by C. D. Gorri
Wolf shifter Abel is the pack prince. After the murder of his father, he is nothing but fire and fury. To claim vengeance and his place as alpha, he must heed his father’s cryptic final command.
Find his power in Yellowstone. Find Dakota—his fated mate.
And once he finds her, seduce her into taking her place at his side. Love her into risking everything for his pack. Protect her from the uncle determined to see her dead.
Yellowstone is park ranger Dakota’s refuge. There she hides from a lifetime of pain, and from a strange prophecy that her future lies with wolves.
Injured and alone, she sees feral eyes pierce the gloom and braces to meet death—only to watch a wolf shift into a man. A man insisting she belongs to him, and is key to saving his pack.
Love convinces Dakota to follow her destiny with Abel. Danger teaches her the consequences of being an alpha hero’s mate. Strength teaches her to transcend destiny to help the man she loves save a people from ruin.
Moon Claimed is a steamy paranormal shifter romance featuring pack politics, family betrayal and the fight to claim a fated mate.
Chapter One
Abel Blackthorne jerked awake as screams ripped through the pack house.
One breath focused him. His room, dark and empty, offered no clues. Nothing moved. No foreign scents filtered through his nose. Those four walls isolated him with the creeping sensation that something was wrong.
He rolled out of bed on a second breath. Howls rose up outside his window, no doubt summoned by the cries. His inner wolf whined to join them in the fight to protect the rest of the pack from any who dared attack them.
His blood chilled on his third breath. The wails came from his mother.
Abel raced out of his room on bare feet. Down the hall. Vaulted over the railing and landed in the foyer below.
The doors of the home were thrown open. Scents drifting in from the night and the ever-present lavender his mother liked were completely obliterated by the sharp, metallic stench of fresh blood.
His wolf’s hackles rose as his eyes found Adella Blackthorne crouched on the ground, the ends of her long hair dangling in a pool of blood.
“No,” his mother whimpered. “Conrad, don’t you leave me like this!”
Shock and fear galloped through Abel as he skidded to his father’s side on his knees. The man who’d fallen just over the threshold was a stranger to him. His father was full of life, offering boisterous laughs and slamming a meaty hand on the backs of pack members and construction crew workers alike. He held his wolves together through love and loyalty, worked fairly with his clients, and never gave Adella a hint that his devotion waned as they left their youth behind.
The man before him looked small. Pale. His chest rose and fell with uneven breaths.
And so, so much blood welled between his mother’s fingers.
Carefully, Abel peeled her hands away to see the damage for himself. She pressed back down on the wound a second later.
He’d seen the damage from fights between wolves his entire life. Taken and given them himself. Bite marks didn’t leave behind the laceration that marred his father’s side. Knife, more likely. A deep, clean slice turned that larger-than-life father into nothing more than a gutted fish.
His inner beast howled and raged. The urge to rip and tear rode him hard. He wanted blood. Needed it to soothe the wolf pressing at every inch of his skin. Red washed through his vision as the tips of claws darkened his nails.
Someone had attacked the pack. Someone had attacked his father. That someone needed to pay.
“What happened?” he growled, eyes lifting to his mother’s ashen face.
Adella shook her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I… I don’t know! He called to tell me he would be home late. I heard him come inside—” Her throat worked with a hard swallow, but she couldn’t manage another word through her sob.
Abel glanced over his shoulder. The driver’s door hung open where his father had stumbled out. Smears of red ran down the length of the truck in a ghastly marking of Conrad Blackthorne’s final steps. He hadn’t even bothered yanking the keys from the ignition; the engine still hummed with life.
The first enforcer rounded the corner and cut his quick inspection. “Get the healer here, now!” he yelled.
More faces poked through the door, some with the long snouts of wolves and others belonging to men. Abel glanced at his mother, but she was bent over his father. Whispered words of love and devotion encouraged him to stay on this side of life.
She couldn’t step into her mate’s shoes. Orders fell to him. “He’s been stabbed,” Abel told the enforcers. “I want to know where he’s been and who he was with. Go over every inch of that truck. Find any scent. Bring me the fucker who hurt my father.”
“A… Abel.” His father stared sightlessly ahead of him, but raised a shaky hand. “Abel, my boy.”
Abel clasped his father’s hand. The once-iron grip fluttered against his own as Conrad’s strength failed. Horror tightened his chest, but he kept his voice steady. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Help is on the way.”
“Claim your power under the full moon,” his father whispered.
Abel winced and shook his head in denial. “I won’t need to do that. You’re going to make it, Dad.”
“Yellowstone…” His words faded away even though his mouth still moved. “...Dakota...”
Abel shook his head again. The two words didn’t make any sense. “Hold on, Dad,” he insisted. “Hold on.”
His father’s chest stopped moving, and his mother wailed.
Chapter Two
Abel stared out the window as water slowly filled a pitcher. Activity outside snared his attention. He’d avoided it all morning, held out against the sounds piercing through the windows and doors, but there was no denying it now.
Pack enforcers laid the last lengths of wood on the funeral pyre, readying it for his father’s body.
He closed his eyes and waited for a flinch, a howl, any sign of life from his inner wolf.
Nothing. The beast had vacillated between utterly disconnected and ready to steal control since his father’s death. He figured he should be grateful for the silence. Better empty and in control than raging for blood and vengeance.
Sons were supposed to outlive their fathers, but fathers weren’t supposed to be taken so suddenly. Or violently.
“What are you going to do?”
Abel blinked and turned to find Harlan leaning against the counter next to him. The man stood with his arms folded over his chest, the same no-nonsense look on his face he’d worn since he’d been born. Agitation clung to him like a second skin, just like everyone else in their entire pack, but he didn’t allow a lick of it on his face.
The enforcer’s eyes slid from Abel and to the sink.
Water flooded over the side of the pitcher and wet the cuff of his dress shirt. Abel jerked back with a curse.
Fucking monkey suit. Fucking funeral preparations.
Fucking killer still on the loose.
Excess water sloshed over the edges of the pitcher as he dumped in ice. “I’m going to get through tonight, then find my father’s killer.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Harlan frowned. “There are several unmated—”
“No.” He cut his friend off with a quick step away from the sink and through the archway separating the kitchen and great room.
Most of the unattached females had already approached him, and those who hadn’t still made clear just how far their offers of condolences extended with the hungry eyes that weighed and measured him. Of course, the loss of their alpha upset them, but they wouldn’t mind being the next alpha’s mate, either.
Dull anger throbbed in his temples. He’d not yet even properly grieved. He was of half a mind to end the whole charade and send them packing. He and his mother could perform the rites themselves.
Harlan hurried after him. “Someone outside the pack, then,” he whispered fierc
ely. “Perhaps the Conris?”
Just what they needed. Wolf royalty meddling in their pack. The Blackthornes had stayed out of the limelight after shifters were outed to the human world. They didn’t even have an enclave to call their own like the sprawling Conri pack. Just normal territory bordering some protected wilderness, no magical protections at all.
No doubt letting those wolves through the door would bring a whole host of changes, especially after Wolfden joined Bearden in opening their town borders to humans. Conrad made the choice to keep their pack’s existence hidden. Ending the strict law was something Abel wanted, but there were too many stuck in their ways. He needed to secure his rule before he started thinking about changing their long-standing traditions.
Which involved taking a mate. Pack law also dictated no one could claim the alpha role without a mate at his side. An heir wouldn’t hurt, either.
Abel had thought he would have years to find a mate. Time to settle down, time to woo her, time to bring her home to meet his folks and find a place within the pack. That time had been cut down significantly.
“You don’t have much time,” the other wolf voiced his own thoughts.
Abel whipped around fast enough to force Harlan to a stumbling stop. “Are you going to make a play?” he asked in a low growl. “You’re mated. You already have a pup.”
Harlan dropped his eyes. “I don’t want it, but I’m not the one you need to worry about. Take a look around. They need someone to look to as alpha.”
Abel’s focus immediately slid to his mother. Her shoulders shook in silent sobs as another female held her in a tight hug. The pack gathered to mourn their alpha and send his spirit into the ether, not dredge up the next steps of politics.
Except he wasn’t the only one cranked up with suspicion and unease. Nearly everyone shot glances from the corners of their eyes. Trust faltered when one of their own turned up murdered.
They needed someone to step up and take control.
The thought brought him back to his father’s cryptic last words.
Power was always claimed under the full moon, so no surprise there. That was how the Blackthorne pack had changed rule for as long as anyone could remember. Challenge fights, passing of the older generation to the younger, the full moon saw it all.
The rest of Conrad’s words had been gibberish. Yellowstone? Dakota? Did he mean North or South? Not that it mattered, since Yellowstone wasn’t in either.
He rolled his shoulders to cut the tension building within him. “I know,” he told Harlan. “I just need more time.”
Time he didn’t have.
“They’ll maybe last the month. Maybe.” Harlan scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t like this. Any of it. It feels planned.”
Tension returned. Or maybe never really left.
The circumstances of Conrad’s murder were too mysterious for Abel’s tastes. A challenge fight, he understood. Had witnessed several. A mugging or carjacking, those weren’t beyond the realm of possibility.
His father’s phone was missing. No record existed of who he’d met or where. The best trackers in the pack had gone over his father’s truck and come back only with scents that should have been there. Then there was the knife wound, rather than bite or claw marks, which again, offered no motives or clues.
And, the cherry on the suspicious sundae, all had been done within days of the full moon, offering him little chance to secure a mate and the pack before they started eating themselves alive.
Two pack elders, shrouded in black, appeared at one end of the room. “It is time,” one announced.
Thick silence blanketed the pack.
Abel set down the pitcher of water and squeezed through the press of bodies until he stood at his mother’s side. The back of his neck itched with all the eyes watching him. Weighing and judging, more likely. Wondering and doubting if he could fill his father’s shoes.
He held out his arm and waited for his mother to wipe her eyes and place her hand in the crook of his elbow. The silence swelled to a roar when he turned them toward the doors leading outside.
Three more elders waited with a litter carried between them.
His mother stumbled against his side the moment she spotted the body wrapped in white. Abel squeezed her hand, his chest tightening.
The two elders who summoned them from inside took their places, one at the head and the other taking up the last corner of the litter. Without a word, they began the march toward the unlit pyre.
Abel and Adella followed closely behind, with the rest of the pack joining the procession.
Too soon, just like the life taken too soon, they reached the pyre. The four bearers lifted his father’s body while the fifth prepared the torches.
Abel moved to his spot on one side of the pyre and took the flaming torch offered to him. He couldn’t stop staring at his mother across from him. Her face looked haunted in the flickering fire, but she didn’t drop the torch. Tears streamed down her face, but her shoulders stayed straight. She was an alpha’s mate to the end—tough, strong, and proud.
Together, they stuck their torches into the pyre in their last goodbye to the man who meant so much to them both.
Someone in the crowd howled. A second joined the mournful cry, then a third. More added their voices to the song.
Conrad had been a good, fair alpha to them all.
Murmurings jerked him out of his head and he shot a questioning look toward the gathered pack.
The crowd parted, shuffling steps pushing others to the side to give way for the man sauntering through their midst. Tall, dark-haired like Conrad, but without the smile in his eyes.
Abel’s lips peeled back in a snarl. Rasmus had a lot of fucking nerve to enter Blackthorne territory. Too much of it to make his presence known before the pyre was reduced to nothing but ash.
He shoved forward, not caring who he jostled out of the way. Narrowed eyes stayed focused on his target until he stepped into his uncle’s path. “Leave,” he demanded. “You were banished. You’re not welcome here.”
His uncle smirked. “Who’s going to enforce that? My brother? His body burns as we speak. You?” That infuriating smirk widened as he drawled, “You have no right to claim alpha.”
Over his shoulder, Abel spotted others taking up position behind the pack. Big, wide-shouldered, mean twists to their mouths. Zero compassion warmed their eyes or acknowledged the funeral they crashed.
Rasmus brought backup.
Motherfucker.
Triumph flashed in Rasmus’s eyes. His scent roared with impure jubilation.
Abel’s wolf rushed back into existence. Sendings flashed through his head. The image reel of his wolf’s violent desires layered over his somber reality. The beast wanted to shred Rasmus until nothing recognizable remained.
His first memory of Rasmus was a screaming match between his father and his uncle, right in the foyer of the pack house. That the last words he heard from his father took place in the same spot was a shitty bookend.
Rasmus had always been wild. Impulsive. Loud. He didn’t care about attracting unwanted attention. He reveled in it. Humans, especially, were toys to him. Objects to torment. How many times had he been summoned by his father to answer for shifting carelessly or deliberate cruelty? How many angry accusations had Rasmus thrown over Conrad’s sympathies for humans over his own wolf pack?
Two missing hikers had been the final straw. Outright murder drew too much attention to their territory, their pack. Conrad banished Rasmus the moment the bodies were discovered with evidence of a wolf attack.
His uncle threw his arms wide. He raised his voice to be heard over the mutterings. “I, Rasmus Blackthorne, claim my right as Blackthorne alpha. Any,” he flicked a dismissive look over Abel, “eligible male can challenge me for control under the light of the full moon.”
“No!” Adella pushed her way through the crowd. Anger and sadness washed through her scent. “Have you no shame? Conrad burns. My mate burns. And you�
�re stealing these last moments. He was right about you. You’re not fit to oversee a flea circus.”
“Careful, Adella,” Rasmus warned. “Deaths happen in threes, don’t they?”
The cold look he passed between her, Abel, and the burning pyre left little room for interpretation.
A growl sawed in and out of Abel as a hush descended over the gathered pack. Anticipation hummed in Rasmus’s wolves.
Abel held the animal side of him by a fraying thread. “You did this,” he snarled. “You killed my father. You killed our alpha.”
He’d already lost one parent. He wouldn’t allow his mother to be threatened.
Rasmus stepped nose-to-nose with him and didn’t drop his eyes. “Prove it.”
No scents. No link showing any communication since Conrad banished Rasmus. He had no proof except the smirk on his uncle’s lips and the glaringly obvious motive of a younger brother taking what he’d been denied.
Silence wrapped like a noose around the pack. Some dared shift from foot to foot, but most held stock still and refused to meet the gaze he passed over them. They wouldn’t get between them in a challenge fight, and that was what was happening without the fangs and fur.
He didn’t have a mate. He wasn’t eligible for alpha. Harlan said as much. Those ducked glances repeated the condemnation. Even if he laid his mark on the nearest female, the words had been spoken and the doubt planted.
Doubt that needed little tending to bloom into a full mutiny in the ranks.
Rasmus smirked. “You’ll have the same choice as the others. Submit, or accept your banishment.”
Banishment or death, that was what he truly offered. Leaving the former alpha’s son alive and leashed would be a nice symbol for a time, but he knew how it would end. The fucker would gut him as surely as he sliced into his father the moment he became a genuine threat.
Dead couldn’t set the world right. Dead wouldn’t bring back his father or dry his mother’s tears.