Tamed by the She-Wolf

by Kristal Hollis

  Dayax nodded.

  Lincoln shouldered his weapon and eased out of the barracks. Almost immediately, his senses tingled.

  Drawing the tactical knife from its sheath, he spun to the left and threw the weapon at the guard racing toward them. The target dropped silently to his knees, clawing at the knife lodged in his throat.

  Clutching Dayax’s hand, Lincoln quickly followed the path the other children had taken. Shouts went up behind them. From the sound of the chatter, someone had found the guard Lincoln had dispatched.

  Lincoln and Dayax stayed their course. When gunshots rang out and bullets whizzed past Lincoln’s head, he pulled Dayax behind the nearest tree, readied his weapon and returned fire.

  Above the commotion, he heard the rebels’ shouts and their advancing steps. Outgunned and outmanned, their capture was certain if they remained where they were.

  He hadn’t come this far to end up dead.

  Lincoln grabbed Dayax’s arm. “Run!”

  The boy dropped to his hands and knees, shifted into his wolf and bolted through the woods. Lincoln did the same, only he was much faster. On the fly, he picked up the wolfling by the nape of the neck and ran like the devil had lit his paws on fire.

  Chapter 31

  Sitting in a large auditorium filled with famous faces, Angeline twisted the note card in her hands.

  “Don’t be nervous.” Sandra—Angeline’s longtime agent—squeezed Angeline’s hand. “You’ve got this.”

  I hope so!

  However, Angeline’s reasons for wanting to win the Songwriter of the Year Award were likely entirely different from her agent’s reasons.

  Angeline had not heard a peep from Lincoln in over a month, despite flooding the mate-bond with love and positive vibes at random times throughout the days and nights.

  She firmly believed that he remained unharmed and that he had successfully rescued Dayax. If the opposite were true, she would know.

  The performing act finished their routine, and Angeline joined the audience in giving applause. The emcee appeared on the opposite corner of the stage, gave the introduction to the next category and then called out the names of the nominees.

  “And the Song of the Year goes to—”

  Angeline held her breath, but the emcee had trouble opening the envelope. She nearly passed out from lack of oxygen before the song title was announced along with the name of the songwriter. Generous applause erupted.

  At home, she would do her happy dance in front of the television. But in the auditorium with a stage and lights and cameras, Angeline froze.

  Anonymous for so long, she wasn’t as prepared for the spotlight as she’d hoped.

  “Come on, hon.” Taking Angeline’s arm, Sandra helped her stand.

  Clutching a handwritten speech, Angeline made her way to the stage. A young man wearing a tuxedo escorted her up the steps and across the stage to the podium where she was handed a small statuette of a golden hat.

  The bright lights prevented her from seeing the audience, which she decided was a good thing. As applause died down, she opened the note card in her hand.

  “Thank you for this wonderful honor. Usually, I’m at home watching the awards ceremony on the television. But it is a privilege to be here with you tonight and, for the first time, to share this special moment with my family, who are somewhere in the audience.”

  She paused. “Until recently, they didn’t know that I was a songwriter. Despite any previous awards or accolades and songs that reached number one on the charts, part of me felt that my talent wouldn’t measure up in their eyes.”

  Angeline wished she could see her family’s faces right now. Too many opportunities to share her life with them had been lost because of the fear of their rejection. “But really, I was reflecting my own insecurities onto them. And I’m so very thankful to Lincoln Adams for coming into my life and teaching me how to have faith in myself, in my loved ones and in him. He’s the reason I came tonight, because he’s out there somewhere, working hard to make the world a better place. And before he left, I didn’t take the opportunity to tell him how much I love him. So I’m doing it now.”

  She thought of his smile, his larger-than-life presence, but mostly she thought of his unwavering loyalty. “Lincoln, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, know that I love you with all of my heart. I believe in you. Thank you for teaching me to believe in myself. I miss you, and I’ll leave the light on so you can find your way home.”

  Tears rolling down her cheeks, Angeline stepped away from the podium to the sound of thunderous applause. Though a weight lifted from her shoulders, her heart remained heavy.

  An escort led her backstage, where she walked a gauntlet of flashing cameras and big fat microphones being shoved in her face for impromptu interviews. Of course, Sandra steered her safely through them.

  When her splotchy vision returned to normal, she saw a young wolfling approaching with a red rose. His big brown eyes, flawless bronze skin and dark, tight, curly hair cropped close to his head caused an unusual beat in her heart. He flashed a gloriously beautiful smile. “A rose for an angel,” he said with an accent.

  “Thank you, sweetie.” Accepting the flower, she knelt in front of him. Prickly tears threatened to blur her vision again. “Are you—”

  “Dayax Adams,” he announced proudly. “Lincoln signed papers to be my aabbe. The tall man on the plane said it’s not ’ficial, yet. But I can say he is.”

  “Come here.” Angeline hugged him tightly. “I’m so happy to meet you.”

  “You smell good,” he said, sniffing her hair.

  “Already taking after your dad.” She laughed. “Speaking of Lincoln, where is he?”

  Grinning, Dayax took her hand.

  Angeline had to step quickly to match his pace. All the while her heart raced as the wolfling led her straight to a man wearing a black tuxedo and surrounded by her entire family.

  He turned and stepped from their midst.

  Lincoln!

  Her heart couldn’t decide whether to race, furiously pound or flutter with happiness. She forgot to breathe and her knees threatened to buckle.

  “Hello, Angel.” Lincoln opened his arms, and she melted into his embrace. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Her family echoed his words.

  “I missed you,” she said, pressing her face into the curve of his neck and inhaling his clean, masculine scent.

  “I missed you, too.” He kissed the crown of her head and a feeling of rightness spread through her body, all the way down to the tips of her freshly polished toes.

  “Why didn’t you call me after you found Dayax? Or reach out through the mate-bond?”

  “I couldn’t make any calls. We left Somalia immediately following Dayax’s extraction and flew to Germany on a transport. Once we got to HQ, we went through extensive debriefing and then I had to be fitted with a new prosthetic. Since I didn’t know when we would get back to the states, I asked Councilman Bartolomew to get word to you. But he cut through the red tape and flew us here in a private jet.”

  Lincoln grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. “As for the mate-bond, you don’t know how much I wanted to reach out to you. But it’s against protocol and I didn’t want to risk screwing up the adoption or my retirement plans. It’s scary what the Program can do. But that’s all behind us now, baby.”

  Her heart settling comfortably in her chest, Angeline took her first easy breath since Lincoln had left. “Did you see any of the show?”

  “Enough.” He smiled that wonderful smile of his. “I love you, too, baby.”

  “Angel?” Dayax tugged her arm, then presented to her a tiny box. Inside, she found a beautiful marquis diamond ring.

  “I choose you, Angeline O’Brien, to be mine for now and always.” Lincoln slid the ring onto her finger. “And I promise to love you un
til my last breath, and beyond.”

  “That’s an awfully long time, Dogman. Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?”

  “Retired Dogman.” Lincoln gathered Angeline close and held Dayax’s hand. “And I’ve been preparing for this my whole life.”

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from This Strange Witchery by Michele Hauf

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  This Strange Witchery

  by Michele Hauf

  Chapter 1

  The key to disposing of a werewolf body was to get the flames burning quickly, yet to keep them as contained as possible. Torsten Rindle had been doing cleaner work for close to ten years. When a call came in about a dead paranormal found or deposited somewhere in Paris, he moved swiftly. Discreet cleanup was one of his many trades. Media spin was a talent he’d mastered for whenever he was too late to clean up and a human had stumbled upon the dead werewolf. He also dallied with protection work and the occasional vampire hunt.

  It was good for a man to keep his business options fluid and to always expand his skills list. And if he had to choose a title for what he did, he’d go with Secret Keeper.

  But some days...

  Tor shook his head as the blue-red flames burned the furry body to ash before him. The use of eucalyptus in the mix masked the smell of burning dog. For the most part. The creature had been rabid, eluding the slayer until it had gotten trapped down a narrow alleyway that had ended in a brick wall. The slayer had taken it out not twenty minutes earlier, and then had immediately called Tor.

  Those in the know carried Tor’s number. He was always the first choice when it came to keeping secrets from humans.

  Thankful this had been an old wolf—werewolves shifted back to human form after death; the older ones took much longer, sometimes hours—so he hadn’t needed to deal with it in human form, Tor swiped a rubber-gloved hand over an itch on his cheek. Then he remembered the werewolf blood he’d touched.

  Bollocks.

  He was getting tired of this routine: receive a frantic call from someone in the know regarding a rabid werewolf who may be seen by humans. Dash to the scene. Assess the situation. Clean up the mess (if extinguishing the problem was essential), or talk to the police and/or media using one of his many alter-ego names and titles, such as Ichabod Sneed from the Fire Department’s Personal Relations. Then return home to his empty loft.

  Eat. Crash. Repeat.

  Tor knew... He knew too much. Monsters existed. Vampires, werewolves, witches, faeries, harpies, mermaids. They all existed. And yes, dragons were known to be real assholes if you could find one of them. A regular human guy like him shouldn’t have such knowledge. That was why, over the years, he had striven to keep such information from the public. Because knowing so much? It fucked with a man’s mental state.

  And then there were some days he wanted to walk away from it all. Like today.

  This morning he’d been woken and called to assist with media contacts while a minor graveyard at the edge of the city had been blocked off from public access. Routine cosmetic repairs, he’d explained to the news reporters. The truth? A demonic ritual had roused a cavalcade of vicious entities from Daemonia. Slayers had taken care of the immediate threat, but that had left the graveyard covered in black tar-like demon blood. And the stench!

  Tor had spent the better part of this afternoon arguing with a group of muses about their need to “come out” to the public regarding their oppressive attraction to angels who only wanted to impregnate them. Something to do with the #metoo movement. Sexual harassment or not, the public wasn’t ready for the truth about fallen angels and their muses. But, being a feminist himself, he had directed the muses to the Council, who had recently put together a Morals and Ethics Committee.

  “I want normal,” he muttered. He grabbed the fire extinguisher to douse the flames. He refilled the canister at the local fire station monthly. “It’s time I had it.”

  It took ten minutes to clean up the sludgy ash pile and shovel it into a medium black body bag. Fortunately, this werewolf had been tracked to the edge of the 13th arrondissement not far from the ring road that circled Paris. It was a tight little neighborhood, mostly industry that had closed during regular business hours, leaving the streets abandoned and the dusty windows dark. Tor hadn’t noticed anyone nearby, nor had he worried about discovery as he made haste cleaning up the evidence. His van was parked down the street.

  He hefted the body bag over a shoulder, picked up the extinguisher and his toolbox filled with all the accoutrements a guy like him should ever need on a job like this, and wandered down the street. His rubber boots made squidgy noises on the tarmac. After dousing the flames, he’d rolled down the white polyethylene hazmat suit to his hips. With shirtsleeves rolled up, his tweed vest still neatly buttoned, yet tie slightly loosened, he could breathe now.

  “Normal,” he repeated.

  He’d scheduled a Skype interview early tomorrow afternoon. The job he had applied for was assistant to Human Relations and Resources at an up-and-coming accounting firm in la Defense district. About as mundane and normal as a man could hope for. He’d never actually worked a regular “human” job.

  It was about time he gave it a go.

  The olive green van, which had seen so many better days, sat thirty feet down from a streetlight that flickered and put out an annoying buzz. Humming a Sinatra tune, Tor opened the back of the van and tossed in the supplies. He’d dump the body bag at a landfill on the way home. He’d done his research; that landfill was plowed monthly and shipped directly to China for incineration.

  “That’s my life,” he sang, altering the lyrics to suit him.

  Sinatra was a swanky idol to him. Singing his songs put him in a different place from the weird one he usually occupied. Call it a sanity check. The Sultan of Swoon relaxed him in ways he could appreciate.

  He peeled off the sweaty hazmat suit, hung it on a hanger and placed that on a hook near the van ceiling. At his belt hung a heavy quartz crystal fixed into a steel mount that clipped with a D ring onto a loop. He never went anywhere without the bespelled talisman. Another necessity for sanity. The rubber boots were placed in a tray on the van floor. He pulled out his bespoke Italian leather shoes from a cloth bag and slipped those on.

  “Ahhh...” Almost better than a shower. But he couldn’t wait to wash off the werewolf blood. Odds were he had it in more places than the smear across his cheek.

  Closing the back doors, he punched a code on the digital lock to secure it. While he sorted t
hrough his trouser pocket for the van key, he whistled the chorus to the song that demanded he accept life as it was...that’s life.

  Maybe... No. Life didn’t have to be this way for him. He was all-in for a change of scenery.

  Before he slid the key in the lock, he saw the driver’s door was unlocked. Had he forgotten? That wasn’t like him. He was always on top of the situation. Which only further contributed to his need to run from this life as if a flaming werewolf were chasing his ass.

  Tor slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. Another crazy midnight job. His final one. He would stand firm on that decision. And after getting a whiff of the dead werewolf’s rangy scent—someone please show him the way to his new office cubicle.

  Adjusting the radio to a forties’ swing station, he palmed the stick shift.

  When the person in the passenger seat spoke, he startled. “Whoa!”

  “Hey! Oops. Sorry.” The woman let out a bubbly nervous giggle. “Didn’t mean to surprise you. I’ve been waiting. And watching. You’ve quite the talent, you know that?”

  “Who in bloody—” He squinted in the darkness of the cab, but could only see glints in her eyes and—above her eyes? Hmm... Must be some kind of sparkly makeup. “How did you...?”

  “The door wasn’t locked. You really should lock your doors in this neighborhood. Anyone could steal your van. Not that it’s very steal-worthy. Kinda old, and there’s more rust than actual paint. But I’m guessing you have important stuff in the back. Like a dead werewolf!” she announced with more cheer than anyone ever should.

  His eyes adjusting to the darkness, Tor could make out that she had long brown hair and big eyes. She smiled. A lot. He didn’t get a sense about her—was she paranormal or human? But then, he didn’t have any special means of determining whether a person was paranormal or not. Sometimes he didn’t know until it was too late. But he did pick up an overtly incautious happiness about her.

  Without letting down his guard, he reached across the console to offer his hand. “Torsten Rindle.”