by Kele Moon
CLAIMED
NIGHTWIND PACK BOOK 1
LAURANN DOHNER AND KELE MOON
Kidnapped then released deep in the woods, Brandi is on a harrowing run for her life, hunted by beasts straight out of a horror movie. But there’s an even bigger, more vicious creature in the woods—the deadly werewolf who saves her life. Jason is much more than a man, dangerous and intimidating, and Brandi still finds herself wanting every unbelievably sexy inch of him.
When he investigates the desperate screams near his secluded cabin, Jason’s shocked to find his own kind hunting a human—but he ends up even more stunned when he accidentally triggers a mating heat in the beautifully lush woman he saved. Overwhelmed with lust, Jason takes her, bites her, binds her to him forever…
Now he just has to break the news to Brandi.
A note from the authors:
Six years ago Kele and Laurann began emailing each other. We became friends and critique partners. That bond grew deeper until we were besties. Both of us have wanted to do a project together but the timing was always off. We’d plot and plan together, having countless conversations, hoping for that day, and then it finally came. The stars aligned, the time was right (LOL), and the Nightwind series came to be. This is the first book in the series and more are coming soon.
ENJOY!
Special thanks to:
Kelli Collins for being an amazing editor we both adore.
Dar Albert for the beautiful cover.
Wanda Prezeau for being the best proof reader two authors could hope for.
And most especially, our husbands, for never once complaining about the hours and hours of phone calls we made to each other that were totally essential to writing this book. No, seriously, they were. We swear. They were all 100% business related. ::shifty eyes::
Claimed: Nightwind Pack Book 1
Copyright © November 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Editor: Kelli Collins
Cover Artist: Dar Albert
ISBN: 978-1-944526-67-2
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter One
Brandi wished she could rewind back to this morning and start over. She would have done anything to change the past few hours, but wishing wasn’t going to save her life…or her sanity.
Instead she kept running, even though her side hurt and her lungs burned. She dodged a tree and nearly tripped on a root. She stumbled, twisting her ankle, but managed to keep going. The fear was so all-consuming she barely noticed the pain.
She’d die faster if she would just give in, but she didn’t want to check out on life. The chilling sound of pounding feet came from behind, closing the distance. Terror flooded her. If she wasn’t so out of breath, the scream wanting to rise might have come out. As it was, only a soft moan pushed past her lips.
They could have taken her down by now. She knew they were faster, but they were toying with her, and that made it so much worse. What kind of twisted games were they going to play with her once they caught her?
Her aching muscles, the pain in her side, and the constant struggle to push breath in and out of her lungs that were burning from overuse were making it hard to keep going even in the name of survival. So Brandi’s mind roamed to keep her attention off her exhausted body.
****
She’d woken up at five and put her bag inside her car. The drive she’d planned was supposed to take five hours. Her best friend, Jenny, had invited her to spend the weekend. They were going to catch up, do some shopping, and just enjoy each other’s company.
Things had gone bad when Brandi pulled over for gasoline in the town of Dryer. It had been the wrong damn place to stop.
She’d been filling her tank at the small, lonely gas station when a van had pulled in behind her to use another pump. She glanced at the other vehicle and the two men inside with passing curiosity. Then she’d ignored them when she saw the men looking back.
She was closing her tank cover when a pair of arms wrapped around her.
Brandi screamed and kicked but the man holding her had been too strong. He easily lifted her off her feet, carrying her to the open side door of the white cargo van in seconds. She landed hard on a metal floor when he threw her inside and the sliding door slammed shut. Brandi was stunned for several breathless moments, but when she did get her bearings, she started screaming again. Even as she tried to find a way to get out, she made noise, hoping someone passing by would hear her.
Willing to leap from a moving vehicle, she wanted out, but the back doors wouldn’t open and neither would the side one.
There was a cage-like wall between the back of the van and the front. The man who grabbed her had climbed into the passenger seat. She tried to remember details about him, hoping she’d live long enough to identify him to the police. He was in his late twenties, had short brown hair, and a scar ran across his chin. He had turned and peered at her through the cage, grinning with thin lips when they first pulled out of the gas station. His eyes appeared hauntingly cold. He gave her a lecherous look, staring at her as if she was a trophy, and somehow she could sense the promise of pain and horror in her future. That had been what first forced the screams out of her—the raw terror that one look caused.
The men in front ignored her loud, terrified cries. She threw herself against the back doors, hoping to jar them loose, even if it meant tumbling onto the asphalt. She tried the handles again. She fought with the side door and she didn’t once stop shrieking. The driver never turned his head as he pulled off the highway, away from the small town, and into the woods. Brandi’s fear escalated as she saw the trees getting denser, knowing there was no one to hear her now.
She stopped screaming. Her throat felt raw and dry. She coughed from the strain. Shaking, she huddled in the back corner of the van praying for a miracle. Someone had to have seen her abduction. Her car remained at the pump, her purse on the driver’s seat with the door open, from when she’d put her ATM card away after paying for the gas. The keys were in the ignition.
Hoping, praying, begging for salvation, she listened for police sirens, but no sound came—just the deafening silence of impending doom that echoed like the hard, thumping rhythm of her heartbeat.
Then the van stopped, and Brandi thought she might actually throw up from the mind-numbing terror. All kinds of horrible possibilities had been running through her mind and she wanted to stop all of this before it became a reality, but she was trapped and powerless.
She watched with dread as both men climbed out of the front of the van.
She stood up, instantly on the defense. She wasn’t going to let them rape her without a battle. She’d seen their faces—and they knew it. She could identify them if she survived whatever other crimes they were about to commit on her. These men weren’t going to let her live, but she’d die fighting.
The side door opened and Brandi shouted, utilizing the element of surprise to attack her kidnapper. By using the higher platform of the van to her advantage, she pulled off a short run-tackle that would have made her older football-playing brother proud.
Shock lit up the man’s features as her body slammed into his.
The crash to the ground was bone-jarring and he grunted from the impact when Brandi landed on top of him. She went for his eyes with her fingernails. She clawed viciously, feeling a keen sense of satisfaction when he screamed.
Hands grabbed her from behind, pulling her away. Then she was in the air as she was thrown from the man she’d attacked. She landed hard, rolling in the dirt, and it forced the air out of her lungs. Pain exploded through her body from the rough landing on her side and she gasped, fighting for breath.
Brandi tried to recover, the battle to breathe taking up all her energy. The man on the ground cursed loudly. When he tore his hands away from where he clutched his face, she saw deep scratches on his eyelids and around his eyes. She’d nailed him but not as badly as she’d hoped. She’d wanted to permanently blind the son of a bitch.
Bleeding and panting heavily, he curled back his lip and growled at her. Literally growled like a dog. The sound was so odd it shocked her.
She was still gaping when a hand fisted in the hair at the base of her neck. She could only make a whimpering sound as the stranger painfully hauled Brandi to her feet, making her feel as if her hair had just been ripped out at the root.
She started fighting the excruciating hold he had on her hair, but she stopped short when she saw the other two men who’d come out of the woods.
As she stared, a third man pulled up in her car. The sense of dread nearly overwhelmed her when he got out of it, because she knew no cops were going to come looking for her now. There was no proof she was gone from the gas station. It would take days for them to find her car abandoned in the woods.
She looked around at the dirt road and the trees surrounding her, making her feel alone and isolated.
The man she’d attempted to blind got to his feet and stormed at her with pure rage etched on his marred face. Brandi tried to run instinctively, but the one holding her wrenched her head back so hard her neck throbbed. Trapped, she cowered from the attack, but one of the new arrivals, a man in his forties, jumped in the way.
“No, Chuck. You can’t kill her.” The man snarled the words harshly. “You wanna tear her up, then you do it by winning the right.”
Chuck pointed wildly to his face, his voice more a growl than anything. “Look at what the cunt did to me!”
“I see.” The older man nodded, looking vaguely impressed. “Stop crying. It will heal by tonight. She’s got fight to her. That’s a good thing. We want one like her. It’ll make the hunt more challenging. Working for it makes the victory taste better.”
Hunt? Terror filled Brandi. What in the hell was the older man talking about? She knew the answer wasn’t anything she really wanted to know.
She studied the five men in the small clearing. Four of them watched her in return, something dark and sinister swirling in their gazes. The older man slowly turned and Brandi met a pair of icy green eyes. He had scars on his face. He was tall, over six feet, and wore sweatpants. She realized they were all wearing mismatched sweats and T-shirts, which was as odd as everything else that had happened.
“She gets a fifteen-minute head start,” the older man decreed as he stared into Brandi’s eyes, appraising her as if she were a piece of meat rather than a human being. “Then the hunt begins. The first one to catch her owns the kill. We’re here to leave those damn Nightwinds a message. Be vicious. Rip her to shreds. Don’t just eat her, spread the parts around, but leave her head alone. They need to know it was a woman. I want them to look at her face. When you’re done, remember to head south and cross the river carefully so you don’t leave a trail to follow home. I’ll clean up this area and meet you where we discussed. Don’t mess around longer than you need to. Be out of the woods well before dark. From our intel, no pack should be this way until nightfall. They’ll find her when they come for the pack run.”
Brandi almost collapsed to her knees but the man holding her hair made it impossible. Shock tore through her. They were going to hunt her? Like an animal? Who the hell were these crazy bastards? They were sick, twisted, and insane. Eat her? Rip her to shreds? She wanted to start screaming, but bile rose in her throat instead
“Why fifteen minutes?” a young, gangling man in his late teens asked while staring at Brandi’s breasts.
“She’s human. She’ll be slow. We don’t want this to be too easy. This is also a learning exercise. Some of you have forgotten your hunting instincts, being forced to live in the city. You’ve grown soft and our pack has taken too many hits to afford your laziness. A human to stalk will motivate you to remember what the hell you are, and teach you to use your natural abilities to track her. This territory will belong to us once we take out this damn pack.”
The younger guy looked grim, as if Brandi had turned from a fun sport into homework. “Fine.” He reached up and tugged off his shirt.
Brandi fought against the urge to throw up as men started to remove their shoes and clothing while their sadistic teacher folded his arms over his chest, looking annoyed and impatient.
The one holding Brandi’s hair released her and stepped back as he also started to undress. She knew she should run but was abruptly frozen with terror.
The older man eyed her, an evil grin tugging at his lips. “Don’t move until I tell you. Then you better run like the wind, little doe.” His smile broadened. “Not that you have a chance to escape, but maybe if you run fast and far enough, they’ll kill you in a fit of rage rather than rape you. The faster you run, the more carnal they’ll be, and the more you’ll look like a helpless animal instead of a hot piece of ass to play with.”
She stared in horror at the four totally naked men, now ready to hunt her. This had to be a nightmare. She silently prayed someone would wake her ass up. Shit like this didn’t happen, but it was all startlingly real.
She stared in numb shock as the naked men dropped to their hands and knees. What were they going to do now? It was like a satanic ritual as they bowed their heads and arched their backs, as if they were praying to the devil they were all cruel and insane enough to worship.
This couldn’t be happening—she was seeing things.
Brandi backed up and would have fallen on her ass if the older man hadn’t grabbed her, forcing her to stop moving. His fingers tangled in her hair as his other hand wrenched her arm behind her back, holding her immobile. He chuckled in her ear as she blinked rapidly.
They must have given her drugs. What she was seeing couldn’t really be happening. Her mind silently screamed that it wasn’t possible.
“Oh yes, it’s real.” The man laughed. “The hair. The bones cracking and shifting. The way their faces are changing and their bodies are reforming. You’re seeing a miracle of nature. Watch as they totally transform into wolves.” He yanked hard on her hair. “Werewolves are real.” His voice lowered to an amused rumble. “Surprise.”
Brandi stumbled and backed into a tree when he released her. She gawked at the four sets of eyes locked on her, cunning and hungry, making her actually feel like prey. Two of the wolves bared vicious-looking teeth and growled at her. She stared at them, open-mouthed. A strangled whimper slipped past her lips, echoing over the throb of fear that had her entire body tight with horror-induced adrenaline.
“Run, little doe,” the older man yelled at her. “Run for your life!”
She gawked at him for a few seconds. That’s how long it took her to realize he’d spoken to
her.
She was the doe. Something to chase, attack and kill, without remorse.
In that moment, she fully comprehended the full scope of her horrific situation and it forced feeling into her numb, shaking body. She turned and ran as though the hounds of hell were on her ass—because they were.
****
Brandi didn’t stop running.
She barely paused to breathe while she made her way blindly through the forest. She’d been pushing herself past the limits of her endurance for what felt like hours now.
No amount of wishing for a fresh start to the day was going to change what happened, and she refused to roll over and quit. She was going to collapse instead. Her body was exhausted. Her lungs burned. Her side was seized with knife-stabbing pain. She could hear something coming behind her, getting closer, even over her ragged breathing and pounding heartbeat. The sound of paws against the mossy ground was undeniable. The panting of a terrifying wolf made all the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.
Something hit her in the back. She went flying forward. Even before she landed on her stomach, Brandi knew she was about to die.
She hit the grass hard, her hands barely saving her face from taking most of the impact. A growl sounded from behind as she lay on the forest floor, gasping and struggling for air.
She turned her head. One of the large wolves was about five feet away, panting from the chase. She tried to crawl, forcing her body to keep moving. Leaves, dirt, and grass slipped through her fingers as she clawed violently at the earth. She saw the wolf move forward, stalking her with its teeth bared. He growled. His front legs lowered and tensed. He was going to attack. She took a deep breath, screamed, and rolled as the wolf leaped at her.
He barely missed landing on her body. She’d moved just in time. With both hands she flung her fistfuls of earth, desperate for a reprieve from the evitable. She was lucky. The dirt hit him in the face. He made a whining sound and jerked away as he brought up a paw and rubbed at his eyes.