This Dark Wolf: Soul Bitten Shifter Book 1

by Everly Frost

  Jace sidesteps Baxter’s gnashing teeth and wallops Baxter’s head, knocking him across the forest floor into the nearest tree.

  Before Jace can spin and throw himself at Cody, Cody’s wolf slips past him. I shudder as I realize that Cody wasn’t following his father out of subservience. He used his father to distract Jace to get past him.

  While Jace and Baxter grapple with each other in the distance, Cody races toward Tristan, gaining on us. His wolf is sleek, beautiful in an aggressive way, his gold-tinged fur catching the moonlight that pours through the tree branches. His russet legs make him appear as if he waded through blood, a savage contrast to his agile appearance.

  Tristan is already running as fast as he can in his human form while holding on to me. As fast as he is, there’s no way he can outrun Cody’s wolf. Not when the power blazing around Cody tells me he’s as strong as Tristan—a power I doubt his father recognizes.

  I brace for impact as Cody leaps, teeth bared, aiming for the back of Tristan’s thigh. It’s a move that will bring Tristan down and force him to release me.

  At the same time, there’s a sudden blur of movement from my right.

  A new wolf leaps from the trees, ramming into Cody from the side and knocking him down.

  I would recognize my father’s scent anywhere. “Dad!”

  The two wolves tumble and skid across the forest floor, a tangle of claws and teeth slashing at each other before they separate and leap at each other again, trying to tear each other apart.

  I smell my father’s blood. He’s injured. Cody’s claws have already found a mark—a shoulder, maybe his chest. Fear floods through me. I don’t know if my father realizes how strong Cody is.

  I have to help him.

  Pummeling Tristan’s back, I struggle against his hold. “Set me down!”

  When he doesn’t stop running, I thrash with everything I have, my fists thumping against his spine, my feet kicking at his thighs. My voice rises to a desperate scream. “Let me go! I have to help my father!”

  Still, Tristan doesn’t let me go. “No!” he roars.

  Behind me, my father’s wolf yelps. My heart stops, deep fear flooding through me. I lift myself with my stomach muscles, ram my elbow into the back of Tristan’s head, and follow up by lifting my knee and crunching it into his face.

  With a shout, Tristan veers off course under the impact of my blows. He crashes into the nearest tree, hitting it on the opposite side to where he holds me. The second his arms loosen, I launch myself away from him, landing on my feet, already sprinting toward the fight.

  “Dad!”

  In the distance, Cody’s wolf makes another lunge at my father, but he’s rapidly shifting back into his human form at the same time. His fist collides with my father’s head, knocking his wolf down.

  My father shifts back to his human form, lying naked in the leaves, the scent of his bleeding wounds filling my heart with dread as I try to reach him. He’s concussed, but Cody grabs his shoulders, lifting him.

  “What is she?” Cody roars at my father. “Tell me what Tessa is!”

  My father’s eyes are glazed. He gives Cody a bloody grin. “You’ll never fucking know.”

  I’m still twenty paces away. My legs burn on the upward slope, but I’m trained to run up this mountain. Cody’s question should confuse me, but it doesn’t.

  What am I? Who fucking knows?

  I’ve nearly reached them, but movement behind Cody makes fear surge inside me. Baxter Griffin appears in his human form, bleeding across his temple and chest and down his naked thighs as he runs.

  His fingernails extend into claws as he veers for my father and Cody.

  He’s closer to them than I am.

  Just as Cody lifts my father farther upward, shouting at him again, Baxter rams into them, knocking my father out of Cody’s arms.

  Dad hits the ground on his back, his fists flying upward, thumping Baxter’s head, knocking into the older man’s cheekbone hard enough to shatter an ordinary man’s face.

  Baxter doesn’t slow down.

  He drives his claws right through my father’s neck, cutting through his throat and impaling him against the ground.

  Dad jolts, his shout cut short.

  My scream rises, wailing through the trees. My vision turns electric blue, my wolf’s energy coursing through me, but the glow around my father’s body fades, turning cold before my eyes, and my legs aren’t fast enough.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  My wolf appears at my side, running with my speed, side-by-side while I prepare to fully shift.

  All I see is Baxter Griffin’s neck.

  All I need… is to taste Baxter’s blood in my mouth when I rip out his throat and steal the life from his body.

  Chapter Four

  I’m only a few paces away from Baxter, but I’m aware of three running human forms around me.

  Tristan races toward me from behind.

  Cody races toward me from the side.

  Jace has appeared from the trees and runs at Cody.

  Baxter Griffin simply rises to his feet, his claws dripping with my father’s dying blood, waiting for me to reach him.

  My body shivers as I start to shift, welcoming the change, needing my wolf’s claws and teeth. I taste the change in Baxter’s confidence, the smallest fear entering his eyes as I take my final human step—

  Oomph! Tristan knocks into me from behind, scooping me into his arms. At the same time, Jace leaps at Cody, putting the force of his momentum into his fist, punching the back of Cody’s head and dropping him to the ground. Cody lands hard and slides through the leaves into the nearest tree with a thud.

  Neither Tristan nor Jace stop.

  Tristan swings me around, dragging me up against his body, lifting me off my feet.

  “Run!” Jace roars, sprinting past us.

  I struggle against Tristan’s hold as he hauls me around, unrelenting despite my kicks and thumps. I have to get back to Baxter.

  Off to the side, Cody stirs, grabs the tree trunk, and hauls himself back to his feet.

  When I scream, Cody’s head shoots up, his focus on me across the distance as Tristan hauls me away.

  “I will kill you!” I scream back at Baxter. “I will fucking kill you, Baxter Griffin! You and everyone you love. I will rip your sons apart. I will shred your life into pieces.”

  Tristan wrenches me around and shoves me between him and Jace. He doesn’t try to fling me over his shoulder again. Gripping my hand, he barks an order at me. “Run, Tessa!”

  There’s nothing left for me here. Only the promise of revenge.

  I launch into a sprint, my feet flying through the debris covering the forest floor. Tristan remains on my right, while Jace covers my left, the two men staying close. I have no illusions that they’re protecting me—they’re ready in case I try to get away.

  I sense Cody following us, but he’s slower this time. He must finally be succumbing to all the hits to his head that he’s taken tonight.

  A hundred paces away, the trees become more dense, and I consider my chance to escape. I don’t need a pack like my father did. Now that he’s gone, I have no reason to want to live with my own kind. If I shift, I’m sure I can outrun them all.

  The second I think about veering off course, Tristan barges into me, lifting me off my feet again. Before I can fight back, we break through the final line of trees at the bottom of the forest, and the dirt road appears.

  A dark gray SUV waits right in front of us.

  Tristan swings so that he hits the vehicle with his back, gripping me against his chest and protecting me from the impact. Jace skids to a stop, wrenches open the driver’s side door, and slides in. Flipping a set of keys out of his pocket, he starts the ignition.

  Tristan opens the passenger door. He doesn’t bother ordering me to get in, dropping his hand onto my head so I don’t headbutt the side of the vehicle before he pushes me inside.

  I immediately slide to the other sid
e of the SUV, ready to wrench open the door and slip out that side, but Tristan slams his door shut and the doors lock just as my hand touches the handle.

  “Let me out!” I scream at Tristan before I’m propelled back against the seat when Jace accelerates. The SUV jumps forward, rapidly picking up speed. I clutch the door handle with one hand and the edge of the seat with the other to stop myself being thrown around as we approach the first bend in the road.

  A glance through the back window reveals Cody running from the trees behind us. He skids to a stop in the middle of the dirt road, but he doesn’t try to follow. He rises up to his full height, the moonlight casting around his muscular silhouette as he watches us go.

  We turn the corner and he disappears from view.

  Running away kept my thoughts focused on survival, but now my fears and grief are bashing at my heart.

  “I have to get back to my father.” My voice catches as I spin to Tristan, who was also momentarily thrown back against his seat. “I have to—”

  Tristan slides across the seat, his unsettling green eyes focused and intense as he takes hold of my shoulder in one hand and my face in the other. “Did Cody Griffin mark you?”

  I jolt, my movements stiff, unable to escape Tristan’s grip. “Fuck you.”

  His fingers curl around the shredded material still clinging to my shoulder, pulling it apart so he can study my skin. Dim lights along the doors give us enough light to see each other. Even without it, his wolf will allow him to see in the dark.

  His thumb skims across the top of my breast above the edge of my bra. I shiver as his palm softens against my neck and face.

  He’ll see scratches, but no bite mark.

  “Good,” he says, releasing me.

  From the front seat, Jace glances in the rearview mirror at me, then at Tristan, but he doesn’t say anything before he focuses on the road again. He maintains our speed along the treacherous road. We’ll be lucky if we don’t crash.

  I want to pull my knees up to my chest, curl up and protect my heart from the loss of my father, but I need my feet planted on the floor to keep myself from slipping around the vehicle. I consider the merits of putting on my seatbelt as Jace continues to take reckless chances driving along the twisting dirt road.

  Tristan moves around the back of the vehicle as if the sudden changes in direction don’t bother him. He reaches under the seat and pulls a box from it. Lifting the lid, he retrieves a bandage, along with a bottle labeled disinfectant. After saturating the bandage with disinfectant, he slides across the seat so close to me that his thigh presses against mine. He raises the makeshift swab toward my bleeding shoulder—the one he just inspected.

  I flinch away from him, pressing against the door. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re bleeding,” he whispers, his voice slipping across me like a threat. “You need to stop.”

  “Why?” I snap. “Because my scent is affecting you?”

  His lips rise into a smile while his green eyes harden. His pupils begin to dilate, but he blinks the effect away. “Your scent is the reason you’re still alive, Tessa.”

  I glare back at him. “You want to mark me?”

  He shakes his head, a definitive and certain movement. “The woman I mark will be mine forever. I don’t expect you to live longer than another year.”

  His blatant statement makes me run cold, even though the press of his hand against my shoulder and the heat of his thigh against mine suddenly warm my body. “Then… why?”

  He leans closer to me and the power I sensed in him before fills my head, making me sway like I’m drunk, an overwhelming sensation. My blood is smeared all over his shoulder from where he held me while he was running, blurring in my vision like a crimson stain.

  “Because your power will drive my enemies wild,” he whispers.

  Rage rushes through me. “Wild enough to kill me. I guess that means you want me dead.”

  Tristan’s gaze burns across my face to my lips. His murmur makes me shiver. “Once I’m done with you, there’s only one thing any man will want to do with you.”

  I draw back with a sharp breath, searching Tristan’s eyes, not wanting to acknowledge his intentions. That anyone could want to use me that way. I guess he’s known as the most ruthless alpha for a reason. Nobody is safe from him.

  “You owe me your life now, Tessa,” he says, giving me a satisfied smile. “You will do everything I tell you and when the time is right, you will destroy my enemies.”

  I struggle to breathe.

  If I thought for a second there was a chance Tristan might give me my freedom, that hope is gone.

  My father is dead. I have nobody to love. Nobody who loves me.

  My life is no longer my own.

  I’m now Tristan’s pawn.

  Chapter Five

  The night lights in downtown Portland are more beautiful than I ever imagined, but I can’t focus on them. The whole trip takes nearly two hours. After leaving the dirt road, we exit onto the highway and finally enter the eastern side of the city. The tension inside the vehicle rises as we pass through Baxter Griffin’s territory. Tristan pulls a gun case out from under the seat, loads two pistols, and hands one of them to Jace before he rests the other in his lap.

  I don’t breathe easily until we pass across the river, taking the Morrison Bridge into Tristan’s territory. As we approach the first buildings after the bridge, two groups of men and women dressed all in black peel away from the sides of the buildings, alert and watching us from among the other passersby on the street.

  “Your guards, I presume?” I ask.

  “I control every bridge,” Tristan replies.

  That’s when Jace hands his pistol back to Tristan, who returns both weapons to the gun case.

  Earlier in the trip, I refused Tristan’s offer of help to dress my wounds, snatching the first aid kit from him and cleaning out the cuts across my shoulder and stomach as best I could by myself. But my biggest problem is the wound that isn’t bleeding—the blow that I took to my head when Dawson hit me before I subdued him.

  By the time the SUV turns into a leafy street filled with immaculate homes, my head is throbbing so badly that I can hardly see straight. I’m not sure where we are. We’ve left the city itself behind and entered suburbia, but we’ve also traveled steadily upward so that now I catch glimpses of the city in the distance.

  A garage door opens on the right and Jace quickly swerves inside, driving the SUV down into a small parking garage. It contains two other dark gray SUVs, both identical, parked in a row.

  The vehicle doors finally unlock, but I’m too exhausted to fight my way free. The garage door has already descended behind us, shutting us inside.

  When Jace pulls the SUV into the parking bay beside the other cars, Tristan promptly opens his door and gets out, leaving me in my seat.

  I squint through my pain, watching him round the vehicle and stride rapidly toward a tall woman with dark hair and gentle gray eyes who waits nearby. She stands in front of an elevator, which seems odd, since I’m sure this house doesn’t have more than two floors, let alone the fact that most homes don’t have elevators.

  I struggle to move. Along with my aching head, my muscles have cramped up and the cuts across my stomach are sharp and painful. The curtain of my hair falls over my face. It will hide the bruising from the hit I took to my head. I tell myself I’ve survived worse wounds, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. It doesn’t take away my father’s death.

  I’m not sure if I should prepare myself to fight again, but for now, I’m conserving my energy.

  Jace glances at me in the rearview mirror when I don’t move. I’m not sure why, but his lips harden into a straight line when his focus shifts to Tristan outside of the vehicle. It’s unlikely that he would disagree with Tristan’s plans for me.

  When Jace exits the vehicle too and strides around to my door, opening it for me, I force myself to slip from my seat. In the past, I could nurse my wou
nds in private with only my father to see the aftermath of my pain.

  Now, I’m struggling to maintain my emotional walls. I take a deep breath and lift my chin, but I don’t try to remove the curtain of my hair.

  In the distance, the woman is having an animated conversation with Tristan. A fierce crease forms across her forehead, her gray eyes widening and narrowing in turns. My sharp hearing should normally allow me to hear what they’re saying, but for some reason, their conversation is blocked from me. I put it down to my exhaustion. I need food, water, and rest, but I count my chances of getting any of those as slim.

  “Do I want to know what they’re arguing about?” I ask, leaning against the side of the vehicle to keep myself upright, trying to make it look as if I don’t care.

  “No. You don’t.” Jace folds his arms. He doesn’t elaborate, his gaze passing across the curtain of my hair, but I turn my face away before he can focus on the bruises that must be forming now.

  A moment later, Tristan breaks away from the woman and strides back to me, his bare feet quiet on the concrete floor. He stops a full three paces away from me.

  His cool gaze rakes over me and I’m grateful for my hair since it will hide the pain in my eyes.

  “What now?” I ask, trying to take control of the conversation.

  “Helen will take care of you,” Tristan says. “Jace will check up on you once a week. When I come back, I expect you to be prepared for whatever I ask.”

  Jace unfolds his arms, his lips pressing together even harder and a renewed crease forming in his forehead. But still, he doesn’t say anything.

  “When will you come back?” I ask Tristan.

  “Whenever the fuck I want,” he snarls. He takes a step toward me, his pupils dilating and this time, the darkness in his eyes doesn’t clear so fast.