Werewolves of New York: Darik
Faleena Hopkins
Contents
Copyright
Description
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
Epilogue
Untitled
WEREWOLVES OF N.Y.
COCKY ROOMIE
WEREWOLVES OF CHICAGO
WEREWOLVES OF CALIFORNIA
A Stand-Alone NA Romance
About the Author
Copyright © 2015 by Faleena Hopkins
Cover Licensed through Shutterstock.com
Cover Designed by Faleena Hopkins
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.
Description
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Chapter One
The bodega’s narrow aisles twisted outside the laws of physics. Like a python swallowing a generous meal the shelves contracted and expanded. Pasta, bread bags, cans of soup, all blurred when looked at. The longer Darik stared, the more he couldn’t see. His superior strength and speed had left him now. He trudged through air as heavy as saltwater. On visible sound waves, angry, warped voices drifted past him in bursts. He’d never felt this helpless before.
Hell, he’d never felt helpless.
He had to fight it because he’d just heard the unmistakable, bone-chilling sound of a safety released. This time, God help him, he had to stop that trigger from being pulled. This time, he had to save her life.
Without warning, the room whipped by him, changing the scene completely, leaving him standing at the front of the store where two masked thugs had guns shifting back and forth between the Asian employee behind the counter and at customers who blurred out of focus.
Darik searched to see who was in danger, who was terrified, who needed his help.
A shower of loud cracks shattered the air as a powerful explosion lunged from the barrels of two 9mms. Shouting, Darik leapt to push the humans to safety, but failed.
He sat upright, bursting awake, covered in sweat in his king-size bed, gripping the navy blue comforter around his naked waist as he struggled to breathe. I didn’t get there in time. Again. An involuntary shiver lit through him. It had felt real.
Welcome rays of daylight and reality peeked through dark blue sheaths as his bedroom curtains came into focus. He scanned the familiar clutter that lay on the black dresser and armoire by the door, as well as on the nightstand to his right. His eyes fell to the stack of books lying there. To root himself he read the titles: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Running With Scissors and Corrections. Underneath them lay Books Do Furnish a Room, photographs of home libraries he loved to look at to inspire his design creativity. He was an architect after all, even if he was a werewolf.
Throwing off the blankets Darik walked naked to the bathroom, his long limbs heavy. His ginger-colored hair and beard showed the usual signs of sleep, twisting this way and that. He paid them no mind. It was his dark blue eyes that grabbed his attention. They had the same stricken, sorrowful look someone has when they see a loved one die.
What the fuck? Staring at his reflection, he turned on the faucet, wishing he knew why this particular dream grabbed him and didn’t ever want to let go. It was sure to pollute the rest of his day. Just what I need. Capturing water in large, cupped hands he splashed his face repeatedly. At least this time, I saw the guns before they fired, before she was lifeless on the floor. “It’s an improvement,” he said aloud, trying to talk himself into believing it.
Grabbing a black hand-towel, he scrubbed his face and trudged back to the bedroom to scoop his phone off the dresser. It was 11:11 A.M. The matching numbers gave him pause. They seemed like they were telling him to pay attention. He tossed the towel onto the bed. Cracking the long, thick fingers of his right hand, he dialed Eli with his left. His friend and packmate answered quickly.
“Yo.”
“I had it again.”
A pause on the other end of the line. “The dream?”
“No dream. A bone-crushing nightmare. I missed my alarm. If I hadn’t missed it, maybe I wouldn’t be stuck with this fucking feeling.”
A smile could be heard in Eli’s tone, nothing unusual there. “Come to the office. We’re all here to kiss you and make it better.” So like Eli to be able to break through the haze and make him smile–that’s why Darik had chosen him to call of his three packmates. “If you’re lucky, we’ll even hold you and tell you it’s gonna be all right. Dontae first.”
“I bet he can’t wait.”
“He’s hugging himself right now to practice.”
Dontae bellowed from the background, “I’m doing no such thing!”
Eli mock-whispered, “He is. It’s embarrassing.” Whispering was ridiculous, in and of itself. With their supernaturally enhanced hearing, all of them could hear a cockroach running two rooms over if they wanted to. Not that they’d want to, because who would? Cockroaches are foul.
Nathaniel, the fourth and final member, called out, “Get in here. We’ve got a meeting today.”
“Shit.” Darik threw open the doors to his armoire, scanning his suits. “I completely forgot.” He grabbed a charcoal-grey Armani.
Eli reminded him, “You didn’t forget. You just missed the alarm ‘cause you were in hell. Don’t worry about it. We’ll cover for you if they get here first.”
He scanned three hangers of ties, all complementing his Scottish coloring. “What time are they coming?”
“Noon.”
“I can make it.” He grabbed a pale blue tie that wasn’t too thick. “You’ve got coffee?”
“Does a pig poop?”
Darik laughed and hung up. He dropped the phone next to the hand towel, and muttered in a much better mood, “Fucking Eli.”
As he got dressed he thought about how he was one lucky sonofabitch to have friends like he had. They had his back, always. Even when they fought, there was respect behind it.
Now that two of the four wolves were hitched to not-so-bad-looking ball and chains, the pack was stronger than it ever had been. The human females who’d taken Eli and Nathaniel by surprise had unexpectedly improved the group as a whole. (Not that Dontae would ever admit that.) Eli and Nate weren’t as moody as werewolves tend to be, anymore. That improved the balance in the pack. It calmed them all, which was something. A man and a wolf sharing space in one soul can be one hell of a roller coaster ride.
Nathaniel went down first, then Eli a month later even though he’d made a pact with Darik to stay single, the fucking traitor. That was five months ago, which seemed like a lot longer to Darik because ever since, his own desire to find his forever mate had grown increasingly unignorable. It was all he could do not to think about it, and not to be jealous when he saw his packmates so happy.
She was nowhere to be found.
He’d even put himself on one of those dating sites. He’d met a lot of pretty and interesting women, but there’s a spark that ignites a man’s wolf when he finds the one. It can’t be denied. It’s annoying as fuck because you can’t delude yourself with anything less than what your wolf wants—true love.
One night he’d made the mistake of confiding in his packmates that he was trying to find her. The happily married ones could understand, but Dontae thought the effort ridiculous. Listening to Dontae gripe about women isn’t a fun way to spend an evening in New York City.
“Why do you need a woman when all they cause is pain?” Fucking Catherine—that bitch.
Ignoring Dontae’s jaded question, Eli said, “We weren’t looking for it like you are, Darik.”
“Yeah, but Darik’s always been different,” smiled Nathaniel.
Darik’s wolf snarled inside him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
With a calm stare, Eli clocked him. “You know what it means. That you’re a hopeless romantic. He wasn’t talking about the other thing.”
Nathaniel’s green eyes flickered, alight with the wolf’s fire tumbling just below the surface. “You know I’d never consider your uniqueness anything but extraordinary.” Nate waited for Darik’s heartbeat to return to normal. “That’s better. Now about the women—we didn’t want what we found. You do. Which might make it harder to find.”
Dontae growled, “So stop looking.”
Subject closed.
Chapter Two
My uniqueness.
Darik wasn’t like the other three werewolves in his pack. He was in the extremely rare nine-percent who scared most wolf-born because they didn’t understand beasts like him, couldn’t grasp in their minds or hearts how a mere human being could change without wolf-blood coursing through his DNA. How something could shift him just because of who he was, what he was made of, and what had happened to him, something so awful that the impact could ignite his soul-spark into an explosion that would change his life forever.
For all to see and some to hate, the evidence that he was different was always on his face. Wolves can’t have blue eyes. Look it up. If you see a wolf whose eyes are pale ice blue or Darik’s color–deep sapphire, or something in between, then that beast is either mixed with something else, or in Darik’s case not mixed at all…something far more miraculous.
He was born at the unusual age of thirteen.
Darik Greyson was the number one rebel in his school. His biggest hobby was mouthing off to his teacher on his way out of the classroom as it was in full swing. He chased the curviest girls. Skipped class. Caused problems wherever he went. Irreverence for the system was his way of life.
He’d go find a tree in the woods outside the school’s borders, climb up and sit on its thick branches for hours. Just sit there. There were plenty of places to get lost in New Hampshire, but he liked a certain grove the best. It felt the most apart from society, the most rural.
His parents would search, always shocked he’d be in the same place. “If you want to be lost, why always hide here?”
“I’m not hiding. I’m thinking.”
They’d be furious. They’d ground him. He’d swear under his breath that they couldn’t hold his soul prisoner. “It’s free. You don’t fucking own it.”
His mother would slap his face and shout in Gaelic, “Watch your mouth, Darik!” Scottish women can throw one hell of a hit and Amy Greyson was no exception.
The pain made him feel alive.
Philip Greyson never hit him. He loved his son but did not understand him. A talented architect, he too was of a thick Scottish line and also had red hair, but the angry Viking-gene had skipped his generation entirely, instead concentrating wholly on his son. It made him glad he and his wife didn’t have a second child.
Teenage Darik spent many, many solitary nights in his room fighting his own demons, his headphones blasting music so loudly it might have split his brain right down the middle had he not been destined for more.
More life. More speed. More passion.
His parents could barely tolerate him.
“It’s normal pubescent behavior,” the psychologists said, but fearing it was much more his mother watched him like a hawk.
Finally one day he was eating a bowl of cereal and caught her staring at him through narrowed blue eyes. “I’m not going on a shooting spree, Mom. Stop watching me.”
“They say it’s the introverts who–”
“Ma! Look at me.” He leaned in close, his young eyes wide and for once, free of sarcasm. “I don’t hate people. I don’t have some wild fantasy they hate me. I seek no vengeance against humanity. I’ve got a strong moral compass.”
“Oh?” Her eyebrows flew up. “Then why do you keep mouthing off to Mrs. Laramin and walking out of class?”
“Because she shouldn’t be teaching.” That pulled a long sigh from his mother. Darik stared at her a moment before adding, “I just don’t fit in. I feel…I feel…” He picked up the spoon again. “I can’t explain it.”
With her little hand she hit the table hard. “Try!”
Scooping up a large helping of Lucky Charms, he searched his mind for an answer. He muttered on a shrug, “Wild.”
She’d thrown up both her hands. “I can only blame myself. I married a man unlike my father, but had one just like him! The bastard.”
“Hey!” Darik dropped the spoon. Milk splashed unnoticed from his bowl. He laid his hand on the table, stretching out his arm, bridging the distance. Between his two parents, he most identified with his mother’s passionate temperament, but he would not stand being compared to his grandfather who, when alive, was a real devil of a man. “I’m not like him. I’m different. I would never hit a woman. Ever. You hear me? Don’t say that about me again. We are not alike.”
Not sold, she slammed her hands on the table and used them to push up from the chair. Muttering a bunch of crap he didn’t want to hear, she shook her head all the way out of the room.
Things only got worse. His relationship with his parents was strained further and after a series of school incidents, Darik was suspended.
The night Darik came home and the school called with the news, his father hung up the phone. “Great. It had to be today!”
He headed for the stairs of their three-bedroom home. The third room had been meant for a sister that Darik never got. Now it served as his mother’s office where she tried to pen sci-fi books never good enough to publish but that kept her entertained. As he passed the door, Philip called in, “Amy, what are we going to do about the benefit? I can’t bring the boy and proudly call him my son tonight.”
As his father threw down a look Darik scowled up at him from the first floor.
His mother appeared in the doorway, blue eyes exploding with frustration and disappointment. “Of course he’s not coming! He’s going to stay here and think about what he’s done.”
“As if that’s any form of punishment. The boy never leaves his damn room.” Philip disappeared into their bedroom to change.
Amy walked to the railing and looked over it, ginger-colored shoulder-length hair falling forward. “I’m hoping the punishment of us not wanting to be seen with you in public is enough.”
Her awful words sliced right through his heart. “Fuck you guys!”
“What did you say to me?” Amy shouted. She sprinted down the steps.
Darik stood his ground. “You heard me, Mom.” The sting of her fingers left a red mark on his skin. He smirked, “That all ya got?”
“You little…!”
SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!
He grabbed her wrists and held them as Philip appeared outside their bedroom door and shouted, “LET HER GO, NOW!”
Darik dropped her wrists and backed away. “I wasn’t going to hurt her.”
His mom, looking defeated, threw over her shoulder, “He was just stopping me from hurting him.”
Darik chuckled sardonically. “As if you could. What are you, 5’2”?”
As she ran at Darik, Philip shouted from upstairs, “Amy, that’s enough!” Darik quickly ducked out of the way. Gravity pulled her to the floor. Feeling guilty, Darik went to help her up but, embarrassed, she pushed him away.
“I’m alright. Leave me alone!” Even though there
wasn’t a speck of dirt on the tile floor of their foyer, she dusted herself off and smoothed down her hair. “I’m fine.” She locked eyes with him. “You’ll stay here and we’ll go out and have a wonderful night with delicious food in one of the most beautiful event halls in the city. One day, Darik, you will want these kinds of luxuries. And you will regret being such a little demon that we couldn’t share times like these, together, with you. Mark my words.” She headed for the stairs, glancing up to Philip. She repeated, this time in a mumble, “Mark my words.”
Darik stayed in the kitchen until forty-five minutes later he heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs. He walked to the door and leaned on its frame. His eyebrows lifted. They may as well have been dining with the President of the United States for how good they looked. His father’s well-tailored suit bent at the elbow as the keys were lifted from the bowl by the door. His mother’s coat was slipped off the coatrack and onto her petite shoulders. She wouldn’t look at Darik, but Philip glanced over.
Guilt and regret tugged at him. Her words echoed in his ears. They looked so elegant, it made him feel like a child standing there in torn-up jeans and a ragged death metal t-shirt. Part of him wanted to go with them, though he hated to admit it. He stared at the ground, shoving his hands into his pockets, the top of his boxers showing above his belt line. With a bare toe, he picked at the base of the doorframe and with peripheral vision watched as the door opened, as they stepped outside. The door shut behind them and Darik walked over to lock it, but his hand shook as he went for the deadbolt.
He swung it open. “I’m sorry!”
They turned in surprise, already halfway to their spotless, white Range Rover.
His mom’s eyes softened. Her head tilted a little. He could see the stubbornness leave her, like magic. “Me too,” she said.
As his heart pounded in his ears, Darik offered, “Have fun!”
A slip of regret flashed over Philip’s face. “Be good.”
Werewolves of New York: Darik Page 1
