Brendan's Fate (Wolves' Heat)

by Odessa Lynne

  BRENDAN’S FATE

  WOLVES’ HEAT

  BOOK 3

  A Novel

  Odessa Lynne

  ODELYN PUBLISHING

  BRENDAN’S FATE

  Copyright © 2014 by Odessa Lynne

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for quotes used in any review, the reproduction or utilization of the work in whole or in part by electronic, mechanical or other means is forbidden without written permission of the author.

  Cover design by Odessa Lynne

  Cover photo © Adam Gryko | Dreamstime.com

  Published by Odelyn Publishing

  odessalynne.com

  First Electronic Publication January 2014

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, events, and incidents portrayed in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit an ebook store and purchase your own copy.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About this Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Author’s Note

  Also by Odessa Lynne

  About the Author

  About BRENDAN’S FATE

  Submit or die…

  Brendan wakes up in the woods with a head injury and an alien named Trey, and no memory of who he is. Others of Trey’s kind are hunting them, and they want Brendan dead. The only thing standing between them and Brendan is Trey.

  Wolves, they’re called, with their wicked claws and sharp teeth, and they’ve shared Earth with humans for years.

  The only thing Brendan knows about Trey is that he’s a leader of the wolves—and that he’s already demanding more from Brendan than Brendan’s willing to give…

  Book 3 of the Wolves’ Heat series continues the story that began with Ian’s Choice and Devon’s Gamble, where Brendan finally meets his fate…

  Chapter 1

  And then you will choose…

  The thought followed him out of a dream and he opened his eyes to sunlight and warmth on his face. A crackle of sound tickled his ear. When he turned his head, something rough and pointed scraped his cheek and the stab of light from the overhead sun forced his eyes closed again. His head throbbed so hard he could feel the pulse of his heartbeat under his temple.

  “Get on your feet. We have to leave here,” someone said, a male voice, spoken harshly, an accent thickening the words.

  He groaned and reached for his head, looking around at the same time. His fingers touched a slick film that dulled the feeling of his fingertips against his skin. A bandage?

  He poked at the spot that hurt the worst and winced at the bright stab of pain that followed.

  “Don’t touch it,” the harsh voice said. “If it comes off early, you’ll risk an infection.”

  He withdrew his hand and slowly sat up, groaning at the stiffness in his muscles. A boot-like brace of some kind started at mid-calf on one of his legs and covered his ankle and foot.

  “How—” His throat was too dry to continue. The air smelled sharp and sweet, an earthy combination of decay and moisture, as if it had rained recently. But underneath it all, there was a hint of smoke on the air, acrid and sour. An accident, he decided. He’d been in some kind of accident. “How long have I been out?”

  As he spoke, the halo afterglow finally faded from his vision.

  He blinked. The shape looming over him didn’t change. Not a man, not quite, but tall and broad and with narrow eyes and a straight nose.

  “About fifteen minutes,” the strange-looking man said.

  Not human, but—

  The name stuck in his mind, unreachable. He should know what this guy was, but he didn’t.

  “What the fuck?” he muttered, looking down at his hand resting on a thick bed of damp brown and gray leaves and at the small red ant crawling across his knuckles. Blunt nails and bruised knuckles, with pale brown hair dusting the backs of his fingers. Shouldn’t he recognize his own hand?

  The ant stung him.

  “Ow!”

  He flung the ant off the back of his hand and jerked fully upright, scattering the leaves with a rustle of movement, exposing a small ant hill swarming with little red ants.

  He got to his feet. His head throbbed harder but he felt steady. The brace was surprisingly lightweight. He barely noticed it was there. He knocked a clump of wet leaves off his thigh. He was wearing denim, he noticed, and a sturdy boot on his other foot. He pulled his black t-shirt away from his belly and flicked away another stinging ant. He frowned. He seemed fit and lean, muscled but not bulky, but shouldn’t he know that?

  “Who are you?” he asked, then added sharply, “What are you?”

  “Traesikeille,” the man said. He might not appear to be human, but he looked similar enough in most respects. Those eyes though, so bright, and that straight nose and those high cheekbones, he had a compelling look about him, and an assurance that said he spoke the truth. “I am Traesikeille.”

  He tried to repeat the word he thought he’d heard but the sounds were too complex, too low, too high, too alien, and he gave up after a frustrated moment. Whatever else similarities they shared, the guy in front of him had the ability to vocalize sounds he just couldn’t replicate.

  The guy paused and stared at him, taking a subtle but strange-looking sniff of the air. “You can call me Trey, a common enough human name that has some similarity to my own.”

  “Trey,” he repeated.

  He should offer his name. He would have—if he’d known it. “Who am I? What’s going on?”

  He started to touch his head again but caught himself in time. “I have a head injury.”

  “It’s a cut, nothing more.”

  “But I don’t remember—I don’t even know my name.”

  “Your memory loss isn’t from your head injury.”

  “Then—”

  Trey raked his gaze over him. “Your name is Brendan.”

  Brendan? The name didn’t sound familiar at all.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “Brendan,” Trey said again.

  Brendan. That would take some getting used to. The idea that he couldn’t remember his own name…

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m Brendan. Nice to meet you.”

  Probably not his best attempt at humor ever—assuming he usually made an attempt.

  Trey’s mouth curved in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, but it was the teeth
that caught Brendan’s attention, eyeteeth pointed and longer than Brendan expected, not fangs but unsettling all the same.

  Trey’s unwavering stare made his heart thump faster. The unsettled feeling lasted until Trey turned his head and looked away, with a slight narrowing of his eyes and tightening of his brow.

  Abruptly, Trey relaxed and breathed deep, returning his attention to Brendan. “We have to leave this area. It’s not safe.”

  Brendan straightened, quickly looking around at the oak trees growing tall and thick, crowded with underbrush.

  “We’re being hunted,” Trey continued. “If they catch up to us, they’ll kill you.”

  “Kill me? Why? What’s going on? Why can’t I remember anything if it’s not because of the cut on my head?”

  “We were on our way to meet the Diviners but someone sabotaged our transport. I had to land over there and it didn’t go well. We’ll have to stay ahead of the ones pursing us or I’ll be forced to fight. If I’m fighting, I can’t protect you.”

  “I can—” Brendan stopped. He’d been about to say he could protect himself, but he didn’t actually know if he could. Still, his natural inclination to spout off something like that said maybe his memories weren’t completely lost to him.

  Trey raised his hand and flexed his fingers. Wicked, sharp claws extended from beneath what looked like dark fingernails. “They’ll be coming with these and they’ll tear you apart if they can keep me too busy to stop them. They’ll certainly try.”

  “Damn,” Brendan said.

  Trey’s claws jutted out several inches, and Brendan could imagine them cutting deep enough to slice arteries. He brushed his hand across his chin and looked around again, eyes catching on shadows in the woods ahead. “Why are they after us?”

  “They believe they have a better idea of how the prophecy should unfold than I do and they want to replace me as First Alpha. Follow me. Stay close.”

  “Okay.” He wanted to ask more questions but he could see that Trey’s attention was elsewhere.

  Trey started off through the woods at a determined pace, just slow enough for Brendan to keep up.

  Brendan looked over his shoulder a time or two, trying to see if he noticed anyone following, but nothing stirred other than a humid breeze through the trees, the rustle of leaves and the constant drip of water making its way down through the canopy above from an earlier rain.

  He looked up as another bright streak of sunlight broke through the trees. Maybe a storm headed their way.

  They walked for a while. Brendan wasn’t exactly sure how long, but the woods slowly darkened as clouds filled the sky.

  His ankle twinged when he took a particularly rocky step, coming down on the other side of a mossy tree trunk that had long ago fallen to the ground.

  “Keep up,” Trey growled from beside him, taking hold of his arm and pulling him along. “I hear someone.”

  Brendan tried not to let Trey’s tone work on his nerves. Nothing he could do about the brace. He was moving as fast as he could.

  He heard a rush of movement somewhere behind them, the thwap of a branch snapping back and the swift rustle of leaves.

  He had no more time to try to guess what the sounds meant.

  “Down,” Trey said and shoved him to the ground beside the thick trunk.

  Brendan’s hands slipped on the damp earth.

  “Get under the tree.” Trey released him and took off into the woods with a challenging roar that vibrated painfully against Brendan’s eardrums and made the hair on the back of his neck and arms stand on end as if he’d just touched a live wire.

  His confusion only stopped him for a second before he started digging at the soft deadfall under the tree’s angled trunk. One end of the fallen tree rested on the ground, while the other had been caught and held in the crook created by two oaks that had grown up so close together that their base had formed a v-shape.

  He had no idea why Trey had told him to get under the tree but he did as he’d been told because he didn’t know what else to do. He had no weapons; the brace on his ankle would only slow him down if he ran; and his lack of context for anything that was currently happening gave him few options.

  He raked another thick pile of debris free and a spider ran across the back of his wrist, the hairy body causing an unpleasant tingle across his skin. He flung his hand, knocking the spider away and then dropped to his stomach, rolled, and shimmied up under the rotting trunk, skin still crawling.

  Snakes, he thought. Snakes could be hiding here. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of that before, but as he tried to control his breathing so he could hear what was going on around him, he blamed it on the memory loss. How could he be expected to remember something like that when he couldn’t even remember his own name?

  A loud crash rattled a nearby tree, and then he heard another roar, this one competing for dominance with Trey’s.

  Brendan held his breath as something jarred into the far end of the tree.

  “Why would you protect him?” he heard, the voice too guttural, too sharp to be Trey. Brendan understood the words, but he instinctively knew he wasn’t listening to his own language. An uneasy anticipation settled in his gut.

  “This isn’t about him.” That voice belonged to Trey, dark and deep and vicious. “This is about your power-hungry group of watchers.”

  “And the prophecy,” the other said. “The whole prophecy, not just—” A strangled whimper cut him off.

  “The prophecy is not yours to unfold,” Trey said, almost too low for Brendan to hear. “Submit, and swear fealty to me, and I’ll release you. Do not … and you will have chosen your fate.”

  Brendan tried to wedge his head out from beneath the tree enough to see, but Trey and his apparent enemy was on the other side, where the protection of dirt and leaves blocked his view. All he could see without exposing himself was the expanse of forest that stretched out for as far as his eyes could see.

  A barbed vine scratched at his arm. The wet ground soaked through the back of his thin t-shirt. A beetle scurried across the dead leaves beside his nose.

  “I do not submit,” the other said, “and the prophecy is more than you pretend. He should be dead and instead you give him the gift of choice.”

  “The Diviners made the decision, not me. But he is mine and no one will be allowed to interfere with my fate, whatever comes.”

  “Death,” the other said, “Death is what—” But he didn’t finish whatever he’d intended to say. He gasped and screamed and then his scream ended in a lurid gurgle.

  Silence followed and Brendan’s heart raced. He knew—knew—Trey had just killed someone.

  And what did he know of Trey? Only what Trey had told him. Only that Trey claimed to know him and had offered him protection of some kind.

  Only that Trey was a killer.

  Chapter 2

  Brendan closed his eyes and swallowed thickly before reopening them. It didn’t matter if Trey was a killer, not yet. Because Brendan had nowhere to go and probably couldn’t survive out here on his own until he found out what the fuck was going on, until he discovered who his friends and enemies were.

  He didn’t even know if he was safe with Trey.

  Trey stopped beside the tree trunk and hunkered down, pulling his blood smeared pants up at the thigh so they wouldn’t bind.

  “Get up,” Trey said. He didn’t offer to help Brendan, just hunkered there and watched Brendan with an intimidating stare.

  Brendan wiggled out from under the tree. Neither said anything while Brendan got to his feet. As soon as he stood, Brendan blew out a shaky breath and turned to look toward the end of the tree’s trunk where he was sure he would find—

  A body. Eyes closed, throat ripped apart, face slashed, chest—

  Brendan turned away before his last meal—whatever it might have been—came up. “Why’d you kill him?”

  “He refused to submit.”

  Brendan tried to gather some moisture in his dry mouth
. He cleared his throat. “What’s that mean?”

  “That means he would have tried to kill us again and again, until either we died or he died. He made his choice.”

  “And then you will choose…” Brendan muttered softly, the words coming without thought.

  Trey’s eyes narrowed on him. “Where did you hear that?”

  “What? I don’t know. Something that came to me when I first woke up. That’s all.” Brendan ruffled his hair back from his forehead to knock loose any deadfall that had stuck there and watched Trey curiously.

  Trey turned away from him. “We have to keep moving until we find shelter. More are coming.”

  “You mean he wasn’t alone?”

  Trey started walking. “No. He had managed to get ahead, obviously willing to risk a confrontation in the mistaken belief he was a match for me.”

  “But he wasn’t,” Brendan said, starting after Trey.

  “No. He wasn’t. I’m First Alpha. If I were that easy to defeat, I would have been dead a long time ago.”

  “First Alpha—” Brendan felt like he was panting to keep up. “What’s that? Like some kind of leader or something?”

  “The leader.”

  “Of…?”

  “Of the wolves. That’s what you call us.”

  “Wolves?” Brendan glanced down at Trey’s hands and tried to walk faster. “Like werewolves or something?”

  Trey glanced back at him and his eyes seemed to glow in the darkening forest. “I have no idea.”

  “You don’t know what you’re named after?”

  “We didn’t choose the name. You did. Humans.”

  “Can you change shapes? Like a shape-shifter?”

  Trey slowed his walk until Brendan caught up with him. “No.”

  Brendan almost growled his frustration. “You don’t say a lot. Help me out here. You know I have no fucking idea who I am or what’s going on. Give me something to work with. Tell me something about myself.”

  “You’re a criminal.”

  “Bullshit. I don’t—” Brendan stumbled over a root. The brace, he thought. The brace made him clumsy. “That doesn’t sound right.”