Wolf Lover: KONOCHUR
Title Page
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
Epilogue
Wolf Lover: KONOCHUR
New Scotia Pack, Book 2
by Victoria Danann
Copyright 2015 Victoria Danann
Published by 7th House, Imprint of Andromeda LLC
ISBN 978-1-933320-87-8
Read more about this author and upcoming works at VictoriaDanann.com
PROLOGUE
THE ORDER OF THE BLACK SWAN
This book is loosely related to the Knights of Black Swan series and contains a few minor references to characters from those books.
There is a very old and secret society of vampire hunters, paranormal investigators and protectors known as The Order of the Black Swan. In the twenty-first century, the Order was presented with proof that the scientific postulation that multiple dimensions operate independently within the same “space”, tied to one planet as hub or anchor, depending on how you view it. Each dimension is a single reality to its occupants with the exception of Elementals - demons, angels, sylphs, and certain shifters, who can move between dimensions as easily as we walk from room to room.
THE NEW SCOTIA TRIBE
From Moonlight, Book 4, Knights of Black Swan. In the process of averting possible extinction of his tribe, the king of the Elk Mountain werewolves, Stalkson Grey, fell in love with a cult slave and abducted her with the demon, Deliverance’s, assistance. He eventually won his captive's heart and took his new mate to the New Elk Mountain werewolf colony in Lunark Dimension where the wolf people’s ancestors had settled centuries before. The Elk Mountain tribe had ceased to produce daughters for an entire generation. The demon found a solution to that by locating a human world that had not produced sons. The werewolf boys were given a month to find mates and convince them to leave their homes for an unknown place called Lunark.
A few years later his nephew-by-marriage, (Liulf, New Scotia Pack Book 1), also migrated his tribe to Lunark Dimension and set up the colony of New Scotia. This book is about his younger brother and second-in-command, Konochur, called Conn and the human, Lestriv, who had married one of the werewolves and pioneered migration to a new world.
CHAPTER 1
“They’re here!”
Lessie smiled at the excitement in Elise’s voice. She turned her face toward where Elise was pointing while jumping up and down.
She laughed at her friend. “Have a little dignity.”
“Pffft,” said Elise. “Who needs dignity? I need a man. Or maybe a werewolf man.” She pretended to swoon.
The day was bright, filled with the musical sounds of wind chimes ringing in the breeze, like a fanfare announcing the arrival of the young wolves looking for brides. Lessie tried but failed to calm the surge of nerves. Elise was the catalyst that pushed her control over the edge. Her emotions had broken free and were not taking either advice or direction, as was clear by the goose bumps that had risen all over her body. Even the air felt like it was filled with magic.
Their society had been burdened with a generation of young women of marriageable age, and no male counterparts to marry. Likewise, so they’d been told, there was a world with a population of young eligible werewolf males without females to wed and, supposedly, they were even more eager to meet. The Conscriptor had stressed the word “eager” in a way that made some of the girls giggle and exchange bright-eyed looks of delight. Others were more outwardly reserved, even if they were just as titillated by the suggestive inference.
As recently as a fortnight before, the young ladies had never heard of werewolves. The description of their species was a little horrifying at first, but desperation overrode choosiness and they decided they were willing to take a look. By the time the day of arrival came, all reservations had melted into a breathless anticipation.
Lessie wore a yellow dress that complemented her auburn-streaked hair and light brown eyes. Set against the bright sunshine of the morning, the color almost made her appear to glow, as if she was walking surrounded by a halo.
The wolves were arriving on the docks by an ocean that was sparkling with reflected sunlight. The means of their arrival was nothing less than dazzling to humans who were accustomed to ordinary, mundane lives.
From the hillside Lessie and her friends could see the prospective husbands come into view one at a time, as if they were walking out of nothingness and taking form as they emerged. It seemed to the girls that it was a god-like thing to do, appearing out of nowhere. That, of course, added to their mystique and made the occasion even more thrilling. The prospects were arriving quickly enough to become a group and be scoping out their surroundings by the time the bachelorettes reached the dock en masse.
The werewolves had been told they would have their work cut out for them if they wanted to convince a human female to commit to mate and leave her home forever. With that in mind, they had studied what behaviors women find attractive in men, along with actual classes in the arts of love, taught by a sex demon who was a friend of their alpha. They had come to the land of brides prepared for pursuit of a mate to be the challenge of their lives. So the last thing they expected was to be, more or less, besieged by a crowd of beauties in brightly colored dresses and brighter smiles that conveyed receptiveness to social advances.
Lessie’s friends had rushed into the crowd of wolves with an enthusiasm that she found embarrassing. She’d hung back at the edge of the throng, feeling and, perhaps, looking uncertain.
While she was trying to decide whether she would continue to observe or join the mixer, the air dazzled a few feet away and she was face to face with a male who simply and literally took her breath away. He was a little taller than she, with golden skin and long mahogany-colored hair worn loose down his back. But the single feature that caught her attention so that she couldn’t have looked away, not even if she was on fire, was his eyes. His irises were a gray so pale they made him seem even more alien than she’d been expecting. But the otherworldly look of his eyes was softened and warmed when the edges of his mouth turned up into a wolf smile.
As it happened, he seemed to be just as captivated by her and never took his eyes away. Relations with the opposite sex were both easy and natural for werewolves as they were sexual creatures with an innate charismatic appeal, particularly where humans were concerned. One look at the face of the prey who had wandered into his path told the wolf that his pursuit could be both fruitful and rewarding beyond his dreams.
“What’s your name?” asked the wolf.
“Lestriv,” said the girl.
“Lestriv.” He repeated her name slowly as if he was tasting it and rolling it around on his tongue. “That’s hard to say.” His conclusion was offered with a teasing smile that made his eyes light from within.
She resisted the impulse to reach out and trace the strong pronounced line of his jaw with her fingertips, but just barely. Instead she returned his smile, feeling shy about her inexperience with the opposite sex and, at the same time, emboldened by his obvious interest.
“I guess that’s why most people call me Lessie.”
He tried out “Lessie” the same way and, looking satisfied, said, “Much better.”
The werewolf took a step toward her. She took a step back reflexively, not because she wanted to retreat from him. She didn’t. It was simply an involuntary response.
She couldn’t have known it, but it was the
best thing she could have done if she wanted to snag a wolf because that small response awakened his predatory instincts and made her an object of even greater fascination.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the wolf.
“I’m… not,” Lessie stumbled.
“I’ll not harm you. In fact,” his mouth curled in a way that made her knees weak, “I’ll show you more pleasure than you’ve ever imagined. If you’ll let me.”
At that he reached out at arm’s length and ran a warm finger down her cheek. She couldn’t suppress a shiver. He couldn’t stop his smile from widening when he saw it.
Inside she might have been contemplating the many ways she would like to explore his claim of commanding pleasure, but what her mouth said was, “What’s your name?”
He raised his chin and offered a charming little lopsided grin. “Jimmy Clear Eyes.”
Lessie cocked her head to the side and studied him. “That suits you fine, werewolf.”
Again, he took a step toward the woman. This time she did not back away.
“You suit me fine, human.”
The sound of wind chimes blown by sweet sunny breezes stopped abruptly as Lessie started to feel the corporeal weight of her body waking. She heard a woman’s voice repeat, “They’re here,” but it wasn’t Elise announcing Jimmy’s arrival. It was the alpha’s mate, Luna, come to help get her ready for the worst day of her life, Jimmy’s funeral.
Inside her mind chanted, “No,” over and over again, as though she could use the word as a shield against reentering the nightmare of her reality. But she couldn't hold wakefulness at bay forever.
New tears sprang into eyes badly swollen from crying for two days. As she turned in the bed, her hand automatically went to her belly, which was just beginning to show the world that their second child was seeded and growing. She hoped that the baby, he or she, was insulated from sharing the pain in her heart.
Jimmy.
CHAPTER 2
Earlier.
The wolves of Lunark Dimension had come to think of their world as the closest thing to paradise on the waking side of fantasy. The human mates who were part of the Elk Mountain Tribe agreed. The werewolves who had migrated from harsher climates appreciated the mild weather as well as the lush landscape, the plentiful game, and the quiet serenity of old ways where the loudest noise ever heard was a wolf howl or the squawk of a blue jay.
The three tribes had learned not only to live peaceably with each other, but to work together for the good of future generations. No small accomplishment for hot headed, territorial werewolves, but they managed to set aside the contentious side of their natures in favor of a better future for everyone. And all was well until they came.
The dragon shifters.
They didn’t ask the original inhabitants of First Colony, led by the alpha, SilverRuff, for permission. They simply saw an opportunity and took it.
Like werewolves, dragon shifters had run out of hospitable places. Unlike werewolves, the dragon shifters were to blame for being hunted to extinction. They left destruction, often needless destruction, and massive loss of life wherever they went. They didn’t just kill for survival. Like domesticated cats, they often killed for a perverse view of fun.
For werewolves, killing without need was tantamount to sacrilege.
Over the centuries, human resistance to dragons had evolved from spears to arrows to drones, which meant that humans climbed past the dragon shifters on the power chain by perfecting artificial, but dramatically superior wings, claws, and fangs. And their radar was more sophisticated than any engineered by nature.
The Lunark werewolves had only spears and arrows. They were determined that there would be a planetary ban on any device with gunpowder or a computer chip, anything that demanded large amounts of unnaturally generated power. It was a law designed to protect their beautiful wilderness and the old ways in perpetuity, but as it turned out, it might also be their undoing.
Hunters began to report to their respective alphas, SilverRuff, Stalkson Grey and Liulf, that game carcasses had been picked over or simply left to rot in open fields. Worse, the dragon shifters were building a fortress type dwelling on the stone face peak of the highest mountain, high above the tree line. That vantage point would give the dragon shifters a full turn view for miles around.
SilverRuff, alpha of the original Lunark colony, had founded an intertribal Council after she’d given permission for two other werewolf tribes to migrate to Lunark. Each territory was represented by the alpha, two seconds, and two pack elders.
The Council normally met on the first day of the new moon every month. They would certainly have called an emergency meeting had it not been for the fact that the new moon was only a day after alarming reports began to come in.
Liulf, alpha of the New Scotia Pack, had two brothers who stood as his seconds. Konochur, and Cinaed, informally known as Conn and Ken. On the day of the new moon, they had human hands strap packs onto their wolf forms carrying clothes they would wear to the Council meeting. In their case, kilts, boots, and long sleeve Henley type shirts made from locally grown hemp.
Council meetings were typically more social than business. Once they had decided that unity was a good thing, the werewolves took to cooperation and compromise as an extension of the core social animal that they were and quickly came to value and appreciate goals and policies that served the entire population, not just their tribe.
On that particular new moon, the mood was somber and serious as the discussion at hand.
Liulf’s own mate, Rain Falling, occupied a unique position. She was mate to the alpha of the New Scotia Pack and daughter to SilverRuff, alpha of the First Colony pack. She had been one of SilverRuff’s seconds before mating Liulf, and chose to retain her rank as second to the First Colony contingent. To date that had not presented a problem, but Liulf recognized that being on opposite sides of an issue could make for an interesting dynamic in his home.
Rain Falling was incensed that the dragon shifters had taken up residence without asking her mother’s permission, and was so impassioned that she stood to begin the discussion.
“It’s not just a matter of disrespecting my mother. It’s a flagrant challenge to all of us, everyone who lives on Lunark. All shifters, even bloody dragons, know better than to do such a thing. And that can only mean that they are being deliberately provocative. They want a war.”
Her passion was contagious and her words were followed by murmurs of agreement throughout the tent. Everyone waited to see who would speak next. After a time, Ken stood. All the wolves waited for him to speak with a concentrated focus. Ken was known for his keen mind and his inventive approach to problems. He didn’t send waves of alpha power ahead of his speech, although he could have. His philosophy was something along the lines of let those named alpha be alpha.
“I’m wonderin’ if we might no’ try a diplomatic mission.” There was a moment of stunned silence followed by a din that rose as wolves turned to their neighbors to give their first reaction to the outrageous idea. Ken waited patiently for quiet, then added, “Before we go off half-cocked.”
“I never go anywhere half-cocked,” shouted BigTooth, who was SilverRuff’s other second. To be sure everyone got his joke, BigTooth grabbed his package and gave it a shake for emphasis.
Everyone laughed, which Ken appreciated, because it relieved some of the tension.
Again Ken waited until the laughter had died down before continuing.
“I know ‘tis no’ a typical notion for werewolves, but we’re formin’ a new way of bein’ here. If we can avoid a war with dragon shifters, ‘tis in our best interest to do so. I’m no’ sayin’ we can no’ win such a conflict, but we can no’ win without givin’ up some of the thin’s about our way of life that we hold dearest.”
The room went perfectly quiet and still because everyone present understood exactly what Ken meant. After a few minutes of silence, Stalkson Grey stood up.
“My nephew by marriage mak
es the kind of good sense we’ve come to expect from him. And we can’t ignore it. If we can persuade the dragon shifters to live with us peacefully and follow a few rules regarding the hunting of game, that would be the best outcome by far. None of us wants to contemplate what going to war with dragons would mean to our way of life.”
As Stalkson Grey sat down, there were hushed murmurs as wolves whispered to those near them.
Next, SilverRuff stood. “I agree with everything that’s been said. It’s true that diplomacy is outside typical consideration of options when it comes to strategy. But as both Ken and Grey have suggested, in this case, we have a lot to lose. I propose that we make Ken head of an exploratory mission, the object of which is to find out if the dragons are amenable to living in harmony. I propose that he take a contingent of six werewolves, two from each tribe, to accompany him and report back to the alphas.”
SilverRuff sat down. BigTooth said, “Will there be any more discussion before we call for a vote?”
When no one answered, BigTooth called for the vote. There were eleven for and four against.
SilverRuff stood again. “Ken. Do you accept a Council commission to lead a group to the dragons and learn their intentions?”
Ken stood. “Aye. I’ll go.”
SilverRuff nodded. “In that case, I think you should be the one to choose who will accompany you. Two from each tribe. You’ll go day after tomorrow. This Council will reconvene the day after that to reevaluate our position based on the results.”
Ken had gotten to know wolves from other tribes at the fire festivals and had no trouble choosing. Before the Council dispersed, he told SilverRuff and Stalkson Grey which two representatives from their tribes were being drafted for the mission. He specified the place and hour where they would rendezvous and everyone was agreed.
Wolf Lover: Konochur (New Scotia Pack Book 2) Page 1
