by Cara Wylde
WOLF SPIRIT
DARK MOON PRISON, BOOK TWO
- dark reverse harem omegaverse romance -
Copyright © 2020 by Cara Wylde
Cover by Emma Griffin
All rights are reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One – Wisteria
Chapter Two – Warden Green
Chapter Three – Officer Stone
Chapter Four – Wisteria
Chapter Five – Warden Green
Chapter Six – Wisteria
Chapter Seven – Father Rivera
Chapter Eight – Officer Stone
Chapter Nine – Wisteria
Chapter Ten – Officer Stone
Chapter Eleven – Wisteria
Chapter Twelve – Warden Green
Chapter Thirteen – Wisteria
Chapter Fourteen – Father Rivera
Chapter Fifteen – Wisteria
Chapter Sixteen – Officer Stone
Chapter Seventeen – Wisteria
Chapter Eighteen – Warden Green
Chapter Nineteen – Wisteria
Chapter Twenty – Wisteria
Epilogue
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
Wisteria
My paws hit the ground heavily, leaves and branches crunching under them. The forest was thick. I made my way through the trees, running faster and faster, but my body was too big and strong to leave the vegetation unscathed as I passed. Mighty firs fell out of my way, a simple strike of my paw or push of my shoulder enough to uproot them. Trunks snapping in half and collapsing to the ground in a thunderous rush of noise and dust. They seemed to be crying for mercy.
I wanted to stop.
I wasn’t in control of my body, and not even my thoughts were entirely my own. I felt like I was trapped somewhere deep inside the monster that was tearing down the trees, escaping Dark Moon Prison, and running from the only men who had ever cared for me. I should have been relieved that the beast had spared them, and I was, but… I wanted back. I wanted to be back in control, and back there, in their arms. Yet, my oversized legs pushed forward. I was so fast that the world around me was a blur.
“Please stop,” I whimpered in my head. Or, its head. The head we now shared. “Why are you doing this? Please stop.”
Silence.
I could see through the eyes of the beast, and I could hear the forest cry and plead, just like me. I could sense the wild animals from miles away as they hurried to get out of my way. A cold spring in the distance, rushing down sharp rocks, the flutter of wings, and the sound of tiny rodents retreating into their burrows. They were all scared of me. The forest itself, as a whole, as an entity, was scared of me. And I thought… What a relief I was headed east, because at least the warden’s house was now safe from harm.
“Please stop.”
The body I couldn’t control was mine, but at the same time, it wasn’t. I wasn’t this big, nor this strong. I was an Omega, so both in my human form and shifted form, I was small and fragile. The way I felt now was anything but. Left and right, I knocked down trees, and the ground shook under my paws like a never-ending earthquake had taken over it, a violent seizure rattling it to its core. I wasn’t normally capable of such speed, either.
“You have to stop!” This time, my thought was more determined, and maybe a little bit angry.
A wide stream appeared up ahead, and my wolf body halted before it. I could feel my muscles tense in anticipation of a jump. I paced back and forth for a minute, then inched toward the edge. I looked down at the water and saw my reflection. Internally, I gasped.
I was huge. Humongous! My fur was thick and black, not the soft yellow I was used to, my eyes were bright and purple, and my fangs were so long and sharp that I could barely keep them tucked inside my mouth.
“No. This isn’t me.”
This was the ancient beast, the Wolf Spirit that had taken over my body, changed it to its liking, and pushed my consciousness deep down, from where it could do nothing. This was the face of the creature possessing me. The creature that had possessed me weeks ago, summoned by my father, and slaughtered my pack, my family, the only blood connections I had to this world. But it had spared Officer Stone, Warden Green, and Father Rivera.
“Why?”
“Because you are mated to them,” the monster finally answered. “I don’t want to hurt you, Moonchild. You are my host, and I always honor my hosts.”
“You are hurting me!”
We were having a telepathic conversation. I almost couldn’t believe it.
The beast stopped pacing, sat on its hind legs, threw its head back, and released a long howl toward the sky, then a second one, and a third. For as long as it howled, I felt better. Soothed.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” it repeated.
“Well, you are. You’re making me run away, you’re tearing down the forest… And you murdered my pack! You’ve only brought death and destruction.”
The creature frowned. “They deserved to die. The Alpha summoned me thinking that I’d obey his command, make him strong, invincible. What a fool. He was disrespectful, and everyone who encouraged him and followed him was insolent. I cannot be controlled. I cannot be tamed. And I will never allow anyone to use me for their own material gain. Those who summoned me that night, their intentions mean and vain, got what they asked for: violence. The world is a better place without them.”
For a moment, I was unable to form any coherent thoughts. I was in shock. The beast had no moral compass, no mercy, no compassion. The more I tapped into its depths, the more I understood that there was nothing human about it. It had no emotions.
“Why me?”
“Because you sought me with an open heart, Moonchild. You never asked for anything. In your moments of loneliness, you called to me, spoke to me, prayed to me. In thousands and thousands of years, you are the only one who’s approached me with no hidden intent. I will protect you. I will keep you safe, from yourself and from the three Alphas who have stolen your heart, broken it, and mended it just so they could break it again. I will spare their lives, because your soul is bonded to theirs, but I will not let them ruin you.”
I felt like crying, but if I cried, I wouldn’t have cried with my own tears.
“Please. This is wrong. We have to go back. I have to go back. You can leave my body just like you entered it, can you not? Leave, and I will go back on my own.”
The beast was silent for a long minute. It was looking out in the distance, calculating how high it would have to jump to cross the stream. Fish were swimming languidly close to the surface, jumping out from time to time. Of all the creatures of the forest, they were the only ones that weren’t intimidated by the presence of the ancient Wolf Spirit.
“You love them,” it finally said.
“Yes. And I know they have… their flaws, but… I have mine.”
“You have no flaws, Moonchild.”
“I did horrible things.”
“No, I did.”
“But I will be punished for them. And I don’t mind it, as long as I get to be with m
y soulmates.”
“Yes, you will be punished if I take you back. But I have no such intention.”
“I want to go back. Where are we going, anyway? There’s nothing for me out there. I have no pack, no family. They will be looking for me. We’d have to cross oceans to escape, and I… I don’t want that. I don’t want to escape.”
“You don’t know what they’ll do to you if they catch you…”
“I don’t care. Running away isn’t right.”
“I don’t operate by the rules of mortals.”
“Do it for me, then. Because I ask you to, and I have never asked for anything before. Take me back.”
When the beast took a couple of steps back then lunged, I knew I’d lost the battle. We soared over the stream, our paws hitting the other shore, raising dust and leaves in the air. I wanted to beg again, to scream and to rebel, but the Wolf Spirit had shut me down. And that was when the real, pure terror crept in. I realized I’d only been able to shape thoughts into a conversation because it had allowed me to. It had given me just enough freedom to feebly express myself. Now I didn’t have that freedom anymore. I’d been rendered silent, my grasp on the body I inhabited fading by the second. Soon, I didn’t have access to my thoughts, nor my senses, to the crisp mountain air filling the lungs we shared, or the tickle of grass as we ran, ran, ran.
With a sigh, I let myself go, succumbing to the darkness of no sentience.
CHAPTER TWO
Warden Green
Dark Moon Prison was in lockdown for the next twenty-four hours. The lockdown would be extended, if needed. All my guards were outside, with me, searching the woods for the black wolf that had torn down my office, a good chunk of the prison wall, and was now leaving behind broken trees and scorched ground as it ran east. They didn’t know the wolf was Sierra Carmine. They wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told them, since everyone knew Sierra was an Omega. They’d seen her shift in the courtyard. She was a small, graceful wolf with yellow fur. The black beast that had escaped Dark Moon Prison in broad daylight couldn’t have possibly been her. Come to think of it, it was clear that I hadn’t told them the truth because I couldn’t believe it myself. I’d seen her shift into the black wolf before my very eyes, I’d witnessed the creature’s strength and rage, yet my whole being refused to accept it. It was her, though, and at the same time, it wasn’t. I felt at a loss. As I moved between the fallen trees, my nose sniffing the air, my paws almost diminutive compared to the huge paw prints that marked the ground, I realized I understood very little of what was happening.
The Wolf Spirit lived inside my Omega’s body. It had been there all along, since the night it had erased the Carmine Pack off the face of the earth. I’d hypnotized Sierra because she’d asked me to, because she wanted to remember. It had worked, but neither of us could have known there would be a dire price to pay. The Wolf Spirit had resurfaced, and now I wasn’t even sure whether my Omega was still in there, still alive, if she’d merged with the entity, or if she’d been erased completely.
I stopped next to a tree that had been entirely uprooted. I needed a moment. We were all tracking her in our wolf forms, since I knew our weapons would be useless if we were to face the monster. When I’d ordered them to strip and shift, my officers hadn’t questioned me. We all caught the scent of the black wolf and followed it deep into the forest, then split up to cover more ground.
I heard a soft shuffle behind me. My nostrils flared, and I recognized the specific scent of Alaric Stone, my most trusted officer, and the Alpha with whom I was supposed to share Sierra. He and Garrett Rivera, the priest, had already shared her countless times, but I hadn’t yet indulged in her body. We’d left Rivera back at the prison. For one, I doubted he could be of much help, and my guards would’ve surely found it strange had I asked a priest to join the hunt. But there was another reason I’d insisted he stayed – what if the Omega returned in our absence? I strongly doubted it, but someone had to be there, just in case. He wanted to pray, anyway, as if praying to God when the Wolf Spirit was a powerful, divine entity in its own right – almost like a heathen deity, – could have helped. If anything, I thought it would only do more harm. But Rivera was set in his ways, and I didn’t have time to argue with him.
Stone stepped closed and nudged my shoulder with his snout. I recoiled. What the hell did he think he was doing? Trying to comfort me? I only needed a second to breathe and think, to come up with a plan. Because as terrifying as losing Sierra was, finding the black wolf was even more terrifying. What if we had to fight it? It had murdered an entire pack in cold blood, probably without breaking a sweat. Did we even stand a chance in the face of such power, speed, and stamina? I couldn’t help but fear that we were not chasing an inmate that had escaped Dark Moon Prison; we were chasing our own death. Stone huffed and walked away, his nose sniffing the air. He didn’t put much distance between us, though, and I knew he wanted to keep an eye on me. I knew what was on his mind, and I didn’t like it. I hated it. That didn’t make it any less real and, sadly, relevant. I couldn’t control where his mind went as we were, once again, after many years, chasing an escapee through the woods, but I could control my own reactions. So, I took a deep breath, released it angrily, shook my head to send the dust and leaves that had stuck to my fur flying, and jumped over the fallen tree. I was back on the hunt. I didn’t know how it was going to end, and since I couldn’t control that either, I focused on the present, on the scent of the beast wafting through the air, pulling me closer, filling me with dread, making me wonder whether I was going to survive this day.
I rushed past Stone in his wolf form, and he growled deep in his chest, offended. He rushed after me, and soon we were running shoulder to shoulder. I allowed it for a while, then veered left. The more ground I covered, the more I noticed there were spots where the black wolf must have paced in place or in circles, then there were clues that it had even changed its mind and went back toward the prison, then changed its mind again and continued through the forest. My keen senses clung to these small details, my heart aching with hope. If the beast was confused, then it meant Sierra was still in there, somewhere, fighting for her freedom. I came at a crossroads – the wolf’s unnaturally huge paws had stomped the grass and bushes to the ground in two different directions. I sniffed the paw prints, the air, and listened for any unusual sounds. Nothing. I saw Stone approaching from the right, and decided to go left again, certain he would follow the other trail. Before I knew it, the ruins of the previous warden’s house rose before me, and I stopped in my tracks, taken aback by the desolating sight. I’d forgotten these were here. The warden before me had lived in this incredible mansion in the forest. He’d died in his own bed, slaughtered by a gang of escaped prisoners he’d tortured for days. Once the rogues managed to sneak out, their first destination was the warden’s house. They killed him, and then they trashed the place. It was unsalvageable, but that hadn’t been the only reason I’d refused to take the mansion and repair it. When I became warden of Dark Moon Prison, I wanted a fresh start, so I built my own house, with my own two hands. It was small and modest, but it was exactly what I needed.
I hated the old warden’s mansion. Not just for what it stood for – violence and revenge, – but for the dark memories that lingered there, between its ruined walls. How did I end up here? Despite the fact that it was clear the Wolf Spirit hadn’t gone this way, I couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t turn away and leave. My legs moved off their own accord, and I stepped over a pile of rubble into the courtyard. It was overrun by weeds and thistles. This was a bad idea.
It was as if I couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t make my own decisions, couldn’t look away when memories from the past came rushing in, bathing my soul in despair and regret. The connection between my brain and my muscles was severed, and my body was on autopilot. I crossed the yard toward the rundown gazebo that I knew awaited behind the house, and with every step I took, something screamed in my head to turn around and
forget all about this place, find my way back to reality, and pretend like I’d never been here today. It didn’t work. I’d hypnotized Sierra this morning, and I was being hypnotized myself – not by a person; by a moment in time.
It had happened here. As I reached the gazebo, I shifted in my human form and stepped onto the wooden platform. The wood was slightly moist under my bare feet, and as I walked to the center of the structure, I felt it shift and creak. It was rotten in places. All around the gazebo, there were wooden benches and round, wooden tables, just big enough for a cup of coffee and a book. I ran my fingers over one of them, feeling sick to my stomach. From the corner of my eye, I saw the only bench that had been broken into a dozen pieces, not by the force of nature, but by the force of a struggle. A struggle that I had won. A victory I would regret until the day I died.
“What are you doing, Callum?”
Officer Stone’s voice startled me. I brushed the dust off my hands, squaring my shoulders, but not yet turning around to face him.
“What the fuck? Why would you come here?”
He didn’t sound angry, though. He sounded… concerned, and I wished he’d gone for anger and exasperation, instead. The disappointment in his voice crushed me. It made me feel small and weak, which was unacceptable for an Alpha and the warden of Dark Moon Prison. These weren’t feelings that I could ever welcome. I cleared my throat, furrowed my brows, and when I stepped down the platform, I made sure to sound confident and unaffected.
“I was following a lead.”
“What lead? Callum, she went that way!” He pointed in the opposite direction.
I nodded. I had to shift back quickly because this was embarrassing. We were both naked among the ruins. The last thing I needed was for one of the other guards to accidentally bump into us like that. Just as I was getting ready, he grabbed me by the arm and squeezed harshly, yet reassuringly.
