Taken By Werewolves (Lost Princess 0f Howling Sky Book 1) Read online

I slumped into my seat and brushed my fingers across the parcel Babaga gave me. I wasn’t sure if it was reassuring or if it made everything happening feel more real, more irrevocable.

  “At least she doesn’t speak in a witch tongue,” Den said.

  “Last warning,” the scarred one stated. Then he glanced at me through a mirror dangling front and center inside of the roader. “Everything will make sense when we get you back to Paws Peak, Princess. I sure as hell ain’t gonna waste my breath on an explanation.”

  I bit my lower lip as I tried to keep my emotions under control. I was seething with anger. I didn’t like these males one bit. Babaga didn’t want me. This world was not the one I pictured or the one depicted in those books of fairytales. I was on my own for the first time in my life. I had only myself to count on and no better plan than to go along quietly until the next full moon appeared in three nights, so I could recharge. Then these males would know exactly what I was capable of.

  CHAPTER 2

  RODRICK

  THE BADLANDS MADE MY skin crawl. They weren’t places any sane creature would tread. We were four guys protected inside of a roader, but it didn’t ease the tension. Tension was more or less the constant state of Phantom Fangs, so it wasn’t all because of the badlands; however, the stretch of gray nothing that spanned miles and miles was a grim reminder of how Prime was almost destroyed one hundred and fifty-six years ago. The Hellfire Strike was the reason why the world was the way it was now. It was a dark point in rebel history, but it did make the playing field more even—at the cost of the last human kingdom: Glory Valley.

  The world was basically a mess, whittled down to almost nothing, and yet the Prime War, war since the beginning of time, continued. It would keep going until one of three—humans, werewolves, or vampires—finally ruled all. It looked like werewolves were winning. Werewolves and vampires thought humans were out of the running, but they were wrong. Glory Valley had fallen, but a branch of survivors, rebels, founded Freedom. It was small, hidden and unknown by most, but the three main parties of this war continued to be major players even if the rebels were only pulling strings from the shadows and the vampires were currently in hiding. The playing field would change again very soon.

  Sooty particles bloomed around our roader when Todd brought the vehicle to a stop just outside of the Witch Woods. An involuntary shiver racked my body as the dust cleared enough to reveal the small and large trees coming out of their dormant winter state. They were traces of green, life, right on the border of death.

  As foreboding as the badlands were, the Witch Woods were worse. They were an outright taboo, the one place that survived the fallout of the Hellfire Strike even though it was well within the strike zone. The woods should have been obliterated like everything else around them. Messing with ghosts and/or witches was not my thing. They were a whole other beast, outliers of the Prime War because they were hardly of Prime in the first place. Anyone who entered those woods would be cursed. I wondered if the same rules applied to the Lost Princess of Howling Sky or if she was exempt.

  “Don’t everyone get out at once,” Caspian commented when none of us made a move to leave the roader. The space wasn’t cramped exactly, but since we couldn’t stand each other, we usually deserted the thing as soon as possible.

  “Scared?” he asked when he turned his head back from the front passenger seat to look at me and Aerre with his almost black dark-brown eyes. It wasn’t like Caspian to tease on a mission. He became the no-nonsense type. Clearly, he was the one who was “scared.”

  “I don’t see the Paws Peak scouts,” Aerre said, his blue eyes scanning the area in one quick sweep.

  “Because we’re late. We probably lost the Lost Princess,” I replied sardonically as I scratched at my short beard.

  Todd, the pasty runt always wearing a black beanie, scowled from the driver’s seat and kicked open his door. He hesitated a moment before taking the first step into the badlands.

  “No one’s blaming you, Todd,” Caspian called after him. “I should have accounted for delays. We should have left earlier.”

  “So our roader broke down on the biggest mission since Phantom Fangs was formed. No big deal,” I said. Then I kicked open the door to my left and joined Todd on ashy earth. A puff of dust escaped the impact of my boots, and I resisted the urge to cough. Gods, there was a lot of powder. Good thing there was solid ground somewhere underneath it all. Walk out here for long, and we’d turn the same color as the rest of the badlands. My boots were the first casualty.

  “Shut up, Rodrick,” Aerre growled at me as he emerged on the other side of the roader. Hey, at least he called me by my name instead of saying asshole or something. That was a big step up for him. Then again, he had been unusually quiet instead of heckling me this whole trip.

  The Lost Princess of Howling Sky fucked up our dynamics because she meant a change, the biggest change since the Hellfire Strike—if the legend was true. Would she mend the world or obliterate it? Once she became common knowledge, everyone would want their hands on her. Paws Peak would have had her all to themselves right now if we hadn’t listened in on a private conversation about the Lost Princess herself. Everyone thought she was lost. But the Witch of Witch Woods had her all along. She kept her for eighteen years, hidden from the rest of the world, until she decided to hand her over to Paws Peak. Why Paws Peak?

  Caspian was the last to leave the roader. I ignored everyone and started investigating the area. I was looking for tracks. With the way the wind acted up around here, blowing one way and then the other, creating little dust devils every now and then, I wasn’t holding out much hope for clues.

  I looked back at the tracks our roader left behind. It was a heavy metal vehicle with deep treads on the tires. Unlike my footprints, the roader seemed to dig down into hard yet moldable clay, way past the ever-changing ashy top. It left an indent that dust wasn’t quick to hide.

  “Interesting,” I muttered to myself.

  Then I walked up to the edge of the woods. I stayed on the dusty gray ground because I wasn’t interested in getting cursed. There was a blatant line that separated the badlands from the Witch Woods. If I took one step, I could have stood in soft blades of new grass. They didn’t have a touch of gray on them. Here was a witchcraft barrier that worked like a glass case to keep the tainted badlands out of the woods. That was the best I could come up with anyway. I didn’t know a damn thing about witchcraft, and I didn’t care to.

  I walked away from the woods and scanned the expanse of gray. The Paws Peak scouts hadn’t passed through Wolf Bridge to get here, so they must have taken the old bridge in the Glory Valley ruins, not the safest idea, but really their only option. Todd had kept that in mind when he drove us here, so I didn’t think we’d be too far away from where they had arrived; the runt was good with shit like that. With that in mind, I gathered my bearings and walked south. The sun was rising higher into the sky, and it burned against my brown skin. This place was like a desert. I didn’t usually have issues with the sun, unlike Todd, but the badlands made everything harsher.

  Then I saw them: roader tracks. The dust had tried to cover them up, but they were imprinted on the earth just like our own.

  “Here’s our confirmation!” I shouted at the others. There were even remnants of tracks left by several pairs of shoes. Three male and two female from the look of it. It seemed there had been a bit of a scuffle.

  As the rest of Phantom Fangs gathered around, Caspian sighed and said, “We missed her.”

  “I guess she’s real,” Aerre murmured.

  “I doubt we’re too far behind,” I informed.

  “To Paws Peak then. We can still get her before she’s sealed by the Mate Claim,” Caspian concluded and led the way back to our roader. Todd didn’t waste any time starting up the engine and getting us rolling.

  “Are we going to be able to sneak inside of Paws Peak?” Caspian asked.

  “Yes,” Todd replied. “I’m tuned to their wavelength
. I’ll hack the spires and bring down their security system. Should get in and out without detection, but I haven’t tested it.”

  “Good enough. It isn’t ideal, but the king wants us to retrieve the Lost Princess no matter the cost. Since we’re already behind, we’re not going to get there before they do. That means stealth. We’re going to sneak in and sneak out with the Lost Princess. Got it?” He looked right at me. “No engaging the enemy. We can’t afford to alert Paws Peak.”

  “Maybe we should head back through Wolf Bridge and call on your father’s army then,” I suggested. “Claim the Lost Princess and Paws Peak in one trip.”

  “Maybe we should just leave this asshole behind,” Aerre joined in. Now he was starting to sound more like himself.

  “It makes the most sense,” I said simply. “Doing this in two trips now is a waste of time. The King of Wolf Bridge would agree with me. So what if she’s sealed by the Mate Claim? You’ll just have to kill the werewolf who made the claim.”

  “We’re not doing that,” Caspian stated. “Either of those things.” He glanced at Aerre. “We’re not going back to Wolf Bridge, and we’re bringing Rodrick. I don’t want to make the princess stay with those maneaters any longer than she has to. We’re going to get her before she’s sealed by the Mate Claim. We’re going to pass through the Glory Valley ruins, and we’re going to rescue her.”

  Rescue. Only an oddball werewolf like Caspian would say that word and mean it. I knew Caspian had no love for the maneaters in Paws Peak, but he was also at odds with the shields in Wolf Bridge. He more closely aligned himself as a shield, “protector of humans and peacekeeper,” but he marched to the beat of his own drum. If werewolves weren’t the enemy, I might have tried to get him to join the rebels. But a werewolf was a werewolf just like a tethered was a tethered. Though I was more werewolf than human now, I would always be human first.

  “We’ll be quiet. Sneak in, get the princess, and sneak out,” I reiterated. And I meant it. Brawling was my specialty, but she was my top priority. Causing trouble wouldn’t benefit the rebels. I needed to get the Lost Princess out of Paws Peak and safely back to Wolf Bridge where I’d have a much easier time handing her off. With her, humans, rebels and complacents alike, would have a priceless set piece.

  Like I said, big changes were ahead.

  But my path was clear black or white because there was no point floundering in muddled grays. Floundering was what made this team and Aerre, a fellow tethered, black, my enemy. It was simple—as was my decision to become tethered to the Phantom Prince and therefore Phantom Fangs. Luckily for me, Caspian was very trusting and gave me, “a no-good agitator” in Aerre’s words, the opportunity. Thanks to that, the alpha/omega sort of bond I shared with the Phantom Prince hadn’t really gotten in my way yet—much to Aerre’s chagrin.

  I glanced to my right to see Aerre glaring at me with those lake-blue eyes of his. I wondered how many ladies he had won with his pretty-boy looks, those eyes and that long blond hair meticulously braided back against his skull, before he became tethered to Caspian. His personality really could have used some work, though. He was my only problem, my only obstacle. Caspian and Todd didn’t pay me any mind, but it was Aerre’s mission in life to expose me. He didn’t know what I was doing. He didn’t have proof that I was still in contact with rebels, but he was suspicious as hell and ironically right. I grinned back at him just to make him sneer.

  I couldn’t ignore him any longer. If Aerre kept on like this, I would be forced to put him down quietly.

  CHAPTER 3

  SORISSA

  THE WORLD CLOSE TO me blurred by while the grass fields, winding river, and tall mountains in the distance moved by slowly. I was used to the blur because the speeds I attained while running in my moonlight form created the same effect, but I wasn’t used to seeing things so far away. The trees were so dense in the woods, I never saw outside of them. I never saw a hint of lifeless gray before today.

  Aside from the constant growl emanating from the roader, it was silent. I would have had my face plastered to a window if I had not been seated in between two of the male werewolves who took me away from my home. Not one of us had spoken since the scarred one in front told me he would give me no explanations, that I’d understand everything I needed to once we reached “Paws Peak.” I decided I wasn’t going to beg these louts for anything. That left silence.

  Silence wasn’t so bad. We had left the hellish landscape of gray behind in a hurry, which I was grateful for, and started following an overgrown path in a grassy field with budding flowers of every color imaginable. Even though the windows were closed and I was shut inside of this beast created by technocraft, I swore I could feel a difference in the quality of air. It became easier to breathe. Blue skies spanned as far as I could see with puffy clouds floating by at random intervals. This place was beautiful. This was much closer to the world I had imagined. I still didn’t enjoy my company, but this gave me some hope. Babaga hadn’t completely forsaken me. Maybe she hadn’t forsaken me at all. This was sort of what I had asked for, wasn’t it? Why didn’t it feel like a victory then?

  I ran my hands along the brown paper of that parcel Babaga had given me. I considered opening it, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what was inside. I had a hunch it was one of the many fairytales we read together. Those books were the only reason I knew anything outside of the woods, the only reason I knew what a mountain was called. I wondered what kind of a shoddy education it would turn out to be. Babaga was intent on teaching me many things, including reading and writing, but there were also many things she was intent on hiding. Babaga made me feel smart. Being outside of my woods made me feel dumb.

  I was allowed a moment to stretch my legs in the field when the alpha of the trio called for a break. It wasn’t a long one, maybe five minutes, and we had to fill up our stomachs with meat during that time limit as well. Then I was rounded up and forced into that middle seat of the roader again. I wondered how far away Paws Peak was. We had already covered miles worth of distance.

  I continued to watch the world from the window. The river got bigger and bigger as we neared it, angry white foam frothing in the wild current. I hadn’t realized before we got close enough, but the water was actually deep inside of a gulch. It was so wild, it was constantly splashing above its container. I had never seen anything like it. The lake back in the woods was always still and calm. Not even the storms could do much to disrupt it because the trees around it always stood guard, blocking raging winds and downpours.

  Along with river rapids, I started seeing chunks of rock and old ruins that were likely buildings of some sort at one point in time. They were overgrown with grass, broken down and brittle.

  “What is this place?” I asked. I was tired of silence, and I was just putting the question out there. I figured maybe one of them would feel up to chatting. If not, I only wasted a breath.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to answer any questions, Princess,” the werewolf in front droned.

  “Because silence is so interesting,” I deadpanned. “Maybe you could tell me your names because I only know one.”

  The dark-skinned werewolf to my right snickered and Den, the pale, hairless one to my left, laughed nervously.

  “Truth be told, talking to you, being anywhere near you, is a bit fucking difficult,” the scarred one said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  The two beside me laughed again, one full of confidence, the other one a jittery mess of nerves.

  My heart rate sped up as we neared a bridge. It was in the same crumbling state as the rest of the buildings around here and it led to a land of rubble. This was a place some species lived once—werewolves, vampires, or humans—and it had been demolished. There was a literal mountain of it across the bridge. It must have been a kingdom—if the half-truths I learned from Babaga really meant anything out here. Castles, towers, houses all built closely together within nearly impenetrable walls. I saw illustrations of
kingdoms standing, not falling.

  “What I mean,” the scarred one said calmly, “is that wereas are rare and every werewolf aches for one to claim.”

  I didn’t say any more on the topic. I was too worried about the upcoming bridge. “We’re not going over that,” I said.

  “We are,” he replied and sent power to his leg, smashing a pedal that made the roader roar louder as it sped up.

  I screamed and held fast to Babaga’s parcel when we hit the bridge because the middle section was missing. I was sure we were going to fall into the gulch and get swept away by the rushing water. But the roader jumped over the gap. It landed with a hard thud that made us all bounce up and down. It was then I realized the importance of the “seatbelt” they strapped around me. I would have hit my head on the metal above if I hadn’t been strapped in.

  My chest was bobbing up and down with latent shock, but I took deep breaths and calmed myself when I could look behind me and see the bridge shrinking down a ripped-up cobblestone road. We survived.

  I caught Den staring at my chest and reflexively covered myself with Babaga’s parcel. I wondered what could have possibly been so interesting that he would stare at my chest like that. Did he want to rip into me and carve out my heart? His colorless eyes made me think so. Maybe these werewolves were cannibals.

  “What do you think her breasts would look like if she wasn’t wearing that baggy tunic?” he asked.

  “Shut. Up,” the scarred one bellowed. “I will stop this roader and rip out your fucking throat, Den. Get a grip.”

  “I think you’re the one who needs to get a grip.”

  “Den,” the dark-skinned werewolf warned. “What happened to her being cursed by a witch and catching?”

  “Human females aren’t enough.” Den panted. “I can’t take it anymore. I only want to touch her.”

  I curled into myself, trying to make myself smaller. I would have leaned away from Den’s lasciviously wiggling fingers, but there was another werewolf right beside me. I didn’t know what he was planning to do, but it made me think about running again—even if my chances were low. If I had been fully charged with moonlight, none of this would have been an issue. Because I wasn’t, I had to play this waiting game, search for an opportunity, and take it when the time was right. But what would I have to withstand until then?