Table of Contents
Title Page
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Wolf Captive
About the Author
© 2021
Wolf Cursed
Lone Wolf Series, book 1
Heather Hildenbrand
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.
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Chapter One
My muscles tensed until they hurt as I huddled on my sagging mattress. In the darkness of my tiny bedroom, every shadow cast felt like a threat. My thrift store dresser sat sadly against the far wall, taunting me with its larger-than-life silhouette. The secondhand mirror propped beside it offered a reflection of me that looked like something out of a horror movie looming up from my twin bed. Wild dark hair. Wide, worried eyes. But it wasn’t the dresser that scared me.
A car had parked outside our trailer.
The time on my phone read two in the morning.
Considering we rarely, if ever, had guests during the day, it couldn’t be a good thing to have anyone coming over this late at night. Dad would be beside himself with paranoia, and in this case, I couldn’t blame him. Years’ worth of his rants about “those people hunting us” had taught me it was best to keep him away from strangers.
Fat chance of that now.
The voices outside were loud as the uninvited visitors climbed out of their car and crossed the gravel drive toward our trailer. This place had thin walls to begin with, but after a lifetime of vigilance, I’d woken the moment the headlights had pointed through my window.
Already, my heart was threatening to beat right out of my chest. Dad was always going on and on about enemies everywhere. One long look from a shady stranger, and he’d declare it too dangerous. We’d moved fourteen times just in the last five years alone. No public school. No college either unless you counted that one class I took before we went broke again. No friends. Which was honestly just as impressive as it was pathetic for a nineteen-year-old to have literally zero friendships.
“Don’t let anyone get close enough to see you, Ash,” my dad had always warned me.
I was over it. Or I had been until strangers had driven up to our doorstep in the middle of the night.
What the hell did they want?
I crawled over and peeked out of the cracked blinds covering my window. Three men were making their way to our front door. I couldn’t make out their faces in the darkness, but something glinted, and I zeroed in on whatever object had reflected against the streetlight.
My breath caught.
One of them carried a metal bat.
I scrambled back, letting the blinds fall into place. This was bad.
Really, really fucking bad.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and I knew from the slow, heavy rhythm they made it was my father emerging from his bedroom at the end of the hall. He stumbled once. The wall creaked underneath his weight as he caught himself.
Shit. He was drunk. As usual.
Outside, someone knocked, just a quick two-rap with a knuckle. But it sent my heart rate soaring.
“I’m comin’, asshole.” My dad’s gruff voice was easy to hear through our thin walls.
My hands fisted around my blanket at that. I wanted to scream at him to stop. To hide.
Whoever was out there at two in the morning couldn’t be friendly.
The fact that my father was actually going to answer the door was proof of how far he’d fallen.
It was all mom’s fault.
If she hadn’t left us seven years ago, Dad would never have gone off the deep end. He’d still be my protector. My safe place. Instead, it felt like I’d been the one protecting him these last few years. And now, he was about to open that door and invite the devil inside.
He was going to get us killed.
A pounding on the front door shook me loose of the frozen panic that gripped me. I got to my feet and rushed from my bedroom. I made it into the tiny living room just as my dad opened the front door. The smell of alcohol clung to him like a second skin, knocking me back a step.
“Whatever yer selling, we ain’t buyin,” he said in a sleepy, slurred voice.
Over my dad’s shoulder, I counted three figures standing on our sagging porch. The one carrying the bat stood at the very back, but none of them looked like they were selling so much as demanding. A pair of beady eyes landed on mine. His hands were empty, but the man standing in front of the others didn’t need a weapon to convey his intentions. I rushed forward, pressing my palms against the back of the door as I slammed it closed again.
Securing the deadbolt, I whirled on my dad.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.
My dad swung his bloodshot gaze to mine. “Ash,” he said, and a flicker of awareness shot across his slackened face.
“It’s two in the morning, Dad. Those guys can’t be here for a good reason.”
More awareness. Then alarm.
My heart rate accelerated until it hurt my ribs.
“Should I get the go-bags?” I asked.
Dad insisted we keep a bag packed underneath the kitchen counter. If we’re ever found—by whom, I still had no idea—I was supposed to run, with or without him. I never actually thought that would happen, but now I wondered if maybe Dad had been right about monsters chasing us all along.
“It’s Vorack. Open the door, Joe,” one of the guys outside called. Not yelling exactly. Confident. Calculating. But no volume. Like a predator who knew he’d cornered his prey.
My dad scowled as some of the panic faded from his taut expression.
“Nah, we don’ need the bags,” he said, unable to meet my eyes. “This is something else.”
“Who’s Vorack?” I whispered.
“Get the hell off my property,” my dad yelled, ignoring my question.
“Not happening,” the man called back. “It’s tim
e to settle your debt.”
“Shit,” my dad whispered, his eyes suddenly wide and no longer dilated.
“What debt?” I demanded in a heated whisper. When he didn’t answer, I grabbed his shirt sleeve and forced him to focus on me. “Dad, who are those guys?”
“Jus’ some guys I met at the bar,” he said, waving me off.
His answer should have made me feel better. Whatever ghosts my dad was convinced were chasing us from town to town and state to state, these guys weren’t it. Local bookies were not the demons my dad forced us to run from constantly. No, these guys were a very normal-looking evil; the kind my dad could have only brought on himself.
Anger eclipsed my fear, and I aimed it all at the one who deserved it.
“How much do you owe them?” I demanded, my breaths coming in short, raging bursts.
“Don’ worry ’bout it,” he insisted.
“Don’t worry about it? There are three angry bookies outside our door in the middle of the damned night, and you want me to not worry about it?”
My dad scowled. “Ash, go back to bed. I got this.”
He swayed, and I used my grip on his arm to steady him. Not easy, considering how much bigger he was than me. My dad had always been tall and built, but after years of drinking away his constant stress, he wasn’t the solid wall of muscle he used to be. Instead, he was a solid beer belly with a spare tire made of fast food—and a brain with a penchant for making stupid bets.
We’d already moved once because of his stupid gambling habit and his inability to pay up. Looked like we were doing it again. This time with nothing but the clothes on our backs. At least I had sweatpants on instead of just the nightshirt I sometimes wore.
Dad, on the other hand, wore nothing but a white tank and a pair of dirty jeans. And he was in desperate need of a shower—a luxury that was probably a long way off for us right about now even if we did make it out of here in one piece.
“You’re not opening that door,” I told him firmly.
My dad waved me off. “Id’ll be fine. I’ll jus’ git ’nother ’stention”
Shit. The slurring was not a good sign.
For a moment, I’d thought the danger of three goons on our doorstep in the middle of the night would sober him. But no such luck.
“Joe, I know you’re in there,” called the man outside. Vorack. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“Dad, those guys aren’t going to give you another extension,” I said, half-pleading now.
Why couldn’t he be stronger? Better? Why couldn’t he stop letting her absence break him? Ugh. I hated seeing him let himself go. I hated my mother more for causing it.
“Go get the rifle,” he said.
My jaw fell open. Was he kidding? There was no way he could shoot straight right now.
“What? No, come with me. We’ll go out the back. Run to the car—”
Something hard slammed into the outside of the front door. I jumped and looked down to see a small dent had appeared on our side. I stared at it in horror. Stupid, cheap-ass, plastic door.
But really, what did I expect in a trailer? This thing was not exactly fortified against invasion.
“Joe, you can either come out or we’re coming in,” Vorack called.
My panic rose.
Urgency gripped me.
“Dad,” I said, tugging on his arm. “We have to get out of here.”
He hesitated. I could see some sort of indecision in his eyes. Like he was trying hard to access a clear thought.
“Okay,” he said finally. He reached over and grabbed the car keys off the wall hook and pressed them into my hand. Then he looked at me intently, the glassy look turning fast to fear. “When I say go, run for the back door. Start the car.”
“What about you?”
He reached out and pressed a warm hand to my cheek. “I’m right behind you, kid,” he said.
I nodded, my chin bobbing incessantly. This would work. It had to work. Forget the bags we had stashed. We needed to get the hell out of here.
Something slammed into the door a second time.
I jumped.
“You have to be fast,” I warned him.
“Kid, I’m the fastest,” he shot back. It was an old argument and hardly true anymore. But I didn’t say so. “Ready . . . set . . . go!”
With the car keys clutched in my fist, I took off at a barefooted sprint for the back door. My dad shuffled, but the noise was lost to the roar in my ears as panic drove me onward.
In the kitchen, I flipped the lock free and yanked the back door open only to crash into someone waiting on the other side.
Hands came up to grip my wrists, and I immediately started kicking and fighting. A male grunt sounded, and my attacker released one of my wrists to grab at his shin where my foot just landed. I tried turning and twisting away, but then a fist smashed into my cheek, and I went down to my knees as pain radiated through my skull. I blinked, my vision closing in until I saw through a narrow tunnel.
I fell to the floor and covered my face with my hands, my eyes filling with tears.
God, that hurt.
A loud crash came from the front, followed by yelling. Then grunts like the one my attacker had made. Except the voice sounded exactly like my dad’s.
“You always choose the hard way, Joe,” Vorack said—except this time, his voice came from inside the house.
No.
I scrambled up and rushed toward the living room only to be grabbed again before I could make it across the tiny space.
“Let me go,” I demanded, twisting and kicking and scratching at the body currently blocking me from getting to my father. In the darkness, I could see the way the man’s eyes lit every time I fought back. Bile rose in my throat as I began to imagine just how they planned to extract this debt my father owed.
We damn sure didn’t have any money to give them. Or not enough anyway. I had no idea what Dad owed them, but judging from our middle-of-the-night visit, it was probably a lot. If not, he would have paid them already.
That meant they’d have to take payment some other way.
I fought harder.
“Got a live one, boss,” said the man holding me—or trying to.
More grunts and scuffling from the living room. Something hard hit the wall, and the few pictures we had hung rattled in their frames.
“You bet the wrong house, Joe,” I heard the man say.
“Screw you, Vorack,” my dad said from where he’d slumped to the floor against the wall.
My heart broke at the defeat I heard in those three words.
“No thanks,” Vorack said. “Your daughter, on the other hand, might have better luck with such an invitation. Might even be enough to call us even.”
Horror filled me. My voice broke on my next scream.
“Don’t even think about it,” my dad warned.
“Bring her here, Frank.”
The man holding me gave me a rough shove, and the momentum sent me sprawling onto the stained carpet. I rolled onto my side and looked over at my dad slumped against the wall by the smashed front door. The dim overhead light revealed his nose was bleeding, and both eyes were already swelling.
Vorack’s other goon stood over him, brandishing the baseball bat and making sure he didn’t get up.
“If you touch my daughter,” my father started.
A heartache so deep I knew it would never heal ripped through me. My father’s threat was empty. Everyone here knew it. Hell, he didn’t even try to get up when he said the words.
“What?” Vorack taunted. “Tell me, Joe. What will you do?”
No answer.
Vorack stalked over to me and prodded me with his boot. “What’s your name, princess?”
“Get away from her,” my dad snarled.
“Happy to, Joe,” Vorack said. “But that’s up to you. Pay me, and I’ll be on my way. Otherwise, I’ll take what’s owed by other means.”
He gave me a look that m
ade it clear he hoped for the latter.
“There’s five hundred in the freezer,” I blurted. “Take it and leave us alone.”
My dad shot me a look.
I worked four nights a week at the diner around the corner. Just like I had in every backwoods town we’d lived in. Most of my earnings went to keeping the lights on, but I’d hidden some extra cash in a bag of frozen peas since I knew it was the only place he wouldn’t find it.
It was my ticket out.
If Dad wanted to drink himself to death at a new address every three months, that was his choice. I planned to pick a spot and plant roots. Build a home. Screw whatever ghosts he was convinced were hunting us. Parting with it for Dad’s bad habits was the last thing I wanted, but if it meant getting Vorack out of here, I’d let it go.
Unfortunately, Vorack merely grinned. “That’s cute, princess. You think I’d get out of my warm bed at this hour for five hundred bucks?” He snorted and shared an amused look with his goons.
They all laughed and not in a fun way.
Then Vorack looked down at me again. “Try ten thousand, and that’s not including interest.”
I blinked.
The bit of hope I’d let myself feel drained away.
“What kind of idiot loans ten thousand to a guy with no collateral?”
The words were out of my mouth before I could think them through.
Vorack’s eyes narrowed. He took a step closer, and I curled around, bracing myself for a kick or a punch or something equally painful.
He leaned down, and I squeezed my eyes shut, preferring not to see it coming.
“Take the five hundred as a down payment,” my father said quickly. “I’ll get you the rest tomorrow.”
Vorack shook his head. “We’re way past down payments, Joe.”
My father didn’t answer. I could hear the defeat ringing in his silence.
“Have it your way then.” Vorack reached down and grabbed my wrist, squeezing painfully as he pulled me to my feet. With his other hand, he yanked my long hair back so I was forced to look up at him.
“How about it, princess?” he drawled. “Want to help save your daddy?”
Panic clawed at me as I realized my worst nightmare was about to happen. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop them. The worst part was that this had nothing to do with the actual reason we’d been running all these years. All of it for nothing because, in the end, my father had fallen apart.
Wolf Cursed (Lone Wolf Series Book 1) Page 1
