Dear Readers, I don’t expect any of you to remember me or this little book series, but I’m coming to you today to announce Book 3 of The Profane Series is finally coming soon! This book has been in the works for about six years. A lot has happened in the last six years to sideline and derail it. Things like Covid and a 2000 mile cross country move.

I won’t get into all the life craziness here, but what I can say is that I finished my VERY delayed BA in creative writing, moved across the United States, gotten married, and bought a house since you last heard from me. It’s been a wild ride.

After three years working in a completely unrelated field, I finally found myself back in a good mental space to continue writing and desperate to finish this novel. Profane 3 I’m sorry to say as been 60% complete for three years, but I just could not find the ending until this summer. I’ve been quietly working on the last third of the novel during the hottest months of this Midwest year as we suffer through a drought, finding myself missing the cooler, rainy landscape of the Pacific Northwest, envious of these characters who live in a place (and time!) that is so different from the world today.

As a little refresher, this is the third book in Lachlan Graham’s story, the sister-series to my OG Blood & Bone Series. It’s set after the events of A Sanguine Solution and the short story I released two years ago Heart Eater (be sure and check out this novella if you missed it’s release!). It will not be the final book in The Profane Series. As I’ve worked on the ending this summer, I realized one big issue with finishing the series here is that it doesn’t tie up everything I want tied up. So, there will be a 4th Profane book coming out sometime in the next year. I promise it won’t be as long a wait as you had for book 3.

A cover reveal will be coming this weekend. In the meantime I’ll leave you with a sneak peak at Chapter 1 today…

February 2013 – Capitol Hill – Lachlan

Lachlan stood in front of his tiny walk-in closet and considered the row of button down shirts. They’d been hanging there untouched for going on three years now, since his resignation from the Seattle Police Department and abrupt career shift into coffee slinging made them obsolete in his day-to-day wardrobe. Picking one for tonight’s rehearsal dinner shouldn’t feel so difficult, but he’d already stood here for too long. It wasn’t as though anyone was going to pay him much attention, him, the Norm in the midst of a werewolf pack. And besides, what did it matter if he picked this shade of blue or that one?

He hesitated because he was nervous. He didn’t really want to attend the dinner, but he knew how important it was to his boyfriend because of how important it was to the werewolf pack. A part of Lachlan even appreciated the invite extended by the alpha herself. But it had been a lot easier to attend Pack McClanahan’s Fourth of July barbecue when he was full of righteous anger over his friend Alan’s recent murder and Detective Patrick Clanahan’s seeming indifference to the case. Lachlan didn’t have that anger now, he just had himself, and he was a very different man from the one in he had been in July.

He wouldn’t use the world “lesser” even in the privacy of his own thoughts. For one thing, the hospital therapist had spent a significant amount of time in their sessions reminding him that just because he had reduced physical capacity that didn’t make him a lesser man. He’d done a the recovery song and dance once before, and he knew a little bit about how bad his own head space could get when he gave into depression. Back then it had cost him his career at the Seattle Police Department as well as his financial stability. It was hard not to let dark thoughts creep in, but he made a conscious effort to fight them. Instead, he settled on different.

He was different than he had been seven months.

He was in a different place.

It wasn’t just his injury, it was the fact that he had Vector back, and he had new career goals. Or he’d had new career goals before the attempt on his life. Just at the moment, Lachlan didn’t entirely know what he was doing with his life, except that he had to look presentable for this werewolf dinner. He was already going to be out of place enough—not a wolf, not a member of the pack like Detective Mallory, hell, not even a supernatural like the mage Ethan Ellison—he would rather not stick out like a sore thumb because he didn’t pick the right blue shirt either.

Lachlan sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face. He was exhausted, and he hadn’t even begun.

He grabbed the first shirt his hand landed on and yanked it out of the closet, picking a pair of black slacks to go with it and a black belt. Black was an inoffensive color, right? As long as he wore a different color shirt it wouldn’t look too much like he’d dressed for a funeral. He had to pull the belt a couple notches tighter than the last time he’d worn it, the result of his extended stay in the hospital, but when he’d smoothed down the shirt and slipped on a pair of dress socks and his one nice pair of shoes, Lachlan decided he looked presentable enough. He considered the sports jackets and discarded them for a grey cashmere sweater his mother had gifted him for Christmas the year before. He didn’t need any more obvious reminders of his changed physique, the jacket look right on his body now.

Finally dressed, he considered himself in the bathroom mirror. He’d shaved that morning, but he hadn’t had a haircut in months, and his light brown hair fell across his forehead longer than he’d ever worn it since maybe middle school. He should have planned for this too.

“Damn it.”

“Damn is right,” a low, deep voice cut through his thoughts, it belonged to his boyfriend Vector Clanahan. Plenty of people had described Vector’s voice as “dead inside,” but to Lachlan it sounded like a warm, velvety glove slipping over his body. “Don’t you clean up good,” the werewolf murmured, reaching out to draw his hand down Lachlan’s back and settle on his hips. He stared into Lachlan’s eyes through the mirror, dark brown, almost black, and penetrating.

“I won’t disgrace you?” he asked, more than a little serious.

“Never.”

Lachlan rolled his eyes and stepped away to dig out his only nice overcoat: charcoal grey wool, another gift from his mother who probably wished he had gone into a more respectable career where he could wear all of these nice clothes. Boy had he failed on all fronts, bad enough he became a cop but even worse that he’d thrown it all away, turned in his badge and gun for a minimum wage paying job at a coffee shop that hadn’t even covered all his bills.

“You ready?” he asked the werewolf.

Vector always looked put together. Unlike Lachlan, he’d actually traded up in the years since they’d worked together at the SPD, taking a position with the FBI as a special asset, a Tracker, whatever the hell that meant. Lachlan had an idea, but he was still coming to terms with all this werewolf stuff. He had been raised by a puritanical mother who considered all aspects of the supernatural demonic, and this past year had been a steep learning curve as his life increasingly collided with various forces of the weird and magical. It was part of the reason for his nervousness now.

“We don’t have to rush,” Vector said. “I can almost guarantee that the pack will be running late tonight with everything going on.”

Lachlan frowned. “I don’t want to be late.”

“Did you take your antibiotics?”

“Of course.”

The werewolf handed him a small travel size bottle of painkillers. Nothing crazy strong, but even the store brand ibuprofen helped ease the constant pain in his lunges if he made sure to take it regularly. Pity his kidneys. He didn’t know how much talking they’d expect him to do so better safe than sorry. Lachlan pocketed the pills and then touched his neck.

“Should I wear a tie?”

It might help cover some of the scarring, but damned if he didn’t want to avoid putting pressure on his neck.

Vector shook his head.

“You look gorgeous. I wish I could keep you here.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go,” Lachlan reminded him and then regretted the words.

The wolf frowned and turned him so that they faced one another.

“If you don’t feel comfortable going we don’t have to. It’s not like I’m in the wedding party. Hell, I don’t even know the bride or groom.”

And the thing was, Lachlan knew that his boyfriend meant it. If he said he didn’t want to go tonight or tomorrow, Vector would call it all off and stay home with him. If the past couple of months were anything to go by, the wolf would do just about anything, twist himself into any shape necessary, to try and make Lachlan comfortable. Lachlan suspected a lot of this had to do with lingering guilt over their long separation and the misunderstandings that had prompted it. In the end, Vector was the one who had run away and the one who kept acting like he had reparations to pay despite all of Lachlan’s protests to the contrary.

He shook his head.

“No, it’s an important pack event. I want to be involved. With the pack.” Lachlan wasn’t sure how convincing he sounded, but it was more or less true. He wanted to be involved in Vector’s life and Vector’s life involved his werewolf pack, extensively, which meant Lachlan was just going to have to get over his nervousness and try to fake it until he made it. He told himself it wasn’t any different than any other undercover job he’d done in the past. Like tonight, these clothes didn’t feel like his anymore, he hadn’t dressed up like he was going into an office in years and on top of that nothing fit him right anymore. They were like a costume, a part of this persona of the respectable boyfriend he wanted to project to Vector’s alpha.

Whether Vector actually believed what Lachlan said or if the wolf chose to take it at face value when they both knew it to be a lie, Lachlan wasn’t sure, but his boyfriend smiled and ran hand gently over his chest. Vector was always so fucking careful with him since the accident, and a part of Lachlan wanted to grab the werewolf and hold him close, cover his mouth with his own, and kiss him until Vector forgot to be careful and just touched him. But if he did that right now, they really would be late for the dress rehearsal.

The McClanahan werewolf pack was not the largest pack in Seattle and part of the reason for that he’d discovered was that they did not allow in members who were not related by blood or mated to a blood relative. It meant that compared to a pack like the Sutalos who maintained three distinct branches each inducting members who did not have to be related, the McClanahans grew slowly. Tomorrow marked one of the rare occasions when the pack would expand as the beta from another pack wed one of their own, bringing with him a number of other related wolves. Beyond that, Lachlan didn’t really understand the underlying politics of the situation. Vector had been spare with the details, and maybe that was because his job had taken him out of town recently, requiring travel across the mountains on three separate occasions and even a trip up to British Columbia back in January. Or maybe he thought Lachlan wouldn’t care.

And to be honest he didn’t really care about a stranger’s wedding, but he always liked to know what he was walking into.

Vector threaded their fingers together, jingling his keys to bring Lachlan back to the moment.

“You ready?”

He sighed, but carefully. It didn’t pay to aggravate his sensitive lungs.

“You could let me drive.” The wolf was disquieting behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle and now that he felt better, Lachlan really wished Vector would let him drive more.

Vector’s face fell. “I thought you didn’t mind my driving.”

“I don’t,” he lied. “Forget it. I’m ready.”

What did it matter, at least he had an empty stomach.

Twenty minutes later they turned onto the pack’s quiet, tree lined street. Pack McClanahan had settled in Seattle near its founding, and they occupied a stately Victorian mansion set amongst similar, multi-million dollar properties. Cars lined the road along either side of the occupied driveway, forcing them to circle the block to find a place to park. Vector tried to make him get out in front of the house while he parked but the last thing Lachlan wanted to do was stand around on the pack’s front lawn waiting for his partner. And there was no way he wanted to go inside by himself.

If there was one thing Lachlan could say about Vector’s parking it was that his parallel parking had improved. He managed it after a couple of minutes adjusting without needing Lachlan to get out and guide him into the tight space. He did, however, insist on leaping out of the vehicle to come around and help Lachlan out. He tried to put Lachlan’s hand in the crook of his elbow for support, instead Lachlan grabbed his hand, squeezed it, and let go.

“I’ll be fine,” he said softly.

TBC