by D. N. Hoxa
Wolf Uncovered (Victoria Brigham #2)
D.N. Hoxa
Contents
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Also by D.N. Hoxa
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
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Copyright © 2018 by D.N. Hoxa
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of
America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or
artwork herein is prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely
coincidental.
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SCARLET JONES SERIES (COMPLETED)
Storm Witch
Storm Power
Storm Legacy
Storm Secrets
Storm Vengeance
Storm Dragon
WINTER WAYNE SERIES (COMPLETED)
Bone Witch
Bone Coven
Bone Magic
Bone Spell
Bone Prison
Bone Fairy
STARLIGHT SERIES (COMPLETED)
Assassin
Villain
Sinner
Savior
MORTA FOX SERIES (COMPLETED)
Heartbeat
Reclaimed
Unchanged
1
Staring in the face of the beginning of a brand new life for me wasn’t easy. After the weirdest week of my life, one that changed me more than I thought possible, all I wanted was to ensure my sister’s safety. For it, I sacrificed my freedom. I gave myself away to a werewolf who had spent two years trying to convince me to work for him. Now that my sister was gone—finally safe—all I could do was watch the street through the window of my new apartment and wonder if I could ever get things back to where they were before…before I ran away and left her. For five years. Not something I was proud of, but to seventeen-year-old me, that had seemed like the perfect solution.
Now, I knew it had been the fear. The fear had made me run away, hide, exist without living. I was wrapped up in such a tight bubble that I had no idea what was really going on with the world.
And that I potentially had the chance to do something about it.
Not me, technically, but the wolf living inside of me.
“So what happens now? Did you really agree to work for him?” Amara asked.
She’d been the one to take my sister Izzy away the morning before, after the most terrifying hour of my life. Facing a guy like Hector Haworth was worse than I could have ever imagined, but by some miracle, I survived. So did Amara, a girl I’d only met two days ago, but who’d helped me against Haworth and his men.
“I did.” I swallowed hard. When she said it out loud, it made it all sound more real.
“He’s Finn Germain,” she said with a sarcastic laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
With a heavy heart, I turned to face her. “I know, Amara. I had no other choice.”
Finn German was the werewolf who ran the Agency for Unusual Orders—an Agency that could do pretty much everything for you: find, steal, escape, hide—even kill, if your pockets were deep enough. He was a dangerous man, one who could slip me out of the Executive Control Unit like it was no bother at all. He was also the only man who could make my sister disappear and create a brand new life for her. A life of freedom.
“What about Red?” Amara asked. My heart skipped a long beat. “Could Finn or the ECU confirm that he’s dead?”
Dead.
But Red was already dead. He was a vampire—a dead man who lived. During the fight with Haworth at his house in Queens, he’d disappeared. After the sun came up, all we found were piles of vampire ash on the floor, but there was no way to determine whose ashes they were. Nothing survived the burn. A very sad ending to a being.
“No. Nobody can do that.” I turned back to the window like a coward because I didn’t want her to see the tears in my eyes. Vampires were even more dangerous than Finn. Smart people kept away from them at all costs. But if you’ve followed my story so far, you know I’m not one to make smart decisions. It’s why I decided to allow Red to help me in my search for my sister. It’s why I allowed him to slowly slip into my mind, crawl under my skin, and control the beating of my heart like he owned it. Every part of me ached at the thought that he was gone. That I was never going to see him again.
My wolf disapproved. She didn’t like vampires.
“You didn’t see anything?” Amara asked.
She’d come with me to my apartment after my sister drove off with Finn and his men. Now, I waited for him to return for me.
“No. Did you?” I asked halfheartedly, but I already knew the answer. If she’d seen anything, she wouldn’t have asked about Red.
“No, but I don’t think he was there at sunrise. He’s far too smart for that,” said Amara, making me smile. She was right. Red was a smart vampire.
“Maybe he’ll come back at nightfall.” He hadn’t the night before, but he could always come tonight. Or the next.
“Maybe,” Amara whispered. Wiping my tears, I turned around and smiled.
“Do you want something to drink?” I walked over to the fridge, this one much less fancy than the one in my last apartment, only to realize it was empty. Of course it was. I didn’t live there. Finn had rented the apartment for me. He’d officially taken control even over where I slept.
“I’m fine,” Amara said, looking at the empty fridge, too. “So what happens next, Victoria?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. Finn is going to come back, and he’s going to take me somewhere—probably to train. He was very vague about it.”
He’d already shut down my website and social media accounts for my pet private investigator business, but that was okay. What I needed was to train. I had no idea how to even properly shoot a gun, but the fact that training was the only option I had and not even my choice took all the fun out of it.
“You’re still going after Haworth, right? That asshole killed Nadia,” she said through gritted teeth, her wide brown eyes full of fear and anger.
I remembered Nadia. She was Haworth’s daughter, and she literally put a knife in his back to stop him from killing Amara. She paid for it with her life, too.
“Was she your informant?” I asked Amara instead. She knew things about Haworth that nobody else did.
“She was my friend,” Amara said, her voice breaking. Feeling like a stranger—I was a stranger to her still—I sat down across from her on the couch. “That bastard killed my mother, Victoria. He killed Nadia’s mother, too. We were trying to stop him, and now, she’s…she’s…”
She couldn’t finish. Tears slipped from her eyes in a rush, but she was no coward. She didn’t try to hide them like I had. My first instinct was to go over there and hug her, but I didn’t know if she’d like that.
Her mother was dead. It was no wonder sh
e was so set on finding and killing Haworth. Just the thought of someone killing my mother…
“You have to help me,” Amara said. “I need to find him. I need to kill him.”
My heart broke with every word she said. “I can’t.” As if I’d slapped her, she leaned back on the seat. “I agreed to do whatever Finn wants me to do, and he’s not going to let me anywhere near Haworth.”
“But you saw what he could do,” she said in a whisper.
“I did, but I’m doing this for my sister. This is the only chance she’s got.”
At the mention of my sister, the look in Amara’s eyes softened. She understood. She knew what it was like to do things for family. Izzy was my family, just like the man and the woman who raised me, though they weren’t my biological parents. I still loved them. I would still kill for them—or give up my freedom.
“This is yours,” she said, and put something on the table. I smelled it before I saw it. The Reaper String. Just the sight of it made my blood crawl. I wanted to ask Amara to keep it for me, but I knew that Haworth wanted it. He was going to look for it. And if he found Amara on her own, she was going to die. So I swallowed hard and looked away.
“When do you leave? Are you coming back?”
Just as the words left Amara’s lips, there was a knock on my door that made us both jump. My body felt like it began to float a few feet on air. It was Finn, the only person who could answer Amara’s question. I smelled him without trouble now.
It was time.
I don’t know what I expected, but Finn took us to Greenwich. That’s where his offices were, but he didn’t stop there. He took me two blocks away, and his Mercedes stopped in front of what looked like an ordinary three-story building with a dark pink exterior and a barbershop on the first floor. At first, all I smelled were the humans. At least ten of them were inside the building, but the closer we got, the stronger the smell of spells became. It wasn’t just one kind of magic but all of them mixed together. If I didn’t know that this place was even more dangerous than his headquarters before, now I had no doubts.
When we walked through the entrance, I sniffed the air hard to try to determine exactly what to expect, but other than the spells and the humans around, I got nothing. Finn walked me over to an old elevator, and when the doors closed, he swiped a card over a small button that looked broken. The car began to move down instantly. I thought I’d feel awkward being alone with him like this, but the fear of what I was going to face soon didn’t let me think about anything else. The screen atop the buttons didn’t show where we were going, how many floors we’d passed, but I guessed three before the doors opened. The corridor ahead was painted grey with only one white light overhead that made my eyes squint. The smell of spells was overwhelming, but I’d already decided not to make the mistake of breathing through my mouth anymore. No matter how many times bile rose up my throat at the intensity, it was not worth not knowing what was coming for me.
Not anymore.
Finn used a key to open the grey door at the end of the corridor. A whole other world awaited me on the other side of it.
Like I said, I had no idea what to expect, but I was honesty surprised to find a large hall with colorful chairs and recliners thrown all over the place. There were paintings all over the walls, two vending machines to the sides, two tables with coffee machines and water cans, and even some squishy toys here and there.
And the people…there had to be at least twenty. Witches and werewolves, mostly, but there were two vampires in there, too. Across from us, a glass wall separated what I supposed was the working area full of cubicles and computers. Nobody was sitting in their place when we entered, but about thirty seconds after they saw Finn, dead silence reigned in that place. Everybody sat behind their desks, and they all froze in front of their computer screens, pretending to be working.
Finn had a mischievous grin on his face when he looked at me, his dark brows raised as if to say: see how they’re scared of me? I barely resisted a roll of my eyes.
Nobody watched us as we walked through the office area and to a set of double doors at the other end of it. I was pretty sure that as soon as we disappeared behind it, the people there were going to continue what they were doing before we arrived. I’d always wondered what it would be like to work in a place like this. To have colleagues. To have a coffee machine at work and take cigarette breaks and eat lunch with other people. It must have been nice, I guessed.
The other side of the office area was much darker and lacked color. The grey walls suffocated me, but when we went through another door, I breathed a bit easier again. This place, too, lacked color, but at least it was white. On the right was one door, and on the left were three. Finn took me to the right.
It was his office. Everything inside it was drenched in his smell. It was small, with only one desk in the corner, and countless folders on the two wall shelves to the right. With a sigh, Finn fell in his chair and began to massage the stump of his amputated leg. I almost felt sorry for the guy.
“Have a seat, kid,” he said, showing me the metal chair across from his desk. It was even more uncomfortable to sit in than it looked.
I cleared my throat and tried to look everywhere but at him because I knew very well what was coming. He was going to ask me questions, and now I would have no other choice but to answer them. I was going to have to tell him the truth about me, and I had no idea how to handle that yet.
“We’re in my research and database offices,” Finn said, folding his hands over the desk.
I looked at him, surprised. “I thought you said I’d be training.”
“And you will,” he said with a nod. “In just a few days. Now, if you could tell me what I need to know.” It wasn’t a question.
“Which is?” It was a pathetic attempt to stall, but we both knew there was nowhere to go now.
Finn smiled. “Tell me everything, kid.” He looked like he was waiting for Santa to open his present sack.
My hands were shaking, so I tucked them between my thighs. There was no need to be afraid. I reminded myself of that. Finn was not Haworth. Finn had helped me. Finn wanted me to work for him. He wasn’t going to try to hurt me. And most importantly, he was the only one who could keep me safe.
I drew in a shaky breath and set aside my doubts. This needed to happen. My wolf didn’t object. She was wide-awake, looking through my eyes, trying to decide what to make of Finn, but she wasn’t against sharing our secret. So I gave it away.
“I’m a wolf.”
There. That wasn’t so hard.
But Finn rolled his eyes. “I swear, kid, if you’re gonna—”
“No, no, not a werewolf,” I clarified. Of course he wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t seen me. “I’m a wolf. Literally. I turn into a wolf. Not a werewolf. Just…just a wolf.”
My throat was dry. I wanted to look away from Finn’s wide eyes, but I couldn’t. I needed to see how he’d react.
His eyes squinted, and he held onto his breath for the longest second. Then, he nodded.
“Okay. You’re a wolf,” he said. “What kind of a wolf?”
“Uh…” What kind of a wolf? “I don’t know.” I’d never actually seen my wolf before. I become it. I can’t exactly look at her, but I had seen the fur on her front legs. Reddish brown, just like my hair. “She’s big, I guess. Twice as big as normal wolves.” I’d figured that out when Haworth’s people had first kidnapped me.
Another nod. “What else?”
For some reason, I felt like smiling. “You believe me?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “I mean, not that I’m lying, but…” But, I probably wouldn’t have believed me if I’d been in his place.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Finn said with a shrug. “What else?”
Holy crap, this guy was really something. Had I known he’d take all of this so calmly, would I have told him before?
Doubt it.
“Well, I…” Red thought I was a witch. Haworth thought I was half h
uman. I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t say those words. How could I when I didn’t believe them? I’d had a whole lifetime to come to terms with being a wolf, but these other things? No, they couldn’t be right. I was what I was, nothing more. Not a witch, not human—just a wolf gone bad. And Finn didn’t need to know any of this. But there was one thing he already knew that I could mention. “Humans can see me. They speak to me and behave normally around me.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” he said with a smile. “Anything else?”
Did I want to tell him that I was adopted? Or better yet, found in front of my parents’ house the night my sister was born?
No, he had no use for that information. So I shook my head. “No, nothing.”
Leaning back on his seat, Finn smiled. “I’ve brought you here for a reason. Your sense of smell is your strongest weapon. I do agree that you need to train to fight physically, but I think the first step is to test you and to measure your senses. To try to develop them because, ultimately, that will be the only thing you’ll use when working with me.”
With me. I appreciated that he tried to sugarcoat it, but the truth was simple: I worked for him. He practically owned me. That was exactly what I’d promised him in exchange for Izzy’s freedom, and I was going to make sure I didn’t forget it.
“So you want to run tests on me.” This had been like a nightmare to me for so long. The thought of falling into the ECU’s hands and them running their tests on me in a dark room while I was unconscious was terrifying. But what the hell could I do now?
“Only if you want to. I think that’s the way to go, but if you’re not comfortable, that’s okay,” Finn said.