Protector: The Elect, #1

By Loribelle Hunt

Welcome to the top of the food chain...

The Elect. They aren't human. They're the next step in evolution and they're hiding in plain sight. Their senses are sharper, finely honed. They're stronger, smarter, and faster. Nature has created the perfect predator.

It's a job he was born to do…

Braxton Lee is the leader of the Elect and it's a role he takes seriously. As president of the committee that governs them, he overseas everything from finance to security to keeping their existence hidden. He's driven and ruthless. The Elect will not be exposed on his watch.

Exposure is always looming…

Unfortunately his research chief, Zach Littman, is contacted by a former colleague who's run a DNA analysis of a blood sample and gotten weird results. The blood isn't human, and Dr. Esme Durand is smart enough to know it. Brax will do whatever it takes to keep her silent.

Until he meets her…

Because Esme has a secret. She's one of them, and Brax wants nothing more but to bring her into the fold and under his protection, especially after discovering she is his mate.

This book was previously published.

Available now in THE ELECT series:

PROTECTOR (BOOK 1)

GUARDIAN (BOOK 2)

WARRIOR (BOOK 3)

SENTINEL (BOOK 4)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Loribelle Hunt
• Release date: Mar 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386301899

Loribelle Hunt

Loribelle is like the South she calls home. Hot and sultry. Languid and sexy. Magnolias and gardenias scent her silk lined boudoir, and men and children alike bow to her magnificence... Okay, maybe it isn’t quite that glamorous. She does have two smart and lovely daughters who give her a run for her money and a son that will one day be someone’s model of a romance hero. (She promises.) Her husband is a real life hero, and Loribelle just tries to keep up with the demands of military life. In between, she writes a book or two. She’s had every job under the sun, but haven’t most writers? That Army military police, bookstore manager, waitress, wedding photographer, website designer experience has to come in useful sometimes. As they say in the South, it all washes out in the end. She loves hearing from her readers and can be found at http://www.loribellehunt.com.

Book preview

Copyright

Protector

Copyright © 2012 Loribelle Hunt

First E-book Published: June 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, organizations, events, or locations is coincidental.

Summary: Braxton Lee is the leader of the Elect and will stop at nothing to protect their secrets. When an outsider discovers she is one of them, he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her into the fold, especially after discovering she is his mate.

Published by Loribelle Hunt

www.loribellehunt.com

Author’s Note

Welcome to The Elect! Protector was originally published in 2012. This version has been updated and edited. Books two and three in the series, Guardian and Warrior, have also been updated and edited. Look for the fourth book in the series, Sentinel, in late 2017. If you’d like to be notified of new releases, join my mailing list or my Facebook Reader Group for updates.

Copyright

Author’s Note

The Elect

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

About the Author

Guardian: The Elect Two (Excerpt)

The Elect

They aren’t human. They’re the next step in evolution, and they’re hiding in plain sight. Their senses are sharper, finely honed. Stronger. Smarter. Faster. Nature has created the perfect predator.

Welcome to the top of the food chain.

Life evolves, and for humanity, the next step has arrived. The Elect are here, and all they want is to be left alone. But a malevolent unknown force is gathering against them. Driven by fear, The Stirling Institute has figured out humanity is not alone and is determined to destroy the threat. They’ve operated in secrecy while investigating the new species, but now they’re prepared to attack.

The Elect are in a fight for their very existence, but first they have to find the people trying to destroy them.

One

He drew the line at killing a woman.

Which was a problem if she proved to be a threat. It would be a cryin’ shame if he had to wipe the last several weeks from her memory. Dr. Esme Durand was brilliant, a pioneer in genetic research. That was the reason he’d sought her out, but it didn’t have anything to do with the fierce desire that gripped him. He’d always found smart women attractive, but she was so much more than that. She was so beautiful she tempted a grown man to fall to his knees and beg for the privilege of touching her.

He took a slow deep breath, taking in the strawberries-and-cream scent that clung to her, and moved back farther into the shadows, determined to figure out what it was about her that drew him so intensely. Short golden curls framed high cheekbones and big brown eyes, and her long white lab coat did nothing to hide the voluptuous curves underneath. Her sensible shoes were low-heeled, barely adding an inch to her five and a half feet. She was much shorter than him. Tiny in comparison.

And she didn’t have the sense of self-preservation God gave the most basic creatures. He didn’t need his psychic abilities to sense her single-minded focus. If she noticed him hiding in the dark back corner of her office, she didn’t show it. Not even when she rounded her desk and had a clear line of sight to him. For the first time in his life, he felt the need to protect a female who wasn’t a member of his species or one of the women who belonged to them.

Fuck. He shouldn’t have been the one to come. Since when did the president of the Elect Committee do grunt work? But he’d been too intrigued when Zach had briefed him about the situation, the coincidences of events that brought her to their attention too much to ignore. He hadn’t had time to do a full background check on her. All he knew about her was where she’d gone to graduate and post graduate school, and that she’d known Zach for a couple of those years.

He almost wished he’d waited for more information. It was foolish to rush in without knowing as much about her in advance as possible, but time was of the essence. The Elect couldn’t allow reports on the blood tests she’d run to spread. Plus he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling he had to be the one to approach her, and he’d learned never to ignore the instincts that were part of his talents.

They weren’t human. They were something different. Something the Elect only discovered in the last few generations and had only been able to prove with modern DNA testing. The next step in hominid evolution. Since mankind hadn’t proven itself very tolerant of differences over the course of its history, secrecy was paramount. Braxton Lee would be damned if he’d see any of his people become science experiments. Protecting the Elect was a duty he’d devoted his life to and not even the lovely Dr. Durand, or his interest in her, would stand in the way.

His purpose here was simple. Find out who she’d talked to other than Zach Littman, another genetics expert but one who happened to be Elect. Brax would destroy anything she possessed that might expose them as not being human. Then he’d wipe the memories of their existence from her mind. He suspected that would backfire, because among the very strong-willed or brilliant, it didn’t always work. If he had to pick a candidate for mind wipes going wrong, she would be one. He couldn’t have that. He had killed to protect his people before, but he knew he couldn’t kill her.

Every instinct he had, more primitive, more astute than a human’s, refused to let her come to harm, especially at his hands. That was bad, real bad. He was going to break every one of his rules for her, and he knew it. Fucked if he could explain why.

She reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a vial of blood. Excitement and a vague sense of disappointment surged through him. She was making it too easy. Too easy to glide forward and take it from her. Too easy to take the file she’d carried in with her. Gabe, the Elect’s computer expert, should be hacking her system and erasing any evidence left on her computers now.

There was no challenge left for Brax except to find the source of that blood. He’d searched her office while she was in her lab next door, but had discovered nothing that would lead him to the donor. An Elect donor. Whoever it was didn’t know what he was, didn’t know he wasn’t human. Part of the Committee’s job was to search out other members of their kind and bring them into the fold, where everything was carefully explained. None of them would go outside Zach Littman for any kind of medical tests that might lead to discovery.

Lee Enterprises owned the most advanced and extensive labs in the world. They dominated the market, and Gabe had a nifty little program in their intranet that notified him immediately when Elect DNA was sequenced. Sometimes a sample slipped past them though and unfortunately, the lovely professor had stumbled on one. Thank God her phone and email records showed she’d contacted no one in the field but Zach about it. If she had, she’d already be contained, along with her contacts. Brutal, but necessary.

It seemed her personality had protected her. According to Zach, she was a loner, withdrawn to the point of being cold. Her colleagues respected her brain and her knowledge, but none were more than friendly acquaintances. Any efforts to draw her in, to get to know her on a personal level, were rebuffed.

Watching her, his fascination only growing, Brax decided Zach was wrong. Maybe it was his instinct again, warning him things weren’t what they appeared, or maybe it was the way she moved with such easy sensual grace. Whatever the reason, he was determined to find the fire hidden under the reserve. He sensed it there, and he needed to know more. He couldn’t remember ever being so drawn to a woman who was a potential threat. He didn’t understand why, but he didn’t like it.

He let his powers expand. She had excellent control over her thoughts and emotions. It was unusual in a human, but he could still get a sense of her emotions without letting her feel his intrusion. He was surprised by what he found. He’d expected excitement at her discovery, curiosity at the very least, but she was worried. Uneasy.

She stared down at the vial in her hand, the file that rested on her desk, and took a deep trembling breath. He felt her make a decision, didn’t know what it was, and was surprised again when she stood and took the papers to feed them into a shredder. The remnants were stuffed into a small paper grocery bag, but Brax knew that wasn’t enough. They could be pieced together. They had to be burned. She moved back to the desk but didn’t sit down.

You might as well come out, since you’ve decided not to hurt me.

She sounded amused and not the least bit concerned for her safety. He felt her mind brush against his. She wasn’t as helpless as he’d thought. She was a telepath. The knowledge shocked him almost as much as her voice. Her honeyed drawl set loose a whiplash of desire through his