Dirty lying wolves, p.1
Dirty Lying Wolves, page 1
DIRTY LYING WOLVES
The Enchanted Fates Series
Dirty Lying Faeries
Dirty Lying dragons
dirty lying wolves
The Enchanted Fates Series — Book 3
Dirty
Lying
wolVes
Contents
The Enchanted Fates Series
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Enchanted Fates Series
To my husband, Josh. Fine, here’s your wolf one.
Chapter One
Juniper
The temptation to run in these new tennis shoes was both thrilling and frightening. But I kept the pace even and smooth as my feet hit the trail, the sound an echo of my lost running days. The crisp morning air filled my lungs, and I kept my hands shoved in the pockets of my jacket. With summer nearly upon the Pacific Northwest, I couldn’t expect too many more days like this one. There was no better way to spend a late-spring morning than at the arboretum, the beautiful foliage surrounding me bringing peace and good memories.
The trees around me rustled, unsettling dew from last night’s rain and showering the ground below with rainbow specks of water as sunlight filtered through. In my earbuds drummed a familiar beat that lifted me up and pushed me forward. The only thing more perfect than this would be getting back to my apartment with a hot latte in my hands and a long list of movies to binge on a day when I had no plans.
A planned couch-potato day was not a usual part of my weekends, but I was tired to the bone—the kind of tired that a draining job and the stress of no money puts on a person. The kind of tired that a nap wasn’t going to fix. Tired. Stagnant. The kind of tired that made you want to ignore the buzzing phone in your pocket as your roommate called you. Again.
I debated letting it go to voicemail. Kat had already called me twice, so something must really be up if she was awake before noon and calling instead of texting.
“What’s up, Kat?”
“My job blew up!” she squealed, and I yanked one of my earbuds out on reflex, clicking the volume down.
“Do you want to try that again without the dramatics?” I asked. “What really happened?”
“No, for real, June,” Kat snapped. “You know all those sirens we heard last night? It was some kind of gas leak in the plaza. Several of the buildings were badly damaged from an explosion or something. The deli was blown to pieces.”
I stopped walking. “Are you serious?”
An older couple stared as they walked past me, the lady giving me a snooty look for blocking the trail. Not that it wasn’t plenty wide for all of us, but I moved aside all the same.
“So serious,” Kat groaned. “I’m helping Mrs. Pataki with whatever survived the blast today but after that I’m probably out of a job.”
“She’s not going to relocate or reopen? What about insurance? You can’t tell me the deli doesn’t have enough insurance to fix the damage.”
“Even if she does, I won’t have any shifts for months until it’s fixed. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“First, take a deep breath.” I listened to her breathe. “Good. Now, don’t worry about your share of the rent this month. I’ve got savings and I’ve been in a pinch before when you gave me the help I needed. I pay back when it’s my turn.”
“But—”
“Then we find a new part-time job for you until we know for sure what Mrs. Pataki is doing.”
“Juniper—” Kat sounded as though she had begun crying. “Girl, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“You’d be fine, because you’re tough once you’ve got your head on straight.” I smiled. “Keep taking deep breaths as you need them, and let me think more about a plan for when I get back. I’m going to finish my walk. I’ll pick us up some cheap groceries on the way home, okay?”
“Can you get that spicy miso ramen?” Kat asked, sniffing.
“Sure, I’ll buy plenty of them. See you later.”
“Okay, bye, June Bug.”
Another stone of stress dropped into the pit of my stomach. Using my savings would set me back from quitting work at the sports clinic for something better. Kat had been there for me, though, and I’d be there for her.
I ran a hand through my short black hair. The undercut was cute but it was high-maintenance enough that I was close to letting it grow out again. And hell, if Kat had really lost her job, things were going to be too tight to go to the salon for a while anyway. I shoved the earbud back in place and changed my playlist to something a little more aggressive to pick up my pace. I was walking fast, but not quite jogging. Shoes to pavement. Clear your mind. Breathe and let your thoughts go.
With what I had scraped together, we’d manage for a couple of months. Seattle was a big place, and there was always someone hiring somewhere. The work might not be great, but it would pay until we figured out something better.
I let my feet take me where they wanted to go. My head was clouded with money calculations, not really paying attention to where I was going. That is, until the splat of scarlet on the pavement in front of me caused me to stop. Someone had lost a good amount of blood. Recently.
There was no one on the path in front of me. No one on either side of me. No one behind me. But in the grass to my right there was another spot of red.
I headed toward a thick patch of trees. If someone was injured, I might be able to help. Cursing the fact that I had left my first-aid bag in my car on the other side of the park, I ran procedures through my head. I hadn’t taken those first-aid courses for nothing.
The morning dew drenched my ankles as I went deeper into the trees. The sounds of struggle made my heart race, and I reached for the pepper spray clipped to the lanyard in my pocket. I shifted my fingers around the keys and my ID badge until I had a firm grasp on the small canister.
“Is someone in trouble? Hello?” I raised my voice enough that others could overhear if this was an emergency.
Rustling ahead confirmed that more than one thing moved. I squared my shoulders and pushed forward, and came upon the strangest conversation of my life.
“Curse you, warlock, for all eternity!” A snarling, pissed-off woman spat out the words.
“Calm down, Amelia,” a man with a stern voice said. “We need to secure a safe location before the Lunaria’s Dream wears off.”
“What the hell did you do, warlock?” another male voice hissed.
Thrashing came after that. Grunts of pain, frustration, and discomfort.
“I . . . told you,” an exasperated man said. His tone was clipped, strained. “We have . . . nine hours . . . of this.”
Then, growling. Multiple dogs were present, which added an unknown and possibly dangerous element to this, and I hesitated calling for emergency services because there might not be enough time to wait before something worse happened. But the moment I heard the woman’s pained whimpering, I was spurred into action, my pepper spray in front of me as I rounded the tree.
“Okay, that’s enough!” I snapped. “What are you doing to her?”
Hunched in the pine needles that littered the ground were four huge men, all with varying degrees of injury visible, from scrapes and cuts to what looked like burn marks. Somehow, the dogs were gone. Another man was on the ground, covered in soot and in obvious pain. His once nice button-up shirt was in tatters, and he clutched his abdomen. The woman alongside him was naked. Like, fully naked, with scratches all over her. Her long black hair was a rat’s nest, and when her eyes locked onto mine, I shivered. They looked inhuman. Yellow, like an animal’s.
As I
“Turn back around, human,” the man with the stern tone said. “This is not your business.”
“The hell it isn’t,” I snapped, my voice shaking. “What did you do to them? Is this a kidnapping?”
The woman at my feet convulsed, arching her back off the ground with a strained groan. Thrusting my pepper spray in front of me, I trained it on the biggest man. With my free hand, I reached down to try to take a vital from the woman’s wrist.
“Don’t move or you’re getting a face full of pepper spray!” I shouted, hoping someone on the trail would hear me. “I already called the cops, so you had better behave while I help her.”
I prayed my bluff would work long enough for me to examine the woman on the ground, because she could be under the influence of any number of drugs. She could be having a panic attack or a seizure. I just needed a moment to see what I could do for her.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a moment. What happened next came fast. Too fast. I-couldn’t-see-it fast. My hand was near her wrist, going for a pulse, when the woman on the ground changed somehow.
“Amelia, don’t shift!” someone shouted.
“Alpha!”
“Dammit!”
The woman, Amelia, flipped from her back to all fours in less than a heartbeat. Her limbs flailed, and she clawed at her temples in pain before turning to me. In a flash, what was once a human woman had grown a weird, long mouth. Her teeth sharpened into something grotesque and reminiscent of a horror movie. And as I tried to yank my outstretched arm back, she lunged and bit me.
The pain shot up my forearm and right into my shoulder. An echo of pain in my skull rang hard as I instinctively screamed and pulled back my arm. The four men jumped into immediate action. One of them disarmed my pepper spray and flipped me onto my knees, pinning me down. The other three all jumped onto the woman, the thing, who’d bitten me.
With my head pressed to the grass and tears blurring my eyes, I witnessed the most bizarre morphing of a human shape I had ever seen. The stuff of nightmares. The woman’s face shifted back and forth between human and the odd long-mouthed face that had attacked me. Hair faded in and out. Bones shifted under her skin, making sickening popping sounds. She convulsed under the three men trying to pin her down, and at the same time, in her own way, she was holding them back.
I had one solemn moment of clarity when the biggest of the three holding that creature down turned and locked eyes with me. A semblance of sympathy and regret settled within his expression.
They were having trouble holding Amelia back, and as one errant leg went flying, I failed to move from its path. Pain smashed my temple like a brick as her foot connected, and my vision grayed as my head snapped backwards and I fell flat to the ground.
Chapter Two
Dom
A growl crept up my throat as I stared down at the mess. An alpha wolf and a prick of a warlock were writhing in pain on the ground. Amelia I was loyal to; the warlock was an unfortunate factor I now had to deal with. Three confused packmates by my side were trying to hold themselves together while we faced the unknown next steps of the drugs leaving our system without Amelia to guide us. And now an interloping human had stumbled upon the scene, and Amelia fucking bit her.
What an utter fucking headache. The second we betrayed that merciless vampire Apollo to fight a battle that wasn’t entirely ours, Amelia had truly backed us into a messed-up corner. Now our leader was incapacitated by warlock magic and I was left to clean up the aftermath. We had switched sides during the battle and helped the local magical creatures defeat the vampires. Or that was what we were doing until Amelia was thrown into the warlock and his active magic circle. The battle was done, but I wasn’t about to stick around for what came next, not when we’d made our share of enemies and our reputation as Apollo’s lapdogs would do us no favors. No, we needed to leave and find someplace safe for what came next.
Another annoyance to add to the list: When was the last time we weren’t on the run? Fighting? When was the last time any of us saw a bed? And now this shit to deal with. I snarled in frustration as I stood, rounding on the mess of wolves and the pile of warlock on the ground next to me. I had vowed to follow Amelia to the pits of hell and back, as long as we grew stronger, and I meant it. I was her second, and I’d take care of it.
“Pin Amelia down. Our position is compromised, we need to keep moving and now we need to drag an unconscious human with us.”
The rest of the pack looked at me, surprised.
“Why the human?” Jack said.
“Because, Jack, she was bitten. Look at her arm, she’s going to turn in the next couple of full moons.” We probably didn’t even have that long. She’d either be back up in a minute or we were looking at serious brain damage from a hit like that. “Move. Quickly.”
The wolves held a suffering Amelia on the ground but took turns eyeing the human’s bleeding forearm. The warlock and the source of Amelia’s problem, Jerod, was stifling pained laughter while he writhed on the ground. The thought of kicking his ass while he was down was tempting, but from what I had seen, he and Amelia couldn’t be separated for now, so the warlock would have to stay whole.
At least the human was breathing. With her curly black hair shaved close at one side and a stubborn chin, I’d bet she was going to be a handful when she woke up. Scratch that—she had already been a problem in the two minutes I had known her.
“Dom,” Aaron said, catching my attention.
His buzz cut and stern brow were coated in sweat and grime, reminding me of the hellish night we had just endured. I reached down to take the human’s phone and pepper spray. Not that it was going to do much to any of us.
He continued, “I can scout ahead for more trees, but we’re still pretty deep in the city. What about a hotel for the night?”
“You think we can hide these two moaning in pain as we haul their asses into a hotel room?” I jerked my head to the ground where Amelia was pressing herself against the cool ground and snarling, and Jerod was dry heaving.
“And who knows what this new one will shriek when she wakes up. We’re better to find neutral wolf lands or at least some deep woods. There’s plenty of national parkland northeast of here, we just have to get there.”
Aaron nodded sharply, accepting my answer and holding down Amelia’s legs.
“We should have stayed with the fae,” Jack grumbled.
“We’re getting as far away from this mess as possible before the Lunaria’s Dream wears off and we’re vulnerable,” I said. “You want that dragon, Ryker, to get any ideas when he remembers we were the ones who chased down his mate?”
“I thought we were cured, though,” Carson said nervously. “That fae lady, she did something to us before we left, right?”
“She said she would do what she could about how bound our bodies were to the drug,” I explained, shaking my head. “We won’t go through what we’ve been through before with the withdrawals, but they’ll still happen. And I don’t want to be here when we do.”
“What do we do?” Jack asked.
This was an alpha’s job, and I wasn’t equipped to handle the mess we were in without Amelia. But I was second in command, and Amelia was all but useless.
A whimper from the human made me look down to see her curled up, holding her head. She made a gagging sound and I wondered if she was about to throw up. Leaning down, I turned her on her side.
“Phone.”
I looked down at my feet where Jerod was hunched over, trying to dig something out of his pocket.
“Your phone? Why?”
“Call a . . . ride,” he answered. “Favor.”
Reaching down, I pulled a black rectangle from his pocket. But the black rectangle wasn’t a sleek smartphone, it was a melted wad of plastic and glass.
I dangled it in front of him so he could see. “Sorry, bud. It’s fried from your little explosive exploits.”
Jerod groaned and rolled face down. Standing straight again, I crossed my arms over my chest. What would Amelia do? The better question would be what would the old Amelia do? The one before getting us all hooked on Lunaria’s Dream for a power trip. Amelia had always been aggressive, but the last decade had been a whole new level in a desperate attempt to gain some kind of advantage over the alpha that had conquered our home. There was a reason we didn’t have a proper pack anymore, and the last few years had been spent growing strong enough to do something about it. If it was up to me, we’d go back right now.
