chapter one
Three Months Ago
The humans were worked up and shouting for blood. Disfigurement. Death.
No less than forty filthy scumbags stood around the field’s circular pit, pushing and shoving their way to stake out a place in front. Fighting meant fresh air, and Wolfrik inhaled it in greedy gulps as one of the compound’s muscular middle-aged handlers walked him out to the field. At the beginning of his captivity, it had taken three handlers and tight ropes to get Wolfrik out to the pit, but after his fifth fight, he preferred making his grand appearance on his own two feet before ending the match in a flourish of fists or fangs.
Shirtless, with only a sarong wrapped around his muscular hips, Wolfrik strode forward with a cocky swagger until he was told to stop and wait. His handler, Jay, had rough, weatherworn skin and narrow mistrustful eyes that looked as though they rarely saw daylight. The hardened man had never baited Wolfrik in all his time here—nearly three years—but they’d thrown down a time or two. Wolfrik had tested all of Hawk’s handlers at one point or another.
A loud, shrill whistle cut across the field, and the crowd settled down. Hawk climbed a ladder to a small platform level with the crowd’s necks and looked over the gathering through sunglasses with scratched lenses. His gray shirt parted down the middle, a whistle hung from a silver chain on his smooth, exposed skin. He slipped his fingers halfway into a pocket of his jeans and surveyed the crowd, lips pressed together in what looked to Wolfrik like an ongoing struggle between disdain and mockery. Two of his guards joined him, rifles in hand.
A disapproving scowl appeared on the handler’s lips, but his disgust never stopped him from whipping Wolfrik or any of the other captive shifters. Wolfrik dreamed of the day he had a chance to repay the man’s cruelty. He fantasized about killing each one of these human cockroaches, and it was this ruthless reverie that heightened his pleasure of fighting. He always savored this moment before a fight when the human spectators were herded together like a group of mindless deer poking at the ground below their noses while Wolfrik snuck up from behind.
Too bad Hawk had to announce his entrance before Wolfrik could rip his audience to shreds. One of the head honcho’s goons would shoot Wolfrik before he had a chance to finish them all off, anyway. He might have time to kill one before they managed to put him down, but one wasn’t enough. He wanted each and every one of the mongrels to receive a violent death by his jaws.
“Welcome to the dog fights, ladies and gents—strumpets and scumbags.” Hawk spoke with a taunting grin. “Our challenger this afternoon is Benji, facing off against Cujo.”
The crowd erupted into screams and cheers as though their salvation was at hand. Wolfrik smiled at their backs. Benji, a shifter formerly known as Eric, had been in captivity for about a year less than Wolfrik and was his favorite shifter to fight. Fighting Benji felt more like playing around—the kind of friendly combat Wolfrik used to rush into with friends growing up in the den. Fighting Benji gave them both an opportunity to let off steam without causing any lasting damage.
Hawk lifted his sunglasses slowly, letting them settle over his thick brown hair. He couldn’t be much older than Wolfrik, and yet men twice his age looked up to him as though he were their alpha.
“Today we have a very special treat for the winner,” Hawk announced.
That’s when the whispers started, as though the crowd would be able to partake in the winner’s gains.
Hawk’s so-called rewards didn’t interest Wolfrik. He was undefeated. He held on to his championship like a dog to a meaty bone. The humans had captured, beaten, and held him against his will for nearly three years, but he remained undefeated.
He’d sooner die than lose his title.
“But first let’s call Benji to the pit.” This time, Hawk didn’t bother with the metal whistle. He placed two fingers between his lips and issued the sound himself. “Here, Benji. Here, boy. Come.” A malicious smile curved up Hawk’s lips and hollowed out his cheeks.
Wolfrik gnashed his teeth. Hawk was one of the vilest bastards he’d ever had the misfortune of knowing. Being renamed was offensive enough, but being called like a dog was a downright dirty sin. If Hawk tried that shit with Wolfrik, they’d have to drag him to the pit to fight, and he wouldn’t make it easy for them.
“Go on, be a good dog and come when your master calls,” a male jeered from the other side of the crowd.
The sound of laughter rumbled around the circle and drifted back like a foul wind that had Wolfrik clenching his jaw and tightening his fists.
Hawk lifted his arms, and the crowd became silent. Leaning over the edge of the platform, Hawk leered down. Eric must have jumped the three-and-a-half-foot drop into the pit.
“And now, our champion, who needs little introduction, here to defend his title as top dog. Make some noise for the shiftiest of the shifters, the wildest of the wolves, the beast you do not want to mess with: Cujo!”
No one laughed or taunted Wolfrik. The cheers were a deafening, glorious cacophony that reverberated with fear and respect. The humans loved a winner. They parted and clapped as he made his way to the pit. Reaching the edge, Wolfrik turned to face his fans, pumping a fist into the air then turning to do the same to the crowd behind him. The humans erupted into thundering applause, screaming the name, “Cujo!”
A chant arose. Wolfrik loosened the sarong, let it fall to the ground, smirked, then jumped down into the pit and jutted his chin at Eric. The other shifter nodded back, his jaw tight and eyes weary. He wasn’t anywhere near as muscular as Wolfrik—no one was—but Eric was lean and fast. He also recovered quicker than the other shifters Wolfrik had fought. Eric could take a punch and jump right back up as though a blow to the face affected him no worse than a gust of wind. This meant he had to take a serious beating from Wolfrik before the match ended. Fights didn’t end until one of the shifters was unconscious or dead. Wolfrik always tried to knock a shifter out cold. He had never intentionally killed a shifter, but some shifters didn’t hold up as well as others, and some wanted to die. At least Eric wasn’t one of them.
Hawk raised both hands in the air. “Let me remind everyone about the house rules. Audience keeps out of the pit. If anyone falls or gets pushed in, thereby exposing themselves to harm or death, that’s your own damn problem.” Wolfrik grinned. A young man who had been chanting his name earlier lowered his chin and glanced uneasily at a bigger man with a long facial scar beside him before scooting away from the edge of the pit.
Hawk’s underlings usually made wagers at the fights, betting everything from clothes, food, and goods to what duties they’d perform for the month. Some of Hawk’s most depraved men bet for the opportunity to watch the male shifters breed with the female shifters during the full moon. But when Wolfrik was in the pit, spectators watched purely for entertainment since no one would bet against Cujo.
“Rules of the pit are simple,” Hawk continued. “No leaving until one dog is down. If a dog tries to flee early, he gets put down without warning.” He turned to one of his guards and nodded before resuming announcements. “Shifters can fight as man or beast or both. The use of weapons is prohibited, and anyone caught attempting to slip something inside the pit will be thrown in for the dogs to tear apart. Fight begins after the gunshot.”
The guard at Hawk’s left handed him his firearm. Hawk took it and fired into the sky.
It wasn’t bloodlust so much as the crack of the gunshot and rumble of cheering that pushed Wolfrik toward Eric. He charged, but the lean shifter sidestepped him and scooted away on limber legs. They circled one another around the pit. Every time Wolfrik lunged, Eric sprang away. Another shifter might have become annoyed. Wolfrik grinned. Perhaps Eric thought he could tire him out a bit first—good luck there. Not happening, but he appreciated new tactics that kept things interesting and required he stay on his toes.
Wolfrik wasn’t quite as fast as Eric, but his mind loved problem-solving. Too much thinking could be problematic. In captivity it could drive him mad, so Wolfrik had learned to turn it on and off, becoming animalistic even in human form. Turning off his emotions was as much a survival instinct as fighting to protect himself. He’d become especially practiced at turning off his mind when forced to breed with female shifters during the full moon. The strongest females had learned to do the same. Some had given up—every last spark gone from their dull eyes—but there were others who gritted their teeth and shot him a glare that communicated he best get on with it. Perhaps they, too, thought this would be the last time they would be forced to debase themselves, that maybe they’d escape before the next full moon.
No one ever escaped. Yet escape was a dream Wolfrik would never give up, no matter how many days, weeks, months, or moon cycles passed him by. Dreams were as vital as sleeping, and one day he planned to claw his way out of this nightmare.
Until then . . .
Wolfrik lunged at Eric then pulled back, spun around, and rushed at him, finally getting in the first punch. It was another one of Wolfrik’s trademarks—landing the first blow and drawing first blood.
Eric hissed and winced, which won him another fist in the face. He hadn’t been expecting Wolfrik to get to him yet, and his surprise had cost him. Wolfrik managed a third hit before Eric was able to block and protect his face.
The crowd above bellowed their excitement.
“Cujo throws the first punch and the second and third,” Hawk’s approving voice drifted down.
With Eric now blocking Wolfrik’s jabs at his face, he threw in a front kick. His foot connected with Eric’s lower leg, but the other shifter sagged only briefly before he sprang back up. He jumped to the side and scuttled away, blinking rapidly. Wolfrik stalked after him, in no rush to return to his cage and the stale, suffocating stink of misery of that horrible place Hawk housed him and the rest of the wolf shifters. Out here the air was fresh and the sun was shining, warming his skin and casting a glossy sheen over Eric’s forehead.
The cheers continued overhead. No one wanted it to end too soon, especially not Wolfrik. He might even let Eric get in a few minor hits, but only because he considered him a friend—his one and only in this moon-forsaken hellhole.
A whistle cut through Wolfrik’s eardrums. He and Eric stopped and stared up in confusion. Hawk had never blown the whistle in the middle of a match, and the human spectators were just as baffled.
All heads turned to stare up at the man on the platform.
“How about we make things more interesting?” Hawk grinned. The sunglasses were back over his eyes, reflecting all the gaping mouths and curious eyes that stared up at him. “I promised a treat to the winner, and it’s a good one. The best I have to offer.” His teeth jammed together as though he were fighting to hold on to his smile when what he really wanted was to scowl. Hawk’s chest rose on a deep inhale, and his fingers balled into fists. “My sister.”
A second hush fell over the crowd. Sound ceased to exist in the pit as though Wolfrik had burrowed through layers of earth and left behind all of humanity.
Hawk’s cruelty knew no limits, but there was one person he did protect, the only one who appeared to hold any value to him—his sister, Sparrow.
What the hell was he doing offering her up like tenderloin?
The crowd murmured. Only the guards kept their stony expressions in place as though they’d expected this sadistic twist all along.
Hawk relaxed his fingers and pushed the sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. Now that the words were out, his entire body eased into his customary slouch.
“Winner gets one entire night with my sister.”
Wolfrik was still staring up at Hawk dumbly when Eric bellowed and charged him like a mother bear who had caught him with her cubs. His knuckles rained down as though his fists were boulders and Wolfrik were caught beneath an avalanche crushing his head. The taste of copper filled Wolfrik’s mouth after Eric split his lip. Somehow the other shifter managed to get him in the eye so good the damn thing began to swell shut at once.
Fuck, Eric! Did he want to nail Sparrow that bad? True, she was nice for a human, but she was also one hundred percent Homo sapiens.
But no. It wasn’t lust in his eyes so much as blinding fury.
Eric pummeled Wolfrik between the eyes, one blow after another. Stars swarmed Wolfrik’s vision, only they were black and they moved across a bright expanse—blotting it out, cloaking almost everything from sight. The ground below his feet teetered, and he fell against the cool earthen wall. Bloody hell. This was the first time he’d ever been caught off guard in the pits.
As Wolfrik blinked furiously, a gasp circled his head like a cyclone.
Eric had backed away and gone quiet. Too quiet. If he shifted before Wolfrik . . .
A sharp growl shook the walls of the pit. Loose dirt and gravel rained down, and the hairs on the back of Wolfrik’s neck stood on end.
The next snarl had the beast inside him snapping, but before he could shift, sharp claws raked across Wolfrik’s bare leg, leaving burning trails imbedded in his flesh. He hissed. Eric snapped at his leg, and Wolfrik barely managed to jump aside in time. One eye had cleared, and through it he saw the wolf shifter’s ears flat against his head, fangs bared, and the hair standing along the ridge of his back.
For the first time in his life, Wolfrik became the prey, the one keeping a wary eye on his opponent while backing away, frantic to maintain his distance.
Eric had always been slightly faster. Now his movements were light speed compared to Wolfrik’s lumbering two-legged steps. He flew at Wolfrik, who dodged out of the way at the last second, only narrowly missing those glistening fangs by a hair. It had been so close; he’d felt Eric’s fur brush against his torn leg. With a vicious snarl, Eric whipped around and lost no time coming at him again. Wolfrik nearly fell on his hands and knees avoiding him. He could only dodge the wolf for so long.
Eric lunged at him and changed direction at the same time as Wolfrik, as though sensing his next move, and sprang forward with renewed vigor, latching on to Wolfrik’s ankle. Hot fangs tore through his flesh, hitting bone. Pain lanced through his leg—ripping, burning, and blinding. Eric shook his head with brutal jerks that made the wound burn hotter.
The cheers above turned to alarmed shouts.
“He’s going to kill him,” someone gasped.
Blood spilled over Wolfrik’s foot, between his toes, and drained from his body. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t die in captivity, in a dirty pit in the crumbling outskirts of a collapsed city. His place was in Wolf Hollow. If he had to die, he wanted to be buried with his parents in the Forest of the Ancestors where his spirit could run forever free.
Eric’s jaw worked back and forth, stinging and sawing through Wolfrik’s tender flesh.
Black spots swarmed from every angle of Wolfrik’s vision in a blizzard that left him lost in the dark. Then he heard Sasha’s voice rise from the bottomless depths of his mind. “You ran out on me once. Don’t die on me now. Stop wasting time, silly wolf.”
“Don’t call me that.” He growled. She knew how much that pet name goaded him.
“Silly wolf.” Her voice taunted him. It wasn’t the voice of the grown shifter she’d become, but that of the younger girl he’d played with as pups in the den.
“I’m not some silly wolf,” he bellowed. “I’m a pureblood. I’m unbeatable. I’m fucking Cujo!”
With a roar that silenced all above, Wolfrik swung his free leg over Eric’s back, ignoring the tear of flesh from his ankle as he hurtled above the snarling wolf and wrapped his arms, thick with muscles, around Eric’s neck. He squeezed and squeezed. Eric whimpered. The sound shredded Wolfrik’s battered soul, but the pressure on his ankle let up. Eric thrashed in his arms, crying in alarm. Wolfrik squeezed harder, wishing only to end the torment. Eric’s panicked cries pained him worse than his wounds. He hugged his friend in a crushing embrace, holding him until his last breath. When Wolfrik let go, Eric fell on his side limp and lifeless.
Cheers shrieked overhead. Outbursts. Obscenities. Shock and amazement.
Wolfrik stared down, down, down into the abysmal pit of hell knowing that the man who climbed out of the hole was not the same as the one who walked in. He’d died a little each day in this place, but today his spirit was truly gone.
That night the corridor of cages remained silent in Eric’s absence. Dense, hard darkness pressed down upon Wolfrik’s head while he sat on his haunches, motionless in the gloom of his cell. He hadn’t seen the stars or moon since his captivity, but he dreamed about the night sky every time he slept.
Eric was the closest thing he’d had to a friend in this hellhole. The other shifters feared and despised him, growling anytime Wolfrik was led past their cages. Tonight their silence spoke volumes. They were always reserved when a shifter died in the pit. Would they have kept silent on Wolfrik’s behalf if he’d been the one killed, or would they have howled in glee that Cujo had finally met his end?
Didn’t matter. Nothing did. Life was pain, and every breath in this forsaken city was torture beyond compare. Wolfrik would take a whipping over the shredding of his soul any day.
His teeth clenched.
Where was the spirited voice of his past lover when he really needed her?
“You wanted me to live, so I killed a wolf. I lived only to die inside. Why the silent treatment all these years only to torment me now?”
Perhaps Sasha had spoken to him because death approached. He thought he could hear it in the form of footsteps dragging their way down the corridor toward his cage.
Maybe she’d died after he’d left her and was coming for him now.
“Do you forgive me then? Have you come to lead me back to the Forest of the Ancestors, or are you here to torture my soul? You’re too late, Sash. Too damn late.”
“Wolfrik,” she whispered.
Through the gloom, Sparrow’s face materialized like a ghost’s. Her skin looked pale, and her eyes were hollow. Wolfrik stood, lips drawing back in a silent snarl. The other wolves began pacing their cages but made no sound other than the pattering of paw pads and nails clicking against the cracked concrete floor.
Sparrow stood at the bars of Wolfrik’s cage, facing him, but registering nothing. Her eyes were red and raw from crying, her gaze unfocused and far away. As Wolfrik approached, he smelled Eric all over her and wanted to howl in sorrow.
Sparrow shoved a key inside the lock and turned. She pushed open the door.
“Go,” she said. “Return to your hollow and never leave home again.”
Wolfrik’s nails scraped the concrete as he slunk out—a wild beast released from his cage. Deep wrinkles rippled over his nose, and saliva coated his throat in a warm, thick froth. He should kill her. She was one of them. It didn’t matter that she’d been kind to him or set him free. They all deserved to die.
Either Sparrow didn’t notice him prowling toward her or didn’t care. Her body projected no trace of fear, only severe heartache, anguish, and despair.
Wolfrik’s steps slowed. She smelled too much like Eric. His friend. He’d killed his friend. He couldn’t kill him again.
He turned away from her and trotted down the empty corridor. Seeing him free of his cage, running loose, the other wolves began to howl. Their cries were like wind against Wolfrik’s tail, urging him on even though he recognized their desperate pleas.
Would Sparrow free the rest? Why had she picked Wolfrik first?
He slowed and stopped. No wolf should be left caged.
Wolfrik’s body shivered, preparing to shift when human voices echoed down the corridor. Two torches appeared, throwing light against row after row of bars. The dark metal stretched from the ceiling to floor. Thick, cold metal bars—a wolf’s worst enemy.
Wolfrik’s growls resounded down the hallway, sounding monstrous in the caged gloom.
“One of the wolves is loose!”
Not just any wolf. Cujo: The Killer.
Wolfrik’s lips rose in a snarling smile before he ran for the closest human and jumped, taking him down in a glorious clash of screams and sparks as the torch smashed over the ground. The screaming stopped after Wolfrik tore out the human’s jugular. Blood coated his tongue and dripped from his lips.
More. He wanted more. More blood. More screams. More humans killed by his fangs.
The second human thrust his torch at Wolfrik and shook it in his face.
“Back! Stay back, wolf!”
Wolfrik could taste the fear and desperation in his tone. The human’s words were like bits of flesh for him to chew on before the main course.
He darted around the man’s legs, and the human wheeled with him, creating a smoke trail that circled and squeezed them in like thick, suffocating rope. Wolfrik lunged, only to feel the lick of flames singe the ends of his facial fur. He jumped back with a snarl. The torch followed him.
“Get back!” The human handled the torch like a spear, jabbing it in Wolfrik’s direction.
Growling, he took a step back and another, taking the human with him as though a leash tethered them. When the man took a wide step toward him, Wolfrik dove between his legs, flipped around, and jumped onto his back, knocking him face-first onto the ground.
The human hollered in surprise. Wolfrik tore and clawed at the shirt until he got through to flesh then dug in, ripping out chunks of meat from his back. Screams blasted along the corridor and bounced off the bars. Ah, dinner music. It had been so long since he’d eaten a live meal.
Howls chorused at Wolfrik’s back and continued even after the human’s screams went silent. There were shouts in the distance. Wolfrik’s ears perked up. Yelling. Bootsteps running.
Time to go.
He swallowed a thumb-sized chunk of human flesh whole and dashed toward the open door at the end of the corridor. Wolfrik ran through as a group of six men came running forward. He would have liked to kill them all, but these ones carried guns in addition to torches. However, they weren’t expecting Wolfrik to run past them in a gray blur, almost as though he’d morphed into smoke rather than a four-legged creature. Not a single shot rang out as he flew past their legs into the short, wide room with tables and chairs where handlers ate their meals and sat around scratching their balls when they weren’t busy abusing animals.
Wolfrik had walked through here numbly after killing Eric. Now he bounded over the floor freely, nails clicking against the cracked concrete.
The door to the field was firmly closed, but half the windows were broken out. Most of those were boarded up, but the larger gaps had frayed tarps nailed over the openings. Breaking out into a run, Wolfrik lunged at the nearest tarp-covered window, expecting to rip through. He left the ground, soaring straight for the scrap of blue and beyond it—the sky. As Wolfrik made impact the tarp held strong for one disconcerting half second, cradling him like a hammock, before the force of his weight wrenched the edges from the nails and Wolfrik glided through the opening atop the canvas as though riding a child’s sled into the night.
As he landed, the stars burst into view overhead. The moon, nearly a week away from its zenith, stared at him like a luminous eye in the sky. Wolfrik could only gaze at it, momentarily transfixed. He blinked, and it was still there. It had always been there. Waiting.
Wolfrik’s lips peeled back as a howl detonated from his lungs, reaching for that interstellar space with a cry as brilliant and vast as the stars. Then he shot off like a comet across the field. At the edge of the field, the chain-link fence was mangled, like the windows, but no one had ever bothered to repair the gaps. Wolfrik dove through one, much like a rabbit through a hole—shooting through to the other side where he ran and ran, howling ecstatically as he went. The thrill of freedom rushed over him. It was a moment to savor because although he escaped and ended up making it home to the hollow, his memories trailed after him as doggedly as his own tail.
He had to believe that Sasha was still alive, waiting for him in Wolf Hollow. The demons of the past would live inside Wolfrik for the remainder of his life, but perhaps with time he would heal and become the mate Sasha deserved. He would never take her love and loyalty for granted ever again.
As long as she lived, he’d find a way to make it up to her.
No wolf was more dutiful than Sasha, which was why, in all his countless fantasies of returning home, he never dreamed she’d have taken up with another shifter. A half-breed, no less. Sasha and Tabor weren’t mates when Wolfrik made it home, but they might as well have been.