This entirely original, exclusive, free-to-you story has been brought to you by… me! Play on, playaz…

Please read chapters one, two, three, four, five, and six if you haven’t already.

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 of her and get on with his life… but fate seems to have other plans.

And now, I present to you… Chasing Daisy…

Chapter Seven

Sometime in the afternoon, Daisy noticed that Christian had disappeared. She had become so busy running around in the library, helping Mrs. Sullivan put away books and run the checkout counter that soon enough, she stopped looking over her shoulder to see if Christian was still there. The man had a way of blending into the background, making himself seem as harmless as possible when he wanted to. For hours, he sat on an armchair reading a paperback as though it were the only thing he had planned for the day. It was a side of him Daisy had never seen before. For the few days she had known him he had been everything from menacing to… even more menacing. Laid-back was something new. And she never counted on becoming so used to having him around that whenever he was away from her side, she felt… what, sad? But today his presence had been such a comfort that it felt like a blanket draped over her shoulders, the kind of blanket you wrapped yourself in on a cold rainy day.

The electrical current that flowed between them crescendoed when they touched and quieted to a hum when they were apart. She felt it whenever he walked into a room, like a warm glow surrounding her body. She now realized that he served as more than her buffer zone. He was also her body armor. Without him, her were-life would be a lot more unbearable. Now that he was gone, she couldn’t help but feel vulnerable. Unprotected.

And she knew he was gone because she was feeling itchy again. Which meant there was a leopard nearby. The itch was always worse in the full moon and carried with it an edge of pain. It became more than a slight irritant; rather, it became a living, breathing thing that seemed intent on stripping her skin from her flesh with its talons. She had been able to ignore it when Christian was around; his presence, for a reason she had yet to figure out, seemed to tame the symptoms. Without him, the itch mutated into something that was almost impossible to endure.

She pushed aside the cart filled with children’s books to be put away and ducked behind a shelf. After making sure there was no one to see, she leaned against the wall and began to scratch, biting down on her lower lip to keep herself from moaning out loud. Balancing herself on her toes, she rubbed her back up and down against the coarse wall, replacing the itch with stinging friction. She no longer cared if she scratched herself bloody; she just wanted the itch to go away.

It was the leopard’s ears that alerted her to the sound of footsteps approaching. She stopped scratching immediately, though her skin protested, and straightened her body, pulling down her skirt and blouse. There was only one other way to calm the invisible ants. With a shaking hand, she dug into the pocket of her skirt and unearthed two tiny white pills. Three would be ideal, four would be oblivion, but she has to conserve them now. Who knew when she’d be able to get her hands on more of them. Besides, she didn’t want a repeat of this morning. And she probably shouldn’t drown them down with vodka next time. She popped the pills into her mouth and dry-swallowed. Christian might think he had taken all of her stash, but he didn’t check under her mattress.

She ran a hand over her hair in an effort to smooth it and sniffed the air. White Diamonds with a hint of Ben-Gay. She sighed in relief. It was only Mrs. Sullivan. Ever since her encounter with the hyenas, she had been feeling extra paranoid. The fact that Alec had her guarded like Fort Knox did not make her feel better. What was he protecting her from? Why was he keeping her isolated? The only other leopards in the house were Alfred and her cousin Caleb, which was strange because leopards were naturally drawn to their alpha and there should be a few of them milling about, seeking Alec’s affection. Not that she minded that a bit, but it was weird, anyway. It didn’t help that Alec and Christian were super-secretive about everything, either. They were definitely hiding something from her. And then there was the phone call that Christian received. She was convinced he had left because of it. Which meant it had to be big enough to make him abandon his post, when he seemed so gung-ho about being the best bodyguard ever.

“There you are, dear,” said Mrs. Sullivan.

The librarian was sixty-five years old and someone Daisy would have wanted for a grandmother had she herself had been human. Or had a grandmother. The woman looked sprightly and cheerful for her age in a pink sweater set and tasteful pearls. Daisy couldn’t remember if her paternal grandmother, who had ruled over the clan when she was alive—the only female who had ever done so—even owned a sweater set. Or did grandmotherly things like serve milk and cookies. Or knit ugly hats. The Grand Dame of the Sawyer leopards had been more interested in making sure Alec grew up to be the best Alpha he could be. Which meant Daisy was invisible to her.

Not that she’d ever been bitter about it or anything.

“I am just about ready to set up for story time,” said the old woman. “Would you like to help me? I have some juice boxes and cookies stored in the kitchen that you could bring out. You may sit with us afterward while I read Cinderella to the children.”

Daisy gaped at her. Humans were notoriously protective of their young ones. Why would this woman expose the children to someone like her? She could… contaminate their delicate, impressionable minds. “You would let me sit with the kids?”

Mrs. Sullivan chuckled and patted her arm. “I’ve known you since you were the same age as those tykes, Daisy Sawyer. You may have made some unwise choices that led you to the path you’re currently on, but I know you’re a good girl.” She winked. “I had you loading and unloading carts of dusty books all day. If you were half the brat those dirty rags say you are, you would have stormed out of here hours ago.” She reached up and touched Daisy’s cheek. “To me, you’ll always be the little girl who stayed with me till closing time everyday reading C.S. Lewis and Anne McAffrey.”

Daisy didn’t have the heart to tell her she was secretly reading Danielle Steele, instead, and had only used the other books as cover for what she really had in her hand. Or that she had stayed in the library all day because she had nowhere else to go. Her father’s power combined with her grandmother’s made her want to rub off her own skin with sandpaper. The library was just the best place to hide. She suddenly had the urge to hug the old woman, but was afraid she would crush her delicate bones.

“Alfred is out there, by the way,” Mrs. Sullivan said as she was walking away. “I put him in my office so he wouldn’t scare the children. Gentle as a lamb, but he is a rather frightful looking fellow, you know.”

Daisy was surprised the old woman knew her brother’s factotum. The man didn’t seem like the type who frequents the library. “How do you know him?”

“It’s a small town, dear,” Mrs. Sullivan said. “Besides, he comes in here once or twice a week and takes home with him a lion’s share of books.”

Daisy had an image of Alfred sitting in his room by a lamp, holding a Danielle Steele paperback in his meaty fists, and shuddered. “What the hell does he read?”

The old woman smiled. “Popular fiction, mostly. But I’ve known him to bring home books of poetry by the likes of Pablo Neruda and Matthew Arnold. Why, I believe he is currently reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”

So Alfred was in the building. That would explain the creepy crawly feeling that was fortunately dulled by the dose of Percocet she had taken. Alec must have sent him to replace Christian.

She walked to the back of the library where the storage room was. It contained boxes of donated books that had yet to be unpacked and classified, but there was a small kitchen that was off to the side. She opened the refrigerator where she found a twelve-pack of fruit punch-flavored juice boxes. She placed it on the table next to an aluminum tray of chocolate chip cookies shaped like little animals, carefully wrapped with a plastic sheet.

“So this is where they’re hiding you,” says Caleb, walking into the room behind her.

Daisy, who had been about to stick a stolen cookie into her mouth, jumped in surprise and turned around. She couldn’t believe she had not detected his presence in the room until he announced it. She had always been very good at being able to tell when a were was anywhere near her, but Caleb was the only one who could sneak up on her, even when they were kids. The guy was just a slick motherfucker.

“Shit, Cal, you scared me,” Daisy said, exhaling harshly. She broke off a piece of her tiger-shaped cookie and handed it to her cousin who immediately popped it into his mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“Good cookie. Very moist,” he said, brushing the crumbs off his hands. “Just dropped by to see if I could tempt you into going down to San Francisco with me. There’s a party being thrown tonight by this record producer I know and it’s supposed to be huge. Figured you could use a bit of of a break from the doldrums and kick it with me.”

Daisy had always loved San Francisco. It was her favorite city. She had several friends down there as well. But she realized with a pang that Alec would never go for it. And she had to play by the rules for a bit if only to get Alec to trust her and ease up on her later on. She knew how to play the game. She knew Alec would leave her alone as long as she didn’t give him any cause to look at her direction. “I don’t know. I’ve got twenty-four guard detail on my ass.”

Caleb snorted. “Oh, like you would let that stop you. Remember when we snuck out that one time when we were fifteen and took a Greyhound to that rave in Sacramento?”

The bus ride had taken almost four hours and when they got to their destination, they realized it was in the middle of nowhere and that they were the youngest people there. A lot of the attendees were old hippies attempting to catch the glory days of the sixties with the help of Ecstasy. The music sucked and though the venue was an old abandoned lot, it was packed like sardines. Daisy and Caleb were able to party for a couple of hours until her father found them and dragged them all the way back to Redding by the ear with a sullen twenty-year-old Alec watching.

“Those were the days, eh, cuz?” Caleb said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Daisy said, though there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she would say no to the San Francisco trip. For some reason, it just didn’t interest her enough to go and risk Alec’s wrath. There were other things going on right now, new developments in the were-leopard world that were potentially more interesting than getting drunk out of her mind in a stranger’s house and wishing she had stayed home, instead. More pressingly, tonight was when the full moon would be at its biggest and brightest, which meant she wouldn’t be able to put off the Change any longer. Sometime tonight, she would have to shift to her leopard form, run around in her brother’s backyard, and possibly catch herself a bunny rabbit. “But I think I’ll pass this time.”

Something that had come and gone too quickly for her to recognize flashed in Caleb’s eyes, but soon enough, he was smiling jovially again. “All right, your loss. I heard Kanye West and Rihanna are supposed to drop by at the party.”

“And I’m totally bummed I’m going to miss it,” Daisy said, feigning regret. “But I have to play ‘good sister’ for a while. That way, Alec will let down his guard and can the Gestapo act.”

Caleb rolled his eyes. “I have never known Alec to ease off of anything in his entire life.”

Daisy had to agree with that one. Her brother was often stubborn to the point of obstinacy. “But he is my Alpha.”

One golden eyebrow quirked up in response. “In the past, that would never have stopped the Daisy Sawyer I knew.”

Suddenly, Daisy found herself annoyed with her cousin. She really wasn’t a fan of people judging her future behavior based on some stupid crap she may have done in the past. Right now, she just wanted Caleb to go away so she could serve cookies and juice to the children before sitting down for story hour with Mrs. Sullivan. Still, she appreciated that Caleb seemed to be the only leopard who had made any attempts at all to make her feel welcome. “Well, I have to get back to work,” she says, hoping she sounded appropriately bummed. “Why don’t we kick it some other time and get a drink or something?”

“Yeah, that would be nice,” Caleb replied easily enough, though Daisy could tell he was disappointed.

“Okay.” Daisy picked up the cookie tray on top of the juice boxes and gestured toward the door with her head. “See you at home, Cal.”

Her cousin nodded. “Yep. See you at home.”

To be Continued…

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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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