Burning Prey

By Harper Jewel

When the magical triad known as the Seekers returns, they must use their newfound abilities and find a way to “arrange” for Evangeline DeMarco and Slate Warton to meet. As the sparks fly between the new shifter couple, a past tragedy that befell Evie continues to haunt her. Will she be able to face the demons of her past and bask in the glow of Slate’s love, or will a threatening psychotic evil drag her and her new man into the fires of hell?
*This 3rd edition has been expanded with 550+ words and re-edited.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Jewel
• Release date: Feb 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311082787

Harper Jewel

Harper Jewel, a loyal LGBTQ+ ally and proud Mama Bear to her twenty-four-year-old daughter, lives in northeast New Jersey with her loving husband. She has four cats, enjoys writing, reading, playing time-management games on her tablet, and watching Hulu or Netflix.With her outgoing personality and vivid imagination, she can create believable and memorable plots and characters.Although she began writing male/female Romance/erotica, she has found her niche in Gay Romance. She enjoys every one of her male characters when they speak to her with loud voices while proving love is love. She is proud to have the honor of being the first M/M author accepted at the now-closed Lush Publishing.Visit www.harperjewel.com to find out more.

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Burning Prey

A Seekers Story

Harper Jewel

Burning Prey

A Seekers Story

Harper Jewel

Burning Prey – A Seekers Story

Copyright © 2016 Harper Jewel

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Cover Design by Harper Jewel

Slippery Fingers Logo Design by Harper Jewel

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Harper’s Author Links

Other Titles by Harper Jewel

Author’s Note

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Coming Soon

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Manic Readers

The Romance Reviews

OTHER TITLES BY HARPER JEWEL

VIRGIN PREY

TRENT & TREY

HIS DREAM LOVER

MIRROR OF OBSESSION – eXcessica Publishing

HEAD GAME – Lush Publishing

Dear Reader,

I’d like to give you a bit of background on why I chose bird-of-prey shifters for this story, now in its third edition.

As a high school student, I became an avid birder when my Aunt Jean gave me my first field guide to identifying birds of North America. My interest continued to grow as I did, and I went on several outings with a birding club. When my newlywed husband and I went to the New York Renaissance Faire located in the Catskill Mountains of Tuxedo, NY, my love of birds grew to encompass birds of prey. A falconer at the show impressed me so that hubby and I joined him and his raptors three weekends later for a hunt. The majestic beauty of these feathered beings and the visible connection they had with their falconer left me in awe. Years later, I found myself equally enthralled when I had the opportunity to visit a raptor rescue and wildlife sanctuary in Woodstock, Vermont. There, I donned a raptor glove and held a Snowy Owl perched on my hand while a rescuer fed it some chunks of meat. The poor thing lost its vision in one eye due to a BB gun shot and could no longer survive in the wild. To this day, I have not forgotten these impressive outings. With those days in mind, I began to write Virgin Prey and followed it up with Burning Prey.

I hope you enjoy this 2016-updated version of the second Seekers Story and feel the love I have for the world of falconry oozing from every word. I’m confident that the changes I made only enhanced and added to the story. If you haven’t already read Virgin Prey, the first title in this series, I encourage you to do so. In it, Aviana and Andor discover they’re destined to be life mates, and Corbin discovers a past he knew nothing about as well as the plans fate has in store for him with a woman he’s only dreamed about. Virgin Prey is available at most major e-book distributors.

Prologue

Nine months had passed since Aviana Byrde, a Peregrine Falcon in her other form, turned twenty, and in the tradition of her species of bird-of-prey shifters, discovered that fate had blessed her with not only one, but two, strong, virile life mates. Andor Malar, the man she secretly hoped would be hers, had turned out to be exactly that. And Corbin Lark, a master falconer who had no idea his grandfather had shifter blood, thus giving him the ability to shift into his other form once taught, had been a complete surprise to her. Sharing a glorious first mating night, Andor showed Avi just how much pleasure the mating bed could hold. But fate wasn’t done with her just yet. After taking to the sky in celebration of her first night of passion, she’d been shot down and thrust into the arms of a cruel, cold-hearted human falconer, causing her to lose all hope of ever seeing her husband again. When Robert Farrow sold her to Corbin Lark, fate once again tossed her in another direction. Avi had been stunned speechless when she discovered the telltale purple aura around Corbin. It was the very same glow she’d seen surrounding Andor on the morning of her birthday—the glow that for their species pronounced the pair as life mates.

Returning to her own village and Andor with Corbin in tow, the astonished trio soon discovered that they were a very special part of their species’ ancient lore. Threesomes amongst their kind were very rare. Procreating had become a difficult thing for the shifters to achieve because of their changing environment and the pollution of the air and water. Avi’s father, Avery, the leader of their village, or nest, explained the rarity of their triad. Something considered an unexplainable phenomenon, it was a legend that some believed a myth. Now known as the Seekers, their newfound ability would play an integral part in finding others of their kind.

Once Andor and Corbin had taken Avi at the same time while treating her to heights of ecstasy she never had imagined, they’d found that they were able to detect even the smallest traces of bird-of-prey or raptor-shifter blood in humans they came in contact with. It seemed that during their joining, all three of them went through a change. According to an aged diary—one belonging to a former Seeker, a woman who had long since passed away—that Avery had given the newlyweds their combined sexual climaxes and love for each other made this change possible.

Both of the men discovered the gold, silver, and bronze brilliance surrounding their mating bed after they’d shared their wife’s body for the first time. Afterward, whenever they met with people outside their village, they could see auras around those with shifter blood. These humans had no idea of the special heredity they shared. As Seekers, it became their job to travel to different cities and find these individuals. Once they did, they’d unveil the distinct, albeit small, part of each and every one of them that allowed them to shift, thus opening their lives to a unique existence. If these special people remained undiscovered, they would never know about their heritage or their ability to shift, and the pairs meant for one another would never be brought together. Allowing this to happen would spell the end of their race. They’d be destined for extinction.

They made a list of each individual they found, keeping track of their aura color. When two individual’s auras matched in color, the trio would observe them while assessing their capacity to welcome and accept the news that they carried shifter blood. For those people appearing too set in their ways or too narrow-minded, they discarded the idea of a match.

Already, they had used their