The working title of this one is Blood In the Moon, Book 2: Beginnings and gives us the story of Sara Riggs and one of Dillon MacCardill's (Our Stalwart Hero from Book 1) former Teammates, Randall "Bowie" Two Wings.
Sara is the leader of New York's Northern Blood Pack and has accepted Dillon (Book 1) into the Pack for Jasmine's sake. At hearing Dillon has been fatally injured, Bowie and the Teams former commander, Charley McCadden head to the Pack's homestead to see if they can help, but they are clueless as to what they're walking into!
With that said, here's a quick peek into their arrival...
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Prologue
Randall Two Wings picked up the
buzzing cell phone, flipped it open and grunted once.
“Bowie
He grunted a second time, instantly
recognizing the voice he hadn’t heard in nearly a year, Cody Roth. The former Special Forces Green Beret spoke
in an uncharacteristically soft tone.
“It’s Dillon.”
He grunted a third time to
acknowledge the seriousness of those two words.
Cody rattled off a set of
coordinates and he committed them to memory.
The line went dead. Nothing else needed to be said. Cody Roth was calling in the Calvary . He
reached up, took the bill of the Atlanta Braves Baseball Cap and flipped it
around backwards. Rising off the couch,
he went in search of the big man.
Charley McCadden looked up when he
entered the room. The slate grey eyes of
his team leader gave him a quick once over, pausing at the backwards hat. “Who?”
He spoke, in a voice he still
didn’t recognize, for the first time in a month. “Dillon.”
“Where?”
He grabbed a piece of paper off the
large oak desk between them, scribbled out the coordinates and left. He knew Charley would follow and set off to
prep the helicopter they kept on hand for just such emergencies. It would be a quick flight to Dublin United
States
Pausing in another part of the
large, semi-restored castle they called home, he scooped up a set of fake
passports for them both, and added half a dozen of his favored bowie knives to
the bandoliers crisscrossing his chest.
If Cody was calling, it was
definitely bad! That man would never,
ever call for backup unless the world was ending…
Chapter One
Somewhere in the wilds of Canada
This couldn’t be right. Had he heard Cody incorrectly? His voice may be shot but that certainly
hadn’t affected his ears…at least he didn’t think it had. He turned a look toward Charley, quirking an
eyebrow in the air.
The team leader’s slate grey eyes
were barely discernable in the early morning light. His hand tightened around the handle of a
P-90 sub-machine gun, black glove whispering softly in the stillness.
He saw it too…
Just below them, in a wide clearing
of trees, a tall man all but dragged a bound and gagged woman toward the far
side. The rising sun was just staring to
push the darkness back and there was no one but the two of them moving about. The woman had her head down, looking defeated
as she was pulled along by a leash around her neck.
She wasn’t resisting, which told
him from personal experience, she’d been here a very long time. She’d accepted her captivity. She didn’t even have the will to fight the
man holding the other end!
His thoughts tried to flash back…and
he almost touched the jagged scar running the length and breadth of his
throat. Almost. It’d been months, nearly a year to be exact,
since he thought about that time and that place. His fingers clenched into fists, trembling
with an urge he knew all too well.
He wanted to rush into the clearing.
He wanted to jump the man.
He wanted to pound his face until
there was nothing left but a bloody pulp.
He wanted to set the woman free…
Stilling his hands by wrapping them
back around the barrel and grip of the M-16 they’d acquired from friends in New York
So, this is why Cody called
them. If Dillon MacCardill was here, it
was bad. But, why was he here? And where was Cody Roth? Surely he would have greeted them by
now.
He’d tried calling once they’d
touched down, but all he gotten so far was the standard, ‘The person you are
calling is not within service range…’
He could see why now! They literally, were in the middle of no
where, at least 50 miles from any decent sort of civilization. He nudged Charley with his elbow.
McCadden turned enough to look at
him and nod.
They were going in.
A voice rasped softly. “Let her go.”
He turned, slowly quirking an
eyebrow at the sight that greeted him.
Two men dressed from head to toe in solid black, crouched a couple of
feet away. One had a nasty looking P 90
sub machine gun pointed at him. The
other sported an M-16, complete with grenade launcher. From the look in their eyes he knew neither
of them would hesitate to pull the trigger.
“Excuse me?”
“Let her go,” P 90 said. “Or I’ll drop you right here.”
He felt Maddie shift a step, moving
in to defend him. He waggled a finger
and she stayed where she was. It had
started out as such a pleasant morning…ok, not so pleasant, but a morning. Now, this.
He sighed. “Friend, you really
don’t want to do this.”
P 90’s eyes flickered in surprise. It passed quickly and his gloved hand tightened
on the grip of the small sub machine gun.
“Let, her, go.”
He chuckled. The Beast, his ever constant companion,
clawed at his consciousness, mewing to be free and deal with this threat in
short order. He ignored it and calmly
reached out to press the button on the front of Maddie’s collar. Her bonds separated with a soft pop, as they
were designed to do, and fell to the ground.
She reached up, undid her ball gag
and dropped it onto of the pile at her feet.
She crossed her arms, tapped her foot and narrowed her eyes into a
glower. “Is there a reason you two are
interrupting my breakfast?”
M-16 blinked and P 90 tilted his
head in her direction.
Seeing them distracted, he let the
Beast free…
Sara Riggs tumbled out of the bed,
hitting the floor hard. Instinct took
over when a second howl pierced the silence.
Marcus? Yep, definitely
Marcus. She’d recognize his deep,
throaty grumble anywhere. Not bothering
with clothes, need she shift herself, she yanked open the cabin’s door and
bolted toward the sound.
She slid to a halt in a dew covered
grass a few seconds later. What she
found was definitely not what she was expecting!
Nine members of her Pack stood in a
circle. They’d all shifted. Clawed hands flexed in and out and several of
them growled deep in their chests.
She couldn’t see anything that
might be a threat until she shoved Kelly and Jones aside.
In the middle of them, two men stood
back to back. They had a pair of nasty
looking weapons raised, roaming around slowly as if they couldn’t figure out
which, or who, was the bigger threat.
“What the hell?” she asked.
The one facing her wore a backwards
baseball cap. He shifted a shoulder to
nudge the man behind him. This man
turned enough to cut his eyes over his shoulder.
“Lady,” he said in a calm, cold
tone. “I’d run if I were you.”
Run? Why?
They were the intruders here!
“Excuse me?”
“I said, run!”
She looked up at Marcus and lifted
an eyebrow. “Marcus?”
The weapons master shifted back
into human form and waved a hand at the pair.
“They started it!”
He sounded like a two year old and
she had to laugh. “Is anyone hurt?”
Maddie shifted out of her wolven
form next to him, crossed her arms and pouted out her lower lip. “They interrupted my breakfast!”
She sounded worse than Marcus and
she laughed harder. When she regained
control of herself, she waved at the others.
“It’s ok.”
They shifted but remained in a
circle. She looked at the men, who
hadn’t lowered their weapons and tilted her head. They looked ready for war. Each of them wore too many guns for her to
count quickly.
The one facing her had two
bandoliers of knives over his chest. He
was tall and she could see pitch black hair peeking out from under the rim of
his cap. His face was angular, chiseled
in granite. The muscles of his jaw
worked and he stared at her, chocolate brown eyes unflinching.
She kept her gaze locked to
his. Would he blink first? Or would she?
He did.
She took a step then another then a
third until she was between the barrel of his weapon and her people. “You two must be friends of Cody’s…”
***
Randall blinked. He couldn’t help it. The woman standing in front of him was the
most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. She was tall, about 5’8” or so, with waist
length golden brown hair, and crystal green eyes that were regarding him
calmly.
She acted like they hadn’t just
been surrounded by a pack of…of…well, shit, of whatever they were. She also didn’t seem to be bothered in the
slightest to be standing there, as naked as the day she was born either.
Behind him, Charley responded to
her statement. He lowered the P 90,
turned and let out a huff of air. “And
you would be?”
She didn’t take her eyes off him,
continuing to hold his gaze, her own sparkling slightly. “Sara.”
It was such a simple thing, her
name. He rolled it over in his mind and
almost smiled. Almost.
Charley didn’t say anything else
but gave the various cabins and buildings of the clearing a once over with a
slow swing of his head. “And Roth is?”
She chuckled softly and shifted her
gaze just a bit over his left shoulder.
Cody answered for himself, pushing
his way between the man and the woman they’d initially tried to save. “Why the hell didn’t you two call?”
The others that had come to the
defense of the male and female drifted off at his question.
Charley frowned darkly at the
shorter man then cuffed him in the back of the head for their trouble.
Cody ducked his shoulders. “Dammit Cap!
What’d you do that for?”
“We, did, call.”
He chuckled and turned his
attention back to the woman. But she had
already turned and was walking away. He
wanted to go after her, wanted to ask a ton of questions, but didn’t. He waited, instead, for Cody to explain.
Their friend scrubbed a hand across
his face and fisted his hands on his hips.
“Well, shit,” he groused.
“Thought my cell would work out here.
Sorry Boss.” He shrugged a bit. “Glad you made it though.”
“What the fuck is going on Roth,”
Charley growled darkly.
Cody waved a hand toward an open
sided pavilion in the center of the clearing.
“Come on, we’ll talk over breakfast.”
He slung the rifle over his
shoulder, hooked his thumbs into his belt and followed silently.
Thirty minutes after they’d seated
themselves at a hand made picnic table, Cody finished the long, drawn out tale
with, “And that’s when she, when Jasmine just, well, bolted.” He jerked his chin toward the distant tree
line. “That was two days ago. We searched, followed her trail all the way
to the river, but then lost it.” He
picked at a place on the table with his nail.
“She doesn’t even know he’s still alive.”
Charley, who’d stayed silent
through the telling, spoke at last.
“So…they’re werewolves?”
Cody lifted a hand in a placating
gesture. “I know, I know. I didn’t believe it at first either, but, yep
they are definitely werewolves. And now,
Dillon might be one too…”
He swallowed so his voice would
work, injecting his first question.
“Might?”
Cody lifted his gaze from the
table. “According to their doctor, if
he can survive another 24 hours or so and if he heals enough before his
first change, then yep, he might be a werewolf.”
Charley gave a passing couple a
doubtful look. The woman was leading the
man this time, who – like the one they’d thought to rescue just a bit ago – was
bound and gagged. He nodded toward
them.
“And what’s with that?” Charley
asked.
Cody turned to follow his
gaze. “Oh, some of the couples are, well
they’re into the whole Dominant/submissive thing I guess.” He leaned over the table a bit and lowered
his voice. “I’d honestly forgotten about
that. I’ve been around them for awhile
now and it, well you just sort of learn to ignore it. They don’t press it on to others, it seems,
but they apparently dig it.”
“So, the girl, this morning? She’s into that?” Charley asked.
Cody nodded. “Yeah, that was Marcus and Maddie. They’ve been married about 5 years now. To hear her tell it, it’s heaven on earth!”
He shook a bit. How could someone, anyone, willingly, just,
let that happen? He didn’t understand
that at all! Not after his own
captivity!
Charley asked the question he would
have. “Geez, Roth, what the hell have
you two gotten involved in?”
Their long time friend actually had
the good sense to look hurt. “It wasn’t my
fault, blame Dillon this time!”
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I hope you enjoyed this. Book 2 will be out later on this year, so keep watching.
As always, Keep Reading, Keep Writing and Keep Reaching For Your Dreams, no matter what they are!
Thanks for stopping by.
Lady Blade
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