Forever Broken
Page 1
Forever Broken
A Talon Pack Novel
Carrie Ann Ryan
Contents
Praise for Carrie Ann Ryan….
Acknowledgments
Forever Broken
MOON GODDESS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
BLADE
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
BLADE
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
BLADE
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
BLADE
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
AUDREY
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
A Note from Carrie Ann
About Carrie Ann Ryan
More From Carrie Ann Ryan
Excerpt: From Breath and Ruin
Excerpt: Whiskey Secrets
Forever Broken
A Talon Pack Novel
By: Carrie Ann Ryan
© 2019 Carrie Ann Ryan
© 978-1-943123-93-3
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Cover Art by Charity Hendry
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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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 person or use proper retail channels to lend a copy. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
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Praise for Carrie Ann Ryan….
“Carrie Ann Ryan knows how to pull your heartstrings and make your pulse pound! Her wonderful Redwood Pack series will draw you in and keep you reading long into the night. I can’t wait to see what comes next with the new generation, the Talons. Keep them coming, Carrie Ann!” –Lara Adrian, New York Times bestselling author of CRAVE THE NIGHT
“Carrie Ann Ryan never fails to draw readers in with passion, raw sensuality, and characters that pop off the page. Any book by Carrie Ann is an absolute treat.” – New York Times Bestselling Author J. Kenner
"With snarky humor, sizzling love scenes, and brilliant, imaginative worldbuilding, The Dante's Circle series reads as if Carrie Ann Ryan peeked at my personal wish list!" – NYT Bestselling Author, Larissa Ione
"Carrie Ann Ryan writes sexy shifters in a world full of passionate happily-ever-afters." – New York Times Bestselling Author Vivian Arend
“Carrie Ann’s books are sexy with characters you can’t help but love from page one. They are heat and heart blended to perfection.” New York Times Bestselling Author Jayne Rylon
Carrie Ann Ryan's books are wickedly funny and deliciously hot, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. They'll keep you up all night!” USA Today Bestselling Author Cari Quinn
"Once again, Carrie Ann Ryan knocks the Dante's Circle series out of the park. The queen of hot, sexy, enthralling paranormal romance, Carrie Ann is an author not to miss!" New York Times bestselling Author Marie Harte
Dedication
To my first readers, my second readers, my latest readers, and all the ones in between.
Thank you.
Acknowledgments
I never thought I’d get here. Seven books and seven novellas in the Redwood Pack series and then nine books in the Talon Pack series means I’ve spent my entire author career deep into this world.
I fell in love with the Redwoods, then fell in awe with the Talons.
It’s over now.
Well…at least for now.
And I know I couldn’t have done it without my team.
Thank you Chelle for everything, and not only my edits.
Thank you Charity for my cover and this theme.
Thank you again to Tara for pushing these books and pushing me to write better.
Thank you Viv for helping me plot something new and a little dangerous.
Thank you to the rest of my team who help me with every single part of this book. We’re growing closer together as we keep writing and I love you guys so much.
Thank you to my readers for following me along the way and for being so amazing. I couldn’t do this without you.
And once again, thank you Dan. I miss you.
~Carrie Ann
Forever Broken
In the finale to the award-winning Talon Pack series from NYT bestselling author Carrie Ann Ryan sets, the final Brentwood must find his mate as the war with the Aspens comes to a close.
Cheyenne Liles has watched all of her friends mate into the Talon Pack and have their lives changed forever, one by one. She’s stood back, helpless to assist in the war with a rival Pack. But just when she thinks her time with the Talons is over and believes she should move on with her human life, the Aspen Pack Alpha takes matters into his own hands, altering her fate far more than a single mate mark ever could.
Max Brentwood used to be the smiling one, the only Brentwood who was somehow able to save his soul during the last Alpha’s reign. But his life was irrevocably changed one fateful day on the battlefield, and he was never the same again. Suddenly, Max is forced to face his future and make a choice when Cheyenne comes into danger: let fate decide, or watch his world crumble around him.
The shifters of this world have fought demons, humans, and themselves. Now, it’s time to find out who they truly are as the war between the Packs ends, and the moon goddess finally takes a stand.
MOON GODDESS
Change came with time, that was something she had learned long ago. The world as they knew it wouldn’t be without change. Under another moon, another blanket of stars, she had chosen the first warrior.
The first hunter, who had broken his own laws—broken the laws of nature and pride.
And when she took his soul, only to force it to share space with that of the wolf he had killed, she had known change would come.
It always did.
When she made the first shifter, she had known the change to come would alter the world, but since she wasn’t a goddess of pure prophecy like her sisters, she hadn’t known the true extent of her actions. They, these new warriors, had been the ones she needed to make, and her sisters had understood. Some had said it was her destiny.
She was the moon goddess, the one who changed the world—much like each of her sisters had. But she was special.
She had watched her progeny grow and spread throughout the world. She’d witnessed them overcome great hardship and defeat great evil.
The demon that had come from beneath the earth had threatened it all, and yet her shifters had prevailed. They had made their choices well, and in doing so, had created a new life for so many. Their offspring had saved the world, and she knew if they were to survive, their children’s children would likely need to do much the same.
Her shifters had kept their secrets, had survived because of it, but now…the world had changed. Because, as she’d said, time moved on and change came with it.
She hadn’t made good choices, nor had she made bad. That was on the Pack, the individual. She had taken the soul of one who made a bad decision and forced him to see the horror he wrought.
That had made the man see the good, be the good.
But she hadn’t forced that change.
&n
bsp; He had.
And now, those who were good, and those who were bad, were on opposite sides of a war that should never be.
There were more forces at work, more gods and goddesses, more than merely she and her children. But she knew that when the change came, what was right and what was needed might not prevail.
The Alpha who called himself the Supreme of all, a title that held no value without the strength and power behind it, possessed something he shouldn’t. How he found it, she didn’t know, but it shouldn’t be in play at all.
And now, because of it, she would have to change herself.
She knew what she had to do.
She knew what must come.
But when she made a choice, when the change finally came, she didn’t know what would be left standing in the ashes at the end.
She wasn’t the prophecy-sighted one of her sisters, wasn’t the goddess who could see what was to come.
But she could see death in the eyes of her children. Could see the demise of all the people surrounding them.
Because of something that shouldn’t be.
So, when the next change came, she, the moon goddess of old, would make her choice.
She just prayed to the others surrounding her that it wouldn’t be too late.
And that the cost of the change wouldn’t mean everything.
Chapter One
Blood roared in Cheyenne Lyon’s ears, but she didn’t scream. If she did, he would win. And if he won, then all would be lost. It wasn’t just her life she held back her pain for, but the lives of her friends. The only family she had ever known.
This shouldn’t be how it turned out.
She was supposed to be safe away from the world that had darkened around her, away from the fighting and magic that were so far out of her depth. The things that she, a woman of science, had no hope of truly comprehending.
The man behind her that wasn’t truly a man lowered his head to breathe on her neck, sending chills racing down her spine. These weren’t the chills of anticipation that came from being with a lover. Instead, they represented the dread that came from death, that portended the uncertainty of her own fate.
“It’s almost ready. Soon, you won’t have to wait for what’s to come. Soon, you’ll do your duty, and the next steps will be taken.”
Cheyenne closed her eyes, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to know why Blade, the Alpha of the Aspen Pack, wanted her. But she knew she didn’t have a choice.
She was stronger than the tears burning in her eyes, stronger than the need to run and hide from the monsters that lurked in the dark. At least that’s what she’d always told herself when she stood by her friends’ sides as they each found their mates and became part of the Talon Pack; thereby, somehow becoming enemies of the Aspen Pack.
Enemies of Blade.
Cheyenne had fought alongside her friends and their new people, their new wolves and lions and witches, as she tried not to end up bleeding and dead because she was a mere human in the world of the supernatural. She’d kicked and screamed and tried to fight when she been too weak but had prevailed. The others, however, had been far too strong for her to defeat on her own. She’d stabbed and killed when one of the Talons, Max, a man who was now family to her friends, helped her.
He’d helped her.
But he wasn’t here to help her now.
She swallowed hard, aware that Blade still stood behind her, either waiting for her to say something or just wanting to hear himself speak. She had to focus on him, had to concentrate on the present and not what she’d done in the past or who she’d fought alongside.
Cheyenne was a vet, she took care of animals and those who couldn’t take care of themselves. Now, she was surrounded by those who could turn into wolves and other creatures she didn’t know and didn’t want to think about. Her friends had said there might be more out there than wolves, witches, and cat shifters, but she’d tried to put that out of her mind.
She’d always been on the outside looking in. One by one—first Dawn, then Aimee, then Dhani—her friends had found themselves deep in the world of darkness and change. And though Cheyenne had only recently discovered the existence of magic and shifters along with the rest of the human world, somehow, she’d been fully ensconced in it thanks to her friends.
But she wasn’t a shifter, wasn’t a witch. She hadn’t even reacted to the wards like the others had, either feeling the magic too much like Aimee or feeling it differently the way Dhani had. Instead, Cheyenne had felt nothing. She didn’t understand the lure of magic and only liked science and indisputable evidence. And while the world beneath her world, or rather the world that now ran alongside hers intrigued her, she wasn’t part of it.
Her friends would one day move on from her more than they already had. She was still aging, while they were not. They were starting new lives, maybe even beginning families and growing into their new powers, strengths, and matings.
And Cheyenne wasn’t part of any of that.
As the last of her friends mated into the Talon Pack, Cheyenne had told herself she was okay, that she would find a way to move on and stay settled within the human world. She’d convinced herself that she’d be able to fade into memory as her friends physically stayed the same age, and she died a natural, human death.
As Blade breathed down her neck again, standing silently behind her, waiting for something unknown to her, she pulled herself out of those thoughts.
Because there would be nothing natural about her death today.
She didn’t know why Blade held her, and he wasn’t being forthcoming about his reasons. Maybe it was because she was the weakest link when it came to the Talons. She might not be a member, but since she’d fought alongside Max and had close friends within the den, maybe Blade saw those connections and thought she was worth something.
Only she wouldn’t be. She wasn’t a mate to any of the Talons or even the Redwoods—another Pack of shifters with deep ties to the Talons. She wouldn’t be able to fight back because she didn’t have a weapon and, unlike her friends, she wasn’t a weapon herself.
“It’s almost ready,” Blade repeated, then moved to start pacing around the small room he had her in.
She didn’t know what it was, but she knew she likely wouldn’t live when it was ready. She didn’t know how she knew that, other than a feeling deep down that this was the end for her, no matter how hard she fought.
Her head ached, and she swallowed hard, not relaxing because even though Blade was no longer directly behind her, he was still close enough to rip out her throat on a whim. She’d been leaving her vet’s office late, after hours, her back already hurting from an emergency sock removal surgery on a lovable Lab with far too much energy, when someone had come up from behind and put their hand over her mouth.
She’d screamed, kicked, and tried to use her keys to claw herself free like she’d been taught in not only her self-defense classes but also from Kameron, Dhani’s mate. He was the Enforcer of the Talon Pack and had wanted Cheyenne and her friends to know moves to protect themselves. Only her training hadn’t been as thorough as the others’ since she didn’t have claws or fangs to fight back with. Instead, she’d used her body weight to try and throw the man off balance, but it hadn’t worked.
He’d been so much stronger than her, and the more she fought, the harder he pulled and squeezed.
Then, he’d knocked her out with the back of his hand on her face, a shocking slap that had set her ears to ringing and had her teeth practically moving in her gums.
When she woke up, she’d been chained to a chair, a dimly lit bulb flickering above her. She’d been alone, cold, but thankfully still clothed. Her cheek stung, and she knew she probably had a concussion.
None of that mattered though when Blade stepped into the room.
She remembered his face, recalled the look of him as he prowled toward her. She’d seen him on the news, had spotted him in person when
she fought by Max’s side, trying to keep both of them alive even though she knew she wasn’t that much help.
Blade was evil incarnate, a true horror in every sense of the word. He’d lost his witch in the last fight, and Cheyenne knew that had cost him. Scarlett had apparently helped him cross the lines of dark magic and move into the area where someone could lose their soul if they weren’t careful. He’d tried to get at the Talons for numerous things over the past few years and had nearly succeeded in wiping them out.
Blade had sent rogues over the boundary lines, willing away their need to survive and instilling in them a need to kill. He’d made those rogues break their bonds with their former Packs and had hurt them, forcing them to do what he wanted. He’d kidnapped and tortured Cheyenne’s friends, attempting to use them much like he might be using her now: as a symbol of how weak he thought the Talons were. He’d attacked the Pack with magic, taunted them, and used the human media to prey on them, as well.
He’d broken so many edicts, yet he was still free because he and those in his Pack were stronger than the Talons and the Redwoods—possibly stronger than any other Pack and the humans put together. According to Cheyenne’s friends, Blade wasn’t afraid to use dark magic and risk the end of the world in order to get what he wanted. And because the Talons couldn’t do that without killing their own like Blade was unafraid to do, they were at a disadvantage.