by Ellis Leigh
Savage Salvation
A Dire Wolves Mission
Ellis Leigh
Copyright © 2018 by Ellis Leigh
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For inquiries, contact Ellis Leigh at [email protected]
Digital ISBN: 978-1-944336-51-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-944336-52-3
There’s no escaping a Dire Wolf on the hunt...
No one can understand the tormented life of Dire Wolf Luc. As Alpha of his pack, he should be the most powerful and confident in the bunch, but his ability to sense others—the emotions and presences of existing as both shifter and human—has worn him down. Dire Wolves seem to live forever, but Luc has begun feeling as if the end of his road is approaching. He’s also stuck on a mission he can’t solve, searching for shewolves he can’t find, and failing his pack all the way around.
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Cassiel is a woman who makes her own rules and lives her own life—a solitary one in the bush of Alaska with just her sled dogs and a healthy respect for the dangerous lands around her. She has no interest in other people or trying to follow someone else’s rules. But anyone alone in the bush needs to be prepared for predators, and while she’s ready to tackle any threat, there’s one that scares her more than the others. A creature from her nightmares lurking in the dark and howling at the moon.
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One soldier struggling with the overwhelming chaos in his mind, one woman terrified of the monsters that seem to haunt her world, and a chance encounter that brings each of them closer to the edge of death than ever before. In the world of the Dire Wolves, the leader of the pack is the strongest and surest of them all. But when the mission stalls out, Luc will have to use any means necessary to find the women he can’t be sure actually exist…even if that includes scaring off the one woman whose very presence quiets the storm inside him.
One soldier, one fight…one chance at forever.
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Pride makes us long for a solution to things—a solution, a purpose, a final cause; but the better telescopes become, the more stars appear.
Julian Barnes
1
Rage. The emotion ate away at an existence until there was little to nothing left, until all the peace and joy in the world had been devoured. Fueled by hate and heat, by the disappointment of one’s own life and the knowledge that the end was bearing down, there was nothing that could calm it, nothing that could make the inferno burning within subside. There were only distractions.
Scaring humans who should know better than to do what they were doing was one of Luc’s favorite distractions.
“Holy shit, that’s a huge wolf.”
Luc didn’t move, didn’t even twitch an ear. Yes, he was a huge wolf. A Dire Wolf, to be exact. An ancient breed long thought to be extinct that had hunted and killed much larger animals than themselves across tundra and glacier and places far less hospitable than around the Arctic Circle in Alaska. He had no reason to prove that fact. Yet.
“What’s he doing out there?”
“Sitting. The damn thing ain’t moving.”
No need to move, though he would be soon enough. The men were staying in a cabin where they didn’t belong, hunting animals who weren’t to be hunted. Their excitement had woken Luc from a dead sleep, and their other emotions had intrigued him enough to put off his own hunting for the morning to come on this trek. Excitement, arrogance, and a covetous sort of entitlement—he sensed a lot more than just those, but that’s what had enticed him. That’s what had told him these were not your average hunters. That’s what had distracted him from the rage constantly brewing under his skin.
“Send out the dogs.”
“Are you crazy? He’ll eat them for a snack, then come for us.”
Luc may not have been a fan of dogs, the human pets too loud and brash for his preference, but he wouldn’t eat them. He wouldn’t even kill them unless they somehow managed to become a threat. Considering he was likely six or seven times their size if they were sled dogs, he doubted they’d be anything more than a nuisance.
The fear inside the cabin grew, the sensation scratching along Luc’s spine. Good. Let those men be scared. Let them be terrified by the black wraith who lived in the spruce forests near the Arctic Circle. Let them struggle with their own mortality in relation to the beast he’d become—so long as they stayed away from the quarry they sought, his job could be called complete. For the moment.
A hundred thoughts and emotions coursed over his skin, slipped inside his brain and took up space. Implanted themselves in his own emotional core and left him with a confusing sort of mishmash that buried his own feelings somewhere too deep to find. Luc hated to be this close to human civilization, not that there were many places left to escape it. He wanted to be farther north, deeper into the uninhabitable parts of Alaska. Living on the land humans passed over. Alas, he’d been brought down to the Brooks Range area by the sensation of something not quite right. Of a shadow of evil covering the land. He’d been following the local pack there for many, many moons and had been stuck feeling all the human emotions of the tourists, the truckers, the native tribes. He had been buried in sensations that were not his own for far too long, which did nothing to stop the rage from building.
These poachers had been his last straw.
“We can’t hunt with that thing lurking.”
“We’ll wait him out. Johnson wants those bear cubs dead—no wolf is going to get in my way. I don’t care how big the fucker is.”
If Luc had been in his human form, he would have been grinning. Wait him out? These men had no idea who or what they were dealing with.
They would learn.
Two days. The humans’ waiting game lasted a total of two days before their anxious, jumpy energy finally exploded into some sort of action.
“I’m going out there.”
“Are you stupid? That thing has to be twice your size.”
“So? I’ve got a gun. I just need to get close enough for it to matter.”
Luc let an ear twitch, allowed himself that slight movement. It wasn’t for the humans, though. His packmates were close. Phego and Michaela had tracked him down, inching closer as the hours had passed. He could practically taste their worry, feel their sense of duty and family driving them closer. He didn’t want them near these humans, but he didn’t have a way to stop them without ruining his game. He had to trust his Dire brother to keep the shewolf safe while Luc dealt with the humans. Then he would follow them back to camp. Back to the endless percussion of others’ emotions and the puzzle of what was wrong in those mountains that he couldn’t seem to solve.
The door to the cabin suddenly opened, all thoughts of anything other than the hunter on the porch disappearing. Luc dug his claws into the mossy ground, ready to lunge. Not much longer now. The human would move closer, aiming his rifle at the threat of Luc’s huge, black wolf. That would be Luc’s opportunity—his moment to terrify the men into leaving the Range. That was all he was waiting for.
“Holy shit,” the man with the gun said, looking past Luc. Likely seeing the eyes or shadows of the two wolves still tucked away in the thicker, older trees. “There are more of them.”
The man’s fear ratcheted up to near panic, his entire essence turning into a scrabbling sense of self-preservation that burned its
way across Luc’s bones. Not wanting to miss the party, Luc slowly rose to his paws, giving his huge body the time it deserved to unfold, giving the man a show. They thought he was big lying down—they had no idea much they’d missed.
“Dear god.” The man stumbled backward, gun in his hand likely forgotten. Luc took a single step, his mouth watering as the man’s fight-or-flight response triggered Luc’s hunting instincts. He could feel Phego growing closer, knew he’d be forced to rein in his beast soon enough. But until then…
The man moved his arm. It was a single moment, less than a second, and something that may have been a twitch. May have been the man prepping to raise his weapon. Whatever it was about the arm movement that flipped Luc’s switch from torment to target, his reaction came immediately. He was running before the man could even move, growling and snarling as he headed directly toward the human. The man fell back, the scent of urine overpowering everything else as his body released on itself. Luc didn’t stop, though. He pounced on the fallen human, showing his teeth. Growling low and deep and letting the man know exactly the sort of creature he’d decided to tangle with.
A growl from the woods behind him pulled Luc up short, though. That wasn’t Phego—that was Michaela, his Dire brother’s mate. A shewolf he respected and considered pack. He lifted his head, turning in her direction. The gray wolf—much smaller than her mate and damn near tiny in comparison to to Luc—slunk out of the woods, staring him down. She looked serious, which meant Luc’s game with the humans was over.
Or at least it would be once he made his point.
Without warning, Luc jumped on the man, lowering his massive head, snarling viciously as he let his mouth water. Let the drool pass through his teeth and hang there. Let it fall into the man’s face. The human recoiled, shaking and breathing way too hard. His friend never stepped foot outside, but Luc could sense his panic. Could practically taste the determination inside him. That man was leaving, and the one on the ground needed to go with him.
Another growl from Michaela and Luc backed off. Retreating slowly from the would-be poachers. Not turning his back on the one with the gun until he reached the denser tree line. Slipping into the shadows of the woods with his pack.
As soon as Luc disappeared into the darkness, the man on the ground jumped to his feet and ran toward the cabin, his pants soaking wet and his face red. He stumbled twice, nearly falling up the steps leading to the porch, before throwing the door open and racing inside.
“That’s it.” The door slammed behind him, the sound of his footsteps hard and fast as he moved through the little structure.
“Holy shit, what happened out there?”
“What happened? I was almost eaten, or did you not see that wolf pin me down?”
“Fuck, we need to get out of here.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. Load up—we’re taking the snow machines back to town. Johnson can deal with those bears on his own.”
Satisfied for the moment, Luc practically skipped toward his packmates, bumping into Michaela softly along the way. The shewolf snorted her irritation but followed her Alpha through the woods. Back to the mountains where Luc’s world had begun to unravel, his skills tested and coming up lacking.
To where he was certain there were female wolves being held against their will, but nothing he did to locate them worked.
The sense of failure rode him hard, overcoming all the other emotional input from the area and demanding Luc experience it. Demand he pay his penance for not working fast enough, smart enough, hard enough. The hunters no longer mattered, the bear cubs he’d saved forgotten. There was nothing for him to hold on to except for the sensation that he would never fix what he needed to. That he was only making things worse by throwing such negative energy into the world. That he should give up and lumber off into the more desolate spaces to be alone. To surrender to the exhaustion that haunted him. To give up.
Luc was not a quitter, though. He would find those women, and then…
Death had been a long time coming for him.
Luc could not afford any more distractions—he had a job to do.
One he’d been failing at for over a year.
One that only made the rage within him burn that much hotter.
One that, once solved, might bring him peace for the first time in his very long life. Even if that peace was final.
Alaska. The frozen north. The land of the endless night and the midnight sun. The ruggedness of the place had always called to Luc, the scent of the holy wild filling him in a way few things could. Reminding him of the land where he’d been born so many hundreds of years before. His appetite for life increased when he crossed over the invisible Arctic Circle and he stood deep in the wilderness of Alaska. His connection to the earth grew stronger with every step, firmly rooting in his soul and tugging his human side closer to the great wolf who’d guided him since birth. The spirit who shared his consciousness. The one who suffered under the burdens the fates had bestowed on him.
But Alaska also offered him space and perspective, relief from the hecticness that came with a more crowded area. The place gave him the power to see the world for what it was, to sense the seasonal rhythms of the wild around him, and to expand his natural empathic sensibilities to a new level. The Alaskan bush made Luc feel more powerful than he ever had before, even as he hunted for women who might not exist, continually failing in his quest.
Years. He’d spent what felt like years in these forests. Well, not these particularly—he’d only come to the Brooks Range the year before, having been farther north for a time before that. He’d stumbled on to a pack here, though. One that had left him with an impression of sickness. Of vileness. Of something dead and rotting in their hearts. They’d claimed to have two women in their midst, a fact Luc had confirmed when he’d sensed the feminine energy near them. He’d been hunting for them—or any hint of that female energy within the pack—for months. To no avail. He’d failed hard enough and often enough to finally admit his failings and do the one thing he’d never thought he would.
He had been forced to bring in help.
Luc padded into the small camp he’d created—the one he and his packmates used as a home base for their mission. Seeing as how each of his packbrothers had found his mate over the last few years, no one stayed with him for long. He didn’t mind, though—caring for a new mating bond with time and attention was vital to a strong union. Or so he’d seen and heard from others over the course of his life. He had no firsthand knowledge.
“You should shift.” Phego had already shifted human, had arrived at camp long before Luc had, shifting human and donning a wool cloak to keep his human skin warm in the chilly night air. “You’ve had a busy couple days tormenting those human hunters. Be human for a time and eat something with us.”
The “us” being he and his mate—a tall, dark-skinned woman named Michaela who was likely smarter than all the Dire men put together. The woman was a doctor, had midwifed for Ariel—the mate of Dire Thaus—and had healing skills that would be invaluable should he ever actually locate the women he couldn’t stop thinking about.
But Luc couldn’t shift—couldn’t relax enough to allow his human side to take control. He was stronger as a wolf. More in touch with his senses, too. He needed to stay on his paws in case something pinged across his mind about the women. He needed to stay ready.
If Luc were honest with himself, he also would have admitted that he didn’t like being human in these woods. The darkness of them, the sense of malaise that plagued the very air around him, weighed on his human side more than his wolf one. No, Luc didn’t want to shift human. In fact, he hadn’t for days. Maybe weeks. He couldn’t tell anymore.
Phego sighed and looked to his mate, Luc’s refusal to shift obviously worrying him. Michaela didn’t say a word—simply retrieved a plate and pulled the lid off a large black pot. The scent of something that had been simmering all day exploded through the air, making his belly rumble and his wol
f drool. Michaela had been cooking. He padded a single step closer, his muzzle nearly dancing as he took in every scent he could, as he deciphered what she’d made for dinner. The aroma was so rich, so thick and deep, that it practically coated the area around them. How had he not noticed that when he’d come trotting into camp? He knew the answer, though—he’d been too concerned with his search for the women, with his hopes of dismantling the pack of unhealthy wolves in the range. Too buried under emotions that weren’t his. He’d been focused on anything but that which was right in front of him. What more had he been missing?
“Here you go,” Michaela said as she set a full bowl of what looked like beef stew on a tree stump. “Eat something, or I’ll hook up a stomach tube and force-feed you protein shakes.”
Luc huffed, staring up at her. Releasing a soft growl into the quiet night to let her know how unhappy that would make him.
Michaela gave no shits, though. “Try me, Luc. I’m not afraid of you.”
And with that, she strolled off to join her mate closer to the fire, plopping onto the bench next to him and snuggling into his side. Leaving Luc to the dark and his dinner. Not that he minded.
He ate quickly, enjoying the bites of tender meat in his wolf form, even chomping on the carrots and potatoes. Michaela was a good cook, and she liked that particular chore. Said it appealed to the science side of her brain. Luc was simply grateful that she made sure to feed him when she was here.
Luc joined the couple after he’d finished his dinner, rubbing his fur along Michaela’s legs before curling up at her feet. His big body taking up all the room between her and the fire. Thanking her the only way his wolf knew how to do.
Phego chuckled. “You’re awfully soft on my mate, Alpha.”