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After five years, Daisy Sawyer has finally come home. Not that she’s too happy about it. She had a great life in LA: rubbing elbows with celebrities, hopping from one exclusive bar to the other, and best of all, she didn’t have to answer to anyone. But when a drunken night of partying lands her in jail, the only person she can count on is her estranged brother, Alec, the leader of a powerful were-leopard clan. Forced to choose between a prison sentence or face the life she abandoned years ago, Daisy returns… but she doesn’t have to like it…

Christian LeBeau owes Alec Sawyer his life. He will do anything for the man, even babysit his bratty baby sister. But Christian never imagined that Daisy could grow up to be so beautiful… and forbidden in more ways than one. His mind tells him she is the one woman he can never have, but his body refuses to listen. All he has to do is take care of Daisy until Alec finds her a proper were-leopard to marry… then Chris could wash his hands off her and get on with his life…

And now, I present to you… Chasing Daisy…

Chapter One

It was the hardest phone call Daisy had ever had to make. With her stomach churning in dread, she told the operator she would like to make a collect call and gave her the number. The pig who was assigned to watch her folded his arms tightly across his beefy chest and tapped his foot impatiently on the tiled floor. Daisy rolled her eyes and turned away from him. The fluorescent lights above her head fizzed and flickered. The phone on the other line began to ring. She held her breath as the operator asked if the voice on the other line would like to accept a collect call from Daisy Sawyer and slowly exhaled when the voice said yes.

“Hello,” said a familiar gruff voice on the other end.

The buzz she had incurred from twelve shots of tequila and a line of coke at a party hours ago had dissipated and she was stone-cold sober. She ran her hand down the phone cord, resisting the urge to wrap it around her finger. “Brother.”

“Daisy,” said Alec. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

His voice implied everything but. Even six hundred miles away, she could hear the deep-seated anger blanketed in the cool calmness of his voice. His power radiated even through the phone line and the beast inside Daisy’s body stretched awake in response. Daisy shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “How are you, Alec?”

“I am well and so is the family,” he replied. “What’s this about, Daisy?”

The family… the people she’d been trying to avoid for the past five years. She had spent thousands of dollars in an effort to put distance between them and herself, and yet here she is, at their mercy. She would have laughed at the irony of it, if she weren’t close to crying. “I’m in jail, Alec.”

“What did you do?”

The question was asked baldly, yet with deceptive casualness as though he were merely asking about the weather. “I was joy-riding with some of my girlfriends…” She touched her forehead to the cool metal of the telephone frame. Her throat felt like sandpaper and her skin, she knew, would be hot to the touch. “And um… we got pulled over. My friend, the driver… um… she was drunk.” And high…

“If you weren’t the one driving, why were you arrested as well?” her brother asked softly. “What did you do?”

Daisy shut her eyes as shame washed over her body. “Alec… the car was stolen… and I had… um… a gram of coke on me.”

“You’re using again?”

“It was a party, Alec, and—” She heard herself sounding defensive and stopped. Accountability. It was one of the steps she never could remember. “Anyway, I need you to come and get me, Alec. I’m at the LA County lock-up.”

There was nothing but dead silence on the other line for a moment, but Daisy knew he had not hung up. Alec’s fury was a live thing. Even now she could feel it raising the little hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms.

“I’m tempted to let you rot where you stand.”

Anger shoved panic out of the way and Daisy felt her hand curling into a fist. The fluorescent lights flickered again and the hallway she was standing in was plunged into darkness for a moment before the lights came back on again. The pig’s boot tapping against the cold tile became thunderously loud and Daisy could smell the stink of his nervousness emanating from him. There was a snick sound that should have been a whisper in the cavernous hallway, but Daisy heard it just fine. The pig had pulled out his nightstick.

Daisy squeezed the handset in her hand until the hard plastic began to give. “Alec, in three days—” Her voice came out as an unnaturally deep growl and panic returned in a hurry. Already she could feel the leopard clawing at her insides, desperate to get out. She had to calm down. She took a deep breath and eased her death grip on the phone.

“I know, Daisy. I’ll be in touch.”

There was a click and then the cold, humming drone of a dial tone. Daisy dumbly stared at the phone for a moment before slamming it into the cradle. With a sigh, she shoved her hand into her long black hair and bit her lip as she wondered what she was supposed to do next. Alec would send one of his minions to collect her, she knew that much, but there was no telling when that would be. The very thought of spending any time at all in a tiny cell while waiting for Alec twisted her gut into knots and turned her bowels into ice water. She pressed the butt of her palm against the bridge of her nose and willed the nausea back down. No, she was not going to throw up.

The heavy footfalls of the deputy approaching her had Daisy straightening up and lifting her head. She turned around slowly to face him, but he slammed her against the wall and shoved her face against the cold marble with his elbow while he forced her arms behind her back and slapped handcuffs on her wrists.

The copper taste of blood flooded Daisy’s mouth and a growl vibrated from deep within her chest. If she could look at her eyes in the mirror, she knew they would be the yellow gold of a leopard instead of their usual green. That meant she was halfway into the Change. If she wanted, she could break the cuffs now and shred the deputy into ribbons with the talons descending from the tips of her fingers. He may be as twice as big as she was, but she was stronger and had no compunction whatsoever about hurting anyone who got in her way. Years of living in LA on her own had taught her that.

The deputy shoved her harder against the wall. “I know who you are. You’re one of them socialite bitches who think they’re above the law because of who their daddy is.” He dug his elbow into the spot between her shoulder blades and leaned into her so that his mouth was touching the shell of her ear. “You’re Alec Sawyer’s sister. One call and your criminal brother will send one of his Jew lawyers to bust you out, right? Probation and community service for grand theft auto and possession. You people disgust me.”

Daisy could smell his disdain and desire for her warring inside his bulky body. He was a good cop once, but gradually became disillusioned by an obviously flawed legal system. Nevertheless, he was also a man and she could feel the evidence of his arousal pressing against her lower back. Ironically, it was her disgust for him that caused the leopard to retreat. Disgust was an all too human emotion and the leopard was only interested in hurting and maiming.

“Johnson, what the hell are you doing?”

Daisy exhaled as the weight of the deputy was yanked off of her and slowly eased her face off the wall. She could feel the hot, throbbing bruise that had formed on her cheek and could not turn around just yet. In a few seconds, the bruise would fade away entirely and she really didn’t want any witnesses to it when it happened.

“She made a threatening move towards me,” said the cop called Johnson. “I had to disable her.”

Daisy bristled at this, but didn’t say a word. The deputy was an abusive dick, but he wasn’t an idiot. Subconsciously, he must have sensed the emergence of the beast and his primal instincts took over. The leopard aroused either a flight or fight response in its prey. Most of the time, it was flight. Flailing, screaming into the night flight.

“This poor girl who’s a buck-oh-five at most threatened you, Johnson? What are you—deuce, deuce and a half?” said the new arrival with a snort. “Don’t you have some paperwork to process? Get the hell out of here.”

“Thanks,” Daisy murmured as her savior unlocked her cuffs. Once she was sure the bruise on her face was gone, she turned around to face him. Her savior was an affable-looking, middle-aged white man in a deputy’s khaki uniform with a name tag that read Davis. He had a thick body, though he wasn’t fat, and stood about five-ten in his shiny black shoes. His neatly-cut brown curls were thinning on top and graying and he had a well-groomed mustache under his broad nose. He looked like somebody’s “cool” dad. Daisy liked him immediately.

“You all right, Ms. Sawyer?” he asked. “I’m Assistant Sheriff Roger Davis. We received a call from the law offices of Hopkins and Stein. They wanted to let us know they will be representing you in this matter and will be sending someone to meet with you as soon as possible. Your arraignment is tomorrow morning at seven and your bail will be set then.” He gave her a regretful look. “Unfortunately, that means you will have to spend the night here tonight. Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

Daisy was tempted to say yes just so she could put off being locked up in a cell, but she was, as usual, disgustingly healthy. She wondered if she could say the same for her girlfriends. Kimberly Gardener was the daughter of a well-known defense attorney and lived a scandal-filled, paparazzi-stalked life in Malibu. Jenny Hayasu was a law student at UCLA and the daughter of the owner of a successful chain of sushi restaurants all over the country. It was Jenny who was Daisy’s friend, but Kimmy had been Jenny’s college roommate and often dragged them to the best clubs in LA. Kimmy had been the driver and the car she supposedly stole was her ex-boyfriend Jay’s Lambo. The two of them had a very public fight and they all drove off with Jay’s car.

“Kimberly and Jenny—the women I was arrested with, are they okay?”

“Jennifer Hayasu was merely intoxicated and not under suspicion, so a deputy has already driven her home. Kimberly Gardener has been processed and assigned to a cell for the evening. Her arraignment is also tomorrow morning.”

Daisy breathed a sigh of relief. Jenny was a good girl, if it weren’t for her shitty taste in friends. Kimmy was tolerable, if only because the girl could party and knew just about everyone in Hollywood. The leopard was more fond of Kimmy than Daisy actually was.

“Are you ready to go into your cell now?”

Daisy felt the blood leave her head in a rush and for a moment, feared she was going to pass out. The leopard clawed at her insides and roared inside her skull. She almost gave in to the impulse to shove the nice assistant sheriff aside and make a run for it, but stopped herself in time. She wiped her clammy palms on the delicate material of hot pink Prada micro-skirt and smiled weakly.

The assistant sheriff smiled back in an attempt to reassure her. “Don’t worry, Ms. Sawyer, you won’t be placed in the drunk tank. The sheriff believes it would be in your best interest that you are given a cell of your own. You will be isolated from the general population.”

Thanks to Alec, no doubt. She thought of her cold, forbidding older brother and the smile she had forced on her face wobbled at the corners before disappearing entirely. She would have to see him again sooner or later and had a sickening suspicion it would be the former. She took a deep, steadying breath and placed a cold hand on the assistant sheriff’s arm. “Let’s go.”

Stay tuned next week for Chapter Two…

____________________________________________

Dionne Galace lives in San Diego, California, just a few minutes away from the beach. She enjoys body-surfing, swimming, hiking, and trolling around comic book stores. She is a huge fan of The X-Files and lives in hope that she will see Mulder and Scully get married… in any shape or form. She is not a fan of hulabaloos or tomfooleries, but is quite fond of shenanigans. She is currently working on a kickass YA novel that somebody, anybody should buy already… ’cause it’s kickass. Ask Shuzluva.

Stealing is not cool. Ask Jane from Dear Author, if you don’t believe me. Props to April Martinez for the fabulous cover. She is one talented, gorgeous babe. Join me in giving her a terrorist fist jab over these internets.

Note: Hey, other writer-types, do you want to contribute to The Serial? If so, holla at yo gurl and I’ll hook you up, yo.

Till, then… Love, peace, and snarkage, my babies. Peace!

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