On The Prowl

One of the coolest things about this anthology turned out to be the other authors in it. I enjoy them all -- in fact, I noticed, shortly after my editor told me who they were going to be, that I've blurbed for all of them :)

I'm not a short story writer, so this was quite a challenge. I kept having to delete characters and fighting to simplify the plot so it would fit into a story roughly a quarter of the size of most of my books. I thought it would be more like a long short story, but in the end, it feels to me like a short novel.

"Alpha and Omega" is Charles's story. Charles is one of those characters who comes on stage to fill out a scene -- or, in this case, to make the Montana pack feel like a "real" pack, one that doesn't just exist for the sake of a novel. But as I wrote a little about him I found out a lot more -- and since he didn't have a real role in the plot, I had to set him aside once he'd performed his alloted role. It would have bothered me more, but I knew that Moon Called was the first in a series so I figured I could use him later. When my editor called to ask me if I thought I could write a novella in Mercy's world -- I thought about it for a while, and decided to give Charles his chance upon the stage. I already had a plot -- he'd been sent to deal with one of the Chicago alphas in Moon Called. Even so, the story took me a little by surprise (which is a good thing). I didn't expect such a strong romance angle in this story, but I liked how it turned out. I hope you enjoy getting to know Charles as much as I did.