Excerpt from Heart of the Wolf & a Note, the story begins
in 1850, Colorado, but the rest of the book is contemporary!
Heart of the Wolf
Prologue
As soon as he stripped naked, he’d be hers.
Unbraiding her hair, Bella’s blood heated with desire while she observed the
dark-haired boy. He looked about eighteen, two years older than her. He yanked off one boot then another at the lake’s edge. It
wasn’t the first time she’d watched him peel out of his clothes, but it was the first time she’d
join him. If he had a taste of her, wouldn’t he crave her? Hunger to be like her? Wild and free?
She swallowed hard, longing to be Devlyn’s mate, and not a human’s,
but it would never be. Lifting her chin, she resolved to make the human hers. She untied her ankle-high boots, then slipped them off her feet.
The human boy’s pet gray wolf rested at the shoreline, his ears perked up
as he watched her. But the boy didn’t see her—unobservant as most
humans were.
However, a boy who cared for his wolf like he did, would care for her, too, wouldn’t
he? He’d studied her when she swam here before, naked, splashing lazily
across the water’s surface, attempting to draw him to her. Though he’d
tried to conceal himself in the woods, she’d seen him. Heard him with her
sensitive hearing when he stepped on dried oak leaves and pine needles to draw closer, to see her more clearly. She’d smelled his heady man-scent on the breeze. He’d
desired her then, setting her belly afire; he’d desire her now.
Tilting her nose up, she breathed in his masculinity. Masculine but not as wild as her own kind—lupus garou.
A human who treated a woman with kindness, that’s what she desired.
She tugged her pale blue dress over her head, struggling to shed her clothes as
quickly as she could now. Wanting to get her plan into motion, before she changed
her mind, or one of the pack tried to change it for her.
Adopted by the gray pack, she wasn’t even a gray wolf. So why should it matter if she left them and chose the human boy for her own? Volan, the gray alpha pack leader wanted her, that’s why. Her
stomach clenched with the thought that the man, who’d nearly raped her, would have her if she couldn’t find a
way out of the nightmare.
The human pulled off his breeches. A
boy, still not well muscled, but well on his way. A survivor, living on his own,
that’s what intrigued her so much about him. A loner—like a rogue
wolf—determined to endure.
Only in her heart, she desired the gray who’d saved her life when they were
younger, Devlyn. Even now she had difficulty not comparing his rangy, taller
body with this boy’s. They had the same dark hair and eyes, which maybe
explained why the human had attracted her. She wanted Devlyn with all her heart,
but craving his attention would only result in Volan killing him. Best to leave
the pack and mate with a human, cut her ties with the grays and start her own pack.
She’d watched the human ride, run, hunt with his rifle, but she admired him
most when he swam. Her gaze dropped lower to the patch of dark hair resting above
his legs and...
She raised her brows. A thrill of expectation
of having his manhood buried deep inside her sent a tingling of gooseflesh across her skin.
If her drawers hadn’t been crotchless, they’d have been wet in anticipation. She smiled at the sight of him. He’d produce fine offspring.
He dove into the water with a splash. With
powerful strokes he glided across the placid surface of the small, summer-warmed lake.
She slipped out of her last petticoat, then her drawers. Without a stitch
of clothes on, she stood on the opposite shore, waiting for him to catch sight of her.
Wouldn’t he yearn for her like her own kind did?
She had to entice him to make love to her.
Then she’d change into the wolf and bite him. And transfer the beauty
of the wolf to him in the ancient way.
Running her fingers through her cinnamon curls, she fanned them over her shoulders,
down to her hips.
They’d live together in his log cabin, taking jaunts through the woods in
their wolf states under the bright moon forever. His mother, father, and little
sister had died during the winter, and none of his kind lived within a fifteen-mile area.
He’d want her—he had to. Like her wolf pack, most humankind
desired companionship.
She stepped into the water.
Then he caught sight of her.
His dark eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.
But he didn’t swim toward her as she expected. He didn’t come
for her, ravish her as she wanted. His eyes inspected every bit of her, but then
he turned and swam away from her, back to the shore and his clothes. What was
wrong with him?
Her mind warred between anger and confusion.
Didn’t he find her appealing?
She swam toward him, trying to reach the shore before he dressed and headed back
to his cabin. But by the time she reached the lake halfway, he’d jerked
on his britches and boots, not bothering even with his shirt or vest, and vanished into the woods with his wolf at his heel.
In disbelief, she stared after him.
“Bella!” the leader of her pack hollered, his voice foreboding and warlike.
She snapped her head around. Her heart
nearly stopped when she saw the gray leader.
Volan stood like a predator waiting for the right time to go after his prey. His ebony hair was bound tight, and his black eyes narrowed. As a wolf, he was heavy set, broad shouldered and thick necked, the leader by virtue of his sheer size,
powerful jaws, and wicked killer canines. But now, he stood as a man, his thoughts
darker than night, as menacing as his face looked while he considered her swimming naked in the lake.
Did the boy get away in time before Volan caught sight of him? How could she be so naïve to think Volan would let her have a human male?
She paddled in place and glared at him. “What
do you want, Volan?” she growled back, unable to hold a civil tongue whenever he stood near.
“Come out at once!” He
turned his head toward the woods.
Had he smelled the human?
Her heart rate quickened. She swam
back to her clothes, determined to draw his attention away from the boy.
Then she spied Devlyn, watching, half hidden in the shadows of the forest, as if
he and the pack leader were maneuvering in for the kill. A pang of regret sliced
through her that Devlyn might have seen her lusting after a human. Three years
older than her, he still vied for his place within the pack. A strap of leather
tied back his coffee-colored, shoulder-length hair, and she fought the urge to set it free, to soften his harsh look. His equally dark brown eyes glowered at her, while his sturdy jaw clenched.
He stepped closer, not menacingly, but as if he stalked a deer and feared scaring
his prey away. She raised a brow. This
time, he seemed to have Volan’s permission to draw close.
She growled. “Stay away.” Wading out of the water, she distracted Volan from considering the woods or who might
have disappeared into them. Devlyn, too, eyed her with far too much interest.
She hurried to slip into her clothes, irritated to have the wrong audience. Still, the way Devlyn closed in on her, only keeping a few feet distance from her
until she was dressed while Volan remained a hundred yards away, sent a trickle of dread through her.
Volan never allowed males to get close to her when she was naked, and normally she
wouldn’t have permitted it either. So what were they up to? She left her wet hair loose, then Volan nodded.
As soon as he signaled to Devlyn, her heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t
react quickly enough. He surged forward and grabbed her wrist. In the same instant, Volan charged in the direction of the woods where the young man had disappeared.
“Volan!” she screamed.
He intended to murder the boy. Only
she had really killed him as if she’d ripped out his throat herself. Wanting
to save him, she struggled to free herself from Devlyn. “Let me go!”
He gripped her wrist tighter and hurried her toward their village.
“He didn’t do anything!”
Devlyn glared at her, his eyes unforgiving, blacker than she’d ever seen them. Anger smoldered in the depths. An anger
she couldn’t understand.
“Please,” she pleaded, trying to soften his heart.
She tried to break free, and he wrenched her back to his side. “You’re a fool, Bella.”
“I won’t be Volan’s mate!”
For an instant, Devlyn’s grasp on her arm lessened. Then he tightened his grip again. “You have no choice. And after what you’ve done here, he won’t wait any longer.”
Was there regret in his voice? God,
how she wanted him to save her from Volan...to be her mate.
A howl sounded in the distance and she sank to her knees. Volan had murdered the young man and shouted his actions to the world with great pleasure.
Devlyn yanked her from the ground and hurried her on their way.
“You won’t ever leave the pack, Devlyn.
You’ll always be nothing but a follower!” She hadn’t
meant to say the hurtful words, but the anger she harbored simmered red hot like molten lava beneath the surface. “Why can’t you run with me? Why can’t you
take me for your own somewhere far from here?”
He glared at her. “They’re
my family. They’ll always be my family.
Something you don’t comprehend, apparently.”
“I...I thought you felt something for me.”
Devlyn pulled her to a stop and grabbed her shoulders. “It can never be between us! Volan would hunt us down,
both of us. What kind of a life would that be?
He’d kill our offspring, too. Is that what you want? Maybe if I’d been older, stronger, but now he won’t wait to have you.” He shook his head. “Dammit, Bella, as far as the human
was concerned, he wouldn’t have wanted you! Can’t you see that? If he’d seen you changed, he would have been repulsed. If he could have discovered a way, he’d have killed you.”
He held her tightly, staring into her eyes with a mixture of anger and hunger.
“You know what I want from you.”
He was hard and smelled of sex. She
sensed his hormones raged, urging him to mount her. Her breath came quickly as
she desired his attentions, but feared them, too. Feared them because of what
Volan would do to Devlyn if Volan caught him lusting after her. She’d never
seen Devlyn so outwardly angry—so filled with venom—so sexually alive.
“You could smell his putrid fear, woman!” He pulled her against his body and kissed her hard against the mouth, no teasing or waiting for her approval. Just pure lust, conquering and decisive. And
she loved him, every bit of the dangerous and feral lupus garou that he was.
Her body melted to his touch, but Volan’s musky, bloody scent drifted to her
on the breeze. Panic sliced through her.
Volan would claim her now. But if he caught Devlyn touching her...
Volan appeared in a couple of bounds in his ebony pelted wolf form, his eyes narrowed
with hate. He growled and immediately, Devlyn released her.
She stepped back, assuming Volan would kill Devlyn for his actions, the thought
wrenching at her gut.
Devlyn stood his ground. “I tried
to convince her how stupid she was for feeling anything for the human.”
Volan turned to Bella. He’d show
her how a male wolf took a mate. The moisture from her throat evaporated. The image of him trying to take her when she was much younger still fed her nightmares. A streak of shudders racked her body.
Volan turned his attention back to Devlyn.
The hair stood on end from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tail. He
advanced aggressively, then stopped.
Torn between giving herself to Volan to protect Devlyn and fighting Volan herself,
she knew neither would work. Devlyn would hate her either way—damn his
male wolf pride.
Volan growled again. Devlyn yanked
off his shirt. His muscles flexed as he tugged at his belt, his golden skin shimmering
with sweat in the summer sun. Any other day, she loved to see every bit of his
handsome physique, his muscled thighs, the dark patch of curly hair between his legs and the erection she’d encouraged. But not now, not with Volan threatening to rip him to shreds.
As soon as Devlyn stood naked, he began to change, his body twisting into the form
of a wolf, his snout elongated. A thick brown pelt as rich as a mink’s
covered his long legs and torso. He howled as the change took place. Volan waited patiently before he lunged.
She couldn’t watch him rip Devlyn apart.
She couldn’t stomach seeing the bully hurt another wolf of the pack. But
certainly not Devlyn whom she’d played with as a pup, not Devlyn who’d rescued her from the wildfire that took
her red wolf pack’s lives. She couldn’t save him now...only maybe
herself.
Yet when Volan lunged for Devlyn, she dashed between them to protect him. Volan clamped his teeth down on her arm, having the ability to crush the bone with his powerful canines. She cried out when a streak of pain shot up her arm and blood dripped from the wound. Though his eyes reflected remorse at once and he released her, he growled at her to
stay out of the way. And so did Devlyn.
Maybe if she ran, Volan would come after her.
Maybe she could save Devlyn that way. But she would never return to the
pack.
She bolted, with her legs stretched far out, her heart pounding,
her breath steady, but her mind frantic...her only chance was to toss her clothes and run like the wolf.
Copyrighted 2007 Terry Spear
