Throwback Thursday: Getting Ready for Beware of Dog

I know I mentioned this in a post a month or two ago, but I wanted to expand on it today for Throwback Thursday. I've had lots of questions on FB and Insta about the new book (I completed the big final action scene today and now it's denouement time!!), mostly asking about who Shep and Cass are, so I wanted to do a refresher here for anyone who might need it.

Who is Cass?

Cass is Cassandra Green, Raven's younger sister, and the youngest of Devin Green's ten children. We first meet her in Prodigal Son.

Of the nine half-siblings, Cassandra was the only one who boasted the last name Green. Cass had a theory that all of the nine women her father impregnated had at one point or other fashioned themselves "the one": the one who'd finally convinced Devin to settle down for good.

She's seventeen, and though we never meet her mother, it's obvious that Raven is the forceful, maternal figure in her life. Cass is kidnapped in this book and later rescued by Reese. In subsequent books, she moves to New York with Raven, and Raven's paying her tuition to art school. She's once again targeted by club enemies in The Wild Charge, and we see a lot of her in Raven's book, Nothing More. She's bubbly, and opinionated, and boasts Devin's determination. She loves the club, having grown up beneath its protection, and has always fostered crushes on Lean Dogs. Raven's been afraid all along that she'd "throw her life away" on a biker, but recognizes now how hypocritical that statement is. 

Who is Shep?

Shep is the sergeant at arms for the New York chapter, and we first meet him in Long Way Down, when Mav comes to talk to Pongo and Melissa at the club-owned apartment in Manhattan. 

“Hey, dipshit,” Shepherd barked, hiking a hip up to perch on the back of the couch. He flicked open a knife and started cleaning beneath his nails, unbothered. “If you’d shut up for a second, maybe he could explain it to you.”

Pongo shot him a glare, which, judging by Shepherd’s responding smirk, was ruined by the fact that he trembled faintly all over.

“Shep,” Maverick warned. 

Let's just say he doesn't make a stellar first impression here.

It turned out Toly made a damn good pasta sauce, if heavy on the garlic. “Vodka,” he said, when Pongo asked for the secret ingredient, to which Shepherd had snorted and said, “God, that’s fantastic.” Toly gave him a look so withering Shepherd should have been reduced to bones. Alas. 

 

In Nothing More, he's assigned to Raven and Cass as a security detail, and while he and Toly don't get along at this juncture, we catch background glimpses of his growing bond with Cass.

 

She steeled herself, and went back into the office – where Shep was seated at her desk, merrily eating a multigrain bagel, poppy and sesame seeds all over her blotter.

“Hey,” he called, as she heeled the door shut and felt her face pull tight with anger. “Do you got any real milk? This is some kinda soy shit or something, and it sucks,” he said of his coffee, peering down into the cup with a grimace.

The latch clicked into place.

“First of all, Shep,” she said, “let us establish some ground rules…”

“Uh…” Cassandra said, eyes comically wide as she glanced between Raven and her new shadow.

“Yes, Toly’s gone,” Raven said crisply. “This is Shepherd. He’s…a work in progress.”

“I can hear you, you know.” 

Shep twisted around in his seat, gaze turning eager as he glanced between them. “You like who now?”

“Not you,” Raven and Cass said together.

 Raven said, “Cassandra, maybe Greg would like to hear about the art exhibit you’re having after the New Year.” She traded a fast look with Shep, who stood against the wall, watching them with the intensity of a bouncer, and the subtlety of a chainsaw; he was never going to wear a suit like he was meant for it, no matter how finely it was tailored, but he was at least being quiet today, and she had to acknowledge progress, no matter how small.

United in their love of a good, fresh-smelling tree, Cass looped her arm through Shep’s and dragged him off toward the back of the lot, doubtless toward the more expensive trees. 

 

When Beware of Dog begins, Cass is about to turn twenty, and Shep has been her loyal protector for a while. Their vibe is very different from Mercy and Ava's, and Shep hasn't so much been assigned to her, but keeps finding reasons to stick around the city, and has become the person Cass depends upon most and calls when she's in trouble. 

One of the things I've always enjoyed about writing this series is the way it breathes and grows and shifts organically. I have Big Plans, and most of those pan out, carefully choreographed from the start; but there are also relationships that seem to form themselves as I go along. Often times, while writing one main romance, another starts developing in the background, and eventually demands to be told. That was the case here. 

Confession: I initially planned to pair Cass with Reese, hence him rescuing her in Prodigal Son. But that book is also where I first introduced Tenny, and in Lone Star, Reese and Tenny's contempt for one another, and all their similarities, quickly eclipsed any idea of writing a slow burn story in which Reese becomes more human and falls in love with Tenny's vivacious, already human sister. Cass would have been sweet to him, but Reese's issues are way outside her purview. He and Tenny are perfect together, and I wouldn't change that. And Shep, I discovered while writing Nothing More, is seen as insensitive and "an idiot" by his brothers in large part because, despite being a Dog, he has nothing and no one, and is badly in need of a little TLC. 

I've had such fun turning his and Cass's friendship into something more, and getting back into the age gap trope, where it all began. 

I suppose you can read this book as a standalone, but if you want to be best prepared, be sure to read Prodigal Son, Long Way Down, and Nothing More.