The uber-alpha’s nostrils flared as I spoke and his hands closed into fists. One of these days, I was going to have to learn what it was about halfies and their human parents that pushed his buttons.
But my mate quickly squelched his own emotions, sinking down into the spot that was still warm and indented in the shape of Ginger’s well-padded bum. “Go on,” he said, his fingers trailing up my arm as if he couldn’t quite manage to keep his hands off me when we were in such close proximity.
I didn’t mind. I felt the same way.
Still, I needed that appendage free in order to pull the invitation out of its envelope. So I shifted over to lean against my mate’s broad chest instead, managing not to sever our connection even as I extricated my arm from his light caress.
Despite now possessing two working hands, I nearly couldn’t pull the small black card out of its sheath because my fingers were shaking so violently. The paper boasted silver lettering and ornamentation that shone against the dark background like a wedding invitation turned on its head. There was my mother’s name and my father’s, a date, a time, a place.
A little line drawing of a gravestone.
“I’ve been invited to my father’s funeral,” I told Hunter. “And I think I really have to go.”
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Huntress Born
Book 1 of the Wolf Legacy Quartet
Werewolf and baker Ember leaves safety to hunt for her missing half brother. But with danger looming on every side, it's only a matter of time before she gets burned.
Chapter 1
I stepped off the bus into a darkened city full of human muggers, territorial werewolves, and countless other scoundrels. But I was prepared. I’d brought cupcakes.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t yet time to eat those cupcakes. Instead, I keyed an Uber request into my phone with one hand while dragging my rolling suitcase clear of the massive wheels with the other. Then I froze as my inner animal abruptly straightened onto full alert.
Wolf. The hint of fur, musk, and testosterone warred for pride of place with urban odors, and I found myself turning in a tight circle in search of the source of the barely present aroma. If my inner beast wasn’t mistaken—and she rarely was—then this wasn’t merely a shifter in human form sliding seamlessly through the city streets the way I hoped to do. No, a fur-form werewolf was nearby, running four-legged in a space where only two-leggers belonged.
Hairs lengthened on the backs of my arms as my inner beast responded to danger by requesting ownership of our shared body. We were female, far from our pack, and boasted no recourse save our own lupine fangs. It was time to pull out those ivory weapons and show this stranger how capable we were of fighting back.
But instead of obliging my animal’s request, I merely stalked to the edge of the lighted circle that marked the bus drop-off zone. Then, drawing extra sensory assistance from my inner wolf, we peered together into the asphalt shadows.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Even in human form, it was easy to pick out the staccato beat of a leaky faucet inside the closed Greyhound station behind our back. Grumbling cars rolled past one block over while human laughter emanated from what smelled like a bar further down the street. But nothing pointed to danger more severe than tired businessmen enjoying a night out on the town. Nothing suggested that my initial impulse—the urge to track down a wolf who possessed the scent signature of a stalker—was anything more than inexperienced-traveler jitters.
This is unknown territory, I reminded myself. Maybe smelling a wolf here is no big deal.
After all, there were several hundred times as many people per square mile in this city compared to the rural enclave where I’d grown up. Presumably, there were several hundred times as many werewolves too.
Still, given the legal imperative against displaying our animal skins to the one-body world, surely it made no sense for a werewolf to be wandering these city streets on four furry feet. No sense...unless the shifter in question was hunting a very specific sort of prey.
Prey like me.
Back home, I would have responded to imminent danger by shifting and running for higher ground. In the process, I’d tug at the pack bond that sat invisible yet ever-present at my fingertips then would laugh with exhilaration as dozens of uncles and aunts and cousins came sprinting up to join me. Together, we’d been known to roust troublesome werewolves away from our borders in less time than it took to whip up a batch of buttercream frosting.
Here though, I was deep in the heart of Greenbriar territory, an invader rather than a defender...from a legal standpoint at least. I had no permission to be present. No permission to walk these streets in search of the brother I’d never before met and who I only hoped was still alive. As such, the smart response would have been to keep my head down and to stay out of trouble. I couldn’t go haring off after a total stranger based on nothing more than a whim combined with a trick of the light.
Chase him. Find him, my inner beast countered. She urged me to blow off human worries and slip into the skin of our wolf. To follow our instincts and run. Now, she added impatiently.
But before we could duke out our disagreement, the distinctive odor of wolf began receding into the distance. Within seconds, the hint of fur had faded to nothing, hidden beneath the overwhelming aromas of rotting garbage and over-applied perfume.
Perhaps the danger had never been present in the first place other than in my own over-tired brain.
And as the scent trail dissipated, I was once again left alone in a strange city with only a few possessions at my disposal. A suitcase, four cupcakes, and a phone that promised connection to my beloved pack mates. The combination would have to be enough.
THE UBER APP REPORTED that my ride was still several miles out and my stomach ached with the enforced distance from pack. So I sank down onto the curb and succumbed to that most lupine of yearnings—the necessity of calling home.
“Ember.” The voice of my father—who wasn’t biologically related but who was very much my alpha—crept over me like the scent of a newly mown meadow. Shoulders that had hunched up around my ears for the last eighteen hours drifted gradually downward and I eyed the cupcake bin strapped to the top of my suitcase with renewed longing.
Not yet, I chided myself. Hearing Wolfie say my name might have made me feel at home, but I hadn’t actually reached a safe harbor. Which meant it wasn’t time for my much-anticipated treat. Not quite yet.
“Dad,” I answered instead, trying to sound like a capable twenty-five-year-old woman rather than like a scared little girl. Despite my fanged alter-ego, this was the first time I’d left Haven under my own volition. No wonder I felt as jumpy as a newborn colt.
And my father must have sensed the worry imbuing that lone word. Because he dove right into the heart of the issue with all the single-mindedness of a born wolf. “Trouble?” he asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” My tone was firm but I knew Wolfie heard the lie in my voice as easily as I’d picked out the pride and affection in his. So I strove to make the next sentence true by recalling the way the scent of fur had faded almost as soon as it entered my nostrils. “I’m fine,” I added, focusing on the fact that the trouble really was gone. I had handled the potential problem. So my initial words weren’t really a falsehood after all.
And the evasion seemed to work. Unfortunately, my father moved on to a question that was much harder to sidestep. “Are you eating your cupcake yet?” Wolfie asked next, his deep rumble the lupine equivalent of a relaxing purr.
This time I hesitated, unwilling to fudge a question so tightly tied to a beloved childhood ritual. Because Dad had been baking gift cupcakes ever since I’d reached my teens, usin
g the unique pastries to celebrate hurdles overcome and milestones achieved. In today’s case, the pastry Wolfie had concocted with his own two hands—unlike the more numerous ones I’d made myself—was tucked away deep within my suitcase, a single-serving bin hiding what was bound to be a work of art.
I hadn’t even seen my present yet. Was saving that particular boost for the moment when I was finally able to let down my guard and relax into my bed tonight. I wanted to eat the gift with care while feeling the pack bond encircle me just like my father’s arms had done so many times before. I wanted to use Dad’s cupcake to remember I was loved.
So, in the end, I didn’t even attempt a lie as I answered my father’s second question of the evening. “Not yet,” I admitted. Then, remembering my supposed independence and the very real distance separating me from my home pack, I added: “But you can go to sleep anyway. I have this covered.”
Wolfie hummed acknowledgement of my honesty, but that didn’t mean he was willing to let me off the hook just yet. “If you’re not eating, then I’m not sleeping,” my father murmured, his words warming my belly far more than a mere morsel of chocolate might have done.
But then the silence between us turned brittle, and I sighed, knowing which often-repeated conversation was coming next. “You don’t have to say it,” I interjected, cutting my father off at the pass. “This might be a wild-goose chase and Derek might not want to be found. If my brother really intended to get to know me, he would have come to visit in person rather than sending cryptic messages that resulted in me crossing territory lines. That all makes just as much sense as it did the first time you said it...but I’m willing to take the chance. I can’t leave my brother dangling if he’s really in trouble.”
“I know,” Dad rumbled, his voice just as warm now as it had been a moment earlier. He didn’t correct my semantics, either. Didn’t mention that Derek was only a half-brother or that our shared mom had chosen to abandon me at birth. Instead, Dad’s next words proved that my adopted father, at least, would always be on my side even if he disapproved of my current actions. “That wasn’t what I was going to say at all.”
The phone went silent as my father paused, and I closed my eyes to better sense his presence. Despite the hundreds of miles that separated us, merely breathing in tandem revitalized exhausted muscles and soothed traveling jitters. I would have gladly sat there all night, soaking up Wolfie’s strength and reveling in the connection of pack.
But I had places to go. Brothers to meet. Alphas to charm. So, at last, I prodded my father back onto track. “Dad?”
Immediately, Wolfie’s deep rumble filled my ears once again. “No matter what happens, Buttercup, I’ll be here to back you up. You can always come home.”
A human twenty-something would have responded with an agitated eye roll. There were even some shifters who might have felt stifled by an adopted parent’s clear obsession with their continued well-being.
But I wasn’t one of the latter. For me, family was everything. As such, I had every intention of finding the half-brother I’d never before met, making sure he wasn’t in trouble, then high-tailing it back the way I’d come as quickly and carefully as possible.
Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to bask in familial reassurances. Because the scent of fur had returned, filling the air more strongly than ever. And this time, it was all I could do to swallow down a lupine growl.
“I’ve gotta go,” I said instead, disconnecting the call without waiting for a reply and slipping my phone into a pants pocket for safekeeping. Then clambering to my feet, I stared out into the darkness in search of a wolf.
Chapter 2
When the stranger emerged from the shadows at last, an inexperienced human would have found him inconsequential. His lupine belly nearly scraped the pavement and each step was placed more cautiously than the last, producing the impression of an abused and tentative stray dog.
But, to a shifter, the threat was obvious. This wolf wasn’t skittishly searching for a handout. He was exercising the careful moderation of a practiced hunter. And, as the only living being within eye shot, I was definitely the one who’d been earmarked as prey.
Opening my mouth, I rolled a great gulp of air across my taste buds in an effort to analyze the stranger’s threat level. He wasn’t particularly dominant—I could smell that much from a distance. But despite his lack of alpha oomph, the male was crouched in readiness to spring while his teeth were plenty long enough to take down an average human.
Luckily, I was neither average nor human.
“I’m Ember Wilder-Young,” I said loudly, taking one long step forward as the stranger paused at the edge of the slim circle of illumination provided by the streetlight above my head. A werewolf shouldn’t have needed excessive volume to pick out words across the distance that separated us. But I opted to raise my voice anyway, mimicking the firm yet gentle dominance my father had embodied for my entire life. “I’ve got a ride coming and your alpha’s expecting me. So there’s no need to wait around. I’m good.”
I seemed to be telling everyone that I was good today...and no one was willing to take my assertion at face value either. Like Wolfie, this shifter snorted out a huff of air that called my sanity into question. But then he lifted his muzzle and inhaled deeply through his moist, black nose.
I could see the moment the stranger caught my scent. The breeze, such as it was, had been blowing in the opposite direction from the beginning or this wolf would have gathered all salient details before even stepping out of the shadows. Now he froze, head cocked to one side as he tried to figure out how a woman like me came to be in a place like this.
“You smell like rich, irresistible chocolate to any red-blooded shifter male,” one of my cousins had told me the day before. “You’re nuts to leave pack lands unprotected.”
Other family members had chimed in with similar admonitions, trying to keep me at home where I was safe. But I had reasons to be here and I definitely wasn’t going to let the first starry-eyed shifter with more libido than sense send me scurrying back to Haven with my tail between my legs.
So I stood my ground as the wolf drifted closer, his eyes gleaming and the first hint of slobber trailing across pink gums. Yuck. Apparently even the mention of an absent alpha wasn’t enough to get me off the hook this time around. Time to come up with a plan B.
Let me, my wolf murmured underneath my skin. She wanted to speak with my tongue, to order the less dominant wolf to stand down. The compulsion would have worked, too...and yet I hesitated, shifting nervously from foot to foot rather than reaching for our most obvious line of defense.
Because I’d learned the hard way that bending a weaker wolf around my little finger with a simple verbal command wasn’t as painless as it appeared from the dominant side. Instead, being controlled by a stronger shifter was akin to listening to nails scrape across a blackboard while watching someone vomit out great big gobs of stinky stomach contents...all while dangling upside down over a deep abyss that ended in a trough of voracious alligators. There was no long-term damage associated with the compulsion, but the ordeal itself was certainly unpleasant in the moment.
So, yes, I could bark this growling shifter into line...but should I? What if my initial impression had been wrong and the male wasn’t busy stalking women who’d made the unfortunate mistake of walking alone at night? What if I was merely on edge from my recent trip and this male intended to remind me not to traipse through someone else’s territory without permission?
When in doubt, don’t, I decided, opting against forcing my opponent to back down the easy way. Instead, I stood a little taller and gazed directly into the wolf’s greenish eyes. “You really don’t want to mess with me,” I promised too quietly for a human to hear.
Then, relaxing my hold over my own inner beast, I allowed the stranger to see a hint of the animal hidden beneath my human skin.
She might have been smaller than my opponent’s animal, but my wolf was no lightweight. Instea
d, she was twice as dominant as our aggressor, twice as able to stand up for herself in either a physical or verbal battle. As intimidation tactics went, showing a glimpse of her behind my eyes was akin to a war-like nation threatening to drop an atomic bomb.
And, sure enough, plan C worked like a charm. Drool dried up in an instant as the shifter swiveled without a sound. Then he was heading back into the shadows from which he’d come, not a single yip of protest reaching my ears.
There was nothing like a stronger force to make a budding bully back down.
“And my Uber’s almost here too,” I noted, glancing down at my phone. I’ll admit my voice was a little smug as I watched headlights flicker across the wall behind me. Already, I was thinking three steps in advance, counting my remaining cupcakes as I imagined doling them out to each person I’d need to charm before I could lay my head on a pillow and drift into rejuvenating sleep.
One for the Uber driver, one for the Greenbriar pack leader, one for my eventual host. Luckily, I had precisely three cupcakes left...not counting my own treat smashed between clean undies and a work blouse, that is. Perfect.
Which is when I picked up a sound from the direction in which the wolf had fled. A wolf’s growl. A woman’s gasp.
Meanwhile, the air around me filled with the sharp scent of overwhelming fear. Perhaps I shouldn’t have given that wolf so much benefit of the doubt after all....
MY INITIAL IMPULSE was to take off in search of my erstwhile companion, but the oncoming vehicle had already purred to a halt before I could make my move. And as I stood eying the expanse of sleek, shiny metal, a tinted window rolled down to reveal a man twice as beautiful as the hunk of steel that surrounded him.
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