Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Destiny of the Wolf
Why had Larissa, her loving sister, ended up dead— here,
of
all the godforsaken places in the States? Maybe that was
the reason—off the beaten path, surrounded by wilderness,
a
place to hide from the harsh realities of the forced
marriage, safe from Bruin's retaliation should he ever
have
located her. But she hadn't been safe. And now she was
dead.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lelandi Wildhaven thought
she
saw her cousin, Ural, slink into the woods in his wolf
form, but she had to be mistaken. He wouldn't be angry
enough with her to shapeshift this close to Silver Town
and
risk alerting the gray lupus garou pack that a couple of
reds had slipped into their territory.
Ignoring her gut instinct telling her this was a very bad
idea, she pushed open the Silver Town Tavern's heavy
door,
the squealing of the rusty hinges jarring her taut
nerves.
Five bearded men sitting at a table turned to stare at
her,
and at once she feared the worst—they saw straight
through
her disguise.
She shoved the faux eyeglasses back into place, hating
the
way they kept sliding down the bridge of her nose. The
weather-beaten cowboy hat she'd picked up at a resale
shop
half swallowed her head, making her look like a little
kid
wearing her dad's Stetson. Amber glass lights hanging
from
brass rods high above softly illuminated dark oak tables
and a long, polished bar. Slow-spinning wooden fan blades
circulated the air, impregnated with the smell of gray
lupus garou. Her nerve endings prickled with fresh
awareness. Dingy antique mirrors covering the back wall
behind the bar bore mute witness to the goings-on in
theplace, as she suspected they had for decades. If they
had captured all the images of the bar's existence what a
story those mirrors could tell.
Another bearded man crouching beneath the lip of the bar
suddenly stood to his full six-foot-four height. The
glass
and dish towel he held nearly slipped from his grasp as
his
appraising glance took in every inch of her. His lips
turned up at the corners slightly. Deep laugh lines were
etched in his tanned skin and shaggy black hair extended
to
his shoulders, giving him the appearance of a rugged
mountain man, unused to civilized trappings. What
disturbed
her most was that he was a gray, like the men drinking at
the table. She'd anticipated it would be a human-run
establishment frequented by lupus garous, like the bar
back
home.
"What'll you have, miss?" he asked, his voice warm and
welcoming.
Expecting a chilly greeting—their kind didn't welcome
strangers venturing into their midst, especially if she
were human and this was an exclusively gray lupus garou
tavern—she hesitated.
"Miss?"
"Bottled water, please." She'd meant to sound tough, to
match the look of the place. She'd intended to be someone
different, with her red hair dyed black and the high-
heeled
boots giving the impression she stood taller, more like
them. The blue contacts she wore hid her green eyes
sufficiently, but she still felt like Lelandi, triplet to
Larissa, with barely any visible difference in
appearance,
except her eyes were greener and her hair more red and
less
golden than her sister's had been. Had her voice betrayed
her?
The small smile on the bartender's face was more likely
because she was a stranger who'd walked into a wolves'
den
without protection than because she'd given herself away.
She cursed herself for not disguising her voice better,
but
the barkeep's warm demeanor gave her a false sense of
security, which could be the death of her if she wasn't
careful.
The bartender handed her a chilled bottle of water and
tall
green glass. "New in town?"
"Just passing through," she said, paying for the water.
"Sam's the name, miss. If you need anything, just
holler."
"Thanks." Hollering for a drink was definitely not her
style.
She chose a table in the farthermost corner of the room,
half-hidden in shadows. Although any of them could see in
the dark as well as she could, this location would keep
her
out of the main flow of traffic. She hoped she'd seem
inconspicuous, not worthy of anyone's scrutiny, and most
of
all, human.
Lelandi glanced at the door. According to her
information,
Darien Silver—Larissa's widowed mate— should be here
soon.
One of the men got up from his seat and gave Sam some
cash.
The man cast Lelandi a hint of a smile, then returned to
his chair. Small for a gray, stocky, hair a bland brown,
eyes amber, his clothes carrying a coating of dust, he
had
a soft, round baby face. Looked sweet, a beta-wolf type.
Smudges of dirt colored his cheeks, and he wiped them off
with the back of his denim shirtsleeve. His eyes never
straying from her, he smoothed out his raggedy hair and
took another swig of his beer.
Sam joined Lelandi and handed her the cash. "Joe Kelly
paid
for your drink, miss. He works at the silver mine, which
explains his slightly rough appearance. But he cleans up
good." Sam gave her a wink, and returned to the bar.
Should she turn down Joe's offer? On the other hand, if
he
was interested in her, maybe she could discover the truth
quicker.
"Thank you," she mouthed to Joe Kelly and his chest
swelled.
The other guys started ribbing him in low voices. The
tips
of Joe's ears turned crimson.
Her stomach clenched with the notion that Larissa had had
the audacity to mate with a gray, especially when she had
a
mate already. She'd said she wanted to find herself,
and she did. Six feet under. Yet, Lelandi couldn't help
feeling it was her own fault, that if she'd taken
Larissa's
place back home, or even run away with her, she might
have
kept her safe. But what about their parents? She couldn't
have left them behind—not with her dad so incapacitated—
but
hell, she hadn't been able to protect them either. They
had
been murdered anyway.
She tamped down a shudder, hating that she hadn't stopped
any of it. But once she learned what had happened to
Larissa and put the murderer in his grave, Lelandi was
going to locate her brother and their uncle— damn both of
them for leaving the family behind.