Love's Salvation

by Jenny Penn

  That didn’t seem right either, but Tex was not one to question the gods.

  “Come on, man.” Brock patted him on the shoulder, breaking him free of his morbid thoughts. “Daisy is probably headed back to the library.”

  * * * *

  Daisy was, indeed, headed back to the library. She got the key from the attic and the flashlight back from Gina, who appeared more interested in her magazine than whatever Daisy was up to. That was fine by Daisy. She wasn’t looking for attention, though she must have garnered some because, as she stepped back into the oppressive musk of the overheated attic, she saw a book lying on top of the papers she had arranged earlier.

  It caught her attention immediately, and she glanced all around to assure she was still alone before approaching the old, leather-bound book. It had a set of initials embossed on it and a sticky note stuck to it. Daisy plucked the note off and read it aloud.

  “Don’t fear the wolves.”

  Daisy’s breath caught, her heart stilling at those words as her mind whirled with the implications that this book had been planted just for her. But by whom? She somehow doubted that the girl below had anything to do with it, but that left only more fantastical explanations, because Daisy was just as certain that she was the only one who had come up there in ages. Unless somebody else knew why she was here.

  She suspected that the answer to the mystery lay in the journal they’d left. Daisy picked the journal up with a reverence that matched the touch of her finger as she traced the outline of the initials.

  S.M.

  Sally Mosby.

  That name was written in bold cursive on the first page, and as Daisy flipped through it, she realized that she was holding the long-dead woman’s personal diary. As she started to read the journal, she became fascinated with the woman’s tale.

  The only daughter of Richard Mosby, Sally had traveled to Lake Adahy when her dad had decided, along with a friend, Nathaniel Crockett, to build a town by the lakeside. They were the founding fathers of Lake Adahy. They’d picked the spot because of its beauty and its rich hunting lands. Crockett was a trapper, and he thought the mountain in the lake was fertile ground for good skins.

  Only it turned out that there were others already living out there.

  There were men, not native like the other tribes that had filled the area, feral men that natives had warned them to stay away from, but Crockett hadn’t listened. He’d established a small trading post about halfway up the mountain. Things appeared to have gone well for several months, but then Sally went to visit, her father pressuring her to show some kindness to Crockett’s pursuit of her hand.

  It wasn’t Crockett, though, that had won the heart of the fair maiden but a man named Nodin Lakota. By Sally’s description, he was tall and strong, loyal and loving, and she’d followed him up into the mountains to discover the natural wonders of him and his pack.

  That is what she called his family. Pack. There was no escaping what she meant as she described the beautiful wolf her love could transform into. There, written in the pages of the journal, was the exact same line that had been written on the sticky note. Sally didn’t fear the wolves.

  Daisy stared at that line before snapping the book closed and holding it to her suddenly pounding heart. It couldn’t be. Sally Mosby must have been sick. Very sick, and hallucinating. None of what she wrote could be true, Daisy’s rational mind told her, but then her soul whispered with certainty that everything she was experiencing was beyond reason.

  Whatever was happening to her, Daisy had to accept that logic didn’t apply if she had any hope of finding a cure for her night terrors. Whatever was happening, Sally Mosby was a part of it. So, Daisy tentatively once again opened the journal and began reading it again.

  It ended with a simple abruptness that sent a draft of cold fear through Daisy. Apparently the pack had gone out hunting when Crockett arrived, having tracked Daisy down. He explained that her father was ill and beseeched her to return with him, so she had, leaving a note for Nodin to follow. After that last entry, there was no more, but Daisy had a sick feeling she knew what had happened.

  Her worse fears were confirmed not an hour later as she finally found a picture of Richard Mosby and Nathaniel Crockett. It was a drawing, but the image was clear enough for her recognize Crockett. He was the monster in her dream. The monster tearing at her clothes.

  The story grew grimmer as she combed through the oldest papers to find Richard Mosby’s journal. It told a starkly different picture of how his daughter had been abducted by the mysterious mountain men and how Crockett had mounted a search party to bring her back, only to find her bloody, used body in a ditch. It was that night that a man was hung from the peak of the mountain.

  Richard didn’t know who he was, but he did know that when he woke up the next morning, it was to find the Devil’s face glaring down at them. According to Mosby, the trading post had been lost overnight, every man within it disappeared. Even stranger was the fact that the shadow of the Devil’s Peak never faded from the trading post. In defiance of the sun, it cast the post in darkness all day long.

  As for Sally, the local preacher refused to allow her to buried on holy ground, believing that she had brought the devil out of the mountain. So, Richard had buried her alone in a pasture just outside of town and left, never to return.

  Daisy closed Richard’s journal and just sat there thinking for a long while. Questions swirled in her mind, but the one that frightened her the most was what had happened to Sally Mosby. Daisy feared she knew. The dreams of being attacked by men and saved by wolves were all starting to make sense, only she suspected Sally hadn’t escaped her fate. Now Daisy feared she wouldn’t be able to escape her own.

  But why her?

  That was a question she had no answer for, except for a hunch that would require a few hours of research, if not more, on a computer. So she packed up Sally’s journal and slipped it into her book bag and headed back downstairs. It was the first time she’d ever stolen anything, but she couldn’t bear to part with it, certain it still held clues for her to discover.

  Besides, she doubted anybody would miss the journal. Whoever had set it out had wanted Daisy to have it. “Whoever” could only be one person⎯Gina. Daisy paused as she passed the key and flashlight back to the bored-looking librarian and hesitated.

  “Is there something else you wanted?” Gina asked after noticing the way Daisy was staring at her. She knew she should say no, but found herself asking a different question instead.

  “I was just wondering, are you afraid of wolves?”

  Gina paused, a smile twitching at the edge of her lips as she slowly shook her head. “No.”

  “I am.” Daisy hesitated before adding on, “I was bitten recently.”

  The other woman didn’t seem surprised, but she did lean over the counter to whisper in a soft warning to Daisy. “You should keep that information to yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “People around here are weird about things like that.” Daisy shrugged as if it wasn’t anything to be weird. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  Daisy suspected there was a lot but could tell the other woman wouldn’t be talking, so she shook her head and swung her book bag over her shoulder. “No. Thank you.”

  “Anytime, honey.” Gina smiled slightly and turned back to her magazine.

  As Daisy headed back to the lodge, she could feel the eyes on her and wasn’t surprised to glance up and see the snow owl had returned. It followed her back to her cabin, settling onto a branch of a tall pine as she shoved in the door. Daisy ignored the bird, sensing there was nothing she could do about it.

  There was no mention of a snow owl in Sally’s journal, but that was the first thing Daisy began to look up as she set up her laptop on the small table and settled down for a long night of research. Only, it didn’t take her long to discover the legend of Malsumis, god and creator of the yeenadlooshi. The yeenadlooshi were skin walkers, shape shift
ers. Strangely enough, the tale of Malsumis was linked to the eternal flame, not to the Devil’s Peak, but Daisy still thought there was a connection.

  There was also a connection between her and Sally Mosby. That one was harder to find, keeping her awake to the early morning hours as she traced Richard Mosby’s line all the way to her. Richard Mosby had married again later in life and had several children by his second wife. One of those children had children, who had children, until the line came down to Daisy through her father’s side.

  She was a direct descendant of Richard Mosby, and that was more shocking than the fact that shape shifters might be real.

  Chapter 3

  Daisy stayed up as long as she could, almost afraid to fall asleep, but eventually the words began to swim on her computer screen. She had to accept that the answers were simply not there. Even if they were, she had long lost the ability to make sense of them. There was only one thing left to do.

  So, she crawled into bed and cowered beneath the covers until she finally passed out. Almost instantly, she awoke in the same nightmare, but this time she knew who was attacking her. It didn’t make a difference. She couldn’t fight off Crockett or the rest of his posse, but she didn’t have to.

  The wolves came to her rescue, and as they streaked past once again, one hesitated to turn his attention on her. That was normally when Daisy started running. This time she hesitated, a whisper of a thought echoing through her head.

  Don’t fear the wolves.

  It was hard not to as she eyed the massive beast watching her with such intensity, but then it did as it had that first night and bowed its head to her before flopping over and showing her its belly. It was a sign of submission, and Daisy didn’t trust it, but she refused to run. She knew how that would end.

  Daisy wanted a new ending, but she was shaking so badly that she couldn’t seem to take that first step. She didn’t have to. She was so focused on the first wolf that she didn’t see the one coming up behind her. It rubbed against her legs, startling her into whirling around and falling over. Suddenly she found herself face-to-muzzle with a large, fanged beast.

  Daisy swallowed hard and went still as the wolf lowered its nose to take a sniff of her hair. She felt the soft brush of its fur across her cheek. It tickled, and she shied away, leaning back to turn her head in time to see the wolf shift into the form of a man. Daisy’s breath caught at the sight.

  He was gorgeous.

  With thick locks of raven hair, he had a set of gray eyes that could easily have mesmerized any woman and the muscles to leave her drooling. Muscles that were completely exposed. Daisy’s eyes widened as they traveled down the man’s naked length to see that his muscles weren’t the only thing hard.

  She swallowed hard and told herself to look away, but it was a struggle to pull her eyes off the sight of his thick, long length. By the time she did, her gaze lifted to find him smiling down at her, and then he was kissing her and Daisy was completely lost.

  She stayed that way for hours. The next morning when she woke up, she was shivering and sweating, but not from fear this time. This time her heart raced with a rapid pound spurred on by the near-release she’d experienced in her dreams.

  Now she had at least one answer. She knew what the wolves wanted⎯her.

  * * * *

  Deep in the shadows of the forest, Tex came awake with a hard start, nearly falling out of the tree where he perched. He caught himself at the last second, even as he heard Brock go crashing down. His brother landed with a groan and a thump far below.

  “Ow.”

  Tex couldn’t help but smile at his brother’s simple complaint. It was so Brock. He understated everything, which was just why, when he worried, the rest of the pack panicked. Today, though, was not a day for brooding. It was one for celebration.

  The note, the book, it had all done the trick. Daisy had accepted them. It was for that reason that Tex couldn’t wipe the grin off his face, despite the fact that he was in physical pain. While mates were allowed to share dreams, they weren’t allowed to come in them, and he was hard and hurting bad.

  The blood pounding through his veins left him feeling hot and restless. He hungered in a way that he never had before, and it was taking all of his considerable self-control not to go chasing after his mate. First, though, he had to get out of the tree.

  Tex took his time climbing down. He moved cautiously, eager to reach the bottom but all too aware of his swollen balls with every shift of his weight. His pants were too tight. Right then, he hated his clothes, even if they were protecting him from the hard rasp of the tree’s bark.

  Large chunks of bark and even wood littered the ground around Brock, who was still lying there, face planted in the dirt, as Tex’s feet finally touched ground. He eyed his brother, wondering if he’d actually hurt himself, but he should have known better. It was hard to hurt a way’a. They were built strong and blessed with an ability to heal that most humans prayed for.

  That didn’t mean they couldn’t hurt.

  Tex was hurting right then as he put a bare foot against Brock’s side and rolled his brother over to find him grinning and sporting a similar-sized bulge to Tex’s own. Brock blinked up at him, letting his smile speak for him.

  “You okay?” Tex asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “Not by a million miles,” Brock retorted, the laughter in his voice making a lie out of his words, “but at least I didn’t crush anything important.”

  Tex snickered at that as he offered his brother a hand to help him up. “Yeah. It would be a real shame if you weren’t in the game tomorrow night. I’d just have to take care of our mate all on my own.”

  “That is not going to happen,” Brock vowed as he began to dust himself off, avoiding one key part of himself. That didn’t mean he didn’t stare down at the erection making itself known from beneath his zipper. “Neither is this thing going to go down. I kind of hurt, you know?”

  “Yes, I do.” Tex snickered. “But I don’t think there is any reason to complain about it.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Brock said, quickly defending himself, “but it sure is going to make it hard to move around…no pun intended.”

  Tex snorted at that and patted his brother on the back. “Come on. We’ve got a mate to track.”

  Brock nodded and fell into step beside him. “We’ve got a Gina to thank.”

  “Flowers?” Tex suggested, but Brock shook his head.

  “That would be too weird, given our past, but we could send Travis and Deacon her way.” Brock perked up at that idea. “You know how they love blondes.”

  Tex did know. He knew that Travis had set an eye on Gina, but he felt a little strange in helping him catch her. “And setting Gina up to get laid isn’t weird?”

  “Yeah,” Brock agreed with a shrug. “But sex is better than flowers every day of the week.”

  Tex couldn’t argue with that. “Fine. We’ll set her up, but we won’t tell our mate about it. You know how funny women can be.”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a hint of longing in Brock’s tone that Tex recognized instantly. Today was going to be hard. Every instinct inside of him urged him to hunt down his mate and claim her as his own. He ached to find out if she tasted as sweet as he’d dreamed, was as soft as she’d felt, and if she’d come apart in real life just as she had in her dreams.

  But tradition had to be maintained.

  Daisy had made the first right decision, but the biggest test still awaited them with the rise of the full moon that night. That thought weighed on Tex throughout the day as he tracked his mate all over the mountainside. The woman was curious, and from all the people she went to interview, it was clear his mate had done her homework.

  That was both good and bad, especially when it led his mate to Mary May Mosby’s old shack in the woods. The crazy witch was one of Richard Mosby’s few surviving descendants. She was nuttier than a bag of granola, which was just why Tex’s kind gave
her a wide berth.

  They understood each other that well.

  Unfortunately, Daisy had to learn the truth the hard way. As Tex watched from the shadows of the forest, he could hear clearly the conversation going on between Daisy and Mary May. She stood on her dilapidated porch, clinging to one rotted rail as she frowned down at his mate.

  “You want to know about Sally Mosby? What makes you think I know any Sally Mosby?”

  “The birth records down at the county office.”

  “And you are?”

  “Daisy Turner.” The sound of Daisy’s voice, strong and certain, sent a warm thrill through Tex, bringing a smile to his lips, even as Mary May’s tightened with annoyance.

  “Tuner?” Mary May spat the name back at Daisy like a blaspheme. “You’re not one of old Jacob’s descendants.”

  “I am.” Daisy nodded, surprising Tex with that bit of information.

  Everybody in the mountain knew that Jacob Turner’s son had married one of Richard Mosby’s daughters after he remarried. Everybody knew, too, that Jacob Turner had considered his sons’ wives his own personal harem. The man was a bastard, and he lived on in tales whispered about to that day.

  “Nothing but turds came popping out of that family line.” Mary May snorted, giving Daisy a look like she stank.

  “Funny you should say that, because all the Turners are buried in holy ground,” Daisy shot back with pointed, if not a little dogged, determination.

  Tex couldn’t deny he kind of found her attitude sexy as hell. He liked a little bite in his women, a little sass and a reason to spank them. Just the idea had his dick throbbing. Mary May, on the other hand, reacted to Daisy’s sharp retort by straightening up like a hot poker had just been shoved up her ass.

  “How dare you?” Mary May started to quiver. “What happened to Sally wasn’t her fault!”