Blood of the Wolf Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Opening

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Blood of the Wolf

  Forged in Blood 1

  By

  Holly Evans

  Copyright Holly Evans (2018) ©. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are purely from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalised and coincidental.

  Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Opening

  The world had changed. It felt as though it had happened over night, and I suppose for some people it had. Yet if you looked closely you could track the ripples, see the small shifts as they gradually grew, before we found ourselves here.

  A decade ago, the supernals were hidden. There were groups of people devoted to making sure they remained that way. I’m sure they worked very hard, but in the end, it was inevitable. Chaos will find a way. In this particular case, it came in the form of a witch – two, really. A mother and daughter. They set out to change the world, and they succeeded.

  Now we witness the blood-soaked birth of a new reality. I was one of the first, and I don’t know if that makes me blessed or cursed. It happened one night eight years ago. Some people have big parties and make out with the pretty girl for their sixteenth birthday. I was dragged into a blood ritual that tore my very essence asunder only to replace it with something else. Something… wilder. I remember it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. I came to in a pool of blood, someone else’s blood. The bodies of what had once been my family were scattered around the room. Limbs were missing. Bones were shattered. Organs were… you get the point. It was a bloodbath. I was the only one alive.

  To this day I don’t know if I did that. I did what any sixteen year old would do in that situation. I ran. And I never looked back.

  One

  Never trust a fae. That goes triple for a made fae. The home-grown, born and bred fae are sneaky, sociopathic predators. The made fae make them look sane, calm, and downright caring. Luckily for me, it was one of the latter that had sidled up to me in that dingy bar. Her lips were painted blood red, although given her nature it could have been actual blood. Her eyes were half silver, half pale green, and her hair was as white as snow. I looked at the barman for some help or support. He gave me a small shrug and turned his back. I was on my own.

  The problem with the made or, as some people call us, abominations, is that we weren’t born with the natures we have. We were brought into this world as perfectly normal non-magical people, sometimes entirely oblivious to the fact that magic, supernals, and all of that existed. What I wouldn’t give to go back to that. We become made when we endure a brutal blood ritual that supposedly brings out our full nature. No one quite knows what it really does, but everyone knows that you’re never the same afterwards. You come out of it with something else within you, instincts, desires, and abilities you never had before. Unlike the supernals who’re born that way, the made are very rarely stable, and thank the gods never have magic outside of a little shifting.

  The fae sidled a little closer to me. Her dress barely covered her ass or her breasts. It had been a while, and had she have been something else, I’d have jumped on the opportunity she was clearly presenting. Given the situation, my only thought was how to get out of there with all of my limbs still attached. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m neither a small nor a cowardly guy. I just know when the fight’s not worth having.

  I caught sight of another made fae out the corner of my eye, a small, vicious-looking guy. He was all angles. His tongue slipped over his lips slowly. His eyes had the distinct look of a predator watching prey. He was watching me. I raised an eyebrow at the woman who was slowly creeping closer to me. I knew their game. In about ten seconds she was going to press herself to me, and her boyfriend, the vicious guy, would charge over and accuse me of stealing his woman. A fight would erupt, and both fae would get off on the violence and bloodshed. I’d seen it before, and it was not a game I was going to play.

  By some good fortune, I saw a lycan and a sidhe squaring up to each other on the other side of the bar. The lycan was taller than me and easily twice as broad, his longer shaggy hair threatening to fall into his amber eyes as he stared down at the smaller sidhe. They were both circling each other, and the lycan was beginning to shift. That’s where I stepped in. If they wanted to beat the living daylights out of each other, that was their prerogative. If a lycan or shifter shifted in an urban environment, then I had to step in and potentially punish them. I ignored the made fae and walked around her boyfriend. I wanted to keep a closer eye on the lycan. It was supposed to be my night off, but I was an enforcer. I couldn’t stand by and let them break the law. The sidhe sneered at the lycan and spat something in one of the fae languages; I’d learnt a few human languages, but there was something about the fae ones that I couldn’t get a handle on. The lycan’s teeth elongated, his fingers shortened, and the shift began to take over when he lunged at the sidhe.

  I’d hoped the lycan would regain control and I could go back to my drink, far away from the woman.

  “It never ends,” I muttered as I strode up to the pair.

  The lycan’s jaw had extended, and his legs were beginning to shift. I had to stop him. The sidhe was prancing around him like a fucking ballet dancer, a look of glee on his face as the lycan grew more and more pissed. I grabbed hold of the back of the lycan’s shirt when he lunged at sidhe and gave him a hard yank backwards. He snarled at me and stared straight into my eyes, challenging me. His jaw was too far gone for him to talk normally, so we were down to body language. I stared back at him, my shoulders back and chin lifted. He might have been twice my size, but I was more dominant.

  “I’m Enforcer Conall, now where the fuck is your moonstone? You know full damn well that it’s illegal to shift in an urban environment,” I growled.

  He swallowed and looked down and away. I pulled the small silver (fake, even made shifters can’t touch silver) disk that showed I wasn’t bullshitting and flashed it in front of his eyes. I wore the enforcer brand on my left shoulder blade, but I kept that hidden as it marked me as made. The born shifters had a crisp white crescent moon in the middle of their jet black pawprint. Mine was blood red to match the ritual
that created me.

  The sidhe had vanished into the silent crowd that surrounded us. He hadn’t broken the law, and I didn’t care where he’d gotten to. The lycan, however, was on thin ice. Once he was returned to his fully human form, he kept his eyes cast down and spoke softly.

  “I’m sorry. I must have misplaced my moonstone…”

  Upon closer inspection, he couldn’t have been more than seventeen, so he was likely still learning his place in the world. I remembered being seventeen; it was hellish.

  “I’m going to take you to the closest witch shop, and you’re going to purchase a new stone. Now. Then I’ll let you off with a verbal warning,” I said, keeping the edge to my voice.

  Born shifters had to wear a moonstone in urban environments to help them keep their predator side under control and stop them from shifting. Our kind, and magic as a whole, were hidden from the wider human population, and a lot of very powerful people wanted to ensure it stayed that way. The punishment for using any form of magic, shifting included, in front of the non-magical was very harsh.

  “Thank you. I’ll grab my jacket,” the lycan said.

  I looked around the crowd and bared my teeth at them.

  “What are you looking at? Get back to your night,” I snarled.

  At least the lycan had lost control in a supernal bar so I could go easy on him; had he have pulled that in a normal bar, I’d have no choice but to hand him to my bosses. At best, he’d have been thrown in a solitary cell for six months. At worst, a witch would bind his wolf. Either would have had him wishing for death before long.

  Two

  The supernal hangouts and shops tended to cluster together in cities, and Dublin was no exception. The lycan walked slightly behind me with his gaze down as we headed towards the witch shop. The sun was just setting. Spring was in full swing and almost ready to slip into summer. The air was cool, but it wasn’t raining, for a change. The tension hung between us, and it set my teeth on edge.

  “Is this your first offence?” I asked as I tucked my hands in the pockets of my jeans.

  “Yes. I don’t know what happened, I’m normally careful. My dad’s going to kill me.”

  “Just buy a new moonstone, and he doesn’t need to know,” I said as we turned the corner and the shop came into view.

  It looked like a New Age shop with a deep purple sign hanging over the sky-blue door. The front window was filled with candles, statuettes, and other New Age paraphernalia. The real stuff was in the back. The lights were off, but a small silver light flickered just inside the doorway, showing they were open to supernal business. I’d visited the shop a few times, and Sian was a bright and bubbly witch who was always happy to help. It was rare to find a friendly witch. They tended to be closed pompous bitches. I’d know, I was raised by a family of them. As a non-magical male, my upbringing was unpleasant, to say the least. I pushed the memories aside as I felt my wolf pushing forward. If I allowed it forward, the lycan would feel I was made, and no good came from that.

  I knocked on the front door of the shop, three quick raps and a pause before one firmer knock. Sian’s bright blonde hair was soon visible in the darkness. She greeted us with a broad genuine grin and ushered us into the small cluttered space. Our night sight was good enough that we didn’t knock any of the precariously stacked books, tumble stones, or other knick-knacks. Sian pulled the heather grey curtain aside, and we stepped into the real shop. It was the complete opposite of the front area. Every space was immaculate white, and every item had been placed to show it at its best.

  “He needs a moonstone,” I said and nodded to the lycan.

  Sian pursed her lips and sighed in a motherly way. She was only a little older than me at twenty-seven, but she had full-fledged maternal instincts. Her hopes of settling down and having a family were slim, she’d confided in me when I’d shown up at two in the morning to find her halfway through her second bottle of wine. She didn’t have very much magic, and thus her chances of a witch family allowing her to marry one of their men were verging on nil. The idea of settling down with a non-magical man didn’t enter her mind, let alone a non-witch supernal.

  “You were lucky it was Niko that caught you,” Sian chided the lycan.

  His eyes flicked to Sian and back down again.

  “Any preference?” she said, gesturing to her selection of moonstone jewellery.

  “Bracelet,” the lycan said.

  “Budget?”

  “Small.”

  Sian exhaled slowly. Her stock wasn’t cheap, but it was good quality. I idly played with the moonstone around my neck. It was purely for show, but I found a small comfort in it. Maybe if I wore it, the goddess would smile on me for a change. The lycan looked over Sian’s selection while I tried not to fidget. My night had been fucked; I wanted to hit another bar in the hopes of a quick and easy lay before I crashed for the night. The witch held up two bracelets, each titanium with thick chains and simple oval moonstones at the heart.

  “Twenty, and twenty-five,” she said holding one up at a time.

  “Twenty,” the lycan said as he pulled out his wallet.

  Finally, I was free to go.

  “Thanks Sian.” I gave her a soft smile. “Don’t lose this one,” I growled at the lycan.

  I was glad to step back out into the cool air and focus on trying to get my night back on track. The heavy thud of electronic music came from a bar two streets over, perfect. The streets were relatively empty. It was too early for the loud drunks to be stumbling back home and into taxis. It was late enough that everyone was settled into their seat and on their fourth drink. Many would likely judge me for my choices when it came to romance and intimacy. If they had my past, I’m sure they’d quickly understand why the idea of a relationship was an absolute no go. I went looking for sex every now and again, and that was enough. Friends weren’t going to happen either, not that I had much choice in either, if I’m being honest. No one in their right mind wants to be seen with a made supernal, and I couldn’t have a real relationship with a non-supernal. There would be so many secrets, what was the point in putting myself through that stress?

  A young feline shifter was leaning against the wall near the door of the bar, her foot propped up against the brick revealing her long, toned legs. She crossed her arms over her flat stomach and glared into the distance. I put my shoulders back and plastered a charming smile on my face. She was exactly my type. Her attention turned to me, and I saw her beautiful hazel eyes. I wet my lips and increased my smile to a predatory grin. She pushed off from the wall and matched my grin. It seemed the goddess was smiling on me after all.

  “My place or yours?” she asked.

  Things were so beautifully simple with shifters, a couple of looks and everyone knew what they wanted. There was no preamble or small talk. I wrinkled my nose. I’d been hoping for the closest alley. If we went to a bed, there was a good chance she’d see my enforcer brand, and then she’d know I was made. She stepped up to me and nipped my throat.

  “Mine it is,” she said.

  I smiled broadly and focused on the hope of getting laid. Maybe she wouldn’t see the brand. I could pin her against the wall when we got inside. We weren’t making love, here. She took my hand and led me down the road. She lived a few doors away in an older flat on the second floor. She didn’t bother to turn the lights on. Neither of us said a word as she led me to her bedroom. My hopes for a quick fuck against the wall were shattered when she pushed me down on the bed and did a slow strip tease. Don’t get me wrong, she achieved her goal, but I couldn’t push away my anxiety at her seeing my brand.

  Part of me wondered if I’d be better off making a lame excuse and vanishing into the night, but it had been a while, and she was clearly as eager as I was. We kissed with the hunger of starving wolves, and she yanked my T-shirt over my head before my jeans were quickly dragged down. The familiar sound of metal hitting the wooden floor broke apart our embrace. I tried not to cringe as her face lit up in recognition
.

  “You’re an enforcer?”

  I gave her a faint smile and kissed down her neck.

  “Does it matter?” I whispered, trying to focus her back on the sex.

  “Show me your brand, I haven’t been with an enforcer before,” she whispered huskily.

  She pulled back and ran her hands over my chest, looking for the brand. I tried to distract her with quick nips and firm kisses, but she was determined. Her entire body tensed when her eyes drifted down my shoulder blade. She leapt back out of my lap and backed away. An expression of disappointment and horror filled her face. I sighed and reached down for my jeans, the night was done.

  “You’re made? You’re a fucking abomination!?” she shouted, her lip curled in disgust.

  I didn’t say anything. There was no point. People’s feelings on my kind were very clear, and there was nothing I was going to do to change it. It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten that reaction, and it wouldn’t be the last. I pulled my clothes on and left.

  Three

  The night sky was clear overhead as I walked three streets over to my motorbike. It was my one luxury in this world, if you call it a luxury. The walk would do me some good and help me clear my head. I told myself that the rejection was nothing, but of course it stung and brought back the memories of the cursed ritual that made me what I am. There were groups of people looking for me because of that night. No one knew my real name. It was an obscure Russian name that my mother had chosen for me, and fortunately I took after my Venezuelan father. I was the first. And I was the only one with magic. It was coiled tight inside of me, nestled against my wolf spirit, waiting for the moment I let it free.

  When I’d first been made and I hid in a small cabin in the German forests, I’d allowed small pieces of it forward. I needed to see what I was, what it was. Fire had rippled over my hands and burned within me, and it was addictive. The high I felt when the fire engulfed my hands and threatened to consume me was unlike anything I’d felt before or since. There wasn’t only fire, though. No, I didn’t do things by halves. There was also shadow. I’d done a lot of digging, and wielding shadow was entirely unheard of. Even the old and powerful witch bloodlines that commanded multiple elements couldn’t harness shadow.