The Wolf's Stray
(2026)(The second book in the Monsters of the Hollow series)
A Story by Daphne Leigh
A starving runaway. A werewolf in town for the full moon. And a paranormal speakeasy that doesn't let go of the men who walk in.
Devon's got a dead car he can't make himself junk, a phone at fourteen percent, and eleven nights of sleeping outside behind him. He's twenty-four. He came out at twenty-three, and his mother gave him three days to be gone. The only message he's gotten since is three words he can't make himself answer.
When a stranger slides him a matte black card and tells him to ask for Mateo, Devon takes it. He's not expecting the freight elevator to drop him four floors under the fish market. He's not expecting a bar full of things wearing human faces. And he's definitely not expecting the big, quiet man at the end of it — the one watching him like he's already made up his mind, the one the moon turns into something else.
Ulric has spent nineteen years building a house in the woods with his own hands. He's watched a lot of men cross the Hollow's floor and never once wanted to bring one home.
Then Devon walks in.
Now the wolf wants. And what a wolf wants, a wolf keeps.
✦ Tropes: monster romance, werewolf, knotting & mating bond, size difference, gentle dom monster / touch-starved human, age gap (24/38), hurt-comfort, found family, instaclaim, fast burn to scorching heat, HEA guaranteed ✦ Heat: five chili peppers ✦ Book 2 of Monsters of the Hollow—each book is standalone, centered on one human and one monster, set in the same underground paranormal speakeasy in a no-name American city. New monster, new POV, new HEA every book.
Devon's got a dead car he can't make himself junk, a phone at fourteen percent, and eleven nights of sleeping outside behind him. He's twenty-four. He came out at twenty-three, and his mother gave him three days to be gone. The only message he's gotten since is three words he can't make himself answer.
When a stranger slides him a matte black card and tells him to ask for Mateo, Devon takes it. He's not expecting the freight elevator to drop him four floors under the fish market. He's not expecting a bar full of things wearing human faces. And he's definitely not expecting the big, quiet man at the end of it — the one watching him like he's already made up his mind, the one the moon turns into something else.
Ulric has spent nineteen years building a house in the woods with his own hands. He's watched a lot of men cross the Hollow's floor and never once wanted to bring one home.
Then Devon walks in.
Now the wolf wants. And what a wolf wants, a wolf keeps.
✦ Tropes: monster romance, werewolf, knotting & mating bond, size difference, gentle dom monster / touch-starved human, age gap (24/38), hurt-comfort, found family, instaclaim, fast burn to scorching heat, HEA guaranteed ✦ Heat: five chili peppers ✦ Book 2 of Monsters of the Hollow—each book is standalone, centered on one human and one monster, set in the same underground paranormal speakeasy in a no-name American city. New monster, new POV, new HEA every book.
Used availability for Daphne Leigh's The Wolf's Stray