This Dark Wolf: Soul Bitten Shifter Book 1

by Everly Frost

  Helen’s eyes are wide as she closely examines my hand, turning it over. “You don’t have any burn marks.” She steps back, exchanging a look with Iyana before she turns to me. “That test proved my theory that you’re highly resistant to magic.”

  “Okay, like I asked, what does this mean?” I ask.

  Helen taps her finger urgently on her wand, the skin around her eyes tight with tension. “Tell me something, Tessa, can you sense what’s going on in this House? Where the women are, what their powers are, that sort of thing?”

  When I first arrived, Helen told me that my senses would be dampened here. “No,” I say. “It’s just like you said. I can’t use my wolf’s senses, just my normal human ones.”

  The tension around Helen’s eyes eases. “Good.” She exhales slowly. “And also interesting because it begins to explain to me what kind of magic you’re resistant to.” She waves her wand gently in the air, gesturing around at the room. As she does so, colors stream from her wand.

  “There are many different kinds of magic, but they generally fall into four types,” she says.

  “The first is light magic. It is the magic of love and strength. A warrior’s magic.” The colors around her wand begin to take shape, forming into dragons of all colors: crimson, black, and golden. The magnificent creatures dip and soar through the air around us, their powerful wings disturbing the air across my face.

  “Then there is dark magic. It comes from draining life. Some know it as sorcery.” The dragons crash into a blackened and burned landscape filled with crumbling bones, their bodies smashing into dust that fills the air like snow.

  “The third type of magic is elemental magic. It is the power of nature,” Helen says, continuing to wave her wand. Green grass sprouts across the barren landscape, a river forms, water rushing over stones, mountains rise up in the background peaked with ice, and bright sunlight streams across the air, brightening the room around us.

  “And then there’s the magic that sits at the foundation of the world—old magic, which some supernaturals call ‘deep magic.’” The perspective of the image shifts again, rising rapidly higher as the sunlight fades and the stars and moon dominate the sky, bright and luminescent.

  “This house was formed on a foundation of old magic,” Helen says. “It would be a very rare thing if you were immune to old magic. Even creatures of old magic themselves—as rare as they are—are not immune to each other. But you are immune to my healing magic, which is light magic. You also resisted the destructive flame I just attempted to burn your hand with. That was dark magic. As for elemental magic, which is commonly controlled by fae creatures, I guess we will have to wait and see.”

  My voice sticks in my throat. My understanding of magic just expanded, but I still don’t understand what this means for me. “Is my resistance a good thing?”

  “It is a good thing, but… also a bad thing.” Helen grimaces. “It’s detrimental because it means whatever pain relief I give you will wear off quickly. It also means your wounds could take longer to heal because my healing spell won’t have the intended impact. On the positive side, it means that an enemy who tries to use magic on you will have a very hard time slowing you down.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that brute force can kill you, but magic won’t do a damn thing.”

  My jaw drops. “But…”

  Iyana peels herself off the wall. She has been quiet through the conversation, but now she exchanges another look with Helen.

  “I was going to leave Hidden House and join Tristan next week,” Iyana says, speaking with Helen, the two of them suddenly ignoring me. “But now I think I should stay.”

  “It’s up to you, Iyana.”

  “Tristan needs me, but… I’ll stay for another week. If things look promising, I’ll stay longer.”

  I glare between them. “Enough with the cryptic conversation.”

  Iyana spins to me. “I’ll train you in the mornings. Helen will work with you in the afternoons.”

  Her statement doesn’t explain anything. I narrow my eyes at her. “Train me? In what?”

  Iyana grins. “Self-defense. Offense. Weaponry. Whatever you need to learn.”

  I fire back a response, my pain finally making me cranky, not to mention my pride is suddenly hurting. “I don’t need your help.”

  She arches a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “Your bruises disagree.” She strides forward and leans over me, so close that I finally catch a sense of her scent. As elusive as it is, it reminds me of frost on a cold morning.

  “Tessa, you have a chance that none of us has,” she says. “When I’m done with you, no man will ever fuck with you again.”

  My eyes widen. She’s offering to train me. My father made sure I was fit and knew how to box, along with some basic self-defense. I haven’t seen Iyana in action, but judging from her familiarity with the gun range, there’s a fair chance I could learn a lot from her.

  She promised that no man would ever hurt me again.

  I clench my teeth. “If that includes Tristan, then I’m in.”

  My declaration settles into sudden silence.

  Iyana blinks at me for a moment, slowly withdrawing, as if I stung her.

  “Tristan?” she asks. “Why would Tristan want to hurt you? He brought you here, didn’t he?”

  Helen clears her throat loudly enough to make Iyana’s attention snap to her.

  “Tessa’s situation is a little more complicated than normal,” Helen says.

  The fierce crease in Iyana’s forehead deepens. “What am I missing?”

  Helen starts to speak, but Iyana suddenly jolts, as if she realized something. Her eyes widen as she stares at my face—at my bruises.

  “Fuck,” she whispers. Her lips part and her cheeks turn a paler shade of white. “Did Tristan hurt you?”

  Waiting for me to answer, she reaches out to grip the edge of the examination table, frozen, pinning me with her wide, blue eyes.

  At the side, Helen is poised as if she’s about to answer for me, but she closes her mouth. After all, she wasn’t there, so she doesn’t really know.

  I bite my lip as I return Iyana’s wild gaze. She said that Tristan saved Danika’s life and brought her here to safety. He brought all of them here. She clearly believes he’s one of the good guys. The anxiety written all over her face tells me it would break her world if the answer were yes, that Tristan had hurt me.

  “No,” I say, truthfully. “Other than manhandling me, Tristan didn’t hurt me.”

  Iyana relaxes her grip on the table. She lets out her breath with a grateful moan. Dragging the back of her hand across her forehead, she says, “Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t hurt someone in need.”

  She squeezes her eyes closed, leaning over the space at the side of the table just like Danika did, as if her whole body hurts. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  Until this moment, I couldn’t understand why Iyana is here. She said she was physically messed up six months ago, but she seemed to have it all together. She acts strong. No chinks in her emotional armor. Now I catch a glimpse of extreme vulnerability. Only a severe break in trust could cause an insecurity that deep. Her reaction tells me that if Tristan had hurt me, Iyana’s ability to trust would have been broken irrevocably. I’m not sure how she’d react if that were the case. I wouldn’t want to see it happen.

  Iyana sucks in a deep breath before she opens her eyes again. She appears in control again, but her shaking hands say otherwise. “Like I said, you have a real chance, Tessa. I can’t teach you everything. I don’t know everything. But I’ll teach you what I can. Now… do you want to learn?”

  “I want to learn,” I say.

  “Good.” She spins to Helen, holding her head high. “I need to take a break. Tessa has to heal before I can train her anyway. I’ll be in the garden if you need me.”

  Her boots click across the floor as she strides from the room before Helen has a chance to reply.
/>   The room is silent after she leaves.

  I bury my teeth in my bottom lip, studying the magical book that floats in the air at the foot of the examination table. “I take it Tristan reserves his asshole mode for me.”

  Helen folds her hands in front of her. “Tristan Masters is as ruthless as his reputation makes him out to be. Take every story you’ve heard about him, triple its brutality, and you might come close to a true assessment of his capacity for violence.”

  I frown, confused. “Then why does Iyana think he saved her?”

  “Because he did.”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “Without asking anything in return?”

  Helen’s gray eyes rise to mine. “Tessa, you won’t understand Tristan’s ability to perceive and neutralize threats—or his unrelenting determination to protect his pack—until you see it for yourself.”

  Is she trying to tell me that Tristan considers all of these women to be part of his pack? For starters, they aren’t all wolf shifters. Secondly, Iyana made it sound like he didn’t even know them before he saved them.

  Which leaves me even more confused than I was before.

  Helen clears her throat and draws her wand again without further elaborating on her statement. “I need to do what I can to help you heal now, Tessa. I’m going to try traditional human medicine this time. Strong pain killers, along with muscle relaxants and sedatives to help you sleep. I’ll connect you to an IV drip so we can get the medicine directly into your bloodstream for maximum effect. You’ll need to stay in this room for the next few days so I can monitor you.”

  She isn’t really asking me. Not that I would object at this point. I want to escape from this nightmare—this whole mess—and wake up stronger.

  After placing her wand firmly on top of the nearest cabinet, Helen busies herself opening drawers and retrieving medical apparatuses.

  She’s just finished attaching a cannula to the back of my hand when she suddenly jolts, her gaze becomes distant, and a deep crease forms in her forehead, as if she’s sensing a disturbance from afar.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “We have a visitor. It’s nothing to worry about.” She presses her hand to my shoulder in a comforting gesture, the contact much lighter than when she touched me before. She doesn’t elaborate on the identity of the visitor as she continues to work.

  By the time the door opens, Helen has attached an intravenous drip to me and given me a dose of morphine that is making me feel a little too happy.

  It’s not a bad thing since the sight of Jace would otherwise make my blood boil. In the artificial lights, I’m struck by just how tall and muscular he is, his honey blond hair slicked back, deep green eyes casting across the room and taking everything in, including my current weakened state.

  “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon, Jace,” Helen says, without looking up. “It’s only been one night.”

  Jace steps into the room uninvited but stops far enough away from me that I don’t feel threatened. Not immediately anyway.

  “I won’t stay long,” he says. “Tristan wants to know how Tessa’s doing.” His voice is low, soft, calmer than I remember. He stands in the center of the space between me and the door, a military pose with his hands held behind his back, chin up, head held back.

  His calmness only serves to rile me. “You can tell Tristan that his property is doing just fine.”

  “That’s clearly untrue.” Jace focuses briefly on the drip bag attached to the IV stand before his keen gaze passes over my bruised face down to the ice that Helen is packing around my ribs. A crease appears in the center of his forehead. “Why does Tessa need human medicine?”

  Helen takes a measured breath as she finishes positioning the final ice pack against my left hip. “We hit a snag. She isn’t healing. My spells have no effect on her.”

  If this news startles Jace, he doesn’t show it. “What about her pain levels?”

  I glare at him, wanting to drag some kind of reaction out of him. “I’m feeling plenty of pain, thank you.” I upset one of the ice packs when I point at the side of my chest. “I’m pretty sure this bruised rib right here is thanks to Tristan’s caveman antics. Feel free to pass on my gratitude to him.”

  “He won’t be happy to hear it,” Jace replies. He turns to Helen, tilting his head slightly and releasing his hands from behind his back. “I’ll return on Friday to see how Tessa’s doing.”

  That’s five days away. Five days of freedom from male shifters.

  Helen gives Jace a nod, after which he heads to the door.

  Pausing with his hand on the doorknob, he asks, “How is Ella today?”

  Helen takes a deep breath. When she replies, her speech sounds careful. “Much better than yesterday.”

  Some of the tension leaves Jace’s shoulders. “That’s good.”

  Helen sighs and takes a step toward him, dripping water from the ice pack across the floor as she reaches for him. “Jace—”

  “Don’t start, Helen.” He growls into the silence, half-turning to stop her in her tracks with a firm warning glance. “Ella doesn’t need to see me. I’m the last person who can help her.”

  When the door closes, Helen exclaims, “Damn shifter! He’s even more stubborn than Tristan.”

  She quickly refocuses on me. “I’m going to give you something to help you sleep now, Tessa. Rest is the best thing for your body to heal.”

  Helen injects a substance into the cannula and I sink into a deep sleep, determined to wake up stronger.

  Chapter Nine

  A crash registers in my hearing.

  It’s close but sounds far away, the bang playing havoc with my senses. I can’t open my eyes no matter how hard I fight the pull of sleep. Whatever muscle-relaxing drugs Helen gave me to make me rest, they’re powerful, practically paralytic, trying to drag me back into oblivion.

  Growls, low and deep, vibrate across the air, holding me in the present. I don’t know what time it is or how long I was out of it. It could be hours or days, for all I know.

  I recognize Tristan’s scent as it washes into my body with every inhale I take. There are so many layers to it that I nearly drown in them. Bitter orange, nutmeg, cedar… and beneath them is an elusive note that I can’t identify but reminds me of fire. Inhaling his scent is like running through the forest toward a blazing campfire. It surprises me that I can smell it. I haven’t been able to scent anyone since I arrived, but his wolf’s energy is at its peak, agitated like a moth batting at a lightbulb. His power buzzes in my senses, sharp and prickly, undeniable as he approaches.

  His footfalls are quieter than whispers, barely perceptible, but my instincts are working at a thousand percent, suddenly able to sense everything about him. He stops right beside me. Far too close when I’m vulnerable like this, unable to open my eyes or move.

  The air shifts across my face. His breathing is harsh in my hearing. The hitch at the start of every inhale cracks loudly in my ears. I picture the angry line of his mouth, the clench of his jaw, the rapid cast of his gaze across me.

  The table’s soft surface shifts on either side of my face.

  “Wake up,” he orders me, as if I can obey him. “Wake up, Tessa.”

  His voice comes from just above my face. He must be leaning over me, probably having planted one hand on either side of my head.

  His breath catches again. Held this time.

  One of his hands suddenly lifts, his palm pressing against my chest above my left breast, resting lightly there as I continue to breathe. The heat from his fingers burns through my clothing to my skin. Instead of pressing down like he would if he were trying to hurt or restrain me, his palm rises and falls in time with my breathing.

  His soft exhalation reaches me—a sound of… relief?

  I try hard to picture him resting his palm across my chest, letting his hand rise and fall as he leans over me. There are any number of reasons why he might do that, but one possibility in particular surprises me.

&nbs
p; Is he checking that I’m still breathing?

  I hear another crack. I recognize the sound this time—it’s nothing more than the door opening—such a harmless sound that’s heightened in my drugged senses.

  It’s followed by soft footfalls. Helen’s comforting perfume fills the room, but it barely blocks the intensity of Tristan’s presence.

  “Tristan.” Helen’s voice is low and calm. She sounds cautious, deliberately controlled. “You said you wouldn’t come back until Tessa is ready.”

  Tristan’s hand remains pressed on my chest above my heart. “Jace said she isn’t healing.”

  The caution in Helen’s voice increases. “You came to check on her?”

  Tristan’s tone hardens, the same edge I heard in it yesterday, dismissing any possibility that he was worried about me. “I need her healed and ready. You should have told me about the delay.”

  Helen’s voice also hardens. “It’s only been two days, Tristan. She’s slept for the last thirty-six hours. We haven’t started working on her control yet.”

  “I can tell,” he snaps, his exhalation sharp. Maybe he’s trying to expel my scent from his body as hard as I wish I could expel the way his wolf’s power curls around my senses. “What about her pain?”

  “The human medicine is helping her with that.”

  Tristan’s hand clenches around my shoulder. “Because your magic doesn’t work on her.”

  “Light and dark magic can’t touch her.” Helen takes an audibly deep breath, lowering her voice as she moves closer. Slowly. As if she’s got her hands raised ready—maybe even her wand in case she needs it. The warning tone returns to her voice and I wish I could see what she sees.

  “Tristan,” she says. “You need to step away from Tessa now.”

  “Why, Helen?” I imagine the suddenly threatening curl of his lips, a smile before he lashes out.

  “Because you’ve clearly had a bad night.” Helen’s voice becomes sharp. “And you’re not in control right now.”

  I picture Tristan’s dilated pupils and his parted lips as he inhales each breath. His growl—his wolf’s growl—vibrates all the way through his fingers, brushing against the top side of my breast. Tension builds low in my stomach, a needy pull that draws my wolf’s energy from her sleep, but not enough for her to show herself.