Hunted: Call of the Wolf : Reverse Harem Werewolf Shifter Series

by Annalise Clark

  Thanks?

  Um, okay.

  It was the strangest dating experience I’d had in a long time. Then again, I had never really had any other dating experiences. Brent had been my first serious love.

  I had experimented some, and I had middle school boyfriends or crushes, but Brent was my first serious partner in any capacity, and we had been together for five years. I didn’t even know how to be with someone else, but Roxy insisted it was the answer.

  “You just need to date someone else,” Roxy had pushed. “You’re not going to find the perfect guy right off the bat. I had to date like dozens of losers and weirdoes before I met Tony.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. Pardon me for not being excited about dating dozens of losers to try to find “Mr. Right”.

  Roxy and her boyfriend had been together for two years now. They were adorable in that way that someone makes you jealous you don’t have the same and other times makes you want to stab them both with a fork. I was happy for her, but my failing love life was a bit bitter about her success.

  Over a year later and he was still the first thing on my mind when I woke up and the last thing on my mind when I went to sleep at night. Often, I would find myself caught up in some menial chore like mowing the lawn, or when I was working out or going for a run, and my mind would just wander.

  I’d start doing my tasks on autopilot while my brain drifted off to memories of him, thoughts of what I would say if I saw him again, or fantasies of running into him again. Yeah, I had it bad.

  He haunted me.

  And this was one reason why when I got that invitation in the mail, I said “Yes!” without so much as a second thought.

  Getting invited to the Magic Trials was a big deal. Some people could practice magic their whole lives and never get that invitation in the mail. It was an honor to even be considered. An honor that my family, especially, knew a great deal about and held in a very high esteem.

  A smarter, more careful person would have thought about it more, weighed the pros and cons of going versus not going, and determined a strategy for plan of action before they confirmed the invite.

  But let’s be real, I wasn’t that person.

  I was a woman with a broken heart that nothing seemed to heal. That meant I was angry, reckless, bitter, and out for blood.

  If beating the shit out of people in the Magic Trials released some of that pent up, unrequited love, well then, that’d be a good thing. There was no reason to second-guess this. No reason to drag out the inevitable.

  My cousin, Rocco, said it was the greatest honor in magic to be invited to the Trials. You didn’t shoot down an offer like that. In fact, in my family, it was considered an insult to the entire family to say no to an invitation to the Magic Trials.

  At the end of the day, I didn’t need time to think on it. An invite meant I was going, whether I wanted to or not. May as well make the most of it and kick some magical ass.

  So, why was I sitting here pining over a lost love instead of preparing for such an honored tradition?

  Ah, a magnificent question!

  If I knew the answer to that, I guess I wouldn’t be in this position. Despite my broken heart, I’d been practicing for weeks now. Only the best of the best came to the Magic Trials and if I wanted a chance of staying in past the first round and not embarrassing my family name, I needed to be as prepared as possible.

  Despite all my family’s experience with the Trials, I needed to prepare my mind and body. It was one thing to know in generalizations how the Trials work, but it was another thing altogether to actually have to participate.

  There were unexpected circumstances that could happen when doing battle with other magic users. You could prepare for the Arena, the rules, the terrain and other factors, but you couldn’t fully prepare for how another participant would play.

  Tomorrow, I take a train to The Scorched Wilderness. This is where we would sign in for the Magic Trials and spend an additional 48 hours preparing for the Games. There would be team leaders and trainers for each of the magical classes and types to help us.

  From there, we’d get carted over to the Demon Dome Arena to fight to the death!

  Okay, not really. We didn’t do that anymore – although rumor had it some of the elders wanted to bring it back. No, we actually fought to magic death; meaning we fought until we exhausted all of our magical ability and then we would be eliminated from the competition. There were two ways this happened: you either checked yourself out when your magic was low, or the referees pulled you out when you reached the Point of No Return.

  Magic regenerates itself over time, so you get it back, but how long it takes depends on the person and how fast you regenerate. It’s easy to see why those with the most magical stamina do well in the Trials. The quicker you can regenerate, the longer you can stay in the game, especially if you are very intuitive with your own

  I didn’t know much more about it than that. Most participants didn’t even know that much, but I came from a long line of Magic Trials veterans, so word had been passed around my family. We talked about Trials over dinner, family holidays, and any other time people could find a way to work it in. That didn’t mean I was a shoe-in for this thing, though.

  The thing is, even being from a family who had participants in previous Games didn’t guarantee an advantage. They intentionally mixed it up every year, so you never knew exactly what you were going to get. And they were more secretive than Lucas on a Star Wars film.

  No one involved in the planning was allowed to say anything, not even to their own family members, and most of the planning committee didn’t know any more than their small, specific role in it. They showed up, did their part, and left without a word.

  “The only way two men can keep a secret is if one of them is dead,” my dad used to say. This was a very good example of that.

  Since the small details of the Trials and the specifics of each year’s Games could vary, no one could predict exactly how it would go. This meant it was impossible to be 100% prepared for it. Or rather, it was impossible to cheat it. I suppose you could be prepared, but there would always be unpredictable variables.

  The fewer people who knew about that year’s Games, the lesser the chance of someone leaking it. My dad used to tell a story about the time the Magic Trials secrets got released. The result was disastrous. It was back in the 1900s and someone on staff leaked the info before the Games.

  The Trials were postponed for a month that year while they redesigned the entire event. Rumor has it, the person who leaked the info ended up dead in a horrible auto “accident” just a week later. No one dared to question it.

  It sounds fishy if you ask me, but there were highly connected people involved in making the Trials go off without a hitch and let’s just say, you didn’t want to get on their bad side.

  The Magic Trials were run by the strongest and most influential magic users in the world. They came from generations worth of the best in their magic classes. The title of Head of the Board had been passed down through the same family line for at least seven generations. It was currently being held by the Vullerys, friends of my dad’s, and a family who had been winning and then operating the Magic Trials for far longer than I had been alive.

  I slammed my fist into the training bag hard, then again, and then again. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

  “Hey Harlow, why don’t you go easy on my bag there, girl?”

  “Ah, shut it, Ryder! Your bag is fine. Just be happy I’m not punching on your face.” Teasing my best guy friend was a lot of fun. He could take as much as he gave.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Such hostility. Save it for the Games, girl,” he teased.

  Ryder had been my best friend like a brother to me for nearly as long as I could remember. We were still in diapers when we first met. Our moms had been best friends so it was pretty much destiny that we would be, too.

  He had been by my side through every major life ev
ent; first day of Kindergarten, prom, when my dad died, high school graduation, and of course, when Brent and I broke up. No matter what was going on, he was there so I didn’t have to be alone, and I had been the same for him.

  After the breakup, he had been my lifeline. He was there with the endless bottles of wine and tubs of Rocky Road ice cream that I needed to get through the first few days. I’m pretty sure I never would have survived it without him.

  We cried it out, we ran it out, and we boxed it out in the garage where I had a mini gym that he had helped me set up back when we were in middle school. We started it with pieces we found in other people’s trash and hand-me-downs from family members but since then, it had grown into a nice home workout space.

  No matter what life would fling at us, we could come in here and work it out, punch it out, and sweat it out. This was our therapy.

  Lately, we’d been using it to prep for the Magic Trials. He had been helping me get ready ever since my invite came in. Most of the time, we acted like we wanted to kill each other, but the truth was, he was probably the only person in the world who I knew would always have my back, no matter what.

  And I would do the same for him.

  He was absolutely going to be at the Magic Trials cheering me on, and that meant everything to me. My cousin Rocco would be there, too. He took the games really seriously, and he totally freaked when he found out I had been invited. It was nice to have the support, honestly.

  I just wished my dad could be there to see it. And I wished that I could have at least one person come back with me before the Games. I had heard the prep area could be intense. You spent 48 hours at the Wilderness and they made sure you weren’t trying to smuggle contraband or anything, and they gave you military-style physical training.

  Admittedly, it was a bit intimidating knowing that I was leaving tomorrow completely by myself and no one could come along. I was not a soft girl. I had been on my own for a long time. I liked to be in control of my life, call the shots, and do my own thing. But this was a very big event, and it would have been nice to have someone in my corner.

  At least I knew my dad would be watching from above, or wherever really good people go when they die. I liked to think that his spirit was looking down on me from time to time, and that he was happy with what he saw. Every day I strived to become the type of woman who would make him proud.

  I launched a couple more punches into the training bag as I thought about this. Sometimes there was nothing else in the world that could help me release my emotions quite like hitting something very, very hard.

  Ryder called out from across the room, “Hey, what do you say we dip out of here and go get you some last supper? We can go to that nice Italian place you like.”

  He really did know exactly what I needed and when I needed it. What would I do without him?

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, dropping my hands to my side after wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my forearm. I’d done enough today. In fact, it would be more beneficial to rest now. I was catching the train tomorrow and I didn’t want to overwork myself before arriving for the big event.

  “Let me shower first though, okay?” I asked as I dropped by boxing gloves to the floor.

  “Please do. You reek!” He teased as I just shook my head. This is the way it always was with us. I don’t know what I’d do without him after all I’d been through the past couple of years.

  I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d want to spend my last night here with. Well… except for Brent, but that wasn’t an option. So, Ryder is second best.

  I showered and threw on some decent clothes and we went out for dinner at that Italian place I loved. It was nice having someone in your life who knew what you loved and exactly when you needed it.

  While I was excited to be doing the Trials, it also brought up a lot of memories for me, memories about my dad, specifically. Ryder was probably the only person in my life who could understand that. He’d lost his dad, too. We were good friends before that, but after we both lost our fathers, we bonded in a way other friends couldn’t understand.

  A night out was exactly what I needed before leaving for the Trials. We ate our fill and then some (isn’t that what every Italian food place does to you?), laughed about old times, strategized for the Magic Trials, and he dropped me off at my place around 10p.m. I had an early start tomorrow; I wasn’t trying to pull an all-nighter.

  After I changed and put on my PJs, I was ready to crash almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. It’s a good thing, because I needed the rest. My train was coming very early tomorrow.

  Get Full Moon Rising here on Amazon.

  Sneak Peek: Insatiable

  My mother had always warned me about one-night stands. Unfortunately, I never listened to her all that much, and that would come back to haunt me in ways that I could never imagine. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I want to start this story from the beginning.

  Right now, I was 21 and loving my life. I was an adult, which meant I could do whatever – and whoever – I wanted. And it was safe to say that I was exercising that right to its fullest extent.

  That is precisely how I ended up going home with that hunky guy from the bar. He was tall, dark, and handsome, built like a linebacker, but his hands were oh-so-soft and gentle. I knew before we even left the bar that I was going to have a fun night with him.

  What I didn’t know is that he was going to sink his teeth into me – literally – and leave me for dead.

  What he didn’t know, is that I carry the vampire gene. Hell, I didn’t know either until the regrettable morning after when I was doing the most painful walk of shame ever and suddenly had an intense desire to eat the rarest steak imaginable.

  Talk about hangover cravings!

  Anyway, here I am, creeping back into my apartment just after 10am, still wearing my clubbing gear from the night before, minus the G-string panties I managed to lose somewhere along the way, and my roommate, Missy, comes out of the kitchen holding a fresh coffee in one hand and gives me “the look”.

  You know the one – the one that says, “I know what you did last night and I’m not going to judge, but I hope you used protection.”

  “Well, did you at least get his name?”

  “No. Wait! Yeah, he said it was Michael Knight.”

  She snorted right into her coffee. “Michael Knight? Smooth.”

  “What? Do you know him?”

  “The whole world knows him,” she snickered. “Knight Rider? You never heard of it?” she laughed, taking another sip of the steaming brew, as I just stared blankly at her. “David Hasselhoff?”

  I still had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Don’t hassle the Hoff? Seriously? You’ve never heard of him?”

  I nodded my head from left to right slowly, wondering what she was going on about and what this had to do with the creep who bit me last night.

  “Ahh, kids these days,” she sighed, placing her coffee cup on the table. “I think he gave you a fake name, baby.”

  “Ohh,” I said, nodding. “Yeah, pretty sure I did the same thing.”

  Missy just laughed as I shrugged and removed my heels before walking across the living room to get to the hallway and my bedroom. “Anyone in the bathroom?”

  “Nah, it’s all yours, girl. Go ahead and wash that Knight Rider off you.” She giggled as she went back into the kitchen, and I made a beeline for my bedroom so I could get some fresh clothes.

  On the way, I nearly ran right into my other roomie, Lexie.

  “Dayum, girl! Was he tryna suck your neck or suck your blood?” she squealed once she was about three feet away from me. She held her signature smoothie in her hand and pointed toward my neck with her pinky finger.

  My hand instantly went up to my neck protectively. I had felt a bit sore there, but I was in too big of a hurry to leave this morning to stop and look. He must have given me one hell of a hickey!

  “Really, Lexie?” I gave h
er my most annoyed side-eye, but on the inside, I was laughing. That was Lexie for you.

  “Girl, I’m not judging. I’m just observing.”

  “Mhmm, I’m sure,” I said as I went into my room to get some clothes. My bed was still made from yesterday morning since I never came home to sleep in it. My favorite teddy bear that I had since I was five sat in the middle of the pillows, a big smile on his face. “Hey Mr. Paws,” I whispered.

  Opening the top drawer of my white wooden dresser, I pulled out some fresh panties and a matching bra. Then I opened the second drawer to find my favorite skinny jeans. They were the dark denim ones with their extra stretchy fabric that made them more comfortable. They hugged the curves in all the right places but didn’t cut off circulation when I bent over. It was definitely feeling like a stretchy jeans kind of day…

  Next, I went over to my closet to look for a blouse. I flipped through a few white ones before settling a tiny little blood red number that I wore so infrequently, that I had almost forgotten I owned it.

  Just as I was gathering my towel and other shower supplies, I felt a pang in my stomach that nearly doubled me over. Then, a rumbling… I’d never felt so hungry in all my life.

  Sheesh! How much did I drink last night?

  As the stomach cramping subsided, I decided to get straight into the shower, then I’d find something to eat that my hungover stomach would tolerate, hopefully.

  Right now, I just wanted to wash the ick off myself. I hadn’t actually intended to spend the night with Michael Knight – or whoever he was. I just wanted to get some and then go home. The thing was… I could not actually remember all that had happened last night.