Prologue
Kyran
Fishing.One of my favorite ways to relax. To calm the noise in my head, focus, and connect with nature.
It just so happens to also be my favorite means of hunting. I’m one of the few of my kind who still do this. Standing in the shallows of the creek, staring down at the water as the fading rays of a dying day cast sparkles over its rippling surface. Watching for the silvery flash indicating a fish ready for me to plunge my snout under the surface.
Small animals skitter around nearby, rustling the brush on the opposite bank. They give me space, and I leave them to theirs. I have no need to menace squirrels and chipmunks. That’s for the cubs, not the clan’s alpha. It’s also a waste of time—not to mention the fact that something so small would do nothing for my appetite, which at the moment is raging. The fishing hasn’t been very successful, and I might turn and head home for something that can be eaten with a knife and fork.
That’s what I’m about to do, too, until an unusual scent catches my attention. So much for fishing. My head snaps up, nose testing the air.What is that?The wind is coming from the east—wolf territory, maybe a quarter mile from where I’m standing.
And along with it comes something else. Something I’ve never felt before, and yet I have no doubt what it means. I’ve heard of this. I’ve had it described to me. The sudden, overwhelming pull of one’s fated mate. At thirty-eight years old, I guessed there was no such mate intended for me. I would have found her by now if there were. Over the years, one friend after another mated up, but never me.
Now, the pull is so strong, there’s no doubt in my mind where I need to be. My mate is out there.
More than that. My mate is in danger.
I take off without thinking twice, without caring about the danger of crossing into wolf territory. All that matters is finding her. Getting to her.
Killing whoever might hurt her.
My paws slam against the soft earth, my wide, powerful body tearing through the brush, breaking branches as I go. She needs me. My mate needs me. I feel her; I feel the danger she’s in.
And before long, I hear voices. I’ve crossed the border now, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Certain things go beyond laws and borders and treaties. Any shifter, wolf or bear, understands that.
“I’m telling you, it will work.” The man’s voice is sharp, full of knowing laughter. “The two of them will be out for ages after they took those darts. I knew as soon as I took care of her, he would come to her rescue.”
“So predictable.” The boy who looks like him snickers, while the curly-haired girl next to him laughs.
“The entire family will run into our trap.” The man’s eyes gleam in the fading light. “Those assholes are going to get what’s coming to them.”
I’m on slightly higher ground, meaning I have a clear view of the four wolf shifters gathered in a tight circle a few hundred yards from where a pair of wolves lie motionless in the center of a clearing. She is one of them. I know she is.
The wolf shifter injected them with something, and they’ve been heavily drugged. She’s still alive, though, so I bide my time, waiting to hear more.
The dark-haired woman is clearly the man’s mate—she clings to him, her brow furrowed. “Are you sure they’ll come before the drugs wear off? We didn’t bring enough to drug them again.”
“They’ll be out until morning. Little Nora will sense the danger her mate is in.” The way he says it, it’s clear he hates Nora, whoever she is. “She’ll come running. Mark my words. And then?”
A sick smile splits the lower half of his face. “Then, we kill them all for what they did to us.”
Kill them all. My mate included.
Something hot and dangerous blooms in me at the thought. My heartbeat is a drum pounding in my head.Kill. Kill. Mate. Kill.The world goes red at the edges—my entire focus trained on the man who intends on killing my mate.
Not if I kill him first.
I’m moving before I know it, crashing through the brush again. He barely has time to realize what’s happening before I’m on him, slamming him to the ground, tearing at him with my claws while I roar my rage. No one harms my mate. The screams ringing out around me barely make a dent in my awareness as blood flows freely from open wounds I created.
Only the scent of other wolves is enough to make me stop. To back away while the woman and younger girl wail, dropping to their knees in their horror and grief.
The boy doesn’t scream. The boy picks up a rifle and aims it before I can stop him. But instead of firing on me or my mate, his shot goes wide, toward the edge of the clearing, where now I see three wolves standing.
I should go. I have no business here. My mate will survive this.
Yet I can’t move. I have to watch. I need to be sure.
A young female wolf with golden fur comes to a stop after sprinting through the woods around the edge of the clearing. She stands in front of the boy with the rifle, her head lowered, teeth bared. As I watch, he takes aim between her eyes.
