Wicked Wolf
Wicked Wolf
A Redwood Pack Novella
By Carrie Ann Ryan
1001 Dark Nights
Wicked Wolf
A Redwood Pack Novella
By Carrie Ann Ryan
1001 Dark Nights
Copyright 2015 Carrie Ann Ryan
ISBN: 978-1-940887-26-5
Foreword: Copyright 2014 M. J. Rose
Published by Evil Eye Concepts, Incorporated
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
Book Description
The war between the Redwood Pack and the Centrals is one of wolf legend. Gina Eaton lost both of her parents when a member of their Pack betrayed them. Adopted by the Alpha of the Pack as a child, Gina grew up within the royal family to become an enforcer and protector of her den. She’s always known fate can be a tricky and deceitful entity, but when she finds the one man that could be her mate, she might throw caution to the wind and follow the path set out for her, rather than forging one of her own.
Quinn Weston’s mate walked out on him five years ago, severing their bond in the most brutal fashion. She not only left him a shattered shadow of himself, but their newborn son as well. Now, as the lieutenant of the Talon Pack’s Alpha, he puts his whole being into two things: the safety of his Pack and his son.
When the two Alphas put Gina and Quinn together to find a way to ensure their treaties remain strong, fate has a plan of its own. Neither knows what will come of the Pack’s alliance, let alone one between the two of them. The past paved their paths in blood and heartache, but it will take the strength of a promise and iron will to find their future.
Also from Carrie Ann Ryan:
Now Available:
Redwood Pack Series:
An Alpha’s Path
A Taste for a Mate
Trinity Bound
A Night Away
Enforcer’s Redemption
Blurred Expectations
Forgiveness
Shattered Emotions
Hidden Destiny
A Beta’s Haven
Fighting Fate
Loving the Omega
The Hunted Heart
Wicked Wolf
The Redwood Pack Volumes:
Redwood Pack Vol 1
Redwood Pack Vol 2
Redwood Pack Vol 3
Redwood Pack Vol 4
Redwood Pack Vol 5
Redwood Pack Vol 6
Dante’s Circle Series:
Dust of My Wings
Her Warriors’ Three Wishes
An Unlucky Moon
His Choice
Tangled Innocence
Holiday, Montana Series:
Charmed Spirits
Santa’s Executive
Finding Abigail
Her Lucky Love
Dreams of Ivory
Montgomery Ink:
Ink Inspired
Ink Reunited
Delicate Ink
Forever Ink (also found in Hot Ink)
Tempting Boundaries
Coming Soon:
Talon Pack (Follows the Redwood Pack)
Tattered Loyalties
An Alpha’s Choice
Mated in Mist
Dante’s Circle:
Fierce Enchantment
Fallen Alphas
Montgomery Ink:
Harder than Words
Written in Ink
Branded Packs (Written with Alexandra Ivy):
Stolen and Forgiven
Abandoned and Unseen
Tempting Signs:
Finally Found You
Acknowledgments From The Author
To Liz. Thank you for saying hello at Coastal Magic and starting everything I never knew I wanted. You took a chance on an author who smiled and loved wolves. You are my rock star and I count myself lucky to know you, love you, and read with you. Thank you for loving the Redwood Pack as much (if not more) than I do.
Also, dear readers, thank you for being with me for the first step, every step since, and the steps to come.
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1001 Dark Nights story
The First Night
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Also From 1001 Dark Nights
About Carrie Ann Ryan
An excerpt from Tattered Loyalties by Carrie Ann Ryan
Special Thanks
One Thousand and One Dark Nights
Once upon a time, in the future…
I was a student fascinated with stories and learning.
I studied philosophy, poetry, history, the occult, and
the art and science of love and magic. I had a vast
library at my father’s home and collected thousands
of volumes of fantastic tales.
I learned all about ancient races and bygone
times. About myths and legends and dreams of all
people through the millennium. And the more I read
the stronger my imagination grew until I discovered
that I was able to travel into the stories... to actually
become part of them.
I wish I could say that I listened to my teacher
and respected my gift, as I ought to have. If I had, I
would not be telling you this tale now.
But I was foolhardy and confused, showing off
with bravery.
One afternoon, curious about the myth of the
Arabian Nights, I traveled back to ancient Persia to
see for myself if it was true that every day Shahryar
(Persian: شهريار, “king”) married a new virgin, and then
sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It was written
and I had read, that by the time he met Scheherazade,
the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one thousand
women.
Something went wrong with my efforts. I arrived
in the midst of the story and somehow exchanged
places with Scheherazade – a phenomena that had
never occurred before and that still to this day, I
cannot explain.
Now I am trapped in that ancient past. I have
taken on Scheherazade’s life and the only way I can
protect myself and stay alive is to do what she did to
protect herself and stay alive.
Every night the King calls for me and listens as I spin tales.
And when the evening ends and dawn breaks, I stop at a
point that leaves him breathless and yearning for more.
And so the King spares my life for one more day, so that
he might hear the rest of my dark tale.
As soon as I finish a story... I begin a new
one... like the one
that you, dear reader, have before
you now.
Chapter One
There were times to drool over a sexy wolf.
Sitting in the middle of a war room disguised as a board meeting was not one of those times.
Gina Jamenson did her best not to stare at the dark-haired, dark-eyed man across the room. The hint of ink peeking out from under his shirt made her want to pant. She loved ink and this wolf clearly had a lot of it. Her own wolf within nudged at her, a soft brush beneath her skin, but she ignored her. When her wolf whimpered, Gina promised herself that she’d go on a long run in the forest later. She didn’t understand why her wolf was acting like this, but she’d deal with it when she was in a better place. She just couldn’t let her wolf have control right then—even for a man such as the gorgeous specimen a mere ten feet from her.
Today was more important than the wants and feelings of a half wolf, half witch hybrid.
Today was the start of a new beginning.
At least that’s what her dad had told her.
Considering her father was also the Alpha of the Redwood Pack, he would be in the know. She’d been adopted into the family when she’d been a young girl. A rogue wolf during the war had killed her parents, setting off a long line of events that had changed her life.
As it was, Gina wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up in the meeting between the two Packs, the Redwoods and the Talons. Sure, the Packs had met before over the past fifteen years of their treaty, but this meeting seemed different.
This one seemed more important somehow.
And they’d invited—more like demanded—Gina to attend.
At twenty-six, she knew she was the youngest wolf in the room by far. Most of the wolves were around her father’s age, somewhere in the hundreds. The dark-eyed wolf might have been slightly younger than that, but only slightly if the power radiating off of him was any indication.
Wolves lived a long, long time. She’d heard stories of her people living into their thousands, but she’d never met any of the wolves who had. The oldest wolf she’d met was a friend of the family, Emeline, who was over five hundred. That number boggled her mind even though she’d grown up knowing the things that went bump in the night were real.
Actually, she was one of the things that went bump in the night.
“Are we ready to begin?” Gideon, the Talon Alpha, asked, his voice low. It held that dangerous edge that spoke of power and authority.
Her wolf didn’t react the way most wolves would, head and eyes down, shoulders dropped. Maybe if she’d been a weaker wolf, she’d have bowed to his power, but as it was, her wolf was firmly entrenched within the Redwoods. Plus, it wasn’t as if Gideon was trying to make her bow just then. No, those words had simply been spoken in his own voice.
Commanding without even trying.
Then again, he was an Alpha.
Kade, her father, looked around the room at each of his wolves and nodded. “Yes. It is time.”
Their formality intrigued her. Yes, they were two Alphas who held a treaty and worked together in times of war, but she had thought they were also friends.
Maybe today was even more important than she’d realized.
Gideon released a sigh that spoke of years of angst and worries. She didn’t know the history of the Talons as well as she probably should have, so she didn’t know exactly why there was always an air of sadness and pain around the Alpha.
Maybe after this meeting, she’d be able to find out more.
Of course, in doing so, she’d have to not look at a certain wolf in the corner. His gaze was so intense she was sure he was studying her. She felt it down in her bones, like a fiery caress that promised something more.
Or maybe she was just going crazy and needed to find a wolf to scratch the itch.
She might not be looking for a mate, but she wouldn’t say no to something else. Wolves were tactile creatures after all.
“Gina?”
She blinked at the sound of Kade’s voice and turned to him.
She was the only one standing other than the two wolves in charge of security—her uncle Adam, the Enforcer, and the dark-eyed wolf.
Well, that was embarrassing.
She kept her head down and forced herself not to blush. From the heat on her neck, she was pretty sure she’d failed in the latter.
“Sorry,” she mumbled then sat down next to another uncle, Jasper, the Beta of the Pack.
Although the Alphas had called this meeting, she wasn’t sure what it would entail. Each Alpha had come with their Beta, a wolf in charge of security…and her father had decided to bring her.
Her being there didn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things since it put the power on the Redwoods’ side, but she wasn’t about to question authority in front of another Pack. That at least had been ingrained in her training.
“Let’s get started then,” Kade said after he gave her a nod. “Gideon? Do you want to begin?”
Gina held back a frown. They were acting more formal than usual, so that hadn’t been her imagination. The Talons and the Redwoods had formed a treaty during the latter days of the war between the Redwoods and the Centrals. It wasn’t as though these were two newly acquainted Alphas meeting for the first time. Though maybe when it came to Pack matters, Alphas couldn’t truly be friends.
What a lonely way to live.
“It’s been fifteen years since the end of the Central War, yet there hasn’t been a single mating between the two Packs,” Gideon said, shocking her.
Gina blinked. Really? That couldn’t be right. She was sure there had to have been some cross-Pack mating.
Right?
“That means that regardless of the treaties we signed, we don’t believe the moon goddess has seen fit to fully accept us as a unit,” Kade put in.
“What do you mean?” she asked, then shut her mouth. She was the youngest wolf here and wasn’t formally titled or ranked. She should not be speaking right now.
She felt the gaze of the dark-eyed wolf on her, but she didn’t turn to look. Instead, she kept her head down in a show of respect to the Alphas.
“You can ask questions, Gina. It’s okay,” Kade said, the tone of his voice not changing, but, as his daughter, she heard the softer edge. “And what I mean is, mating comes from the moon goddess. Yes, we can find our own versions of mates by not bonding fully, but a true bond, a true potential mate, is chosen by the moon goddess. That’s how it’s always been in the past.”
Gideon nodded. “There haven’t been many matings within the Talons in general.”
Gina sucked in a breath, and the Beta of the Talons, Mitchell, turned her way. “Yes,” Mitchell said softly. “It’s that bad. It could be that in this period of change within our own pack hierarchy, our members just haven’t found mates yet, but that doesn’t seem likely. There’s something else going on.”
Gina knew Gideon—as well as the rest of his brothers and cousins—had come into power at some point throughout the end of the Central War during a period of the Talon’s own unrest, but she didn’t know the full history. She wasn’t even sure Kade or the rest of the Pack royalty did.
There were some things that were intensely private within a Pack that could not—and should not—be shared.
Jasper tapped his fingers along the table. As the Redwood Beta, it was his job to care for their needs and recognize hidden threats that the Enforcer and Alpha might not see. The fact that he was here told Gina that the Pack could be in trouble from something within the Pack, rather than an outside force that Adam, the Enforcer, would be able to see through his own bonds and power.
“Since Finn became the Heir to the Pack at such a young age, it has changed a few things on our side,” Jasper said softly. Finn was her brother, Melanie and Kade’s oldest biological child. “The younger generation will be gaining their powers and bonds to the goddess earlier than would otherwise be expected.” Her uncle looked at her, and she kept silent. “That means the curr
ent Pack leaders will one day not have the bonds we have to our Pack now. But like most healthy Packs, that doesn’t mean we’re set aside. It only means we will be there to aid the new hierarchy while they learn their powers. That’s how it’s always been in our Pack, and in others, but it’s been a very long time since it’s happened to us.”
“Gina will one day be the Enforcer,” Adam said from behind her. “I don’t know when, but it will be soon. The other kids aren’t old enough yet to tell who will take on which role, but since Gina is in her twenties, the shifts are happening.”
The room grew silent, with an odd sense of change settling over her skin like an electric blanket turned on too high.
She didn’t speak. She’d known about her path, had dreamed the dreams from the moon goddess herself. But that didn’t mean she wanted the Talons to know all of this. It seemed…private somehow.
“What does this have to do with mating?” she asked, wanting to focus on something else.
Gideon gave her a look, and she lowered her eyes. He might not be her Alpha, but he was still a dominant wolf. Yes, she hadn’t lowered her eyes before, but she’d been rocked a bit since Adam had told the others of her future. She didn’t want to antagonize anyone when Gideon clearly wanted to show his power. Previously, everything had been casual; now it clearly was not.
Kade growled beside her. “Gideon.”
The Talon Alpha snorted, not smiling, but moved his gaze. “It’s fun to see how she reacts.”
“She’s my daughter and the future Enforcer.”
“She is right here, so how about you answer my question?”
Jasper chuckled by her side, and Gina wondered how quickly she could reach the nearest window and jump. It couldn’t be that far. She wouldn’t die from the fall or anything, and she’d be able to run home.