves to be romanced, not just claimed. When another wolf threatens them, Cash shifts just inches from Zoe. His actions scare her and she worries that one day he might shift and attack her.

  Will King Luka stand in the way of Cash claiming Zoe as his life mate? Can she learn to love him without the romance he feels she deserves?

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 21,963 words

  CASH

  Pyrate’s Treasure 3

  Cooper McKenzie

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  CASH

  Copyright © 2012 by Cooper McKenzie

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62241-723-0

  First E-book Publication: October 2012

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Cash by Cooper McKenzie from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Cooper McKenzie’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. McKenzie’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  In memory of Dad, who was proud of me for having the courage to follow my dream of being a writer.

  CASH

  Pyrate’s Treasure 3

  COOPER MCKENZIE

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter 1

  “Zoe and Ca–ash sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes mating then comes love—”

  A hand on her shoulder pulled Zoe Shannon Vaughn’s attention from the scene her mind’s eye was showing yet again. The children’s voices faded before finishing the song, but she knew they would return. The vision of her sitting in a tree with a wolf name Cash had started ten years ago but had been growing stronger since she had learned of their upcoming trip to Pyrate Island, North Carolina.

  “Are you all right?” the man she had been with for the past ten years asked as he sat down on the bench beside her.

  When she glanced around, she found the rest of his inner circle had left. Had she missed the end of the meeting? Or had he cut it short because her mind had drifted off again?

  “I’m fine, Your Highness,” she responded automatically. “Why?”

  “You were staring across the room humming a tune I remember from childhood while tears rolled down your cheeks. You were wearing the oddest expression, like you were overjoyed and your heart was breaking all at the same time.”

  Zoe turned her head and looked across the room so his steel-gray eyes could not see into her heart by looking deep into her eyes. That was but one of the things she had taught him in her ill-defined, all-encompassing capacity of royal advisor.

  She had known since she could walk that she had been gifted with the power to see things coming for other people long before they did for a reason. Just before her eighteenth birthday, she began having visions of her standing just behind this man’s right shoulder, whispering in his ear. The people of his shape-shifter world knew him as “King of Wolves,” but in the human world, Luka Vaughn was a very private, very successful businessman.

  Instead of explaining her strange behavior to him, she broke the news that had been weighing heavily on her heart for the past few days. No doubt this was the reason for the tears he had just witnessed.

  “My liege, our time is coming to an end,” she said softly, continuing over his soft inhalation of shocked breath, “but there will be another to step into my place. Your mate will be so much more to you than I ever have been.”

  With that, she shifted to face the man the world knew as her husband. The man she called her friend. He looked stunned. And skeptical. And curious. It was the same expression he wore every time she made such bold, out-of-left-field statements. Even after all these years together, he sometimes still refused to take her word on things such as this without evidence to back up her statement.

  “And when will these people come into our lives?” he asked warily, obviously hesitant to say the word “mate.”

  Only Zoe knew that he had given up on finding his other half years before. He had explained that to her when he had asked her to marry him just days after she had barged into his life a decade before. He had been thirty-two years old and had come to the conclusion that mates were for younger shape-shifters.

  That was but one of the reasons they had married. The other was to protect her reputation and allow her to remain at his side at all times. None of his shifter subjects ever voiced the question of whether or not they were mates. They were just happy their king had found a woman for his bed. If only they knew they not only slept in separate beds, but also in separate rooms at opposite ends of their large suite.

  While she tried many times over their years together to assure Luka that he would find his fate-destined soul mate when he least expected, he still di
d not believe her.

  “Soon,” she said, “very soon.”

  “I guess this means we need to dig out those annulment papers we filed the day after of our wedding.”

  Zoe nodded but did not look at the man she had come to think of more as an older brother than a husband. “Yes, my liege, though I do not think our mates will care if we are married to other people or not.”

  * * * *

  Cash Pyrate was the last to turn his back on the landing helicopter as sand began to fill the air from the prop wash. Other rich, kinky, human guests had arrived at Pyrate Island resort by helicopter before but always used the clearing in the center of the village. But this guest was special, and so his whirlybird was landing on the far side of the island where humans were forbidden for their own protection.

  Glancing to his left, he looked at his cousin, Goldie Pyrate, who would be installed as the newest Alpha of the Pyrate Pack. Edward Pyrate, their grandfather and the previous Alpha, had been found dead in his bed just two mornings before. After a call to the King of Wolves, Ruby and Silver had cancelled the guests scheduled to visit the resort for the next two weeks. Then plans were made for Edward’s funeral and the ceremony that would make Goldie the leader of Pyrate Island pack.

  She was ready to take over, having been training for this for the last eighteen years. Edward had been slow in handing over the position because, as he had secretly admitted to Cash and Silver one night long ago, he wanted her to find her mate first. Goldie had met her mate in Deputy Caleb Slattery nearly a month earlier, and they were settling into a happy life together.

  Though he would rather be running in the woods and dealing with his sadness, Cash’s presence as Goldie’s Beta was required here. The King of Wolves had shocked the entire pack by accepting their invitation to the week’s events. He had also requested accommodations for himself and his inner circle for a week, mentioning that he would like to take a few days afterward to rest.

  Once the helicopter landed and flying sand settled, he and the others turned around and waited as the door slowly opened. Two men appeared in the doorway first. They were even bigger than Cash’s own six and a half feet and two hundred sixty pounds of solid muscle. They paused and scanned the area for danger before coming down the helicopter’s short staircase.

  They wore jeans and T-shirts, but their aura was as intimidating as if they had been wearing thousand-dollar suits. These were the King’s Betas, providing advice and protection to him as he and Silver did for Goldie.

  They took up flanking positions on either side of the stairs before a third man appeared in the open doorway. Luka Vaughn, King of Wolves, wore a black suit with a white shirt and dark tie. He looked like he was ready to negotiate world peace or a multibillion-dollar business takeover instead of starting a week-long vacation.

  The king took in their small group in a glance as he descended the handful of stairs to the sand. Cash’s gaze returned to the top of the stairs when a fourth person stepped into view and hesitated.

  The woman was beautiful. Long dark-brown hair tied in a braid draped over her right shoulder to end just below the peak of her breast. Her eyes were dark as well, though he could not tell their color at this distance. Her features were delicate, and she looked very familiar, though he could not place her.

  Like the king, she was dressed for an evening at the theater, not a casual beach vacation. Her pale-blue bustier emphasized a generous cleavage. Her silky ankle-length skirt was black, while the shawl covering her shoulders was a rainbow of swirling pastel colors. She wore several gold necklaces of varying lengths. The shortest laid at the base of her throat while the longest reached to her waist.

  When her gaze met his, Cash’s cock surged to painfully hard attention while his heart turned over in his chest. He gasped when he realized where he had seen her before. Visions of this woman had come to him in his dreams, both sleeping and awake, since he had been fifteen years old.

  Over the last six months she had come to him more often, and the past few weeks it had been every night. The visions were, by turn, gently comforting, warmly loving, and sexually frustrating. They left him loving the unknown woman a little more, though he had no clue as to his mate’s identity.

  Her eyes widened as she continued to stare into his eyes. Her lips parted as if she gasped a breath before they turned up in a warm smile. It was as if she knew exactly who he was and what they would be to one another. Could it be that he was not the only one having dreams?

  “Mine,” he growled from deep in his chest. He took a step forward, all thoughts of protocol, manners, and any other subject beyond that of claiming his mate swept from his mind like a sheet of tissue paper in a Force 5 hurricane.

  Before he could take a second step, Silver’s arm slammed across his chest like an iron bar. “Steady, cousin. That’s Zoe, the king’s woman. You can’t just grab her up and claim her here and now.”

  “She’s my mate,” Cash whined softly, his cock throbbing with each strong beat of his heart.

  “But she’s his wife,” Silver pointed out, sounding sympathetic.

  Cash watched without blinking as the woman broke their locked gaze so she could gracefully descend the stairs. When she reached the king’s side, her gaze returned to his. The lonely, empty feeling that had started in his chest during puberty was replaced by a warm fullness he had never felt before.

  The king wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her closer to his side as he introduced her to Goldie. Cash fought the urge to leap across the distance separating them, rip the man’s arm off his body, and beat him to death with it. That woman was his mate. The king needed to keep his hands to himself.

  As if the woman felt his anger, she glanced his way and met his troubled gaze. His eyes then widened in surprise when a gentle woman’s voice silently assured him there was nothing romantic between her and the king.

  It didn’t matter, he grumped silently. She was his mate, and he didn’t share. Even with a king.

  The woman gave him a look before turning away to whisper something in the king’s ear. Luka met his deepening frown with a raised eyebrow and cocky grin, as if daring Cash to challenge him. Cash took another half step before Silver stepped in front of him to block him from moving any further.

  “Hold it together before you get yourself killed,” Silver whispered out of the side of his mouth.

  In minutes, Goldie had given her formal “welcome to the island” speech. Then she suggested they head into the village on the other side of the island so their guests could freshen up and settle in.

  The group began to walk along the beach trail that led toward one of the few gates in the fence that separated the town from the rest of the island. The king and Goldie led the way with Silver and Cash bringing up the rear.

  “Go talk to her,” Silver urged, elbowing Cash sharply when the woman began to lag behind the king’s men. Her stiletto heels sank into the loose sand with each step she took.

  “I can’t,” Cash admitted after nearly a minute of silence.

  He could not take his eyes off the woman’s curvy, sexy backside as she walked just a few feet in front of him. His heartbeat thundered so loud in his ears he could barely hear the sounds of evening that filled the woods.

  “Why not?” Silver whispered.

  Before Cash could come up with an excuse his cousin would not scoff at, the woman cried out in surprise and began to fall. The men on either side of her did not have a chance to twitch in her direction before Cash leapt and jerked the woman back. He then scooped her into his arms and held her securely against his chest.

  She did not fight him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and looked up at him. Her smile reached from his eyes all the way down to his cock, taking possession of everything in its path.

  He was holding his mate. That was all that mattered. His mate was safe and in his arms. He could not take his eyes off her delicate, exotically beautiful features as he started walking again.

  Wh
en the king’s Betas stepped closer, growling soft and threatening, Cash spared them a glance and returned with a louder, more possessive sound. The men looked stunned but made no further move to stop him. Cash walked past them and, a few steps later, the king and his cousin. The king looked intrigued at the development. Goldie appeared shocked.

  “My shoes,” the woman said softly as Cash continued up the path, his long stride quickly leaving the others behind.

  “What about them?”

  “You pulled me out of them. They’re back there in the sand,” she said, lifting her bare feet in proof.

  Cash spared them a glance and found her feet were as beautiful as the rest of her. He chuckled when he took in that each toenail had been painted a different neon color.

  He shrugged but did not stop or turn back. “Silver will bring them.”

  “Aren’t you going to put me down? I can walk, you know.”

  “No, mate, I don’t think so.” Cash flashed her a cocky grin. “You feel good right where you are.”

  The woman took a surprised breath but then relaxed even deeper into his hold. A moment later, she tilted her head to rest it against his shoulder.

  Cash continued walking, not caring whether the others were following or not. It was as if a bubble had closed around them, and the rest of the world had disappeared. When he reached a path that broke off and went straight to the Pyrate family home, he turned onto it.

  He would take her home with him instead of to the village. He would show her around the rest of the island. Later. After they had spent some time alone.