by Alisa Woods
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Wild Heat (Book 3)
Wild One (Book 4)
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Wild One (Wilding Pack Wolves 4)
Copyright © 2016 by Alisa Woods
March 2016 Edition
All rights reserved.
Sworn Secrets Publishing
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. For information visit:
Alisa Woods
Cover by Steven Novak
Wild One (Wilding Pack Wolves 4)—New Adult Paranormal Romance
He's a shifter gang leader. She's a halfling on the run.
And the Wolf Hunter has just declared open season on them both.
Marco Wilding’s pack is being picked off, one by one. The Wolf Hunter’s mercenaries are snatching wolves off the street then dumping the tortured bodies inside Marco’s gang territory. When they go for a shifter kid, Marco’s patrol is on it – until a beautiful female wolf steps in and kicks the kidnapper’s ass. The delay saves the kid, but Marco can’t stop drooling over this brave, unmated female who mysteriously landed in his lap.
Only she wants nothing to do with him.
Julia Holloway’s life was finally turning around – she was getting her degree and getting out of her mother’s house with its parade of abusive step-fathers. Then her wolf went wild and ruined her life. Now she’s on the run, but her wolf is still out of control. When it once again tries to save someone, this time a kid who was being kidnapped, she gets an offer she can’t refuse –safe harbor inside a shifter gang while she gets her life back on track.
Only the hot shifter leader with the passionate eyes wants a mate… and wants her to stay.
As Julia and Marco race to stop the Wolf Hunter’s men, Julia will have to do more than just tame her wild wolf… she’ll have to decide whether giving up everything she wants will bring her the one thing she really needs.
It was the last thing Marco wanted to see: another dead wolf.
“Fucking hell,” Stefan spat out when they came upon the body. Marco’s beta and best friend stood with his feet planted wide and his hands clenched into fists. His claws were extending and retracting, rhythmically, like his wolf was ready to kill something. Marco understood his frustration. Their enemy, the person who did this, was faceless and elusive—but not nameless.
The Wolf Hunter did this.
“We’ll make him pay, Stefan.” Marco knelt by the body, which had been left like so much trash in an alleyway, right next to a dumpster overflowing with rotted vegetables and grease. Marco ran his hand gently along the soft black fur of the wolf’s head. There was no way to know for certain the person inside—the person the Wolf Hunter had murdered—because DNA shifted with form. They were fully human in human form, fully wolf in beast form, with no link between the two. Marco was always warning his pack to stay away from the police for that very reason—they would be forced to shift and their twin DNAs would be linked. Then the cops would use it against them, tagging them with some crime and shoving them in a prison system that was a death sentence for shifters.
But having no link also meant there was no way to prove this wolf, his murdered friend, was anything more than an animal. The Wolf Hunter was exploiting that fact by snatching shifters off the streets of downtown Seattle… and murdering them in wolf form.
“I will avenge you, Christoph,” Marco whispered to his dead friend. Then he passed his hand over the wolf’s glazed eyes—dead, but still open. He’d gone missing from the pack a week ago, and it looked like the Wolf Hunter had tortured him. His body was raw and torn, bloody red strips that had been cut and healed, then cut and healed again. Massive bruises had made Christoph’s head lumpy and misshapen. It was damn hard to kill a wolf, which only meant dying could take a very long time. Someday, Marco would rip out the Wolf Hunter’s throat with his own fangs… but only after the bastard had suffered as long as Christoph had.
“It’s getting worse.” Stefan’s claws were still out, looking for revenge. “And they’re stepping up their game.”
His beta was right—this was the third wolf in as many weeks. The first two were easier targets—Meredith, an older wolf who ran a grocery store in the middle of his territory, and Timmy, a pup who attended the shifter school Marco had set up for his sprawling and rapidly growing pack. But Christoph… he was a fully-grown, male shifter. He would’ve put up a substantial fight. It would have taken more than one or two asshole hate-group members to grab him off the street.
Marco’s wolf growled, demanding justice. “We need to catch them in the act. Find their nest and wipe them out.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “But for now… the school’s almost ready to let out, and I’m on patrol.”
“Me too.” Stefan shook his head sadly, still looking at Christoph’s body. “At least, the school isn’t near the edge of our territory, where Christoph was taken. Fuck. I was just sure it was Cruz’s pack, fucking around with us. I just thought…”
Everyone thought—hoped—Christoph would be coming back. If it was just a gang show-of-force, if Christoph had managed to wander into their territory, that was possible.
This was different.
“No, this is definitely the Wolf Hunter.” Marco snarled and stood up. “Cruz wouldn’t leave him like this, not without making sure we knew it was him. But I should meetup with him. Cruz is a violent asshole, but he’s not stupid. The Wolf Hunter is a problem for us both. For all I know, his people have been disappearing, too.” Marco sighed. Contacting Cruz was both dangerous and necessary. “First things first. As soon as we’re done with the school patrol, I want you to organize a network of watchers. We need eyes on every street.”
Stefan frowned. “That’ll stretch us pretty thin.”
“I know.” Marco shook his head. This was a fucking mess. “You have a better idea?” It wasn’t a challenge—Marco was alpha, but Stefan was smart. And a wise alpha used the resources of every member of the pack.
“Not really,” Stefan said with a scowl. “I just want to fucking kill this Wolf Hunter asshole.”
“If we get the chance, I claim first blood.”
Stefan nodded, still scowling at the young, dead wolf at their feet. Christoph had been new to the pack, but he was fiercely loyal. Not unlike Stefan, who Marco trusted with his life.
Years ago, when Marco told his father, Donald Wilding, to fuck off for the last time, he left the sprawling Wilding pack family-of-crazy and landed here in the toughest shifter territory in downtown Seattle. Stefan was already here, likewise orphaned, although not by choice, and they were instant brothers. Together, they put down the brutal alpha who had been running things, and his pack became Marco’s. Ever since, he and Stefan had w
orked to create a safe haven for anyone who would submit to him and pledge loyalty to the pack as a whole.
Marco had only been eighteen when he became alpha, but the pack was strong under him and kept growing. Shifters were drawn to the pack’s reputation for being as much a family as a way to survive when society cast them off. He didn’t have to rule with an iron fist, the way some alphas did. And now, with the Wolf Hunter and his hate-group minions on the loose, the need for a safe haven was becoming more pressing every day.
The last few weeks had been even worse. His cousin, Terra Wilding, had shown up out of the blue and snapped pictures of his people… and then exhibited the photographs to the rich humans of the city who liked that sort of thing. Marco had approved of the project, called the People of Seattle, in hopes that it might convince some of the humans, cloistered and fearful in their suburban homes, that there was no excuse for treating shifters like animals. Terra had photographed everyone in their wolf form, with their stories attached, hoping it would humanize shifters, and who knew… maybe it was working. The exhibit was apparently a hit, according to the press, and there seemed to be some sympathy for them. Especially after Terra was kidnapped by the Wolf Hunter himself. The mayor had even vowed to reform the cop’s anti-shifter policies, although Marco would believe that shit when he saw it happen. But in the end, it was his people who were taking the brunt of it. The Wolf Hunter was now actively targeting his pack—his true family—and murdering them one by one.
He didn’t blame Terra, but those images definitely put a target on their backs.
Marco scowled down at Christoph’s body. “What I don’t understand, is how the Wolf Hunter knows which of us is wolf and which is not.”
Stefan shook his head. “It can’t be the exhibit. There’s not enough information to out us individually. There has to be someone spying on the shelter itself.” The headquarters for Marco’s pack used to be a mega grocery store, but he’d converted it into a home. He worked hard to keep a roof over their heads and keep them fed. It wasn’t always easy—and not everything was legal—but he was committed to keeping his people alive.
This new threat from the Wolf Hunter was threatening to unravel everything.
“If there’s a spy, we need to figure out who. And we need to step up our game, too.” Marco’s phone pinged—it was his alarm for the school patrol. “Let’s go take care of this, then we’ll head back to the shelter and come up with a plan.”
“Sounds good.” Stefan pulled out his own phone. “I’ll get someone to come for Christoph. And we’ll need to arrange another ceremony.”
Another one. Three funerals in three weeks. Burying his brothers and sisters in the Olympic mountains where they could finally rest in peace. No names. No headstones. No proper cemetery burial for them because they died wolf.
The Wolf Hunter had stolen that from them, too.
It made Marco’s wolf seethe under his skin.
He swiped open his phone and called in to the school-patrol leader. “Hey, Anthony, Stefan and I are on our way.” The kids’ routes were all mapped out, from the small red-bricked apartment-turned-school to whatever shabby tenement they called home. Or back to the shelter, for many of them. “But just a heads up—we found Christoph.”
“Oh man.”
Marco didn’t have to say they found him dead. It was expected now. And Marco felt the demoralization of his pack like a living energy being drained from him. The submission bond of a hundred people—every member of his rapidly growing pack—strengthened him with a literal magical energy, and he needed that to keep their territorial claim strong. But each day this thing dragged on, each new funeral they had to attend, their faith in him took a hit. It didn’t help that he still hadn’t taken a mate. In any other circumstance, a twenty-one-year-old alpha wouldn’t be expected to settle down, but Marco had responsibilities that outweighed his age. The strength of a mating bond would reassure his people that he had what it took to carry them through.
And they had to stick together.
Shifters had always taken care of their own, but now that they were being directly targeted, on the internet and on the streets, it was even more important that they pull together... and his personal love life concerns paled in significance compared to that. Marco’s wolf grumped off into a corner with the reminder that holding out for a true mate wasn’t really an option for him. His priority had to be keeping his pack safe.
He would have to make a decision about a mate. Soon.
Stefan swiped his phone closed. “Antonio’s on the way take care of Christoph,” he said grimly.
“All right, let’s go.” They only had a few minutes to get to their station along the patrol route.
Marco and Stefan weaved through a few back alleys, across several streets, past closed and boarded-up businesses as well as the occasional straggling deli or grocery store still in operation. Humans refused to hire shifters or live around them, not if they could help it. The slow emptying-out of Marco’s territory was a natural consequence of known shifters simply breathing in the presence of humans. Most of the shifters in his pack landed here because they were out of jobs and options, but some still held jobs outside the territory, then commuted into the city to live near the pack. And some of that money helped support the few businesses that remained, who were either shifter-sympathetic or outright run by shifters.
But it wasn’t enough to keep everyone going—which was why they ran some drug trade, set up an illegal car-part ring, and moved a few other items along the connections Marco had forged throughout Seattle’s black markets. But now the few legit businesses that existed inside the territory were being targeted by the Wolf Hunter… like Meredith. Her mate kept the store going with the help of a few other pack members, but the man was in mourning—he’d lost his true mate, a mate of thirty years, and that took a toll. Every time Marco looked at the man’s emptied-out expression, he wanted to add another hour to the torture he would inflict on the Wolf Hunter before he was allowed to die.
Marco and Stefan picked up the pace so they would arrive at their appointed lookout spot on time. They stopped a block down a side street from the main drag through downtown, holding their position. The kid taking this route, Ethan, had line of sight coverage all the way from school to home. Marco wasn’t taking any risks—he wanted eyes on the kids at all times. He checked his phone for the time. They’d made it.
This block was mostly old tenements, half abandoned, half occupied by shifters. Ethan was only about twelve, a full-blooded shifter, but he hadn’t reached his adolescence yet, so he hadn’t acquired the bulky muscles that piled on during a male wolf’s maturation. His mother and father both worked long hours outside the territory, trying to make ends meet, so Ethan came home to an empty apartment—that’s how it was for a lot of these kids. Ethan was lucky he actually had two parents. Half the time, the kids spent their afternoons at the shelter with one of the older wolves helping them out with homework. Or roughhousing to teach them to manage their wolf… and acquire other skills they’d need to survive.
Meredith’s grocery store was just around the corner. Marco made a mental note to stop by and see how her mate was holding up. It would only take a minute. Maybe he would bring Ethan with him.
“I was thinking,” Stefan said, with a glance at his phone, checking the time. Ethan should be along any minute. “A lot of these kids are in their homes in the afternoons—maybe we could set up a network with them. Get some walkie-talkies and—” Stefan cut off as a white van screeched around the corner and came to a sudden stop. “What the fuck?”
Right at that moment, Ethan strode around the corner as well. Two men in black tactical gear and masks sprang out of the back of the van. They were going for Ethan.
“Go, go, go!” Marco shouted, drawing his gun out of the back of his pants and sprinting for the kid. Fuck! They were nearly a block away, and the thugs were already on top of Ethan—Marco couldn’t get a shot without the risk of hitting the kid. Then sudden
ly, a girl with long honey-brown hair tore around the corner, heading for Ethan and the two men. Her arms were full with a bag of groceries, but she threw those to the side and ran straight for them.
Marco watched in amazement as this wiry girl, not much tougher-looking than the kid, launched herself, feet first, at one of the kidnappers, kicking him square in the chest. The kid broke free, but the second man grabbed him before he could run. Marco and Stefan were nearly there, but this girl—this crazy damn girl—was kicking and punching the shit out of the first kidnapper. When he got hold of her and lifted her off the ground—she was a thin little thing—she kept pummeling him. But she was losing the fight, and quickly.
Then she shifted. Right in the guy’s arms. Scratching him and going for his throat with her fangs. This girl was serious pure badass… and Marco had no idea who she was.
Stefan reached the second kidnapper and Ethan, but two more guys piled out of the back of the van. They tackled Stefan, two on one, while the other guy hauled the kid toward the van. Marco still didn’t have a shot, so he tucked his gun away and charged in, bypassing Stefan and the girl still fighting it out with the kidnappers, keeping his eyes on Ethan. The kid was fighting, but he hadn’t shifted—Marco had drilled into everyone’s heads to stay human. It was too easy to get away with killing them as a wolf.
The guy had Ethan halfway into the van when Marco reached him and landed a punch. The kidnapper was stunned badly enough that Marco could wrench the kid free.
“Run!” Marco commanded. Ethan took off like a shot… although he only went as far as the sidewalk and stopped. The kidnapper recovered, then came out of the van with some kind of long gun. Marco grappled with him. It went off, but it must’ve had a silencer because there was just a strange thwick sound. Marco wrestled the gun free then pounded the guy’s face with it, knocking him back through the open door of the van. The driver up front pointed a similar long-barreled gun at him. Marco spun to the side of the van, taking cover behind the half-open door. Another thwick, not a normal gunshot—damn things had to be tranquilizers.
