secret died with them.” None of this made
sense. They’d had fifteen years of peace,
and now, some silver-sword-wielding
Huntress invades their territory. How had
she discovered their weakness? Chance?
Cort’s widow, Rella, wrapped a thick
robe around his mother’s shoulders.
“Here, Stacia, you’ll catch cold.”
Stacia accepted the robe to cover her
nakedness and rose from her crouched
position. She stared down at the grave of
her eldest son for a long moment. “It is
your responsibility to do something about
this, Nash,” she said in a wooden tone. “I
will leave the method up to you. You have
twenty-seven days until the next full
moon.”
Nash nodded. As a Wolf Guardian, it
was Nash’s responsibility to ensure the
safety of his pack. He’d been the first in
over five hundred years to be born into the
pack without the curse of the full moon.
He had all the benefits of his species. He
could shift from Wolf to human form
effortlessly. He was essentially immortal.
Powerful. Long-lived. However, the curse
placed upon his people did not affect him.
He was the only Wolf who did not go mad
under the glow of the full moon. For this
reason, tremendous responsibilities fell on
his shoulders.
“I’ll take care of it,” he promised.
“Wolf Hunter or not, she won’t slay
another of our pack.”
His mother turned her back to him then,
walking slowly towards the village
hidden within the dense forest. He knew
she was dying inside, but as leader of the
pack, she was forced to remain strong. He
wished she would yell at him, hit him, hurt
him. Anything would be better than her
quiet acceptance and feeble demands.
“Uncle Nash.” His niece, Carsha,
tugged on the sleeve of his leather trench
coat. She was in her human form now that
the moon had set and she could control her
shifting. He squatted down in front of her,
stroking her dark gray hair from her cheek.
“Why did you put Daddy in the ground?”
she asked, amber eyes wide with inquiry.
“He’ll be all dirty when he wakes up.”
Death was such a rare thing in their
pack. Elder Wolves, those nearing three
hundred years in age, disappeared when
they felt they’d become too frail to offer
any value to the pack. The elders never
returned
because
they
poisoned
themselves with silver. His kind was
immortal, but they did age, albeit slowly.
Three hundred years was long enough to
grow weary of living and ritual suicide
was considered an honorable death by his
pack. Nash had no words to comfort the
young girl or to explain a senseless death.
He had only confronted its heartrending
burden himself once before, when the
Hunters had slain both his father and
grandfather fifteen years ago in a battle
meant to ensure the slaughter of his people
would end.
“Carsha,” he said, his voice hollow,
“your daddy won’t wake up.”
She looked confused. “But Uncle Nash
—”
“Come, Carsha,” her mother said
gently. She held her hand out to her small
daughter. “Let’s go home. It’s late.” Rella
refused to look at Nash or acknowledge
his presence.
“ I wanna see my daddy,” the little girl
murmured, her eyes filling with tears.
“Carsha!” her mother snapped.
Carsha trotted over to her mother and
took her hand, silent tears spilling down
her cheeks as the pair of them headed for
the village. Cort’s nine-year-old twin
sons, Lark and Lord, shifted from their
human forms back into white wolves and
followed behind—tails limp, heads low.
“I want to see your daddy, too,” Nash
whispered to Carsha’s small, retreating
form.
The scent of freshly turned dirt hung
heavy in the air. Nash looked down at
Cort’s grave. The black earth blurred out
of focus. Staring despondently, he was
unaware of the passing time until a new
He stepped forward and used his
pocketknife to carve the name Cort into
the tree beside his father and grandfather’s
names. When he had finished, he traced
the letters with his fingers.
Brother.
He couldn’t really be dead. It wasn’t
possible. Cort had always been the
likable, outgoing one. Easy to smile. Easy
to laugh. Friend to everyone. Unguarded
with his love. An attentive husband. A
doting father. He had only been a hundred
and thirty, not even half way through his
probable lifespan. Nash had always felt
so washed-out beside his gregarious
brother, but he would gladly forfeit his
own life to have him back. He’d had a
wife. Children. Nash had no one. And
now that his brother was gone, he had less
than no one.
Unable to express the depth of his grief
in his human form, Nash removed his coat
and dropped it on the ground. The rest of
his clothes followed and once naked, he
took his other form. Fur blacker than the
night, with a white patch across his left
eye in the shape of a crescent moon, the
Wolf sat at the foot of the mounded dirt,
lifted his snout to the sky and howled his
anguish to the trees of the forest.
CHAPTER 2
Maralee thrashed in her sleep, unable
to pull herself from the nightmare.
“Stay here, children. Don’t come out
no matter what happens. Do you
understand?”
“Yes, Mama,” Maralee promised.
“Leland?” her mother prompted
Maralee’s older brother.
“Why can’t I fight too?” Leland
asked, a sour look on his young face.
Smiling gently, his mother stroked his
blond hair. Leland twisted away from his
mother’s pampering. Mother and son
looked alike—blond hair, blue eyes.
Maralee resembled her father—raven
hair, gray eyes. She wished she looked
more like her fair mother. Mother was
like an angel. Radiant.
“You are still too young,” Mama said
with a gentle but firm tone. “Another few
years and you’ll be ready.”
Maralee gasped when a series of
howls carried into the house. The Wolves
were close. It seemed odd they had come
here, as if asking for death. The moon
was not yet full. The Wolves had never
made an appearance on any other night
of the lunar cycle before. Mother
&n
bsp; glanced over her shoulder towards the
parlor door, and then looked down at her
children again. “Stay here. I’ll be back
for you soon.”
“I’m not a baby, Mother,” Leland
shouted. “I’m ten years old.”
She smiled at him again before
closing the trapdoor. Maralee heard the
flop of the carpet as it was thrown over
the trapdoor and the scrape of a
decorative table above them. They were
safe here, but it was dark beneath the
house. Trembling, Maralee reached for
her big brother’s hand, but he was
already climbing the wooden stairs.
“You can stay here like a little mouse
hiding in the crawl space,” Leland said,
“but I’m going to help the Hunters.”
“Leland! Mother told us to stay
here.”
“I’m tired of her babying me. I can
use a sword almost as good as father
can.”
“Cannot,”
Maralee
whispered.
Father trained both of them to use a
sword on a daily basis, but neither was
ready to fight a Wolf. “If you go, I’ll tell
on you.”
Leland huffed. “You’re such a
coward.”
Leland pushed against the trapdoor,
putting his shoulder into the motion, and
the table above crashed to the floor. A
flash of light illuminated the crawl
space. Leland grunted as he dragged his
body through the narrow space beneath
the carpet. The door dropped shut and
Maralee was alone. The darkness moved
closer. The house moved further away.
She shrank. So small. A frightened, timid
mouse.
Maralee sat amongst the cobwebs
against a pillar of support stones and
stared into the blackness towards her
home. A long, low howl pierced the air
and Maralee shuddered. The crash of
breaking glass came from everywhere at
once.
Growling. Snarling.
A woman screamed. Mother?
Leland’s footsteps thudded across the
floor above as he sought his first real
battle.
Unable to blink, Maralee listened to
the chaos above her. The cries of the
people she loved were silenced as the
Wolves tore every human in the house
apart—all but her, hiding like a coward
in the crawlspace.
Once the sounds stopped, it couldn’t
have been less than ten lifetimes later,
Maralee gathered enough courage to
climb out of the trapdoor. The floor was
scattered with fragments of glass. Cold
air blew through the jagged-edged holes
of the broken windows. Concentrating on
the damage to her lovely home, Maralee
stumbled over her brother’s mauled body
just inside the parlor door. She looked
down and blank, blue eyes stared up at
her. The condition of his body was
horrific—incomprehensible. Pieces of
him were... missing.
Leland... Maralee closed her eyes and
shook her head. No. No. No! If she
denied it, it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true.
Heart thudding, Maralee covered her
mouth and fled to the front of the house.
Mama and Father would be able to help
him. Fix him. Fix Leland. They never
failed their children.
Maralee found other members of the
Decatur family scattered around the
foyer. Her grandfather, two uncles, an
aunt, several cousins, all of them had
their throats torn out and the same blank
look on their faces. The floor was
decorated with a discordant pattern of
macabre, bloody paw prints. Near the
front door lay her mother. Her radiance
extinguished. Her beautiful blond hair
saturated with blood.
“Mama!” Maralee turned away.
Shapes blurred behind her tears. She was
shrinking again.
I’m so small. I can’t help her. I can’t
help anyone.
Her brother’s voice echoed around
h e r . Coward. Coward! Coward! She
covered her ears, but it didn’t drown out
his words.
Too late. It’s too late.
Maralee stumbled out of open the
front door, fleeing the ghosts in the
house, and tripped over another body
lying across the porch. She pitched
forward, tumbled down the steps and
landed in the graveled drive on her
knees. She sucked in a sob of pain and
then froze. An enormous, black Wolf lay
sprawled beside her.
She shrieked, but it didn’t move.
It was dead.
Several others scattered across the
drive and yard—dead.
She struggled to her feet. No place
was safe haven. The horror of death
engulfed her.
A metallic scrape behind her gave
her heart pause. She turned her head
slowly, eyes reluctantly seeking the
source of the sound. The body she’d
tripped over on the porch was her father.
His sword, still clutched in his right
hand, scraped across the marble
doorstep as he attempted to lift it.
“Father!”
She spun on her heel and raced up
the steps to kneel beside him. Her
salvation. Father would protect her. He
would
make
things
better.
Fix
everything. Fix Leland. Fix Mama. Take
the fear. The pain. The terror. Her faith
in Father was as infallible as his sword
wrought in solid silver.
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Like
the other members of her family, his
throat had been ripped out. His silvery
eyes locked with hers and he handed her
his bloodied sword. Maralee took the
weapon and cradled it against her
narrow chest. It was heavy. The weight
of her world rested upon its blade. But
her father’s strength radiated from the
sword and gave her hope.
“What should I do, Father?” she
asked, afraid to touch him.
There was so much blood. None of it
in his vessels.
Father never answered her. His face
went lax and he flew with the angels.
From behind, a vicious growl alerted her
to danger.
Maralee sat up abruptly, instantly
awake. She took a deep, shuddering,
breath and collapsed back on the lumpy,
inn pillow. Every night for the past fifteen
years, the same dream of her past
interrupted her sleep. At times, she was
grateful for it. It never let her forget why
she hunted Wolves. Why they must all die.
She would not rest until every one of them
was extinguished.
She had failed so utterly in her duty the
night before. She’d only slain a solitary
Wolf. Only one. That ignorant man, N
ash,
had shut her in a shed. How dare he
interfere with her destiny? Then he
seemed to mourn that horrible Wolf.
Strange fellow. Definitely strange. She
hoped she saw him again, just so she
could tell what she thought of him and his
damned meddling. Now she’d have to
wait an entire month before she could
destroy the rest of that pack of soulless
monsters.
The sun had barely risen, but Maralee
knew she would be unable to go back to
sleep. She tossed the covers aside and
rose from bed. She rummaged through her
knapsack and gathered clothes and
toiletries for a bath, then journeyed to the
end of the hall and filled the tub with cold
water from the hand pump. Several
steaming kettles sat upon the radiator. She
added the hot water to her bath before
refilling the kettles and returning them to
the heater.
Her bath was cool, but it was better
than washing up in a partially frozen
stream as she had while traveling by hired
sleigh. She thought she’d never arrive at
this secluded village. She really needed to
get herself another horse. Wolves had
killed her last mount two months ago and
she just couldn’t bring herself to get
another yet. It seemed disloyal to replace
Sully so soon after she had failed to
protect him.
Maralee washed with soap and
fragrant shampoo, and then added more
hot water to the tub from the kettles. It
wasn’t like her to lounge in a tub of warm
water, but she found it soothing. She had
almost drifted to sleep when someone
rattled the doorknob.
She sat up hastily with an awkward
splash. “Someone’s in here!”
“Apologies, miss,” the gravelly voice
of the innkeeper called through the door.
“I was wanting to tell you that breakfast is
being served down in the dining hall.”
“Thank you, sir,” Maralee called. “I
shall be down directly.”
Footsteps faded away from the door
and Maralee rose from the tub. It took her
a while to figure out how to drain the tub
with the siphoning hose, which ran
outside. It was nearly a half an hour
before she was dressed in black woolen
breeches and white blouse, and on her
way
downstairs
for
breakfast
in
stockinged feet.
She found the dining hall was more
like a dining closet. Two square tables
were squeezed into the tiny room with
eight, unoccupied chairs. The dark wood