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Fated Hearts
A Shadow Bound Novel
Garrett Leigh
Copyright © 2019 by Garrett Leigh
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Art: Garrett Leigh @ Black Jazz Design
Editing: Posy Roberts @ Boho Press
Proofing: Jennifer Griffin @ Marked and Read. Annabelle Jacobs.
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
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
FURTHER READING
NEWSLETTER
PATREON
About the Author
Also by Garrett Leigh
Foreword
It’s 2020 and the wolf packs of western Europe have been waging a war for a hundred years. Pushed back to the north, Alpha Varian’s pack stands alone against the huge numbers of allied southern packs. Only their greater skill on the battlefield and their alliance with Shadow Clan, the mismatched family of the most powerful shifters the world has ever seen, keeps them from total destruction.
For years, the Shadow Clan has stayed out of the war, for fear of plunging the world into a greater conflict of all supernatural creatures, but when Varian calls on his oldest friends for help, their restraint is stretched to the limit.
Note: in this supernatural world, the wolves are shapeshifters, not werewolves. They are not influenced by the moon or killed by silver bullets.
Shadow Clan are something more, ultra shapeshifters, if you like. They are venomous and have enhanced powers, gifts, and strengths. When they are changed, they may choose the form their animal side takes. More on Shadow Clan can be found in Shadow Bound, which tells the story of how Dash and Luca found each other. It is a free story and the link to it is in my newsletter, which you can find at the end of the book.
Chapter One
Bomber leaned against the tree. “You should be down there with the rest of them. She was your best friend.”
Zio didn’t answer. Crouched in the branches, fists clenched, he watched through hooded eyes as Emma was brought forward to be scattered in the forest clearing where so many wolves had been scattered before her. He didn’t believe in the afterlife, but she had. I hope she wasn’t disappointed.
Varian, alpha of the northern pack, stepped up to perform the sacred cutting ritual that would finally set Emma free. The ancient rope was uncoiled from the urn carrying her ashes and severed with a dagger older than every supernatural being gathered in the clearing. A breeze whispered through the forest. Leaves rustled. Birds took flight.
It began to rain. Light drizzle turned to fat drops that sent mourners hurrying for shelter until only wolves—only pack—remained.
Varian gathered them close. “Emma was our healer and our sister. The imprint she left on our lives will never fade, but we must go on. Our time for grief is short. War is with us, and it will be until we can find peace with the southern packs.” His gaze drifted skyward, letting Zio and Bomber know he sensed their presence. “Peace was something Emma craved. She dedicated her life to it. From this day forward, our quest for it will mean more than ever.”
The words washed over Zio as the rain battered him, soaking through his clothes, running down his face in place of the tears he’d never shed. Peace. He curled his fists tighter, letting his claws slide out and bite into flesh, grounding himself in the scent of his own blood, fighting the urge to bend the earth to the tune of his rage. Peace was a joke. Too many lives had been lost. All that was left was revenge, and Zio meant to take it.
He would take it, whether the war continued or not. Tired of life and hungry for death, he was the perfect killing machine, the perfect soldier for Varian’s combat squad.
And until Emma’s killers were burnt to dust, that was all he’d ever be.
Chapter Two
Devan entered the old church Shadow Clan favoured for important meetings. Years ago, a summons like the one he’d received from the elders would’ve terrified him, but he wasn’t a freshly changed teenage boy anymore. Shifter life was the only life he truly remembered, and Bratislava was home.
The church was quiet and still, but Devan sensed the presence of those who had summoned him, and in the crypt, he found Dash and Luca waiting for him.
Dash greeted him with a warm embrace, Luca the cool nod that was typical of him. The mated elders were fire and ice. Light and dark. The warm sun and frigid sea, though Devan knew Luca to be far friendlier than his reticence belied. And he used to be a vampire, remember? He’s died twice to be here—human, vampire, shifter.
Even in the supernatural world, it was a tall tale to accept, but Dash’s healing powers were legendary. He’d found his mate in a dying vampire and saved him, bonding them forever.
Devan envied their love. Craved it. Not being able to hunt for his own mate was his only regret at choosing the safe life in Slovakia Dash had offered him.
One day.
“Take a seat,” Dash offered when the pleasantries were done. “This shouldn’t take long, but you’ll need to focus.”
Ah, focus—the one trait Devan had retained from his human self, or rather, an inability to do it unless he was strict with his thoughts.
He took a seat, settling against the engraved wood. “What do you need?”
“We have a task for you,” Dash said.
“A mission,” Luca interjected.
Dash rolled his eyes, the gesture allowing his boyish features to belie his great age. “Yes, all right. Call it a mission if you like, but the particulars of that are semantics. Devan isn’t a soldier.”
Truth. Devan could fight—he’d proven so many times—but that wasn’t why he’d been changed. Why his human life had been upgraded to the supernatural. Do no harm. Life, not death. Though he lacked Dash’s centuries of experience, he was and would always be a healer. “What’s my mission?”
“We need you to travel to England,” Luca said. “Join up with the Northern Wolf Pack.”
Wolves. Devan struggled to keep the shock from his face. “You mean, the only northern pack left. Why?”
“Their medic was killed in action a few weeks back,” Dash said. “There are no wolf healers left in northern territory now, and with the pack wars still raging, their need is greater than ours.”
“What do we care about that?”
“We always care,” Dash said. “But this pack is . . . special. I think the world would be darker without them.”
“You want me to join them as their resident healer to keep them alive.”
It wasn�
�t a question, more a collection of words Devan had to speak aloud to legitimately believe, but Dash nodded, and Luca folded his strong, corded arms across his chest.
“We know it’s a big ask,” Luca said. “But within the alliance, Alpha Varian is a long-time ally of ours, a friend, a brother. And his pack is young. They need help and guidance, even if they’re not yet willing to accept it.”
And there was the other thing. Devan didn’t share the vitriolic hatred of wolves that many of his kind did. After all, they were kin now—brothers and sisters—had been for more than a century since the Shadow Clan, Dash’s family of misfit shifters, had forged a treaty with the ancient wolf packs. But old rivalries and differences were hard to ignore, and there was every chance the young wolves in the northern pack would resent his presence too much for him to be of any use. “How intense is the fighting right now?”
“There’s a lull at the moment,” Luca said. “The healer was killed in a skirmish in London, and the northern pack lost a lot of ground. They retreated to regroup, and the southern packs let them. They won’t cross the border. . . at least, not yet.”
Luca’s ominous tone made Devan shiver, though it had been decades since he’d last felt cold. “If the southern packs take the whole of England, it’s only a matter of time before their aggression spreads to the rest of Europe.”
“It is,” Luca agreed. “We’ve stayed out of the war so far, as agreed when we forged the alliance so long ago, but if the southern packs claim that much territory, there’s no telling how much more they’ll want.”
Devan nodded slowly. The southern wolf packs were known for their power-hungry alphas: men and women who ruled their communities with terror and oppression. It was only fear of Luca’s military might and lack of support from the wolves in the north that had kept them in check this long. “How long will I need to be there for?”
“There’s no way of knowing that,” Dash said. “Which is why we’re giving you the opportunity to refuse.”
“You are?”
“Of course. Bratislava and the healer’s commune is the only home you’ve known as a shifter. Asking you to join a potentially hostile wolf pack is a momentous task, and I told Varian we’d only be able to help if I found a healer willing to accept the role.”
“Why did you ask me?”
“Because you’re unmated and young and known for your lack of aggression,” Luca said.
“Are you calling me a coward?”
“Far from it.” Luca shook his head. “The opposite, actually. It’s far easier to fight first and ask questions later, and it takes more courage to stand in the face of a challenge and ask why.”
Dash’s gaze flickered between Devan and his mate. “It’s true, though I wasn’t expecting Luca to explain it so succinctly. There were other candidates, but you’re a shifter who thinks before he acts. Dropped in the middle of a war-hardened pack, you’re going to need that quality.”
“What about actual fighting? What if the war advances north and the southern packs threaten Alpha Varian’s remaining territories?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Luca said.
But Dash frowned. “I think we should cross it now. Extraction will be difficult if the war spreads into previously safe territory, and also, Devan’s healing instincts, even among wolves, may prevent him from even wanting to leave.”
“So he fights?” Luca said.
“I hope not.” Dash turned bright blue eyes on Devan. “Because that would start a much bigger war, but whatever happens, we’ll support you. Just as if you want to come home, we’ll make it happen.”
“You literally just said extraction would be difficult.”
“It will be, but above all else, you’re clan, and we’ll protect you no matter what.” Dash spoke with the alpha timbre that let Devan know there would be no further discussion, and warmth flowed between them, a familial bond that was absolute.
Devan reached out to touch him. Their hands clasped, and Dash leaned over and nuzzled his neck.
“I’ll go,” Devan whispered. “When do I leave?”
Chapter Three
Devan flew to Norway from Bratislava, then caught another plane to Greenland, passing through the shifter sections of the human airports and abiding by the rules the human governments enforced to keep shifters in check. Before joining the wolf pack, Dash wanted him to visit the last surviving wolf elders, who lived far north of where the military units were based in England.
Jonathon met him at the airport and took him home to meet Madhi, his mate. In human years, they outnumbered Dash and Luca combined, but they’d stopped shifting a decade ago and were finally growing old.
Their cabin in the woods was small and rustic. They’d made Devan a bed by the fire.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t need much sleep, and I’m eager to join the pack in England.”
“We’re sorry you have to,” Madhi said. “Many years ago, we had hundreds of healers, more so than even your clan, but so many have been lost to the wars.”
“Shadow Clan has fought wars too,” Devan said. “It’s only Dash and Luca’s leadership that has kept us at peace for so long.”
Madhi conceded his point with a nod. “This is true, but Luca demands the respect of all supernatural beings, and there is much love for Dash. It has been a long time since a wolf commanded such affection. We are no longer great leaders.”
“You are still greatly respected,” Devan said. “It’s why Dash sent me to you. He says you know more about the northern pack as it is now than anyone, that I need your counsel before I can join them. I’m truly grateful for any guidance you can give me.”
“Sit down, young blood. We’ll tell you everything we can.”
A few hours later, Devan left the cabin armed with as much information about Alpha Varian’s pack as he could cram into his mind. On the way to the airport, he listed the names he’d learned from the elite combat squad he’d be embedded with: two betas—Gale and Zio—and eight soldiers. They were young, as Dash and Luca had said, but gifted too. Two pack members could influence the elements, another was a shield. The information went some way to explaining how such a small command unit had resisted the southern threat for so long.
But their healer is dead. Pain lanced Devan’s heart, grief for a shifter he’d never known. Madhi and Jonathon had spoken nothing but kindness for the healer Varian’s pack had lost. “She was a good woman and a fine wolf. The world will be darker without her.”
Devan would never know if that was true, but one thing was certain, he had big shoes to fill.
Nerves carried him all the way to England, and he deplaned in Manchester with an unmistakable itch under his skin. But away from the safety of his home in Slovakia, for the first time in years, the urge to shift had to be ignored. Dash had warned him that the human population in this strange country tolerated shifters only if they stuck to their own lands when they took their animal forms or stayed out of sight. For the wolves based in Cumbria’s Lake District, that meant a military compound hidden within the sprawling five-mile township under their protection, and the surrounding countryside. And even then, Devan would need Varian’s permission to shift at will—no wolf pack would want an outsider roaming their territory unchecked.
He passed through shifter security and left the terminal. Outside, he scented the air. The earthy musk of wolves hit his sensitive nose like a punch to the chest, and the beast within him bristled, but Devan battled the fight-or-flight instincts that roared to life. He’d arrived a day or so earlier than he was expected, but he was expected. Any wolf who caught his scent would hopefully know it.
Still, alone on potentially hostile ground, Devan didn’t fancy getting cornered. The sensible thing would be to take a cab north to the township and make his presence known. But . . .
In Devan’s experience, the urge to shift could only truly be dulled by something else . . . something he was unlikely to find once he was embedded with the wolv
es. Besides, in war-torn territory, he’d be a fool not to scout the area while he had the chance. Before his every movement was beholden to the will of an alpha he’d never met.
Screw it. He slung his bag onto his back and headed into the city.
Zio sucked in a breath that burnt his lungs and pressed himself against the sticky wall. The club was dark and smoky and the only establishment outside of London that served booze strong enough to keep him drunk for longer than ten minutes.
And fuck was he drunk. Had been ever since Varian had gifted him some “time to process” but in the week that had passed since he’d fled the township, nothing had changed. He missed his life in London, the friends he’d lost. And he missed Emma, forever and always.
I need another drink.
“No, you don’t,” her soft voice counselled. “All that happens when you’re drunk is bad decisions and regret. You’re not built for a reckless life.”
But she was wrong about that. War was as reckless as anything in the world, and Zio had been born in a pool of someone else’s blood.
Reborn.
Whatever.
He pushed off the wall and found the bar. The air was thick with human emotion and arousal, and much of it was directed at him. Most humans wouldn’t have known he was a shifter, but their bodies did and instinctively called to him. Men, women, and everything in between.
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