She follows her dreams into his arms…and danger is not far behind.
Mala never outgrew her night terrors. At twenty-eight, her nights are a battleground as she defends helpless wolves from attack by their own kind. The effort costs her—one dream often leads to a week of missed work.
When her defense of a young wolf is rewarded by the mention of a real town, she finally has the chance to learn if her dreams are just as real. She never expected to meet an honest-to-God alpha werewolf, much less develop an instant, embarrassing crush on him.
Angus MacIntyre, de facto alpha of Wolf Town, is determined to see every fugitive wolf employed, educated and well-adjusted to life in the open. The arrival of a young wolf on the run isn’t all that unusual, but the human woman hard on his heels is beyond extraordinary.
The dark-eyed beauty possesses a dream-wraith ability that challenges everything he thinks he knows about his world—and stirs his mine instinct in a way he’s never felt before. Yet her gift makes her vulnerable to those who would try to use it to their advantage. But this is his town. His pack. His woman. And Angus will do whatever it takes to protect what’s his.
Warning: Wolf towns, bad guys, dreams and non-alpha alpha wolves, as well as an overabundance of family, and, of course, a healthy dose of romance and sex.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
Anchor
Copyright © 2011 by Jorrie Spencer
ISBN: 978-1-60928-427-5
Edited by Sasha Knight
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2011
www.samhainpublishing.com
Anchor
Jorrie Spencer
Dedication
To my family.
Prologue
Caleb ran. His muscles burned. His heart beat the rapid tattoo of death—the too-fast rhythm that presaged blacking-out terror. He couldn’t face that pain again so he pushed himself harder, not caring that his efforts were futile.
Mala could sense all this. Of course she could. After all, Caleb was the latest of a long string of terrified wolves to star in her dreams.
The forest through which he ran was dark, damp. Winter hadn’t quite ended and freezing temperatures made the paths tricky to navigate, dangerous. He could fall and it would be all over.
In her nightmare, Caleb feared his father was going to kill him. That this time, he wasn’t going to heal from a mauling—for wolves, or werewolves in Mala’s dreams, could shift and fix themselves.
Caleb’s fear was compelling and drew Mala to him, and as his fear grew, so did her anger—it wasn’t what anyone should have to endure. Especially in her nightmare. She was determined to control those.
The reality of her dream unnerved her. She literally felt Caleb take a corner too sharply, his hind legs fly out from under him, and it lost him precious time, scrambling to recover from his almost-fall. His father closed in.
She had to ask, to make some sense of her latest night terror. “Why is your father chasing you?”
But Caleb didn’t know. He wondered why his father tortured him. He was fifteen, almost sixteen, and he’d thought the beatings would end when he grew up. Yet here he was, being hunted.
“Hunted?” A kind of dismay grew within Mala. She hated the violence of it all. But he ignored her question so she took another tack.
“You call yourself Caleb.” A statement this time.
“Of course I call myself Caleb.” The fear flowed through him, turned bright as it met and melded with Mala’s anger. Anger that this was happening again. That the creatures in her dreams could be so battered by their dream lives.
His paws scrabbled, like his mind, trying to find purchase on slippery ground, on mud turned to ice. His confused emotions became her focus—he didn’t understand how she could be inside him.
“Yes,” she thought at Caleb. “I am here, anchored in you.” Those words meant little to him but nevertheless determination filled her, and she let that determination flow towards him. “Now, Caleb, hand over your fear to me.”
The release was simple, he was too scared to do anything else but give his fear to her. She pulled the emotion out of him, this strange capacity she had while dreaming, of creating weapons from emotions.
She gave him time to calm down as she did her work, building the blade that would take down Caleb’s pursuer, free both the wolf in her dreams and herself from the monster. As the father gained ground and Mala gained power, she prepared to take the next step, though it would shock the young wolf.
“Caleb, I’m ready.” She let him absorb this before giving the instruction. “Slow down.”
“What? No!” Some of the fear she’d taken from Caleb rebounded as his body opened like a wound drawing in poison. Her focus intensified, refocused, until she was once again drawing his fear out, refashioning the bright weapon ever stronger.
“Weapon?” he asked, dimly aware of what she was doing and thinking. They were part of each other now, and their thoughts and emotions bled into one another.
“Trust me. I am your only hope.” For she had seen this happen too many times before to do anything but stand and confront the monster. There was no longer the possibility of escape without her fighting, and the idea of Caleb being destroyed hurt too much.
Despair filled Caleb in knowing she was his only hope. He didn’t understand that in her dream she was powerful. But she could use his despair, too, and pulled it towards her to bind the fear and make it sharper, more deadly.
“Let me do this, Caleb. Slow down, turn around and face your father.”
“He’ll kill me.” His anguish caused her to flinch. Yet she took the anguish as well, hardening that blade of fear and despair, as his father came closer. The end was near.
“Caleb,” she thought calmly. “Please trust me. Face him.”
He didn’t want to.
She sent out a wave of reassurance, threaded it with hope, and felt it roll through him. “You must understand, I can fight him. This is my world. Turn now.”
She felt Caleb’s chest hollow out with hopelessness, but he did as she asked, slowing then wheeling around to face his pursuer. He could barely catch his breath as his shaking wolf body went low to the ground in submission, and his ears flattened, asking his father for mercy when she knew none was to be found.
“That’s it.” She let her satisfaction pulse through him. “Your father will never know what hit him.”
Caleb found this idea bizarre, that his father was no match for her. But she watched his father through his gaze. The larger, older wolf, golden-eyed, brown-furred, came to a stop.
The father was gloating, which didn’t surprise Caleb. The monster-wolf always gloated before meting out punishment. The son sometimes thought it was his father’s perfect moment, the anticipation unbearably pleasurable.
“Asshole,” she decided, and despite all his doubts, that description of his father buoyed Caleb.
The weapon she had fashioned, a substance like white light—sharp and strong with fear—she let Caleb see it briefly. After
all, some of its substance was his. She always found her weapons strangely beautiful, a white beyond whiteness that couldn’t be described outside of her dream. And this one shone.
“Goodbye, Caleb. Remember this—when I leave you, you must run.”
She could feel his confusion but had no time to explain.
“Watch,” she told him with a kind of pride as she faced forward and flung herself like a weapon, an arc of movement through the ether of her dream. With the blade she’d fashioned, she sliced through air and deep into his father, the sharp brightness wrought from Caleb’s fear and confusion, and her own anger.
She aimed for the monster’s heart, cut into it, then held still.
There was always this moment, as the heart pulsed around her, where she feared she might fail. And this one’s heart was strong, fighting her.
She held on until, under her influence, the heart slowed its beat and gradually stilled.
For long seconds, the wolf, the monster-father, stood tall, even with his silent heart. She could sense his tension as he strove against an alien presence that hid itself within him. It was with relief that Mala experienced his body drop to the ground. There was the slightest bounce and then no movement at all.
As if from a great distant came the sound of a whine—Caleb’s. She couldn’t see the young wolf, for his father’s eyes were closed and she remained focused inwards. But she could feel Caleb’s presence, sense his trembling approach.
With all she had in her, she held his father’s heart motionless while she thought at Caleb with as much power as possible, “Run, Caleb, run again.”
He needed no further encouragement. One moment he was there, stunned by this unfathomable development, the next he was gone. A lack of presence and she waited alone, feeling grim.
It was a dream, she reminded herself, beginning to shake from the exertion of holding the monster-wolf still. Only a dream—where she had strange and unusual powers and rescued terrified wolf creatures. None of it made sense, but that was the way of dreams after all. It had taken her a lifetime to learn how to save the vulnerable ones.
And yet, in the end, she finished this by fleeing for she refused to become ensnared. She had to rise out of the darkness that threatened to become a trap and make her way home.
How long could dream wolves stay dead before they didn’t recover from their injuries?
She would never know. The nightmares didn’t tell her their true endings. But as the pain threatened to overwhelm her and she feared becoming forever trapped inside this brown wolf, she reached up and through herself to withdraw the blade that had sliced through his heart. As it slid out, so did the twinned needle in her own dreaming heart and, no longer anchored, she floated away from him.
She looked down at the motionless body to ensure the wolf remained fallen. As she did, her world began to bleach out, the essence of the white-lit blade dispersing around her, and she was blinded by the brightness of fear flowing free. The vision was over. Her white dream world turned black as she fell into her deepest sleep.
Chapter One
Angus sometimes felt like he spent his entire life solving problems. On the upside, this specific issue had been straightforward. On the downside, Eden shouldn’t be calling him over to change her flat tire.
While he dried off his hands, he regarded her sternly. “Next time, you phone the mechanic, not me.”
She was fifty and a little brittle. It hadn’t been easy for her, a single human mom raising a wolf child twenty-five years ago when wolves officially didn’t exist. And that experience, with all the secrets it had entailed, meant she wasn’t comfortable around a lot of people, wolves and non-wolves alike. “Mac doesn’t like me much.”
“Mac is a grump, that’s all. Nothing you should take personally. Plus he’s good at his job. Now—” His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he raised a finger, asking her to wait a moment as he fished out the phone and flipped it open. “Angus here.”
“We’ve got a visitor.” It was his daughter. Among other things, Jancis kept watch on the different video feeds situated on the outskirts of the town. A safety precaution they’d set up after one too many humans became overly curious—and aggressive—about the wolves in Wolf Town.
“Go on.”
“From what I see, there’s a skinny, underfed, underage wolf who can’t decide what to do and doesn’t know he’s being watched.” The strange young wolf could be a female, Angus knew, but males outnumbered females on a scale of about twenty-five to one so it was less likely. Jancis’s voice dropped. “He’s making me sad. I’m a bit worried he’s going to collapse from starvation to be honest.”
Crap, more than underfed. “Where?”
“East side. I can see him from the video feed attached to the barn. He goes into it, gets uncomfortable and leaves before he can manage to grab something to eat. He can’t settle. Not the actions of a wild wolf, I don’t think.”
“I’m on it. Send Rory as backup, but he’s only to approach on my say-so.” Frightened wolves did better if they weren’t outnumbered. On the other hand, Angus wanted someone to help him pin this one down if he was feral. An unfortunate likelihood. He closed the phone and turned back to the woman standing in front of him.
“Eden, I’ve got to go.”
“Is something wrong?” She wasn’t always comfortable around people, but nevertheless she worried about them.
“Don’t know yet.” Angus was constitutionally incapable of lying to his people or he would have said no.
The worry line of her frown deepened, and she gave him a sharp nod as he left.
He ran back to his house, taking all of two minutes, slammed inside and stripped off his clothes. More painful to shift this way, without the full moon calling to his blood and with the sun blazing down outside, but he pulled back his human skin. That’s how he thought of it, though every werewolf’s mental approach to the shift was different. His wolf felt his urgency and surged to the surface. His skin prickled as if retracting. And there it was, the event horizon. He dropped to his hands and knees, let his shift overtake him as the world grayed out.
You didn’t become alpha without decent control and memory, so the confusion that assailed him as he woke from the change—wolf at midday, inside his house, new moon in the sky—was brief. His daughter had phoned him. A starving and possibly feral wolf was hanging around the barn. Angus rose, shook out his body and trotted to his front door. Like every other house in Wolf Town, this had a lever handle, and he pushed down on it with his paw. Jancis would come by to shut it once Angus showed up on the screen.
He loped to the east end of town.
It wasn’t complicated, though Angus made a point of approaching from downwind so his scent didn’t frighten off the newcomer. He saw the young black wolf tentatively approach the barn. From his size, this one was a teenager, and he worried about them the most. It was an easy age to lose your way, but this pup was seeking help. Angus knew the lure of the barn—shelter from the wind and some tasteless if nutritional jerky in packaging that could be torn open with wolf teeth.
Angus also understood the youth would fear becoming trapped inside the building by a stranger—which was exactly what Angus had planned. He had only good intentions. The trick was convincing the young wolf of that.
He moved silently, reaching the door before he stopped to observe the distracted stranger tearing into some food and gulping it down. Angus let him finish the large swallow before he gave a soft woof.
The youth spun around, body going tight and trembling as he cringed. After a pause—probably assessing if he could get past Angus at the wide door—he dropped to his belly, ears going back, and whined.
That’s it, thought Angus, don’t try to flee. Slow and steady, Angus approached. He anticipated fear in this situation, but the boy’s was excessive, as if he expected to be executed for trespassing. Angus whined back reassurance and watched the stranger’s ears lift slightly in hope.
In other situations, Angus w
ould have crouched down to show he was no threat and was not interested in dominating anyone, but the black wolf’s confusion made that pointless. So Angus approached the pup, who remained still and trembling until Angus nuzzled behind his ear and was assailed by whining and feverish licking. He accepted the supplication—as clearly the youth had been around the dominant-submissive pack dynamics that were so common outside of Wolf Town. Angus then retreated and picked up another package of beef jerky from the bin it was kept in, and threw it over. After a moment’s hesitation while eyeing Angus carefully, the wolf couldn’t resist ripping open the wrapping and gulping down the food.
They repeated the ritual a few more times so the strange wolf wouldn’t collapse from lack of food.
The black body kept trembling, if not so violently. Angus had hoped he could lead the boy to his house and they could shift sometime today, but he no longer saw that as a probable outcome. Undergoing a shift in a stranger’s house required a certain level of comfort and trust. Time and patience were needed.
Angus gave an inward sigh. He should have delegated, sent someone else to approach and befriend the boy, because he was going to be out of commission for days on this. Too bad he was crap at delegating. Besides, he wanted this done right for the boy, and he was very good at convincing wolves to trust him.
With a mental shrug, Angus lay down beside the thin wolf to offer him warmth. Though exhausted, the intruder jumped away at that. Angus watched, hoping this wouldn’t turn into a chase. He kept his body relaxed, though, while offering another soft woof of encouragement.
C’mon, boy, you’re not capable of escaping me, you must recognize that.
And he did, for the pup let his head fall in a sign of surrender. He circled around Angus twice before lying down near him. Angus moved over, again offering warmth. It was late winter after all, and this pup was near skeletal. The young wolf’s body shuddered before gingerly pressing against Angus’s side. Lethargic from his first food in who knows how long, the boy fell asleep.
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