Snowbound

By Lynn Crandall

Lynn Crandall lets listeners check in on favorite Fierce Hearts series were-lynx characters Kennedy Mitchell and Asher Monroe as they uncover the identity of the creature scaring the humans in Octavia, a small rural community in northern Michigan.

 

Plans for an intimate getaway and family-style holiday are crumbling as the snow piles higher and Kennedy and Asher find themselves snowbound with a killer outside their door.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lynn Crandall
• Release date: Jun 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393304074

Lynn Crandall

After cutting her writing teeth as a feature writer for commercial and trade magazines, a reporter for newspapers and radio, and an executive editor for a communications company, Best-Selling, award-winning author Lynn Crandall tuned her voracious appetite for stories to writing contemporary and paranormal romance, women’s fiction, and romantic suspense. In her books, she enjoys taking readers on emotional journeys with relatable characters who refuse to back down, and face challenges and tribulations with heart and soul. She believes every love has a story, and hers is with one handsome husband and a large, beautiful circle of family, including her cat Winter.

Book preview

Chapter One

When a known serial killer says, Let’s take a walk , it’s never a good thing.

But when said serial killer has a gun, Kennedy thought, you walk.

The mild, Midwestern winter had dumped a few inches of snow in rural Laurelwood where she lived with Asher, her boyfriend. The snow crunched beneath her feet, and Kennedy wanted to laugh in the face of the man with the gun. He most likely had no idea he had just kidnapped two were-lynxes, capable of tearing him apart. But she knew him. Bruce Hesper. A serial killer. With all the press about his killings, she couldn’t not know his face, name, and MO.

Where are we going? Marching alongside Asher, she gave him a sideways glance. His expression was sober, so she knew he wouldn’t do anything rash.

Just keep walking. The man jabbed his gun into her back and shoved Asher.

Kennedy picked up his scent, using her heightened senses to gather information. She didn’t have to see his face wet, she knew he was sweating. Hmm…nervous? She knew from Sterling and Lacey Aegar and their husbands Ben and Jackson, investigators and detectives, that serial killers typically were detached, flat. Extreme narcissists, they believe themselves smarter than everyone else and fitting judges of their victims. Besides, her adoptive mother had been a narcissist, but Kennedy hadn’t known enough to recognize it.

You’re shameful. We stopped to help you. Anger bristled in her gut, as much with herself for being gullible as at the serial killer.

The man chuckled. I did a pretty good fake, wouldn’t you say? Didn’t your momma ever tell you never stop for strangers?

The killer’s words stung. Asher knew as well as she that her adopted parents had abused her and groomed her to follow in their criminal footsteps. Her momma had not been into protecting her or loving her. Asher’s touch let her know he was nudging, his special were-lynx ability, using it to help her anger pass through her and suggest calm. Asher perceived emotions differently than others did, due to his nudging ability. For him, emotions had substance, color, and shape. Emotions had form, like an object. Her present state of anxiety and anger was evident to him. She took in a full breath and let it out slowly, grateful for his help. Losing her temper with the killer wouldn’t be the smartest move.

So she kept trudging beside Asher, their feet kicking up snow and taking them farther from the road and deeper into the woods. Kennedy shook her head, disbelieving their predicament. They’d run into Laurelwood to pick up a few more things for their trip and were on the way back home when they’d stopped to help what looked like an injured driver. They’d walked right into his trap. He’d pointed his 9 millimeter at them. The first thing he did was grab their cell phones and stuff them in his jacket pocket.

We know who you are, Bruce Hesper, and we know your MO, Asher said, without turning around. The minute we bent over you and you turned your face up, we made you.

Oh, you think you’re so smart. How is it that I’m holding a gun on you?

Asher kept quiet.

Kennedy clenched her fists. Oh, how she wanted to deck him. She knew what Hesper had planned for them. In the year police had been trying to catch him, her friends had relayed details of his work. Hesper had never veered from his method of killing: kidnapping couples, torturing them by slowly draining their blood, cutting out their tongues, then posing them with their eyes taped open lying beside each other. He’d cook their tongues for dinner. His routine is what satisfied his psychological deviance. Until his messed up mind needed a fix again, hence the serial killing. Her stomach turned.

She and Asher had plans and this sudden face of death didn’t factor into them. They’d made a quick run into Laurelwood for some supplies before leaving for a trip to Northern Michigan. First, Kennedy planned to give a presentation at Northwoods Cat Rescue. The staff had contacted her about helping them improve the rescue, because she was manager of Cats Alive, a rescue headed by Michelle, her brother Casey’s wife. After the presentation, she looked forward to some alone time away from the other members of the colony. Anticipation had fluttered inside her for weeks. Then later in the week, the others would join them at the cabin in the woods they’d rented to enjoy a family-style Christmas.

This interruption in their plans was simply that.

Hesper was already huffing from the exertion, and they hadn’t been walking for very long. She and Asher were used to taking long, brisk walks and hikes that last for hours—nothing special for were-lynxes. It was a calculation, but they could wear him out before he shot them, or they could end his little game right now. Oh, wouldn’t it be great to have the psychic and telepathic abilities of other members in the colony right about now?

Suddenly she was yanked backward. Hesper grabbed her around the neck and kicked Asher behind the knees, buckling him to the snowy ground. I know what you’re thinking, he said, waving the gun back and forth. You think you know me. You think you can stop me.

The odor of putrefied food and blood turned her stomach. She closed her mind to images of human tissue between his teeth.

Without looking up from the ground, Asher let a low growl roll in his chest. Your problem is you don’t know who we are.

Asher tore off his clothes and shimmered, then faced Hesper, his four feet planted solid. A