by Cheree Alsop
—Mari, Amazon Reviewer
“. . . I’ve fallen for the characters and their world. I’ve even gone on to share (this book) with my sister. . .So many moments made me smile as well as several which brought tears from the attachment; not sad tears, I might add. When I started Shadows, I didn’t expect much because I assumed it was like most of the books I’ve read lately. But this book was one of the few books to make me happy I was wrong and find myself so far into the books that I lost track of time, ending up reading to the point that my body said I was too tired to continue reading! I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book. . . Some of my new favorite quotes will be coming from this lovely novel. Thank you to Cheree Alsop for allowing the budding thoughts to come to life. I am a very hooked reader.”
—Stephanie Roberts, Amazon Reviewer
“This was a heart-warming tale of rags to riches. It was also wonderfully described and the characters were vivid and vibrant; a story that teaches of love defying boundaries and of people finding acceptance.”
—Sara Phillip, Book Reviewer
“This is the best book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. . . It literally has everything, drama, action, fighting, romance, adventure, & suspense. . . Nexa is one of the most incredible female protagonists ever written. . .It literally had me on pins & needles the ENTIRE time. . . I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Please give yourself a wonderful treat & read this book… you will NOT be disappointed!!!”
—Jess- Goodreads Reviewer
“Took my breath away; excitement, adventure and suspense. . . This author has extracted a tender subject and created a supernatural fantasy about seeing beyond the surface of an individual. . . Also the romantic scenes would make a girl swoon. . . The fights between allies and foes and blood lust would attract the male readers. . .The conclusion was so powerful and scary this reader was sitting on the edge of her seat.”
—Susan Mahoney, Book Blogger
“Adventure, incredible amounts of imagination and description go into this world! It is a buy now, don't leave the couch until the last chapter has reached an end kind of read!”
—Malcay- Amazon Reviewer
“The high action tale with the underlying love story that unfolds makes you want to keep reading and not put it down. I can't wait until the next book in the Shadows Series comes out.”
—Karen- Amazon Reviewer
“Really enjoyed this book. A modern fairy tale complete with Kings and Queens, Princesses and Princes, castles and the damsel is not quite in distress. LOVE IT.”
—Braine, Talk Supe- Book Blogger
“. . . It’s refreshing to see a female character portrayed without the girly cliches most writers fall into. She is someone I would like to meet in real life, and it is nice to read the first person POV of a character who is so well-round that she is brave, but still has the softer feminine side that defines her character. A definite must read.”
—S. Teppen- Goodreads Reviewer
“I really enjoyed this book and had a hard time putting it down. . . This premise is interesting and the world building was intriguing. The author infused the tale with the feeling of suspicion and fear . . . The author does a great job with characterization and you grow to really feel for the characters throughout especially as they change and begin to see Nexa's point of view. . . I did enjoy the book and the originality. I would recommend this for young adult fantasy lovers. It's more of a mild dark fantasy, but it would definitely fall more in the traditional fantasy genre. ”
—Jill- Goodreads Reviewer
Dawn is the reminder that each day starts with hope.
Chose to hang onto that token of light,
And let it shine with every action.
Impact the lives around you,
With the brightness you carry inside.
Thank you to my family,
For the light and joy of
Each and every day.
I love you.
Chapter One
Alex ducked into the tunnel when Jaze pulled open the door. The scent that rushed over him in a wave made his stomach lurch. Stale bodies, feces, and the kind of dirt that comes with a place that hasn’t been washed since it was built hit like a wall. Alex breathed through his mouth as he ran silently down the cement walkway, checking the corridors for anyone who might try to stop them.
A sound caught Alex’s ears. He paused at the sight of eyes peering back at him through the bars.
Alex put a finger to his earpiece. “There are live ones down here,” he said.
Answering footsteps ran toward him.
“Don’t worry. We’re here to get you out,” Alex reassured the boy who looked only a few years older than his own sixteen years.
Fear and relief combated in the boy’s wide eyes as if he didn’t dare to believe Alex’s words.
“Look out,” a deeper voice said from further down the hallway.
Two men appeared as silently as ghosts from the next corridor. They were dressed from head to toe in black and wore night vision goggles Alex didn’t need thanks to his werewolf senses. Two red dots centered on Alex’s chest. He wondered for a split second whether the bullets would be silver. He decided it didn’t matter. He didn’t like getting shot either way.
Alex dove to the side as the guards’ fingers tightened on the triggers. Bullets ricocheted down the hallway. The guards looked around wildly for Alex, but he had already reached them.
Alex knocked the gun on the right aside and slammed his fist into the first guard’s throat. He used the same fist and pummeled a haymaker into the second guard’s jaw. The guard squeezed his trigger spasmodically at the blow and the bullet drove into the ceiling. Alex chopped the man’s arm and he dropped the gun. The werewolf fell to one knee and spun, knocking both of the guards’ feet out from under them. He hit them with a two fisted punch to the face and their heads rebounded off the cement, knocking them out cold.
“Nicely done,” the deep voice said.
Alex grabbed one of the guns and crossed to the cell.
“How many are down here?” he asked the werewolf who took up most of the small enclosure.
“A dozen,” the werewolf replied. He coughed, a deep, wracking sound that told Alex he needed to get the werewolf to the safe house and medical care as quickly as possible.
Alex slammed the gun down on the lock to the cell. It broke easily. He yanked the cage open, glad the gloves Jaze had given him kept the silver that coated the bars from touching his skin.
He ducked under the werewolf’s arm and helped him to his feet. The werewolf leaned heavily to one side. It took Alex a moment to realize that the werewolf was missing an entire foot. He put most of his substantial weight on Alex. When the werewolf’s hand gripped his shoulder, Alex noticed he was missing three fingers as well.
“What happened to you?” Alex asked quietly as he helped the hulking werewolf into the corridor.
The werewolf kept his gaze from his hand and foot as though the sight of them sickened him. “Experimentation at its finest.”
Alex’s stomach tightened. “You mean they cut parts off of you?”
The werewolf nodded. “They wanted to see if they would regenerate.”
Alex spoke through clenched teeth. “We heal, not regenerate. Body parts don’t grow back.”
“They eventually figured that out,” the werewolf said, nodding his massive head toward a cell where a girl gripped the bars with one hand. Alex didn’t need to wonder where her other hand was.
He touched his earpiece again. “These werewolves have been experimented on.”
“You know to expect that,” Jaze’s steady voice replied. “We’ll get them to a safe house and help them find their families.”
Alex knew that would be Jaze’s answer, yet he hoped there was a different one. After all he had seen in the rescues they made, there had to be some way to stop it.
They had Drogan. The thought reassured him. Both Drogan and his father, the Ge
neral, had been fond of experimenting on werewolves. Since Drogan’s capture seven months ago, finding such facilities had become much harder. Either the General had shifted his interests in his effort to locate his son, or he was getting cleverer in his locations. Either way, Alex was just happy to get the werewolves out of his grasp.
“Good work,” Kaynan said, his red eyes flashing as he passed Alex at the door.
Chet and Dray helped assist the werewolf through the grate in the floor Alex had found on their sweep of the warehouse. The stench of the long deceased experiment victims on the bottom floor had masked the scent of the live werewolves beneath. Alex had bumped a table and dropped a beaker from it. When he bent to pick the glass object up, the slight brush of stale air had hinted of what was beneath the grate. He thanked his instincts that pressed him to investigate.
“Easy does it, sir,” Vance told the lumbering werewolf who made even the bearlike professor look small. “We’ll get you away from this place and somewhere you can take it easy for a while.”
“Do you think I could have a hamburger?” the werewolf asked as he accepted Vance’s assistance to climb into the waiting SUV. The vehicle shifted under his weight.
“I’ll get you a hamburger myself,” Vance promised.
The werewolf gave him a grateful smile. “Make it a dozen. I’ve been craving hamburgers for months.”
Vance answered with a rare smile of his own. “You’ll have your hamburgers, sir.”
Alex smiled as he hurried back down the warehouse steps. It wasn’t often someone broke through Vance’s tough shell, yet the professor had a caring heart he seldom let show. If Alex mentioned anything to the students back at the Academy, Vance would deny it until he was blue and then make Alex run laps until he was as well.
“I’ve got you,” Jaze said.
Alex crouched to grab the young woman’s good hand as Jaze caught her gently under the elbow and lifted her up to the warehouse floor.
The woman didn’t speak. The fear in her eyes ate at Alex’s heart. Her hair was matted and dirty. She kept looking around her as if afraid the General’s men would beat her for escaping.
“You’re safe with us,” Alex reassured her.
Her gaze locked on his. Alex paused, caught by her expression. Her eyes were dark, but there was a flicker of light in their depths, as if now that she was free of her cage, the woman was trying to break through from her protective walls as well.
She set a hand on Alex’s cheek. He almost jerked back in surprise, but held still, aware that she posed no threat.
After looking at him for several seconds that felt like an eternity, the woman patted his cheek and nodded. She took a deep breath, let it go, and took a step away from him, continuing to the vehicles with Jaze. Alex stared after her, wondering what had just happened.
“Sometimes we need to be reassured that there is still good left in the world,” Dray said quietly from the grate.
“I don’t know if I’m the best reassurance,” Alex said.
Dray smiled. “A kid like you running around with Jaze Carso freeing captive werewolves? I think you’ll do.”
Alex rolled his eyes as he levered himself into the dark hole beneath the grate again. “Sure. It sounds awesome when you put it like that.”
“It is like that,” Dray called after him.
Brock’s voice spoke into Alex’s earpiece. The other werewolves who were helping prisoners out of the cells paused as they heard Brock’s words, too. “We’ve tripped an alarm.”
“I thought you checked everything,” Jaze replied.
“We did,” Brock said. “We cut the power and swept for bugs and sensors. I don’t know what it was.”
Mouse took over. “I’m guessing the General set up a secondary security system using battery-powered radio transmitters and receivers. We’re trying to locate it, but knowing the General, it’ll take longer to find it than it will to blow this place.”
Lyra, Mouse’s wife, said, “If this is the case, we can interfere with the signal electromagnetically, but I don’t think we have the time.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Jaze replied. “My pack, get the remaining three werewolves into the vehicles. Black Team, run a final sweep of the floor to ensure we covered the area. Agent Sullivan, meet up with Mouse at the helicopter. If he finds the radio frequency, we might be able to trace it to the source.”
“Will do,” Darian, the leader of the Black Team, replied.
“Got it,” Agent Sullivan said.
“Come on,” Chet called from down the corridor. “Let’s get these werewolves out of here.”
Alex helped an older man with a patch over his eye and a woman who stumbled on poorly healed feet toward the grate. A quick sweep showed that there were no more survivors in the underground corridors. Sorrow and anger at the bodies that had been left without care in other cells filled Alex with such frustration he wanted to hit something.
Jaze met him at the grate.
“That’s the last of them,” Alex said.
Jaze nodded, reading the expression on Alex’s face. “I know how you feel, trust me.”
Alex shook his head. “It’s wrong, Jaze.” He couldn’t reign in the frustration. Every cell in his body screamed for him to punch something, to end the terror werewolves were being put through just for being werewolves. He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to find control.
Jaze let out a slow breath. “We’ve got Drogan. It’s only a matter of time before we find the General.”
“But what if someone else takes over and does the same thing?” Alex asked, his tone adamant as the smell of carnage from below tangled in his nose.
“Then we’ll stop them,” Jaze replied firmly. “And if someone takes it up after that, we’ll stop them, too. We’ll fight until there is no more fighting left to do.”
“When will that be?” Alex asked quietly.
Jaze shook his head. “There’s no way of knowing. Soon, I hope.” His dark brown eyes were adamant when he said, “But we won’t stop until every werewolf is safe.”
Alex nodded. It was all they could do and he knew it. But when they found places like the warehouse, it didn’t feel like enough. No werewolf should have to go through the things he had seen. They deserved to be safe and free.
“That’s why we do it,” Jaze said, guessing his thoughts. “And why we won’t stop.”
“I know,” Alex replied. He followed at Jaze’s side to the exit of the warehouse. The sound of the chopper blades hit the air with a steady thump-thump, pushing against them when they stepped out of the wide doors.
Alex spoke over the force of the helicopter. “My pack wants to help us.”
“Your pack?” Jaze asked with a hint of humor in his eyes.
Alex shrugged as heat colored his cheeks. “Jericho’s pack. They want to help like they did when you guys were trapped.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jaze replied.
Mouse hurried up to them, his small frame a thin shadow in the night. “We have sixty seconds on my count,” the professor said, his gaze on the ground near Jaze’s feet. “We’re still trying to block the source.”
“Don’t,” Jaze replied.
Mouse paused and looked from Jaze to the warehouse. Alex nodded his acceptance of the dean’s decision. A place like the warehouse shouldn’t exist. They would ensure that it no longer did.
“Right,” Mouse said. He touched his earpiece. “Cancel the pulse,” he told Lyra. “We’re going to leave it.”
“Then you better get over here,” Lyra replied.
“Are all the werewolves clear?” Jaze asked Chet as he and Dray fell in with them on their jog toward the helicopter.
“Clear and accounted for,” Chet answered.
Jaze climbed into the helicopter and held out a hand for Alex. He pulled the student in next to him.
“Let’s get some distance between us and this place,” Jaze called.
Mouse slipped on the headset. “My thought
s exactly,” he answered, lifting the chopper into the air.
Alex watched as they cleared the parking lot of the abandoned warehouse. The few members of the General’s guard they had captured there were long gone with Agent Sullivan and the Global Protection Agency. Headlights from the SUVs shone along the road as they made their way to one of Jaze’s safe houses.
The werewolves would have a chance to recuperate, to find their families if they had any, and to start over. Alex wished they could do more for them. He thought of the woman who had set her hand on his cheek and hoped she would find the good in the world she was looking for.
The explosion rocked the sky as fire tore through the warehouse like a hungry animal.
“It’s burning pretty quick,” Jaze said into his headset. “Give it five, then call the fire department. I want to make sure there’s nothing to be found when they get there.”
“Got it,” Lyra answered from the seat next to Mouse.
Alex sat back and watched the pulsing yellow and orange lights reach for the night sky. The helicopter turned north, away from the light and devastation. The glow of the half-moon drifted reassuring through the window and brushed Alex’s arm. He turned his hand over, letting the light rest on his palm. He wondered if the werewolves below felt the same peace that filled him at the touch of pale light. He hoped they did. He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, watching the burned imprint of the flames dance in his memory.
Chapter Two
“You stink,” Cassie said when Alex stepped into Pack Jericho’s common room.
“Hello to you, too,” Alex replied, accepting his twin sister’s hug. “I’ll go shower.”
