Fated Magic: Claimed by Wolves #1

by Rose, Callie

  Not Ridge. No.

  Nothing can happen to the large, serious man who’s my protector, my savior, since the very first moment I met him. It can’t. I won’t let it.

  I reach for the biggest of the two knives with trembling fingers, my heart racing as though it’s trying to beat a hole in my sternum. Who knows how much good it will do. It’s not like a knife could do any good in a gunfight, but the weight of it in my hand steadies my nerves.

  Could the witches have found us?

  Maybe that sound wasn’t a gunshot at all, but the sound of something magical, some kind of spell that knocked him out.

  Or killed him, the terrified part of my mind suggests darkly.

  My knife won’t do any good against magic either.

  In this moment, that hardly matters though. The thought of Ridge out there, alone and in trouble, is enough to send me darting toward the back door, spurred on by the primal need to keep him safe.

  I’m halfway down the hall when the door swings open. But instead of Ridge, another familiar face appears in my vision as a man strides inside, blasting apart the safety and comfort of this cabin.

  Uncle Clint.

  “Found you, you little shit,” he snarls, then stalks toward me.

  Everything inside me screams at me to react, but terror has turned me to ice. For a second, it’s as if the past two weeks never happened. It’s as if I never stepped foot outside of Uncle Clint’s truck that night, never dared to step out of line.

  For a second, I’m nothing but the scared little girl he beat and abused for years just because he could.

  It’s my fear for Ridge that brings me back from that place. Fear for the man I’ve come to care for that reminds me these two weeks did happen—that I’m not the same girl I was.

  As Clint nears me, I lash out with the knife, slicing wildly toward him. My movement is jerky, but I don’t think he was expecting it, because I manage to catch the edge of his arm with the tip of the blade. The sharp knife tears through his flannel shirt before biting into skin, and he hisses in pain, jerking back.

  An ugly look crosses his face, and he charges forward, blood dripping from the gash in his arm.

  Before I can slash again, he grabs me by the arm, his fingers hard and bruising, and bats the knife away from my hand with his gun. Sharp pain cracks across my knuckles as the gun makes contact, and my only means of protecting myself skitters away over the kitchen floor, little droplets of blood flying from the blade.

  “You little cunt. Thought you got all tough out here in the fuckin’ woods, huh? Did your boyfriend teach you that?” he snarls.

  However deep I managed to cut his arm, it clearly wasn’t deep enough. His grip is strong as he hauls me into a headlock, pinning my back to his chest. Then he drags me toward the door, the barrel of the gun pressed to my temple.

  I’ve lost the ability to move my feet, and I collapse against his grip on my arm, my legs dragging uselessly on the floor. This is the culmination of every nightmare I’ve had since running away from him, the thing I told myself would never happen. Could never happen.

  Maybe I should’ve known better.

  I hold out hope that Ridge is outside, that Clint didn’t shoot him dead, and when we emerge, he’ll be waiting to tear my uncle’s throat out.

  But that hope is ripped to shreds when Clint drags me out over the cool grass and into the night—past Ridge’s limp, still body.

  27

  Trystan

  I never thought I’d enjoy hunting with shifters outside my pack, but these dumb fucks actually make it enjoyable.

  I’ve known Archer for most of my life, though not in any kind of familiar context. Just as that dude who’s dad is the dying alpha of the East Pack and who probably isn’t strong enough to take the mantle when the old man croaks.

  But he surprises me when we’re on the hunt. I had little doubt before that Dare was just as strong and skilled as me, but Archer is too. We work together like a well-oiled machine, evenly matched and able to anticipate each other’s moves.

  I fly over the undergrowth into position, forming a third point on our triangle around the herd of grazing deer. There are five of them to choose from, all with their noses in the grass in a small field, completely oblivious to the threat surrounding them. Whoever can’t run fast enough is going to be dinner.

  The wind carries me Dare’s scent, and I can see Archer just beyond the shadow of fading sunlight. We’re in place. Excitement courses through my veins, and I let out a barely audible yip. As one, the three of us leap forward.

  The deer scatter on our approach. As we crash into the clearing, they panic and try to find an opening to run, to escape us before we can take them down. We rush around them, growling and snapping, and the stronger deer make their escape.

  That’s okay, because we aren’t there for the strongest, fastest deer. Once they’re in flight, the one we want is well behind and not capable of fleeing. The fastest deer get to live another day; the slowest gets to feed a bunch of hungry shifters.

  Dare reaches our prey first and takes her down with a well-placed leap and a snap of his jaws. Within moments, her blood is cooling on the grass and her companions are long gone.

  The circle of fucking life.

  If we were out here for funsies, we’d just rip into her as is and have ourselves a raw feast. I love hunts like that, getting my snout bloody beneath the open sky, the meat still warm as we tear into it. But we’re feeding Sable too, which means taking the deer back to the cabin and tossing it on the grill. I’m not picky. I like it both ways.

  We shift back and hover over the beast, eyeing our handiwork.

  “Nice takedown,” I tell Dare as he wipes his mouth. And I mean it.

  “No better than you would have done yourself,” he replies with a shrug. “Archer’s strategy was the real MVP here.”

  Archer grins, then leans over to grab the deer’s front legs. “It was a team effort. Come on, let’s get this back.”

  I pick up the back legs, and we heft the beast up before beginning to follow our own scent trails back toward the cabin. Conversation between us comes a lot easier now than it did a few days ago. I don’t know that I’d call them friends, exactly, but I feel a lot less animosity toward them than I once did.

  All because of a sexy little blonde who owns each and every one of my thoughts.

  The generator is on in the cabin, so we see the lights from the windows through the trees before we see the building itself. The steady thwump thwump of the generator purring at the side of the structure is an out of place white noise on the silent night. I’m not a fan of the thing, since it inhibits our ability to hear properly outside the cabin. If witches were to find a way onto North Pack territory, they could sneak up on us when that thing’s going, and we might not be the wiser until it was too late. It’s a hazard, and I’ve said so.

  But light is one of the few things that keeps Sable’s darkness at bay, so every night without fail, we turn on the generator. Her comfort is paramount. To all of us.

  We’re just beyond the tree line when alarm bells start ringing in my head. At the same instant, Dare and Archer stiffen beside me, their noses turning to the air.

  “Something’s wrong,” Dare growls.

  “A stranger,” Archer adds, turning his wide eyes on me.

  We both let go of the deer in the same instant, letting it drop to the ground behind us as we break into a run.

  Our footsteps pound over the undergrowth as we rush to the cabin. My heart’s pounding wildly, a savage thing in my chest. All I can think of is Sable, getting to her and finding her safe.

  My stomach drops when we come across Ridge’s body lying prone in the backyard, while the back door stands open to the night.

  Archer kneels beside Ridge’s form and checks his pulse, then gently turns his head to expose an oblong object poking from his neck. He tugs it out of Ridge’s skin and holds it up to the light.

  “Fuck. A tranquilizer.” His voice i
s stark with fear as he looks up at the house.

  Dare and I both rush inside at once, nearly getting jammed in the goddamn doorway as we race into the kitchen.

  It’s empty.

  He heads toward the front of the cabin while I sweep the bedroom and bathroom. When he meets me back in the hallway, I can tell by the devastation on his face that Sable is gone.

  “Nothing.” His voice sounds dead, blank almost, like he has to turn off every emotion inside him just to get the damn word out.

  “Fuck. Fuck.”

  I could punch a hole through the wall. I could tear this cabin down with my bare hands right now. But neither of those things would get us closer to getting Sable back, and that’s the only thing that matters right now.

  She’s the only thing that matters.

  I jerk my chin toward the door, and the two of us rush back out into the night.

  Outside, Archer is helping a woozy Ridge sit up. I’m surprised at the rush of relief I feel that he’s okay. Although we’ve never been enemies, I wouldn’t have called us friends either until recently. But I’m thankful as fuck that he’s not dead.

  Ridge groans, rubbing the back of his neck where Archer yanked the dart out. “Someone snuck up on me. I heard a noise out here, and I came to check it out…” He trails off and looks up, his eyes so wide I can see the whites all the way around. “Sable?”

  “She’s gone,” I tell him, my voice rough as fucking gravel.

  Ridge launches to his feet so fast he almost keels right back over, but Archer grabs him and steadies him.

  “We have to find her.” Ridge shakes his head, looking half-drunk as his body fights off the tranquilizers in his system. “I didn’t like the smell of this guy. Fucking sociopath.”

  “You don’t think her uncle…” Archer lets the half-formed question die out.

  Fury blooms through me, and I snarl.

  Yes. I do think. Witches wouldn’t have used a fucking tranq gun, they would’ve used magic. “We have to find her.”

  As one, the four of us immediately shift back to our wolf forms. Ridge is unsteady on his feet, but he gives himself a good shake and pushes Archer’s golden wolf away as he tries to help.

  You’re too drugged to go with us, I tell him. Don’t be an idiot. Go lie down.

  I’m going, Ridge snaps back.

  Dare puts his head down near the edge of the cabin’s clearing, sniffing the ground erratically. Then he stiffens, his hackles rising and his nose turning into the wind. His howl pierces the night, and then we’re all racing after him.

  We fly through the shadowy forest, following Sable’s scent and the scent of the man who took her. I can tell where she gave up walking and he picked her up to carry her through the woods. Where there were once two scent trails, there's suddenly only one on the ground, with Sable just a hint on the air, already dying away.

  Just the thought of that man’s hands on her makes me see red. My jaws itch to rip his throat out.

  I’ll fucking destroy him.

  The trail takes us out of the woods and onto a small, dirt service trail. These exist throughout the mountains, placed here by the government or by thrill seekers looking to have an adventure in the wilderness. The wolf packs typically avoid them—out of sight, out of mind, and all that. The last thing we need is a thrill seeking hiker with a GoPro on his helmet catching footage of a shifter transforming.

  But the scent trail ends at fresh tire tracks. The fucker put Sable in a car and took off with her.

  Archer speaks up in my mind. A big white farmhouse on the outskirts of Big Creek. That’s what she said.

  Ridge nods once. It’s about twenty miles from here.

  Dare shakes himself. You know where we’re going?

  I do, Ridge says.

  Then lead the way, I tell him, ready to follow him to the ends of the earth to save her. We’ve got your back.

  The moon is rising over the mountains as we settle into a full-on sprint, following Ridge on a straight line for more populated areas.

  Fear eats me alive. I never knew I could be so attached to someone, but Sable is one of the fiercest, sweetest creatures I’ve ever met.

  And there’s not a chance in hell I’ll let anything happen to her.

  28

  Sable

  When I open my eyes, there’s a steady throbbing in my head that makes me think I might explode.

  I can place the origin for the pain too. I remember seeing my uncle’s jacked-up truck sitting on a dirt road several miles beyond the cabin. At the sight of it, adrenaline pumped through me and turned me crazy. I knew without a doubt if I let him put me in that truck, I was as good as dead. So I kicked and punched and screamed as if my life depended on it, which it likely did.

  Unfortunately, my uncle’s never been one to be squeamish about silencing my screams.

  I saw his gun hurtling toward my temple, and that’s the last thing I remember beyond flashes of a hard floor and the rumble of his truck as he drove me away from my only means of protection.

  They’ll never find me.

  I fight back tears, because I refuse to give in to this situation. Clint won’t break me. I won’t fucking let him. I’ll fight like he’s never seen before—I’ll scream and claw and do whatever I can to hurt him before he kills me.

  I recognize the four cold concrete walls around me. The antique metal Bud Light sign hanging by a long, narrow window filled with thick glass. The work bench along the wall covered in tools he rarely touched, and the paint canisters covered in a layer of dust. I know this basement all too well, as the place where I was punished when he felt like I needed an extra heavy hand.

  I’m on my side, facing the work bench with the vises he’s used on me more than once. My arms are tied in front of me with duct tape, but he didn’t bother with my legs. The realization sends me reeling.

  How many times have I just let him hurt me? How often did I just lie there and take it, to make him think I don’t need to be fully tied up now?

  How broken does he think I am?

  A thick work boot stomps into view, followed by the second. His boots are looking a bit worse for the wear, like he’s been too busy beating the shit out of me to care about the state of his shoes.

  “So this is the thanks I get?” Uncle Clint grunts.

  I roll onto my back so that I can see his face. Not because I care to lock eyes with the man who hurt me for so long, but because I can’t glare at him with the full extent of hatred in my soul if I’m staring at his boots.

  “This is the thanks I get for raising your useless ass,” he goes on, glaring down at me. The arm I sliced is wrapped in a heavy white bandage, and the sight of it gives me a grim sort of satisfaction. “You running away. Takin’ off in the middle of the road like that, makin’ me chase after you. I just tore the countryside apart to find you, you stupid bitch.”

  I ignore his final slur and focus on the words that send a harsh laugh bursting up my throat.

  “Raising me?” The words don’t even feel real as they trip off my tongue. “If you ‘raised me,’ that would imply you did something good for my well-being. And you’ve never been good to me a day in your life.”

  Uncle Clint stares at me for a long moment, shock clear on his weathered face. I’ve never talked back to him like this. Usually, his long rants are just met by silence from me, because I know anything I say will only piss him off more.

  But right now, I don’t care.

  Clint’s lip curls, an ugly sneer contorting his features. Then he drops to his knees with a lot more ease than a man his age and weight should have. He backhands me so hard that stars fill my vision, and I struggle to suck in air around the pain. He grabs my taped hands and pins them to my chest. With his other hand, he tugs the knife from his pocket and flips it open.

  No!

  I refuse to let him hurt me anymore. I’m not the girl I once was. I’m not. I was able to run away from him, to rise above my fear and get the hell out. I won’t be de
faulting to my old ways, where I just closed my eyes and took whatever punishment he meted out.

  Fuck. No.

  I buck wildly, yanking my wrists out of his hand. He reaches for me again, brandishing the knife, but I lean into his legs and nail him in the junk with an elbow.

  Clint yowls, falling sideways and dropping the knife in the process. As he hits the concrete, I roll over onto my knees and start crawling away, moving at a snail’s pace thanks to my duct taped hands.

  He recuperates too fast. One meaty fist reaches into my hair and drags me back toward him.

  But I won’t go down without a fight. I will shred him to pieces with every last breath in my body, even if I still die in the end.

  I refuse to cower in fear anymore.

  Suddenly, a chorus of howls reach my ears. My stomach flips over at the haunting noise, and relief surges through me in a rush. There’s no other sound in the world right now that could bring me so much joy.

  “What the fuck…”

  Clint mutters a curse under his breath. He still has me by the hair, and I’m on my knees clutching the hem of his shirt to try to take some of the pressure off my scalp. I can’t see his face from my vantage point, but I wish I could.

  I wish I could see his expression when four massive wolves burst into his basement.

  My shifter companions are the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen as they hurtle down the stairs and across the cement floor. They look magnificent and predatory, their teeth bared and their sights set on my uncle.

  Clint lets go of my hair with an almost feminine shriek, and I collapse onto the concrete. I take the full force of my weight with my shoulder, grunting from the pain. My scalp is on fire from the way he slung me around, which probably means I lost a good chunk of hair. But I’ll take a few bald spots if it means I walk out of this alive.

  Before Clint can reach for me again, I barrel roll away from him. The wolves are charging toward him with jaws snapping, and I don’t want to get in their way as they leap for him. My legs flail and my arms gain some new bruises as I roll across the floor, everything spinning in my vision.