Читать книгу: «Song Of The Wolf»

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Coming Soon

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

Alison wandered through the dense woodland surrounding her pack land enjoying the cool night air on her face. Tamriel and Leyth’s mating had been wonderful. Alison rejoiced in the fact that she was home and safe. But even as she thought it, her unease stirred, making her gut churn.

Something was very wrong; she just couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Alison pushed her fears aside and wrapped her arms around her shivering body as she pressed onwards. The rest of the pack was far out in the woodland, in wolf form. They would be hunting and playing, as was pack custom after a mating. Yet since the bastard-High Lord (as her brother would put it) bound her soul against her will, her body was slowly dying. And what was worse, he’d bound the wolf half of her soul as well. She was no longer capable of shifting into her wolf counterpart. That in itself was one of fate’s cruelest twists. She truly mourned the loss.

Something shuffled in the bushes up ahead, making her jump. She told herself she was being ridiculous. She was on pack land after all. There was nowhere safer than here. It was probably one of the twins, Reylix or Taevyn messing around, trying to scare her in jest. They were so stupid sometimes. Nonetheless, the twisting ball of fear in her gut intensified and she got moving back towards the mansion. The bushes rustled once more.

Alison flinched. There was definitely someone there.

“Who’s there?” she squeaked, hoping and praying it really was one of the twins. More rustling was the only response. Alison tried harder to ignore her gut. She was just being silly; her entire pack was roaming the woodland tonight. Surely it was one of them! She quickly moved in an attempt to see who was in the bushes.

“Hello, little wolf.” The raspy voice slid through the night from behind the tree. Oh no… It couldn’t be… “Thought we wouldn’t find you here?” His putrid breath tainted the air.

Alison turned to run, opened her mouth to scream. Oh dear Maker NO! But before she could so much as squeak, a heavy leather-clad hand shot out of the night and wrapped around her mouth. Alison fought the surge of panic with everything she had, biting down on the hand and forcing her limbs into action. She had to get away NOW. But before she had a chance to even try, another man appeared from behind the tree, silver wire dripping from his grip. A knife was thrust against her throat. The cool metal bit into her skin so harshly that blood welled to the surface. But she didn’t care. Couldn’t care. She would rather die fighting than go back to the hell on earth these men had kept her in. They were some of the tuhrned. And the tuhrned were the Circle’s minions. If they were here it meant that that traitorous band of rebels was already back up and running. Good Maker, it meant the Circle must have a new leader.

Alison kicked and elbowed. She bit down on the hand at her mouth and twisted her head wildly in an attempt to get loose but all she succeeded in doing was making that knife sink further into her skin.

The second tuhrned bent down, wrapping silver wire around her kicking ankles, making her whimper in sheer pain as the metal seared her skin. She cursed her race’s aversion to the metal. It was the one thing wolves were powerless against, and goddamn, it really hurt! Burning through flesh like a hot knife through butter, scalding her skin until pain became all she could feel, and the scent of it hung in her nose making her gag.

Still she fought, thrashing against them until blood loss made her woozy. The two half-dead men didn’t seem fazed. Didn’t care.

As she became too weak to put up any more of a fight, they dragged her backwards, her arms and ankles screaming in protest as the wire sank deeper still.

The man holding her by the throat leaned down, his mouth so close to her face that his breath washed across her nose, making her gag.

“We’ve got your soul, little wolf. And the new High Lord wants to meet you,” he hissed.

Alison screamed with everything she had but none of it made so much of a dent in the night’s silence. The heavy hand over her mouth muffled any noise she managed to rip loose and when she tried to draw air into her lungs, those heavy hands stuffed a vile-tasting rag into her mouth, forcing her to choke and bite down on it as they roughly stuck tape across her lips.

The tuhrned shoved a bag over her head. It was damp and smelled of death and blood. She screamed as much as she could, but was only too aware of how little sound was coming out. With that, the bastard wrapped silver wire around her already broken and bleeding throat, keeping the bag in place as she was dragged off of her home land and away to Maker only knew where.

All she could think was that her entire pack, every single member of her family, was out roaming the woods. SOMEONE was close, someone was within metres of them but no one was coming to help. She kicked and thrashed her feet on the ground trying to make as much noise as she could but no one came. No one heard her.

Alison was stuffed into the back of a vehicle and as the engine roared to life she wept. She had been taken from her own home. These bastards had taken her from her family AGAIN.

And no one knew she was gone.

Chapter One

Three weeks. It had been THREE damn weeks since Alison had been taken. Dax was all but going mad. He couldn’t stand how long it had been. They should have found her by now.

To keep himself sane, he had literally spent every second he could out looking for her and tonight, he’d hit the jackpot – one of the Circle’s underground bases.

“Dax, you IDIOT. You could have been killed. We’re five minutes away. Why the hell couldn’t you have waited for us?” Leyth’s gruff voice barked through the mini-coms. The minuscule speaker pinned into his ear meant he could hear everything Leyth and the rest of the team said, and the miniature microphone clipped into his mouth meant they could hear everything he said.

So he kept his mouth shut.

Scanning the room, he couldn’t help the vicious smile that curled his mouth. These bastards hadn’t known what had hit them when he’d forced his way in. All around him were the scattered bodies of the tuhrned. Those traitors weren’t dead yet though. They were more zombie than person. The only way to kill them was to cut the head off. But Dax hadn’t wanted to kill them. He’d wanted to question them.

Alison’s kidnapping had left him more than a little empty; his very soul ached at the loss of her. Perhaps that loss had made him somewhat brutal in his fighting style and frankly they deserved everything they got. He just wanted to question these bastards and get his female back. The female. A member of his pack. That was all there was to it.

“You,” he barked at the tomb closest to him. Leyth had always called the ‘tuhrned’ tombs because they were essentially dead men walking. They should be in a tomb, not ‘alive’ and fighting the High Lord’s war. And this one was no exception to that. His rotting grey skin looked bloated, swollen, only exaggerating his pale thinning hair and his dark-rimmed, sunken eyes. Oh Maker, the smell? Rotten.

“Look at me,” Dax barked at the tomb.

“What do you want?” the zombiefied man spat, wincing in pain as his jaw moved.

“What, no Magi to help you with the pain? To possess your body so you can be free of your putrid flesh?” Dax snorted. “You don’t deserve to be free of pain. You soulless traitor.” OK, so perhaps breaking every bone in the tomb’s body was a little harsh but these ‘men’, if you could call them that, had played one helluva part in Alison’s kidnapping. They killed and kidnapped, raped and pillaged at every turn and what’s more they had literally sold their souls to the devil.

“WHERE IS SHE?” Dax roared, leaning in so he was face-to-face with the tuhrned.

“W-ho…?” he groaned.

“WHERE is the female wolf YOUR High Lord took three weeks ago?” Dax hissed.

“I don’t know,” the tomb whispered.

“WHERE?” Dax positioned himself so that he was pressing his weight on the tomb’s broken body.

“I don’t know!” The tomb squealed, tears dampening his cheeks. Dax took his weight from the zombie’s body. Frankly he was surprised the High Lord hadn’t taken the tomb over by now. He did after all have the power to possess his minions at any point, it was the reason he bound their souls. Apparently it made it easier to use them as vessels to do his bidding.

“But I know he liked the feel of her.” The tuhrned’s cruel laughter filled the silence. Anger swept through Dax, the sheer force of it almost knocking him off his feet.

“WHAT did you say?” he thundered.

“I SAID, he likes the feel of your female’s body, wolf,” the tomb spat, laughing and spluttering.

Dax didn’t give him time to catch his breath, just picked the tomb’s broken body from the ground and slammed it into the closest wall. He could barely see past the anger tainting his vision with red, fury rushing through his veins.

“YOU,” he spat, slamming the bastard’s body back into the ground, “do NOT –” he picked him up by his hair and held him by the throat against his chest “– EVER get to speak about her like that,” Dax roared, tightening his grip on the tomb.

“She is worth more than you could ever dream, traitor.” He growled the words at the zombie, choking him with everything he had. His fingers pressed into the tuhrned’s throat, sinking into his flesh with ease. The putrid fluid causing its skin to bloat parted beneath his nails as he sliced the skin open, vile fluid and blood trickling across his fingertips…

“DAX. Hell no!” Leyth shouted, storming in and ripping the tomb free from Dax’s grip. The male’s night-dark hair and powerful body dominated the small, dingy basement. “Get him home.”

“NO!” Dax protested. “He might know something. I’m damn well questioning him.” He tried to force his voice to sound level, but hatred for that tomb boiled his blood, making his words come out short and vicious.

“HOME,” Leyth barked, pointing towards the door. “Raught. Take him. I’ll deal with this.”

Raught stalked forward, putting himself between the two of them.

“Come on, my friend. Food will do you some good and then you can get back into the field,” he reasoned, but Dax ignored him. Instead he took a slow deliberate step towards the tomb.

“You will talk. Or I will make you,” he growled at the rotting bastard’s sneer.

“Seriously Dax…” Raught moved, wrapping a strong arm around Dax’s.

“What the FUCK?!” Dax roared spinning around, ripping his arm out of Raught’s grip so harshly that the male almost staggered over.

“Don’t ever fucking touch me.” Dax was on his pack elder in a heartbeat, wrapping a fist around the male’s throat and pointing a finger in his face.

“Fuck, Raught,” he spat, the heated red of sheer anger filling his vision, soaring through his veins like fire.

Another heavy set of hands landed on his shoulders, tugging him backwards.

“HELL NO!” Dax spat, launching himself across the room, eyes so blurred he barely saw who he was swinging at.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he roared, burying his fist in the stomach of whoever had grabbed him. Another set of hands grabbed at his arms hauling him backwards.

“Get the hell off!” Dax caught the wrist of whoever was holding him and thrust them away with enough force to send them clattering into the wall behind.

A deafening growl assaulted his eardrums making his already tense body ripple in anticipation of the coming fight. Dax did not like to be touched. Not ever.

Someone moved behind him, something he felt rather than saw, and in less than a second he was crushing the assailant’s windpipe in his fist, the idiot’s body dangling from his death grip. That growl rippled out again and it took a few seconds of doing nothing but breathing for Dax to realise that the deep vicious sound was actually him. Blinking rapidly, his vision cleared, the red haze retreating and sanity returning. This shit with Alison really had him geared up. Everyone knew he didn’t like being touched. They knew that.

As the world came back into view he could see Raught crushed up against the wall, choking against Dax’s own hand. Leyth and Taevyn, his pack brothers, had a careful grip on each of his shoulders and were desperately trying to pull him off their pack elder. And Dax was just stood there growling like a rogue wolf, attacking members of his own pack.

“Whoa there, wolf.” Raught, the pack elder, held his hands up, his silver hair swinging over his shoulder as he struggled against Dax’s grip to shove his face into his line of sight.

“Chill!” he spluttered.

“Fuck,” Dax spat, quickly loosening his grip on the male.

“Dax, I am not fighting you on this.” Raught dropped to the ground but caught himself. Squaring his shoulders and gingerly rubbing his raw red throat, Raught carefully stood outside of Dax’s reach.

“You’re coming with me, like it or not.” His grey eyes locked onto Dax’s, the strength and compassion behind them made him actually want to calm down. Yet Raught’s pity made him feel sick at the same time. Dax handled sympathy about as well as he handled being touched.

He was a grumpy arsehole. Everyone knew that. Hell, he knew that. But since Alison had been kidnapped he was worse than ever. No one was safe around him. He needed to question these tombs, get some answers, find Alison and return to his almost normal life. And he couldn’t do that from pack land.

“I’m staying.” He cast a sideways scowl at the tomb on the ground, who was still laughing.

“Look, mate, you need to go check your systems. If Alison’s chip shows up you do not want to be here and unprepared,” Raught reasoned. Dax could see him treading incredibly carefully around the words he was saying. All of the pack were like that around him. They all treated him like a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any moment.

“Come on, Dax. You know Leyth will question him.”

“NO!” Dax barked.

“Mate. I’m more than capable of questioning a few tombs,” Leyth assured him.

Dax didn’t say anything, just started walking towards the rotting zombie.

“Hell no, mate. I damn well said…”

“Don’t start with me, Leyth,” Dax snapped as Leyth stepped in front of him, puffing his chest out and curling a tight fist. Dax’s whole body tensed, ready to take his friend and pack mate down if necessary.

“Males.” Raught carefully stepped between them. “Leyth, you know Tamriel will kick the shit out of both of you if she finds out you’ve been fighting. And Dax. For Maker’s sake, check Alison’s GPS, eat some damn food and then get back out in the field. You need to update Julian anyway.”

Dax sighed. He knew the wolf was right. He did need to check his computer systems. Alison had a GPS chip in her neck but they had taken her so far underground that it had lost signal. And Julian, his pack Alpha and Alison’s brother, did need an update.

“Fine. Let’s go.” He stalked forward leaving Raught jogging to catch up with him and climbed into his beat-up old Ford to get back to pack land.

Eventually Dax found himself stalking the length of Julian’s office.

Maker only knew he’d spent most of the last three weeks doing exactly that.

“You could have died, Dax,” Julian spat at him; the male’s long blond hair was tied into a thick braid that swung violently over his shoulder as he slammed a heavy fist on his desk, cracking the wooden surface.

“Like I give a crap,” Dax hissed. “We need to be in the field, constantly.” He locked his eyes on to Julian’s. “Alison is still out there.”

“Don’t you think I know that!” his Alpha roared, “She’s my goddamn sister. I’ve been out every damned day looking for her, I can’t sleep at night because I’m so worried –”

“Then why don’t you come hunting with me at night?” Dax cut him off.

“Because,” Julian barked, “I’m not an idiot. We need to sleep and eat, Dax. Otherwise when we do finally find her we will be too weak from the lack of sustenance to fight to get her free.”

“Well, I can’t do it,” Dax growled. “I can’t be here, lounging, living, when I know she’s out there. I just can’t do it, Julian.”

Dax slumped his tired body down in the giant leather chair that sat on the opposite side of Julian’s oversized desk. Resting his forehead briefly in his hands he took a deep breath. They’d had this argument over and over again. Julian was working himself into the ground looking for Alison and Dax knew it. The problem was that he couldn’t physically stop.

He rarely returned to pack grounds unless he was dragged back by one of his pack brothers. He spent every minute of the day and night out searching for that female.

Why? Because she was pack-kin and that was all there was to it.

He just couldn’t stand the idea of the new High Lord with his hands all over her. He hadn’t slept in weeks. He hadn’t eaten in days.

He didn’t care. He needed to get back out there.

He had to find her.

“For Christ’s sake.” Julian heaved a great sigh and waved a hand at him. “Go and have a shower. You stink. Go and eat something. And if you have to go back out, take the Djinn with you. Don’t kill yourself, Dax, you’re no good to Alison dead.”

Dax nodded at his Alpha, stalking out of the huge room Julian called an office. The blood-red walls and gold trim weren’t exactly calming anyway. He quickly made his way through the foyer to the mansion and into the kitchen.

“Hi, Dax. Want me to fix you a sandwich?” Sarah’s happy face appeared in front of him. The female’s bouncy curls framed her face and she looked a little flushed. She’d obviously been stood over the cooker for a while.

“Hi, Sarah. Nah, I’m just gonna grab something from the fridge,” he grunted at her, avoiding eye contact. The long stainless steel worktops suddenly became incredibly interesting. So did the tiled floor. In fact anything that wasn’t that female was better to look at.

She was too goddamn cheery for his liking.

Swiftly grabbing at some leftover pizza from the counter, he stuffed it into his mouth and chewed. It was a mechanical motion; he didn’t even taste the stuff. But Julian was right. If he was too weak to fight, he would be no good whatsoever to Alison. He grabbed a bottle of vodka to wash the pizza down with. The spirit had a healthy sting to it that briefly flared warmth through his stomach. Keeping the bottle with him, he walked out of the kitchen and into the mansion’s car park.

“Hey, Dax.” Tamriel’s husky tone hit his ears as he began to walk towards his beat-up old car.

“Hey, Tam,” he grunted.

“Need some company, my friend?” Leyth, who had obviously finished cleaning up his mess and returned home, stepped forward.

“Nah. Just going for a drive.”

“Sure.” Tamriel stuck her head in his line of vision, her bright green eyes narrowing as they met his. Her red-streaked black hair flowed out behind her in the wind. “Look, if you find anything call me.”

“Will do,” Dax grunted, half turning away from her.

“I mean it.” She bullied her way back in front of him.

“Yup.” He turned back towards the car but not before he caught her rolling her eyes at him, as she turned to leave.

OK so yes, she was a strong female, and yeah they had infiltrated the Council’s headquarters together when the Circle had taken over and tortured Leyth to literally within an inch of his life.

And yes. He respected the hell out of her.

But it irritated the hell out of him that she was no longer bothered by him, she wasn’t scared of his anger and she wasn’t offended by his shortness.

It was annoying.

Even so, he couldn’t hide the smallest of grins as he looked back at the two of them walking off into the woods, hand in hand. They were truly made for each other.

Leyth was one damn lucky wolf.

Dax cracked the door of his beat-up old Ford and slid into the leather seat. The car smelled of age and blood but he didn’t give a crap.

He whipped out his phone and sent a quick text to Jake. Dax knew that he would be with his brother Jones; those two Djinn were practically joined at the hip. He rolled his eyes at the thought of them; they were the most bitchy drama queens on this side of the Kingdom.

And some of the strangest looking creatures in the world.

The Ford’s old engine started on the first try. Dax shoved it into reverse and sped out of pack land and onto the road into Folkestone.

The drive didn’t take long; he wasn’t exactly worried about breaking the speed limit at the moment, some things were just more important.

He raced through the streets of the town and up towards the part of the beach known as the Warren.

As the golf course that stood above it came into view, he slowed down, scanning the area. Absolutely nothing. Fantastic.

He slid the car into park and hefted the door open, climbing out.

The wind blasted him as soon as he stepped into the cold but he barely felt it, the wolf half of his soul was already heating his core, wanting out.

Dax made quick work of stripping off his jeans and jacket, shoving them into the back seat of his car. It was sheltered enough here for passing cars not to see him and hell, it was nearly midnight, no one in their right mind would be out walking at this hour. He grabbed the bottle of vodka, taking a quick swig, before splashing some of the liquid over the worst of his wounds.

Today’s fighting had been pretty brutal. He’d found a Circle base and had raided the damn thing before backup got there. Then Leyth had sent him packing. He scowled at the thought.

He hissed as the liquid sloshed over an ugly gash on his side. It probably needed stitches but hell that would take time. And knowing Doc, he would probably order Dax to take time out of the field to heal. Maker only knew that wasn’t going to happen. Nope, vodka-disinfectant and natural healing would have to do for now.

Slamming the car doors shut and locking them, Dax slipped the rucksack that contained his knives, phone and laptop onto his back and jogged into the wooded area, naked as the day he was born. The ground was icy beneath his feet, but the heat at his core was so strong it licked through his flesh, making the frost around him melt quickly.

In these cold months he found himself more thankful than ever for his heritage, for the other half of his soul. The media would call him a ‘werewolf’ but anyone who knew a wolf would know that the nickname was frankly offensive. No, they were wolves, through and through. Dax couldn’t help but snort at the Hollywood version of his kind, though he could see where they got the impression. If you were a true wolf, you were born a wolf, none of this ‘oh I was bitten by a wolf and now I can turn into one’. That was ridiculous! His kind had been gifted the ability to shift into a full-blown, huge, very natural-looking wolf. When a pup went through their change at around the age of twenty-three, they released the power stored at their core. The pup ‘met’ their wolf for the first time and accepted the wolf. As a result they were given the ability to shift at will, to manipulate their body, to restructure the very skin on their back and transform it into that of the wolf.