Taken By Werewolves (Lost Princess 0f Howling Sky Book 1)

by Kamryn Hart

  “Thank you, Princess.” The vampire stepped forward, put her hand on the princess’s shoulder, and threw something on the ground. It exploded into smoke that made me cough and my eyes burn. It was ridiculously condensed. That one little device filled all of the gardens in smoke as thick as paste. I couldn’t see a thing.

  For several minutes the smoke stayed thick, and I was still stuck in place. I heard other werewolves scampering around, trying to locate the princess and the vampires, but none of them got very far. The vampires had used their great speed to escape the smoke before it even touched them. Most of the werewolves here still had little to no moonlight other than the growing trickle from a still unaligned full moon. I kept waiting for the killing blow to come, but there was nothing. The vampires had a chance to kill all of us, and they didn’t take it. They didn’t kill a single werewolf.

  But they had Sorissa. And I had no doubt they would kill her.

  My lips trembled, and I ground my teeth. I squeezed my eyes shut. Then I dropped to the ground. I pounded my fists against the ripped-up earth, and I howled out Phantom Fangs’ collective agony.

  CHAPTER 28

  TODD

  THAT SMOKESCREEN THE VAMPIRES made was a nuisance. It lasted for several minutes before it dissipated into the air enough for us to see and move freely again. By then, the princess was long gone. My lips burned with the fresh memory of her kiss. My first kiss, and it couldn’t have been any sweeter. I had no idea what I had been missing, but it wasn’t the kiss itself that I had been missing. It was the princess. And now she was gone.

  I wanted to chase after her right away and rip her out of the vampires’ grasp, but the vampires had a big enough head start that we’d only be chasing them all the way back to Crimson Caves. We wouldn’t catch up before then. We’d die if we acted recklessly, and that wouldn’t help the princess. But neither would waiting. I needed to come up with a plan quickly. I couldn’t let her die, especially not when she was starting to feel as necessary as the air I breathed. My chest felt like it was bleeding open without her here, like a piece of me had been ripped away with her.

  Caspian hadn’t gotten up from the crumpled position I found him in after the smoke cleared. He was shaking, staring at the dirt. Rodrick was breaking things. Aerre was pacing. I had never had an easy time reading my team, but I understood them perfectly now. Their pain blended with my own. Sorissa had tied me to these three just like she had tied me to herself.

  It wasn’t jarring like I might have thought something like this would be. In fact, it probably made things easier for me. There were four living things in this world that meant something to me. Now I could understand them. I thought maybe I even cared about them. More than anything. I knew, at least, that I wanted to keep them safe. Phantom Fangs meant something to me. It always had even when I used tech as an excuse for my actions. Sorissa came in and made it all clear. Sorissa.

  My brain cycled through several plans, and I kept the gears turning as I stood statue still. King Philip hadn’t bothered to say anything to us. He was talking to his guards, trying to get things back in order. Everyone was purposefully avoiding Phantom Fangs. I understood we had become bigger outcasts than ever before after what the princess did. I wasn’t sure exactly what her kisses entailed or how it worked, but I’d figure that out later. I knew it didn’t involve the king’s plans for the Lost Princess.

  The king shot glances our way as he continued damage control. It looked like he was debating about when to come over. He was no doubt formulating his own plans. I’d come up with a plan first. I made tech inhibitors. I’d be able to use them with any kind of system as long as I could get close since they turned off electrical currents. The princess had helped me assemble enough of them that we might be able to do something about Crimson Caves, but the real problem came with the caves.

  The Crimson Caves were nearly impenetrable with motion-sensing gun turrets that could blow anyone to pieces. It would be impossible to sneak in undetected unless I could somehow hack into their system, but that would be much harder to do than it was with Paws Peak and that was only partly because a tech field wouldn’t work unless I was inside of the caves. There was a reason we were gathering intel on Paws Peak when we overheard talk of the Lost Princess. I was still new at this infiltrating business. Two months in Phantom Fangs didn’t make me an expert.

  “Todd, what are you thinking?” Aerre asked and stopped pacing.

  “Anyone who needs to should restore their moonlight reserves when the full moon is aligned, but brute strength alone isn’t going to get the princess back. I’ve got a plan.” I said that, but I wasn’t confident I’d come up with anything good in time. I didn’t have the time or the intel to properly prepare. I think the others sensed that, but they didn’t say anything. Apparently, the four of us would try anything if it meant saving Sorissa’s life. And we couldn’t afford to wait.

  There was one other possibility, though. Since the full moon wasn’t aligned, that meant Sorissa would get another chance to recharge. Maybe she would get away on her own. Maybe not. The vampires saw what she could do. They must have been confident they could contain it or prevent it now that she was spent. I absentmindedly bit my lower lip.

  Finally, the king decided to break away from the other werewolves to scold us outcasts. He went up to Caspian specifically. He raised him from the ground by the bloody collar of his formal shirt and growled in his face. “What have you done?” he demanded.

  Caspian wouldn’t meet his gaze even though he told me over and over how important eye contact was.

  “The bloodsuckers will either try to use her as some kind of bargaining chip or experiment on her and eventually kill her. We were going to end this, Caspian, the war, but your team failed. You were distracted by a werea you knew you couldn’t have. Nothing good comes of her being tied to you. You’re a suicide squad. You agreed to be expendable, to do everything it took to keep Wolf Bridge safe, to end the Prime War, but you’ve damned us all.”

  I had never seen Caspian avoid eye contact like this. I had never seen him so despondent, and I had certainly never felt it stemming from him. I didn’t like it. I walked forward and announced, “We have a plan. We’ll get the princess back. We’re bound to her somehow, right? I can feel her presence just under my skin even though she’s getting farther away with each passing second.” I paused. I wondered if this worked the same as having planted a tracker on her. There was no way we could miss her if that was the case, even if the vampires tried to give us the slip. This connection should have made me uneasy, but all I could think about was saving the princess. I didn’t even care about the mechanics of it, not right now. Not unless understanding would help us save her. The cogs in my head continued spinning.

  “Todd, do you really have a plan?” Caspian rasped. For the first time since the princess was taken, he seemed coherent. He was staring at me intensely with his dark eyes. The intensity was worse because I could feel it crawling inside of me.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  The king let him go, and Caspian stayed standing on his own. Then the king said, “Don’t leave until after the full moon is aligned. I will have soldiers prepared to leave with you. Phantom Fangs is our secret weapon, but the vampires will be expecting you. You won’t get the princess on your own, plan or not. We can’t let the vampires have her. You’ll need all the help you can get, but I can’t spare much. Paws Peak will likely launch another attack soon. Prince Charles is dead, and King George won’t take that lightly.” He walked away after that.

  I was shocked. Phantom Fangs never had support before. It was always just the four of us, but this was apparently big enough of a problem for the king to get involved. I was glad he did because now we had a real chance at saving the princess’s life. It’d turn into a bloody battle more than likely, but I’d be able to use my tech under adequate cover. Maybe that would be enough. We’d recover the princess. It would work. Somehow, it would work. Because it had to.

  “It�
�s reckless,” I told Phantom Fangs.

  “Reckless is what we do,” Rodrick replied, taking an angry swing at the air with his right fist. “And we always come out on top.”

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Rodrick is right,” Aerre agreed.

  Caspian looked up at the moon. “Rodrick, use your moonlight to heal your wounds right now so you can recharge again when the moon is aligned.” Then he looked at each one of us. The moon was captured in his eyes, shining brightly. “Let’s save our princess.”

  Find out what happens next in Saving the Werewolves.

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  The Lost Princess of Howling Sky

  Prologue: Phantom Fangs FREE

  Book 1: Taken by Werewolves

  Book 2: Saving the Werewolves

  Book 3: Queen of Werewolves

  Marked by the Moon

  Book 0: Her True Wolf FREE

  Book 1: Her Brave Wolf

  Book 2: Her Fierce Wolf

  Book 3: Her Wild Wolf

  Book 4: Her Noble Owl

  Book 5: Her Bad Cat

  Prime

  World Guide

  Gods

  Lureine: The werewolf god.

  Yessma: The vampire goddess.

  Cor: The human god.

  Prime: The world.

  The Prime War: The world war that has existed since the beginning of time.

  The Three Species

  Werewolves

  Base Form: A werewolf’s human-like body.

  Moonlight Form: A werewolf’s wolf-like body.

  Wereas: Female werewolves.

  Cubs: Werewolf children.

  The Mate Claim: The bind that seals a werea to a werewolf.

  Maneaters: Werewolves who feed on humans.

  Shields: Werewolves who protect humans.

  Vampires

  Vampyres: Male vampires.

  Scamps: Vampire children.

  Bloodsuckers: A derogatory term used by all other species.

  Humans

  Rebels: Humans who still fight.

  Agitators: A derogatory term for rebels used by shields and complacents.

  Complacents: A derogatory term used by rebels for humans who don’t fight.

  Tethered: Humans turned werewolf.

  Thralls: Humans turned vampire.

  Meat: A derogatory term used by maneaters.

  Blood: A derogatory term used by vampires.

  The Hellfire Strike: An attack launched by Glory Valley that used planet-destroying tech. It defaced and changed Prime forever.

  Goodlands: The small amount of land left untouched by the Hellfire Strike.

  Badlands: The large amount of land destroyed by the Hellfire Strike.

  Glory Valley: The last human kingdom, responsible for the Hellfire Strike, and consequently destroyed by the kingdoms that remained.

  The Tech Ban: Worldwide prohibition of tech after the devastation caused by the Hellfire Strike.

  The Reintroduction of Tech: Tech comes back, starting over from the remains of old tech and from scratch.

  The High Kingdom: The kingdom that “rules the world.”

  The High King: The king of kings.

  The High Queen: The queen of queens.

  Howling Sky: The once most powerful werewolf kingdom and the High Kingdom that ruled for a time after the Hellfire Strike.

  The Fall of Howling Sky: When Howling Sky was destroyed by Crimson Caves.

  The Moonlight Child/The Lost Princess of Howling Sky: A werea cub blessed and chosen by Lureine. She was presumed lost after the Fall of Howling Sky.

  The Standing Kingdoms

  Paws Peak: A werewolf kingdom that was always in competition with Howling Sky.

  Wolf Bridge: A werewolf kingdom that has stayed mostly neutral in terms of werewolf politics.

  Crimson Caves: The last vampire kingdom and the one responsible for the Fall of Howling Sky.

  Freedom: The home of the surviving descendants of Glory Valley, and the base of operations for the rebels.

  Tech: Technology

  The Heart: The source of power for all of Wolf Bridge.

  Roaders: Off-road vehicles made for rough terrain.

  Pactputers: Portable computers.

  Tech Fields: Hotspots that allow communications with the tech inside.

  Intelibands: Intelligence bands.

  Commsbuds: Communications buds.

  Portacomms: Portable communicators.

  Lunalite: A mineral that amplifies moonlight and is found only at the bottom of Lake Luminous.

  Moonlight: The substance that gives werewolves their power, but it can only be absorbed on a full moon.

  Lightning Stones: Stones that store and release electricity.

  Witches: Rare beings born with unexplainable power.

  Witch Woods: A forest well inside of the badlands, but it is untouched.

  The Witch of Witch Woods: The only known witch left. She will grant you anything should you navigate her woods and give up what you value most.

  Phantom Fangs: A secretive squad of four unconventional werewolves stationed in Wolf Bridge and the ones credited for killing the last vampyre.

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  Message from the Author

  The Lost Princess of Howling Sky. I love this story. It's been a lot of fun diving into this fantasy world and the reverse harem sexiness. I hope you'll join me for the second book! Sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date on all news concerning this series and many others!

  About the Author

  Kamryn Hart is a paranormal shifter romance fanatic. There’s nothing like the love a hot shifter guy has for his mate. Between the intense heat and sweet as candy romance, these stories are enough to make anyone melt away into blissful cottony clouds. Don’t forget the magical aspect. Fantasy is in Kamryn’s blood, so of course she’d choose a fantasy outlet for her romantic heart. (And let’s face it, wolf shifters are flipping awesome and the ones who started this obsession.) Kamryn will bring even the most reluctant shifters to their knees for their mate. After all, Fated Mates equal forever love.

  Kamryn's website: kamrynhartauthor.com