ETERNAL
Mourning
A Talon Pack Novel
By
Carrie Ann Ryan
Eternal Mourning
A Talon Pack Novel
By: Carrie Ann Ryan
© 2017 Carrie Ann Ryan
EPUB Edition
ISBN: 978-1-943123-78-0
Cover Art by Charity Hendry
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All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
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Author Highlights
Praise for Carrie Ann Ryan….
“Carrie Ann Ryan knows how to pull your heartstrings and make your pulse pound! Her wonderful Redwood Pack series will draw you in and keep you reading long into the night. I can’t wait to see what comes next with the new generation, the Talons. Keep them coming, Carrie Ann!”
–Lara Adrian, New York Times bestselling author of CRAVE THE NIGHT
“Carrie Ann Ryan never fails to draw readers in with passion, raw sensuality, and characters that pop off the page. Any book by Carrie Ann is an absolute treat.”
–New York Times Bestselling Author J. Kenner
“With snarky humor, sizzling love scenes, and brilliant, imaginative worldbuilding, The Dante’s Circle series reads as if Carrie Ann Ryan peeked at my personal wish list!”
–New York Times Bestselling Author Larissa Ione
“Carrie Ann Ryan writes sexy shifters in a world full of passionate happily-ever-afters.”
–New York Times Bestselling Author Vivian Arend
“Carrie Ann’s books are sexy with characters you can’t help but love from page one. They are heat and heart blended to perfection.”
–New York Times Bestselling Author Jayne Rylon
“Carrie Ann Ryan’s books are wickedly funny and deliciously hot, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. They’ll keep you up all night!”
–USA Today Bestselling Author Cari Quinn
“Once again, Carrie Ann Ryan knocks the Dante’s Circle series out of the park. The queen of hot, sexy, enthralling paranormal romance, Carrie Ann is an author not to miss!”
–New York Times Bestselling Author Marie Harte
Dedication
To Viv.
Thanks for showing me my wolves again…and for knowing how to use a generator in the middle of a forest, at night, with no power, while it was raining.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Author Highlights
Dedication
Acknowledgements
About the Book
Prey
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Choice
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Kameron
Dhani
Chapter Fifteen
Ultimatum
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Blood Bound
Epilogue
A Note from Carrie Ann
About Carrie Ann
More from Carrie Ann
Excerpt from Tattered Loyalties
About Love Restored
About Delicate Ink
Acknowledgements
I started writing this book three days before Daniel died and I honestly didn’t know if I was going to finish writing it. I stared blankly at the few chapters I already had done and wondered if Walker and Aimee’s story was the right one to tell. Of all my books I had to write while I was numb and trying to find my new normal, the one with Eternal Mourning as a title was the one that it had to be.
Fate is a tricky mistress sometimes and my characters above all know this.
Eternal Mourning is a book about fate, hope, healing, opening your soul to chance, and knowing that sometimes the end isn’t quite what you thought it would be.
I know I couldn’t have written this book without the support and love of so many. Thank you Vivian Arend for sitting with me in a log cabin and giggling about magical bunnies and curses while we plotted the last three Talon Pack books. I am not only a fan of your shifters, but you made me a fan of my own again.
Thank you, Kennedy Layne and Stacey Kennedy, for being in my corner every damn moment and showing me I can still be a writer and love it, even when I kind of hate it.
Thank you Chelle for trusting me and allowing me to trust myself with Walker and Aimee’s journey. They were so different and yet perfect for what I needed.
As always, thank you to my team, Chelle, Tara, and Charity for keeping my releases straight and smiling at me when I say, yet again, I have a new idea. You put up with so much.
Thank you again, Daniel, for everything. I think I’m always going to put you in these forwards, just saying. I know you hate it when I put the spotlight on you, but well, I love you and I couldn’t have ever written a word without you. I miss you so damn much.
And thank you readers, for being some of the best readers EVER. I couldn’t do what I do without you and know that I cherish each and every one of you.
~Carrie Ann
Eternal Mourning
In the seventh book of the Talon Pack series from NYT Bestselling Author Carrie Ann Ryan, a Healer is forced to come to grips with the idea that he can’t save everyone…including the woman he loves.
Walker Brentwood vowed to the moon goddess that he’d protect his Pack and Heal with every last ounce of his power. He’s watched his siblings and cousin battle the worst circumstances to find love and is now afraid that the one woman who could be his might not have much time left. The rules of mating have changed, and Walker will do what he has to in order to protect the bonds that have eluded him for so long.
Aimee Reagan knows there’s something wrong with her. She’s known since the first time she found out shifters were real and magic existed. When the Talon Pack’s enemy sets his sights on her, her battle to survive becomes even harder.
Walker and Aimee must turn to each other when the powers around them change and the paths that had been laid before them are no longer clear. But when their passion threatens a curse far older than anyone dreamed, they’ll only have one chance to save something worth more than a mating bond. Their future.
PREY
Agony ripped through her. She threw her head back, letting the sweet taste of it swallow her whole. She was the wind, the air, the breeze along the trees, yet she knew there was more to it. The others would be searching for her soon, for that was what she’d always known. The longer she drew in what came naturally to her, the harder they would fall from what little they had left.
She wasn’t the monster the others feared, the danger lurking in the dark that called out for the weak, searched for the prey. So she pulled in more, knowing not to take too much or what she craved would fade too soon.
There was another enemy in th
e fold now, one that would know who she was and what she’d done. She would have to hold tightly to the ties that wrapped around her soul and body or risk losing it forever once the enemy and her master found her.
But first, the prey needed to scream.
And the enemies would circle the wounded like the animals they were, and she would drink until there was no more.
Until there was nothing.
Again.
Chapter One
Walker Brentwood let out a slow breath, figuring as long as he didn’t growl or brood like any of his other family members he’d do okay. The rain began to pick up around them, the drops hitting the leaves of the tall trees with little splats and sputters. The sound was almost soothing, as if it could rock the pups to sleep. The scents of ozone and forest filled the air, soothing his wolf. His family would probably find that idea weird since he was generally the calmest of them all, but he was still a wolf.
Because their wolves had scented rain in the distance, the mating ceremony had been moved to the wooden archway of one of the large den buildings. Given how deep the deck was, and the fact that, thankfully, there wasn’t any wind, no one would get wet, and the mated couple could be blessed by their Alpha in peace.
Mitchell and Dawn truly deserved that after everything they had gone through to mate. Though most mating ceremonies happened soon after the couple completed their bond, his cousin and Dawn had decided to wait a bit since the world had almost crashed down around them right when they finally cemented their union.
Walker frowned as he remembered everything that had happened around the time the two had marked each other. He didn’t know the specifics of their relationship or why they had decided to wait, but he’d been there when they were forced to save each other in the end.
The Pack had almost lost Dawn when the fire witch took her, but the outcome of that had brought Mitchell’s new mate into the Talon Pack as one of their own. She was a Central Pack wolf no more, and no longer alone. She had the Talons.
And from the shy smile on her face when she looked up at her growly mate, Walker had a feeling she was just beginning to understand that.
Gideon, Walker’s brother and Alpha, stepped up onto the bottom step that led into the house, so he stood just slightly above everyone else. Despite the fact that Gideon wasn’t one of Walker’s triplet brothers, his Alpha still looked a lot like him. They all had thick, dark hair that curled at the ends if it got too long—though their sister Brynn’s was only slightly wavy. And the whole lot of them had the Brentwood blue eyes. A color he figured came from their Irish ancestors, who had traveled over to the western side of the continent a century before the rest of the world had figured out how to make the trek without dying. Wolves were strong for a reason, and keeping themselves secluded and spread over the land was only one of them.
Even Mitchell and Max—brothers themselves yet cousins to Walker—looked like the rest of them. Their paternal line was dominant in their genes, and sometimes, Walker wondered what their maternal line contributed.
He knew the answer, of course, but that only made him frown harder. Each of them had a gentler side that had been beaten out of them over the years under his father’s rule as Alpha. Only his cousin Max had been able to keep his sense of innocence throughout the years. Technically, Max was older than Walker and his fellow triplets, Kameron and Brandon, but to them, Max had almost seemed younger with his exuberance and thirst for life. But the wolf had lost any sense of who he was before when he lost his arm and so much more during the final battle of the Unveiling over a year ago.
“If you keep frowning like that, you’re going to scare Dawn and her little friends away,” Kameron whispered low enough that not even the wolves close to them would hear. As shifters, they had sharper senses than humans and used that to their advantage to not only survive but also thrive. They could see longer distances, even in the barest of moonlight in the dark, and they could detect prey from miles away if the wind caught the scent just right. They could also hear sounds across the spectrum from a great distance. It took willpower and training to learn to live peacefully with so many sights, sounds, and scents bombarding them on any given day.
Walker forced his thoughts away from what had almost cost his family and Pack everything and schooled his features. He was truly happy for Mitchell and Dawn, and it was only the direction of his thoughts that had made him look like a brooding bastard. He’d do well to think of what angered him later when in private, rather than worry Dawn or any of the humans who accompanied her.
He gave Kameron a tight nod as Gideon began speaking about the newly mated couple and forced his gaze from them and the three small humans who stood at Dawn’s side. This wasn’t a human marriage ceremony, so there was no need for pomp and circumstance. The ceremony itself was what cemented the bond within the Pack, though even that wasn’t truly necessary. Some couples didn’t need the entire Pack around them when they vowed their love, devotion, and pledges to one another. This time, however, with Dawn’s past—or rather, the past of her Pack—the Talons had wanted to make sure everyone knew she was accepted within the den.
Walker’s attention snagged on one of the three standing by Dawn, and he did his best to keep his wolf in check. Curious by nature, his other half needed to know the whys of existence and truth, yet Walker had a feeling this urgency within him when it came to the pale blonde at Dawn’s side wasn’t just curiosity.
Dawn had kept her wolf’s existence a secret within the human world, even after the Unveiling where the idea of shifters—at least wolves—was revealed to the public. She had three human friends who she had become truly close to over the years, but she had only recently been forced to reveal who she was to them.
The three women, Dhani, Cheyenne, and Aimee, had surprised them all when they turned out to be stronger-willed than many of the wolves he knew within the Pack. They’d done their best to prove to Dawn that they would stand by her no matter what, and Walker was pleased that Dawn wouldn’t truly be alone in a new den. Not that these three were Packmates, but they were welcome guests within the wards when they chose to visit.
And the fact that his attention kept snagging on one of them in particular? Well, that was just something he would have to unravel later when others weren’t watching.
The world had been shown the magic of wolves and witches, yet they were still in the dark when it came to some magics, such as demons and now…cat shifters. Walker wasn’t sure what else was out there, and as a man who thought he knew the depths of what existed outside of humans, the idea that he truly had no clue worried him.
Then again, this wasn’t the place to worry about that. Not when the couple in front of him was vowing their love to one another. He still wasn’t quite sure how Mitchell had fallen so hard and fast for the quiet wolf standing by his side, but then again, fate and the moon goddess had their own plans when it came to the goddess’s children.
“I promise to honor who we are together and who we can be,” Dawn said softly. Walker wasn’t watching her, however, as he still had his eyes on the pale blonde. The dark circles under Aimee’s eyes were more pronounced, and she seemed to be listing to the side every so often until one of the other women brushed against her gently, causing her to stand straight again.
He held back a frown as she blinked hard a few times as if trying to keep herself focused and awake. There was something wrong with Aimee, and his wolf needed to know what it was. She might not be of his Pack, but she was close to one of his own.
But if he were honest with himself, he knew it was because of something more than that. She called to his wolf in a way he didn’t quite understand. And it was something he knew he wanted to figure out.
He wasn’t like his brothers or cousins. When they found their mates, it seemed to him that, other than his sister Brynn, each of them had fought the pairing. None of them had been in the right mindset to find mates, yet the moon goddess had blessed each of them.
Gideon had found his
mate in Brie, a submissive wolf from another Pack. The two of them had carefully taken their steps down the path to mating to not only tighten their connections but also those between the Talons and the Redwoods. Brynn had been the one searching for her mate, and when she found it in Finn, she’d almost broken along the way. Ryder hadn’t been looking for his fate when he found Leah, a water witch who had saved their den more than once. And Walker’s fellow triplet, Brandon, had thought he’d not be long for his world but had ended up mating not one but two wolves—Parker and Avery.
As for Mitchell? Well, he too had fought the mating bond for reasons of his own. But he had given in when he fell in love with Dawn. The moon goddess gave each of her wolves potential mates that they could find during their long lives. Sometimes, there was more than one, but the wolf and the human would decide if that person was their true fate. Walking away would hurt, a pain beyond agony, but sometimes, it was the only choice. Once the mating bond was made—a bite mark for the wolf, and sex for the human—none of the people involved would ever feel another potential mate as long as the mating bond stayed in place.
Walker had only heard of one mating bond being broken by anything but death, and he was pretty sure the terror that had come with that dark magic hadn’t been truly worth it in the end.
Yet Walker, the one who was ready for a mate and wanted that connection, couldn’t seem to find his. He’d been searching ever since Gideon became Alpha and their father’s tyranny ended. He held back a shudder at that thought as he always did. His father had been a horrible man, a worse Alpha, and had truly scarred each and every one of his children to the point that it had shaped not only their lives and futures but also the way they found their mates.
But, no matter how many humans, witches, and wolves he met, Walker hadn’t felt that tug, the pull that would tell him whether the other person was his mate.
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