Hound (Book 1): Northern Hounds MC, #1

By Paula Cox

This is book 1 of the Northern Hounds MC romance series! Books 2 and 3 of this dark motorcycle club romance series are available everywhere now!

 

This time, I've gone too far.

 

I don't take kindly to intruders.

But breaking the innocent girl was one sin too many.

I've made plenty of mistakes in my life.

And this one might be my last.

 

Rule number one of the Northern Hounds MC clubhouse:

If you're not a brother…

Stay the hell out.

 

Erina was a clueless civilian, wandering where she didn't belong.

Hunting for hidden answers.

But the answers she wants are too dark for her.

Too bloody.

Too violent.

 

If she finds what she's after…

It will consume her soul.

 

So I claimed her for her own sake.

To protect her from the harsh reality.

 

I pinned to her knees and made her moans echo down the hallways.

I made her beg for faster, harder, more.

I helped her forget why she came here.

 

Because if she finishes her search, she'll find the truth.

The man who killed her brother…

Might be the one taking her to bed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBook Publishing World
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393643531

Book preview

Hound: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Northern Hounds MC Book 1)

By Paula Cox

This time, I’ve gone too far.

I DON’T TAKE KINDLY to intruders.

But breaking the innocent girl was one sin too many.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life.

And this one might be my last.

Rule number one of the Northern Hounds MC clubhouse:

If you’re not a brother...

Stay the hell out.

Erina was a clueless civilian, wandering where she didn’t belong.

Hunting for hidden answers.

But the answers she wants are too dark for her.

Too bloody.

Too violent.

If she finds what she’s after...

It will consume her soul.

So I claimed her for her own sake.

To protect her from the harsh reality.

I pinned to her knees and made her moans echo down the hallways.

I made her beg for faster, harder, more.

I helped her forget why she came here.

Because if she finishes her search, she’ll find the truth.

The man who killed her brother...

Might be the one taking her to bed.

CHAPTER 1

E rina? Are you even listening to me? Hello? Erina?

Robert’s voice seems to barge into my mind like a rude interruption by a spoiled child. He even tugs at the sleeve of my black leather jacket to get my attention.

What? I demand, irritated. I’m listening. I’m just trying to focus on getting the best angle for this shot. I really think that this should be our opening for the whole story. It needs a wide angle, panoramic viewpoint of the place while it’s all quiet.

My eyes are peering at the scene in front of us. It isn’t much to someone with an untrained eye or a person who isn’t skilled to look at life through a lens. But—besides the scummy alley with the puddles of muck and mud and the sleazy Chicago bar that rattles as the L passes above—it is something with potential: a setting.

Stop being so artsy about this, god dammit, Robert screeches, his voice piercing through the air as if he doesn’t care whether or not our position stays secret. C’mon, Erina. This is supposed to be gritty, you know. I say close-up shots of blood and scars. This is supposed to be about the guys who are in these motorcycle clubs, not about the bars where they hang out. What the fuck are we even doing?

We’ve been monitoring this bar for a good month now as we worked at story angles. Robert had approached me with this pitch he knew I couldn’t resist. He wanted to explore a part of our city that not just anyone got to experience, especially for us academic airheads living on the north side of the city.

As I sat at my desk, staring at him ramble on, he had plopped down a pile of papers before me, as he said, like the expert former producer he is, Everyone knew about the Chicago street gangs with thugs and drug dealers, but what about the other danger out there? What about motorcycle clubs?

Just the word motorcycle caught me off guard those days. It had been a few weeks since Will’s murder, and the pictures from the crime scene I had managed to take that night still played through my head in a miserable slideshow. His beloved pearl red Harley rested up against the pavement of the street, one wheel completely destroyed from a bullet hole that had cut through the entire tread. Next to it was his body, covered in a blue sheet, his hand slightly sticking out.

It took me a moment to shake myself out of that thought as my partner, Robert, said, This is going to be your big break! Just think of it: movie deals, red carpet premieres, Hollywood A-listers, Oscar nominations. Come on, kid. Tell me you’re in. I know you want this, and I know how to get it.

I had to give it to Robert...he was right. I had only been in the film industry for a short time. It was just enough to get my feet wet and get a couple of film documentaries made and shown in tiny little theaters on the lowest of low indie circuits. While I was in college, I even had a little festival run with my film on homeless skateboarders. It got some viral attention, including from the Chicago College of the Arts. They offered me a teaching position on the spot as the associate director of the New American Film School. I would be teaching students just a few years younger than I how to tell stories with their camera lenses.

It was a really hard offer to pass up, but—in the end—I did. I had dreams of being this amazing director who won tons of awards and had producers beating down my door to attach their names to my projects. I figured I would primarily shoot documentaries, but honestly, as a director, I wouldn’t mind stepping out and shooting a romance or a comedy here and there as long as the characters were right. I would move to Hollywood or New York, or maybe even London or Paris. As far as I was concerned, the sky would be the limit for me as the calls from the press kept coming in.

But I never got past the gate. Instead, I somehow always ended up on the outside looking in. For a year, I said no to everything that wasn’t a million-dollar picture deal. And as my name faded into the oblivion with my resume, no one was interested in that girl who directed that documentary that was shown at Cannes. They wanted the next big thing, the next darling of film directing. I learned my first big lesson about Hollywood then and there.

But luckily for me, as my star was rising, albeit temporarily, Robert’s was fading. Robert is about twenty years older than I am and has been working in Hollywood since I was in diapers. He took the long way to the top, working low-level producing jobs for years before getting the spot as an associate producer for Market Studios. But when they went bust, he took on odd director jobs here and there until his agent unceremoniously dropped him. The only person calling him was the HR department at the Chicago College of Arts, who offered him the job I turned down. When he went to hire more staff, he turned to their old call sheet and found me, completely desperate for some employment in the field, something that would keep me alive in the industry...and keep me alive generally.

Part of our job wasn’t just to teach though, but also to direct and produce films that could have the college’s stamp on it. For the last year, we had been throwing back and forth these ideas. There was the story about old-school clowns, trying to revitalize kids’ interest and hobos that still traveled the rails, sleeping in train yards and eating whatever they could find in train cars, including rats.

But we both had issues with each and every idea the other came up with—at least until Robert came into my office talking motorcycles with his stack of papers. On the very top of the heap of shot ideas and budget maps was a