Wolf Ridge- Complete Series

by Jayne Hawke

  Shafts of sunlight cut across the dark brown floor in bright golden shards. I paused and watched the dust motes casually floating there in the sunlight. Somewhere not too far away, a bird called out. Jake’s footsteps pulled me out of my reverie, and I walked into the middle of the large space. It was a generously sized barn, easily big enough for six or so of my Mustang.

  We weren’t sure who owned it, and we’d never seen anyone else around there. Jake and I had stumbled across it while wandering through the forest one heady summer day over a decade ago. I remembered how we’d looked at each other when we first saw it before we ran over and looked inside. It was perfect.

  The familiar routine of stretching and warming up helped loosen up my muscles and remove the tension that had been plaguing me. Jake stood before me in nothing but a pair of board shorts. His body was beautifully toned with every muscle clearly defined. I didn’t know how many women had run their fingers and tongues over those muscles, and I really didn’t want to. I allowed the anger at that thought to wash over me. He was a fae. He could handle a good ass-kicking. His healing would take care of it.

  We each knew how the other worked. I could have fought Jake with my eyes closed. He began proceedings with a hard kick aimed at my abdomen followed by a pair of punishing punches to my ribs. It was so familiar and easy to fall into the old routine that it was painful. Even after everything we’d been through recently, nothing had changed when we sparred. It was a dance that felt as natural as breathing.

  He smirked as I easily slipped away from his next blow where I knew it was coming. This was more of a game between us, trying to predict and surprise the other person rather than a true fight. Where he pushed into my space with intense aggression, I toyed with him, ducking and dancing just out of reach. It wasn’t how I fought a real opponent, but it was fun.

  I wanted to really pummel him and get all of my anger out, but I couldn’t make myself do it. There were too many happy memories there in the barn. It clouded the frustration and removed that edge from me, instead pushing me into the familiar steps.

  We were both drenched in sweat and beginning to breathe hard when my fist finally collided with his jaw. I’d been holding back and hadn’t landed as many hits as I would usually have done. Conflict was tearing me apart, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. His smirk broadened into a grin and something tugged at my sternum. I frowned, unsure what the feeling was. It was as though someone had tugged on a little string connected to my heart. Was it the shadow bond with Cole?

  Jake’s eyes went wide, and he rushed to me putting his hands on my upper arms.

  “Are you ok? I’m so sorry, Rosalyn. I lost myself in the sparring.”

  I didn’t think I’d ever seen so much panic or concern on him before. The weird sensation had fallen away, and I felt completely normal. I gently placed my hand in the centre of Jake’s chest.

  “I’m fine. Why? What was that?”

  He looked away.

  “That was my life magic. I took a hold of your life essence. I stopped the moment I realised I’d done it.”

  He looked like a kicked puppy. His eyes were big, and he had that distinctly mopey posture where his shoulders were slightly hunched and he was looking up at me despite being so much taller than me.

  I shook my head and shrugged. It could have been dangerous, I was sure, but getting riled up over a little slip up wasn’t like him at all. Seeing him overreacting was jarring and further cemented how different our relationship was now. It felt as though he was treating me even more like a fragile flower than he had been before.

  “I feel fine. Don’t worry about it.” I brushed him off.

  He reached out and cupped my cheek, looking into my eyes. I wanted to swat his hand away, but he relaxed as his skin touched mine. I allowed the contact for his sake.

  “I’ll be more careful, Rosalyn. I’m sorry.”

  His apologies were starting to grate on me now.

  “Seriously. I’m fine.”

  “I could have killed you...”

  I rolled my eyes and stepped back.

  “Stop treating me like a fragile puppy,” I snapped.

  He nodded.

  “You’re right.” He turned away from me. “Why don’t you head home? I want to do a bit more work on my magic.”

  I ground my teeth.

  “Sure. See you at home.”

  Once again, he was pushing me away, and I was growing tired of it. My fingers itched to text Valentin and see if he wanted to get dinner. I refused to seem desperate or pushy, though, so I left the barn and began the trip back to town. The run would do me good.

  35

  IT WAS A GOOD NINETY-minute run back home, and that suited me just fine. I fell into the familiar motion of running down the narrow animal trails between the trees and undergrowth, allowing my mind to wander. The sun peaked overhead, making me glad that I was hidden beneath the dense canopy of the forest. Birds sang around me, and slowly a smile formed on my face. The adrenaline from the run was pushing out the frustration and anger at Jake’s treatment. Maybe it would be better if I thought about moving back in with Dad.

  The summer tourist season was just around the corner, so I might have been able to get a small waitress job or something. I’d never tried being a waitress or a bartender, but I was willing to give it a go if it helped get me out of the hole I’d managed to get myself into. A small part of me thought about trying to get another baking apprenticeship - it had been my dream for so long. That wasn’t something I was willing to entertain. Taking the time away from the bakery had shown me that I wasn’t as passionate about it as I had been.

  Mom had said that if you get a job doing something you love, it’ll kill that love of it. It’s no longer a passion, it’s just work. She’d been right about baking. I was enjoying screwing around in my own kitchen, and I’d start experimenting with more complicated bakes when I was ready. Blair had been holding me back, and the distance from Taste of Heaven showed me just how toxic that workplace was becoming. Keira was forever doing things to make my life difficult, and Blair always took her side. As much as I hated to think it, the rogue might have done me a favour, turning me into a garou.

  I was feeling pretty good about things in that moment. The canopy opened up, allowing that warm golden light to shine down on the thick undergrowth free to grow in the clearing. Something began tickling my nose, a scent that I couldn’t quite place right away. I slowed my pace and began looking around for something unusual. It was completely unlike the fresh earthy scents of the forest. I came to a complete stop in the middle of the clearing and slowly turned a circle, looking for something out of place.

  Then it hit me. The smell was death. I ran through the short hardy bushes in the direction of the scent and came to a quick stop next to a broad old tree. A body was sprawled out nearby. An arm had become tangled in a nearby bush, staining the dark green leaves a deep red. The face was a bloody mess with shards of white bone protruding. What looked like it had originally been the torso was nothing more than a heap of organs and stark white. I swallowed hard and tried to be calm and logical about this.

  The body had been torn apart. Limbs were scattered around a ten-foot radius. They were all at ground level and didn’t look as though they had been thrown too far, but there was a distinct feeling of a frenzy there. I crouched down and peered at the face. It looked as though teeth were still intact, so maybe the human police would be able to identify the victim and give their family some peace.

  A glance around showed that there wasn’t much blood at the scene. A few droplets clung to hardy leaves and stained the bark of the nearby tree, but there weren’t any pools like I expected. I crept closer and saw that the body was weirdly dry. Not mummy dry, but there was a clear and distinct lack of blood there. So, it was definitely the rogue, and that meant they were doing something weird with the blood.

  My chest constricted as I realised I hadn’t been around Cole in a while, and now this body had shown up. Va
lentin was right. I needed to get some evidence that the rogue was Cole before someone else was killed. Standing up, I pulled out my phone. The human police needed to be notified, but I wanted a second set of eyes on the body first. I was new to this whole ‘dead body’ thing, and I might have missed a lot of important clues. I went back and forth between Valentin and Jake.

  Valentin seemed more knowledgeable about rogues, but something about him made me pause. I rang Jake.

  It took him almost ten rings before he picked up.

  “Sup?”

  “I found another body. It was the rogue.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “It’s by the, erm.” I looked around for an identifying landmark. “The big tree just outside of the clearing.”

  That wasn’t going to help him much.

  “I’ll track your life essence.” I could feel the smile radiating off him.

  “Ok. Thanks.”

  He hung up.

  That left me hanging around a dead body hoping no one else wandered by, forcing me to answer some very awkward questions.

  36

  I’D CLIMBED UP INTO the low branches of the large tree to sit and see if I could spot something I’d missed on the ground. My wolf side wasn’t particularly happy about being up in a tree, but I ignored that discomfort and tried to focus. There were no visible footprints, and I hadn’t been able to pick up a scent other than my own and death. That fit in with the last body I’d seen. The rogue was very good at covering his tracks. Weirdly so. From what the other garou had said, rogues were meant to be instinctual and violent. That was why they were considered dangerous. This one was calculating.

  Jake jogged up and circled around the body with an increasingly deep frown on his face. He made small gestures with his hands, delicate little strokes that he made look so elegant. He moved in a slow precise way with circular hand motions. I couldn’t see any magic, but I didn’t know why else he’d be waving his hands around. After five minutes of circling and hand gestures, he climbed up into the tree with me. I scooted along the bough to give him room to sit.

  “I can’t feel anything,” he said with a huff.

  I wasn’t sure what he was expecting to feel other than possibly horror and revulsion. He’d been so calm while he circled around the body. How many mutilated dead bodies had he seen?

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He continued to look down at the body with a deep frown.

  “I mean, part of my magic means I can feel trails of life essence. I don’t have it perfected, but I’m getting reasonable. I can’t feel anything but yours and the dead woman’s here. I should be able to get a trace on the rogue, or at least the woman to give me an idea who she is. It’s part of my cait sidhe magic.”

  “The rogue removed the life essence trails?”

  That sounded really complicated, and garou couldn’t do much of anything with magic.

  “Yes. It feels like witch magic.” Jake turned to look at me. “Witch magic has a very different feel to it. It depends on what type of witch it’s come from. Their god has their fingerprints all over the magic.”

  That sounded complicated and dangerous. It also suggested that the rogue wasn’t working alone, which would explain a lot of the weirdness.

  “So, the rogue’s working with a witch?”

  Maybe the rogue was actually being controlled by a witch. If they were taking garou as pets, it didn’t seem like a huge step to control a rogue. They could be dangerous weapons in the right hands. That would mean that a witch was targeting these people specifically, though. I hadn’t been able to find any connections between them.

  “Maybe. Nothing here adds up. Sorry I couldn’t do more,” Jake said.

  He’d helped. It wasn’t in the way we wanted, but he had helped.

  “I should call the human police. Then I’ll have to dig around and see if I can find a witch that might be working with the rogue.”

  “I’ll look on the Grim with you,” he said, placing his hand on my bare thigh.

  I looked away. It just didn’t feel right.

  We climbed back down out of the tree. Jake removed our footsteps while I called the human police and gave them an anonymous tip. We ran away from the body as fast as we could to try and make sure we weren’t anywhere nearby when the police showed up.

  If the rogue was working with, or more likely, controlled by a witch there had to be a reason. My first instinct was a power play to upset the garou position in things. I didn’t know much about the politics in the supernatural world, but I did know that garou were at the bottom of the heap. If the witches could make the garou screw up, or look like they, we, couldn’t control our own, then it might give the witches some more power. It made sense in my head; I just needed to look into some things to see if was a real possibility.

  We ran back home in a semi-comfortable silence. I glanced over at Jake and saw his expression with deep creases around his eyes and his mouth pulled down into a frown. His hands were balled up into tight fists. Something was eating at him. Normally, I would have asked, but I didn’t want to get into the argument where he refused to talk to me for my own safety. It was better to back off and let him have his secrets. That was the best chance I had at keeping our friendship alive. I wasn’t sure if it was worth salvaging if it devolved into secrets and facades, but that was a concern for another day.

  AFTER A SHOWER AND a strong pot of coffee with a side of three muffins, I was ready to tackle the Grim. Jake sat next to me on the couch with his laptop open. We had a rock playlist from Spotify playing. Everything felt right. I opened up the Grim website and was disappointed to see that I was still the popular talking point on the front page of the supernatural section. The other topic seemed to be some poor young witch who had turned her skin green at a witch ceremony up in Alaska. I felt awful, but I was glad to have some of the attention turned away from me.

  A quick check of my notifications showed that I still hadn’t been admitted into the garou section of the site. I should have been accepted within 24 hours of my registration with the council, but they were conveniently having issues with their notifications and admitting new members right then. Jake went into the fae sections that he could get into, and I snooped around the broader common grounds.

  There was a new merc job for someone crazy enough to try and take out a cougar shifter alpha. The person putting up the job said that the alpha was an abusive ass and needed to be taken out. Those sorts of jobs were always sketchy. You never quite knew what the deal really was there. You could do some research, but that was time consuming, and time was money. There would likely be a day where I needed the money enough to take on one of those really dangerous jobs, but thankfully it hadn’t arrived yet.

  I poked around the witch-started threads looking for any conspiracies or hints about them trying to rock the boat with the garou. There were some snide comments about garou being nothing but mutts and pets, but nothing that I could really do anything with. I really needed to start making connections and networking. Jake’s mom had known so many people, and those connections had done her a lot of good. I chewed on my bottom lip and wondered if maybe some of them might talk to me. People knew that she trained Jake and me.

  37

  “DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR mom’s contact book?” I asked innocently.

  Callie had been a very forward-thinking woman. She loved working with Hephaestus witches who were also known as techno-witches. She adored her gadgets. Fae didn’t usually want anything to do with witches. The type of magic there was very different. Fae magic came from their land and within. At least I thought so; they refused to give out any details. Witch magic came from their gods. When garou or fae did work with witches, it was often only a specific type of witch. Fae leaned towards the nature witches, garou leaned towards those with gods tied into wolves. It led to a lot of arguments, so for Callie to openly work with many different type of witches was very unusual. I’d loved her open-mindedness.


  As much as she loved her gadgets, one thing she always insisted on doing by hand was her little black book. It was actually a blood-red book in her case. I’d always loved holding it and flicking through the delicate pages, admiring her doodles and notes around the various names and contact numbers. It felt like a piece of magic and history.

  “Yea, you wanna try some people?”

  Jake was typing a PM to someone. I hadn’t expected him to be so casual about it. That one was one of the last things he had left of his mom.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Why would I?”

  He turned to look at me. His hand almost touched mine, but I pulled it away with a soft sigh.

  “I guess you’ve just been weird recently, and that’s a part of your mom.”

  “I trust you.”

  He gave a shrug and a bright smile.

  A notification popped up on the Grim, and I clicked it assuming it would be my acceptance into the garou part of the site. It was a tag into a post of an awful satirical image of me being turned by the rogue. I swallowed down my shame and rage. They wouldn’t be laughing at me when I took this territory and showed them that I was just as worthy and kick-ass as they were.

  Jake headed to his room and returned with his mom’s little red book. He handed it to me with his fingertips lingering on mine. A spark of hope glittered in his eyes. I accepted the notebook and didn’t acknowledge the rest. Putting my laptop down on the coffee table, I tucked my legs under me and began looking through the notebook. It was every bit as beautiful and delicate as I had remembered.

  Callie’s handwriting was small and neat, making it easy to read. She packed so much information onto every page. It had even been divided into sections for the various supernaturals to make everything easier. Garou weren’t going to be much use to me; they’d made their feelings on the turned very clear. Fae wouldn’t even think about lowering themselves to dealing with me, so that left witches.