Lohra
Lohra's Books(2)
Wake a Sleeping Tiger
Romance They were created; they weren’t born.
They were trained; they weren’t raised.
They were genetic creations. Human DNA merged with that of the
animal. The perfect soldier, a disposable creature.
They were created to die, often in the most horrible experiments that the
human mind could ever imagine.
Their lives were a horror story from the moment of their births.
Babes that knew no tender care, no sweet lullabies nor a mother’s love.
They cried until hoarse, until they learned no one was coming unless they
required feeding. And many times, they were allowed to go hungry until
they lay weak and in pain.
Only the most basic of service was given to the babes. Creations that
millions, billions of dollars had gone into in more than a century of
scientific experiments and genetic engineering. “Cubs,” they were called,
never “babes,” but they were living beings that, in terms of the cost of their
creation, were nearly priceless.
Yet in the eyes of those who made them, they were worth no more than
the young women who died giving birth to one after another of the creations
implanted in their wombs.
Human and animal. Determined and far stronger in both spirit and body
than the scientists could have ever envisioned.
Despite the cruelties heaped upon their young bodies, the experiments,
the demented training exercises designed to ensure their success in any
mission they were given, many of them survived. The strength of their
hatred, of their hunger for freedom, refused to allow them to pass quietly
from the world they’d been brought into.
Those creations are free now.
They’re triumphing against all efforts to see them back in the labs from
where they came.
Their intelligence is far greater than any could ever comprehend. Their
strength is more primal than any could ever suspect.
And they’re living on the fragile, desperate hope that the world never
learns the secrets they fight to hide. Intense Pleasure
Romance She had to leave.
Summer Calhoun, the woman the world knew as Summer Bartlett, was
smart enough to know that this phase of her life was over. And though she
wasn’t normally one to run, or to give up, even she couldn’t ignore the fact
that she simply couldn’t do this anymore.
Teeth clenched, battling tears and anger, Summer threw an armload of
dresses into one of the suitcases lying open on the bed. Jamming the
material into the leather bag, uncaring of the wrinkles and years of careful
packing habits, she added more, pushing the frothy, girly material from the
sides of the bag and stuffing them in before zipping the back with short,
jerky movements.
She promised herself she wasn’t going to cry.
Tears didn’t help. They had never helped in the past and they damned
sure wouldn’t help now.
Nothing would help but getting away and running from the pain. Like
serrated blades, the memories of the past few days sliced into her, tore at
her.
God, how naïve she had been.
Four years with the CIA, two with various other agencies, and two more
risking her ass in the private sector should have killed any naiveté she might
have possessed long ago. Hell, she was certain it had done just that.
And how very wrong she’d been. So wrong that for eight years she’d
believed an enemy was a friend, and that insults were just a brasher attitude
than those Summer was used to in the South.
And because she’d let herself be fooled, she’d just spent three of the
most hellish days of her life, two of them attending the funeral and burial of
the very woman whose deceit and black heart had nearly destroyed far too
many people Summer loved.
Easing to the padded bench at the bottom of the bed and propping her
face in her hands as she rested her elbows on her knees, she tried to tell
herself it was the price of ignorance. Of not seeing the true nature of the
woman she’d known most of her life.
The woman Summer had killed.
The funeral had been somber, saddening, and subtly beautiful. Cascades
of flowers, over a hundred friends and family mourning. Tears and
heartrending testimonials for a woman no one had known for a traitor and a
murderer.
Summer had remained tearless through the viewings she’d been forced
to attend. She’d watched, listened, and taken her turn at the gleaming
cherrywood casket where she stared into the pretty, silent features of the
woman she’d been forced to kill. A woman who had hated her, whose
jealousy and greed had destroyed so many over the years.
Summer had remained just as silent during the burial, her head lowered,
so much anger burning inside her that keeping it hidden was next to
impossible. However, she had no other choice. Because she’d killed the
woman they were laying to rest. Because it was her bullet, not an enemy’s,
that had slammed into Gia Barrett’s black heart. And God forbid that the
world should learn about the woman’s crimes, crimes that would shame her
way too influential family.
Questions would be asked if Summer and the man Gia had turned her
weapon on hadn’t been there for the partner the world believed was so kind
and warm of spirit.
Money talked, and the Barrett family had plenty of it. Enough to ensure
that the world would never know the true reason their daughter was dead.
She could have refused to be there, Summer knew. She could have found
a quiet place to nurse the wounds gouged inside her heart if it weren’t for
the man Gia was trying to murder when she was killed, and the man he
called his brother.
Esteban Falcone, known as “Falcon,” was the wild, Spanish bad boy
whose pale blue eyes could burn with laughter and fun or turn icy with
danger or disapproval. The partner whom both Summer and Gia had fought
alongside for two years. Playful, sometimes dramatic, always protective and
loyal. So protective, he’d had Summer dragged from the chapel seconds
before security arrived to find Gia’s body sprawled on the floor and Falcon
holding the weapon that had killed her.
His half brother, John Raeg, had arrived with security. The half brother
was nothing like his sibling. Older by only a few weeks, harder, colder, he’d
handled everything and ensured the truth was buried so deep it never saw
the light of day.
The truth that for eight years Gia had betrayed all of them. Friends and
family alike.
Even more, she’d betrayed the friend Summer had sworn to protect years
ago. A vow that had been broken when she’d failed to keep Gia and those
she was helping from nearly destroying Alyssa’s life. 
