To The Wolves: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Hollow Pack Book 1)

by Camille Rae

  To The Wolves

  by Camille Rae

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 by Camille Rae

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact camilleraeauthor@gmail.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used for fictional purposes. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Caia

  The forest grew thick and wild. It was pitch black in the trees, even in the daytime.

  I was being carried, low to the ground, but whoever carried me was running as fast as they could, hopping over branches, dodging tree trunks.

  I had my fingers clutched around a necklace. A golden sphere.

  Someone was shrieking, and then I was flying through the air, hands reaching out to catch me.

  I awoke with a start, sitting up, gasping for breath.

  Those dreams.

  I had them so often in my childhood, but I hadn’t had one in years.

  I was in my sleeping bag, in my tent, and it was near dawn. My cheeks were cool with the early spring air. My best friend, Jude, snored beside me, her soft curls sticking out of the top of her sleeping bag.

  The sleeping bag made soft swishing fabric noises as I laid back down, trying to will myself back to sleep.

  We were camping near Greyson State Park on the Western Slope of Colorado, our favorite rock-climbing territory. We were climbing the entire weekend, and it was nice to be away from reality, even for a few days. It was nice to pretend my life could be normal again.

  It was the one year anniversary of my parent’s death.

  I was on a trip meant to make me forget that.

  “Ky,” Jude whispered beside me.

  I hadn’t realized she was sitting up.

  She wiped at a tear on my cheek and gave me her classic I’m worried about you but I’m not going to ask what’s wrong because I already know look. It was a very specific, very Jude expression.

  Jude and I had met in a high school photography class. She dressed like she had just jumped out of the 1960s and liked the same music I did, all of that emotional acoustic that seemed to speak to teenagers with a tender soul. We had been inseparable for years — driving through the mountains at night with the windows down, seeing our favorite bands live, spending hours in the school darkroom in the evenings.

  She had gone away for college, and I got busy, and before I knew it, we hadn’t spoken in years.

  And then, just as suddenly as she had disappeared from my life, she had shown up again, a year before, right after my parents had died. Right when I needed her most.

  Jude dragged me up to our favorite climbing area for a girl’s weekend, and I knew she meant to get me out of town, to get my mind off of my parents. Just the two of us, our climbing ropes, and our tents.

  I looked over at Jude. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “I know,” she said, taking my hand.

  We laid back down, not falling asleep but not speaking, either. She held onto my hand and we watched the sunrise light up the sky through the mesh top of our tent.

  ◆◆◆

  After coffee and some hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, we finally started our first climb.

  The day was a cool, crisp spring morning. My absolute favorite climbing weather. Warm enough that my hands wouldn’t ache when I was touching the rock, but cool enough that I wouldn’t overheat halfway up the route.

  Jude was set to climb first. We checked our knots and I held up my hands behind her as she climbed to the first anchor and clipped in. I paid out the rope as she rose, and listened to hear her occasionally pausing to call out for me to be ready for her to fall. “Watch me,” she said with concentration, and I anchored my hands on the rope, ready to catch her.

  She swung her body and gripped the right handhold. I cheered and let myself relax a bit.

  “Playing it fast and loose, I see,” I joked.

  “Funny, that’s exactly how I like my women,” she giggled and I rolled my eyes.

  Even from thirty feet below her, I could see her huge smile. She was one of the best climbers I knew, and the fact that she had invited me out with her meant a lot to me.

  I knew damn well that she suggested climbing in order to give me something to focus on so intensely that I wouldn’t think of my parent’s car crash.

  It was working, I had to hand it to her.

  I noticed she was in a dicey spot, reaching well past her wing span for a hold, and I braced myself for her fall. She slipped with a squeal and my feet left the ground. I flew about five feet into the air before bracing myself against the wall. I let out a laugh as soon as I saw she was okay, and I lowered myself, then her to the ground.

  She cursed, stomping on the ground. “That spot always gets me,” she said, panting and drinking from her water bottle.

  We stepped back, assessing how she could get past it. She clapped me on the shoulder. “Aren’t you so glad to be here?” She joked.

  Sure, I had been hesitant to come, but I was already having fun. “Whatever,” I teased.

  “You can say it,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

  “Say what?” I asked, checking the rope for tangles or knots before her next climb.

  “That I was right,” she said, tugging at the legs of her harness. “If you were home right now, you’d be binge watching sad movies on Netflix, eating Ben & Jerry’s even when I know you have five tubs of Halo Top in your freezer, and maybe even crying a bit.”

  Damn, she was good. That’s exactly what I had planned. Perhaps even wearing my father’s favorite sweater to really lay on the pity vibes.

  I nodded, smirking.

  “You know as well as I do that there’s no Netflix binge quite as good as being outside. Especially climbing,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes at her preachy moment. “Ben & Jerry’s does compare, though,” I joked.

  She elbowed me jokingly, and we rechecked our gear, ready for another climb.

  ◆◆◆

  I fixed us a simple sandwich lunch while Jude sorted our rope.

  “I was joking earlier,” she said, her voice a bit quieter.

  I paused mid-mustard swipe. “About what?”

  “I don’t think you’d really be at home crying,” she said.

  Hell yes, I would have been at home crying. “Who knows,” I shrugged.

  “You’re the strongest wo
man I know,” she said. “And I’ve known you a long time. Remember when Brian Schmidt stood you up for prom? And you went anyway and you won Prom Queen and demanded that they give you both of the crowns because you didn’t need a King?”

  I laughed. “That’s not what happened. I just reached for the King’s crown and broke it in half. Then they were so shocked that they let me be the only ruler,” I grinned.

  “You’ve always been that way. You don’t need anyone,” she said, giving me a firm nod.

  “Only you, Judith,” I teased, using the full name I knew she hated. Although Jude was queer, I was tragically heterosexual.

  I finished up our turkey sandwiches, handing one to her.

  Jude had been such a rock for me over the past year. I didn’t know what I’d do without her.

  When my parents died, it was sudden. I had gotten a call from the police that they had been in a bad car accident. I had to ID their bodies.

  The strange part was, I wasn’t particularly close with them. They were kind, but we always held each other at arm’s length. I could never put my finger on why. They were like older, adult roommates for as long as I could remember. Supportive, but not needy. Nice, but not loving. I had never had long talks with them. They mostly kept to themselves, and so did I.

  I was so thankful to have Jude around for the toughest months, right at the beginning. She was my biggest cheerleader, my biggest supporter. She helped me clean out my childhood home — there was a severe lack of mementos which made it pretty easy. It seemed that my parents held onto nothing.

  In contrast to my parents, the beautiful thing about a friend like Jude was that she was caring, but never expected anything in return. She was always giving, and she never made me feel bad about taking.

  She was so opposite of me — her short, dark hair gave her the adorable look of a fairy, and her trim, enviable body was due to years of climbing, backpacking, and adventuring.

  I had curly, red hair, and I was tall and scrawny, even despite my love of climbing.

  “What’s that?” She said, breaking me out of my thoughts. She was pointing about a hundred yards down the wall we were working on.

  I squinted, trying to make out what she was talking about. “I don’t see anything.”

  She cleared her throat. “It’s a cave or something. Can we go look?”

  I shrugged and wiped my hands on my workout leggings and stood, cautiously looking around. Leaving our site with all of our belongings seemed strange, so I grabbed my daypack, which I knew at least had my wallet and phone. Who knew what would be in that cave? What if we had to run from a mad bear?

  Jude was bouncing with excitement. “What do you think lives in there?” She asked.

  “Probably a really hungry hermit,” I joked, following her as we walked down to the entrance of the cave.

  We crept around the edge of the cave, peering in. No hungry just-out-of-hibernation bears or hermits as far as I could tell, but I couldn’t be certain.

  “Oh, weird, do you see that?” Jude said, pointing inside the cave.

  I took a step closer. I didn’t see a bear, or even bats, or anything else sinister and cave-dwelling. Instead, I saw a light, glowing in the darkness.

  “What is that?” I asked, trying to figure out a logical explanation. Some kind of tunnel to let the sunlight in, I imagined, looking up.

  Jude was walking forward, and she glanced at me over her shoulder. “Let’s check it out,” she said, grinning excitedly.

  When we were about halfway between the entrance of the cave and the light reflecting near the back, I felt a strong breeze rush over me from above. I felt dizzy for a moment and lost my bearings. I turned back towards where we had come, but saw only darkness behind us.

  “Did you feel that?” Jude asked in a squeak more than a question.

  We both looked up and Jude squeezed my hand in hers. I saw nothing, and paused to calm down my panicking mind. Blinking in the darkness, I breathed deeply, inhaling the musty smell of the cave walls. In order to rationalize the cave’s existence, I started thinking about how water may had made strange tunnels and airways through the cave. I tensed my shoulders in a shiver and walked on.

  I lagged half of a step behind, not even trying to appear brave, and bird noises grew louder from the light in front of us.

  Squinting in confusion, we stepped further into the light, only to find that it wasn’t light, but instead an opening of the cave. I looked back over my shoulder again, but saw nothing.

  We stepped out of the cave into the light, and I looked around, confused.

  Had we somehow gotten turned around?

  Where we had come from, it was mid-April, with hints of snow on the ground and barely-blooming trees.

  We had stepped into a world of autumn, with bright yellow and red and nearly neon green leaves on the trees. The sun was shining vividly, dancing reflections on the mossy ground. There were birds singing and crickets chirping. It was a lush paradise, so unlike the bare Colorado forests I had come to know so well.

  I had been here before.

  Wait, where had that thought come from?

  Jude let go of my hand to examine a tree. “I don’t recognize this type of tree,” she said. “Have you seen it before?” She looked at me expectantly.

  I pulled a branch lower, looking at the bright yellow leaves. “No, the leaves are almost oak-shaped, but the bark is different like an aspen.” There had to be a rational explanation for where we were. Just the other side of the mountain, right?

  Again, I felt as though I had been here before. Something felt vaguely familiar about the smell of the place, fresh and floral.

  Birds whistled and chirped above us and crickets sang despite our nearness.

  “What is this place?” I began to ask, but I was interrupted by twigs cracking in close proximity. The birds and crickets stopped their songs immediately.

  “Hello?” Jude said, turning in either direction.

  I could see no one, but a cold, anxious feeling crept up my arms as only silence responded. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, and I had the uneasy feeling that someone was watching us.

  For a moment, the only sound was our heavy breathing. Then, a deer stepped into our path and froze as it saw us. It was a young female, but the coloring was wrong. Where it should have been shades of brown and beige, it was pure white. It’s bright green eyes held my stare as I remained as still as possible, and I felt warmth flow through my veins again. It could have been hours or seconds as we remained interlocked in our stares, and then it started suddenly and bounded off the trail.

  I wanted to follow it. Something inside of my mind screamed at me to follow her.

  Her.

  How did I know that?

  “Wow, she was lovely,” I said, and jogged over to where it had crashed off through the brush.

  A whooshing noise broke the silence, and then Jude shrieked and was on the ground behind me, tangled in what looked like rope. I didn’t have a moment to look closer before bodies crashed through the trees towards us. Tall men in royal blue uniforms began yelling, and on instinct, I bolted.

  I glanced over my shoulder back to the cave, thinking it’d be easiest to just run back through the tunnel where we had come from, but it wasn’t there.

  The cave wasn't there.

  It was only a steep rocky ridge face.

  It felt like a bad time to panic, but I did. I sprinted through the trees, feeling weightless with the surge of adrenaline through me, not seeing where I was going. My mind completely cleared. No room for anything but pure terror. I could vaguely hear yelling behind me, but couldn’t distinguish the actual sounds.

  I ran through a patch of trees, which opened to a clearing. Pausing for a moment to glance around and catch my breath for a second, I decided to skirt the trees. The path descended steeply, with a large boulder in the way. I ducked behind it, gasping for breath. I willed myself not to hyperventilate, squeezing my eyes shut.

  Gradua
lly, I was able to draw in deeper breaths, and I chanced a peek at the other side of the boulder. Nothing that I could see. I hadn’t been followed, or at least I hadn't been obviously followed. What, or who, had attacked Jude? It looked like netting, as though a trap had been thrown over her and bound tightly. Who were those men in uniform?

  And I had left her. I had abandoned her as she was being attacked. Maybe I could have saved her. My hands began to shake as the enormity of the situation started to set in. I had left Jude to be taken, or murdered, or maybe even taken into one of those cults where they would cut off her face and use her identity as an assassin.

  I squeezed my eyes shut again, telling myself I was in a dream. It wasn't real. I was dreaming.

  It wasn't working.

  I pinched my arms, trying to wake myself up.

  “Oh my god, what have I done?” I whispered, bringing my shaking hand to my mouth. A leaf crunched behind me, and I whirled around to see a tall man with a concerned look on his face, holding something in his hand. For a moment, I thought I might know him. I barely even felt the surge of pain from my skull as my vision darkened and my legs collapsed from under me.

  Chapter 2

  Caia

  I was in the forest, again.

  Instead of running, I was simply standing, looking around.

  A white doe stepped out in front of me, locking eyes with me before bursting into a swirl of bright yellow light.

  “Caia,” the light beckoned me.

  I reached towards it, but a hand closed tightly on my wrist. I looked to see a woman in all blue, glaring down at me. Except, the woman holding my wrist looked exactly like me, as though I was looking in a mirrored reflection.

  “That’s not yours to take,” she growled, and her eyes turned blood red.

  I jerked awake, moaning at the intense pain that overcame me.

  One thing movies don’t explain about being knocked unconscious is that the throbbing begins almost immediately.

  I laid on my stomach, squeezing my eyes shut as the world around me spun. It felt a lot like drinking too much whiskey and needing to put a foot on the ground to stop the room from tilting.