Unleashed: An Adirondack Pack Novelette

Did you know I was writing a story for Zach? Did you know it is a free story that you can get in your inbox? Below is Chapter 1. I’ll be sending out Chapter 2 next monday. Sign up here if you are interested in receiving it!

 

Unleashed (Adirondack Pack, book 2.5)

**This is unedited**

The heavy weight of his hand on her head constricted her much more than the leash around her neck. It was a solid reminder of who was in charge, who she belonged too. She had no name, for that would give her a sense of self and family. Mr. Barnet had taken that from her. He had made her, trained her. She was who he wanted her to be, nothing more, nothing less.

The names she knew were Girl, Wolf, or Pet if he was pleased with her.

Today she was Pet.

The nameless girl stared ahead, her eyes lost and lonely. It was easier to not focus. Easier to not look at the men who would be adopting someone, if they could pay the price that is.

She sat there, beside his feet as she did every time these men came by. They may have looked different or had different names but they were all the same on the inside. They wanted something exotic, something no one else had. Price was never an issue once they saw what she could do.

“What is so special about a wolf?” the one man asked, raising his hand and gesturing to her. “I can have a wolf delivered to be for pennies compared to what you are asking.” Mr. Barnet had told her to be in her fur, so she was. The cloak would come off soon enough and then she’d have nothing to hide behind. His attitude would change then.

The other man seemed to think the same thing as he nodded along. She had heard this all before. Either she was a wolf or a girl kneeling here, at his feet, in this same spot. Each time they would say they could have ten of her for what Mr. Barnet was asking. Although she had impeccable manners and training, she was a dime a dozen.

Mr. Barnet would smile in that way that made her stomach churn and tap her head or neck three steady beats. Tap Tap Tap. That was her command to change. She would shift into her other skin. Tonight, it was as a girl flush in the face trying to keep her breathing under control like he told her to.

“The buyers don’t want to see your struggle. They don’t care if your insides are tearing apart and your bones are breaking. They want to see grace and beauty. The smoother a transition, the more money they are willing to pay, and the happier I’ll be. Now do it again.”

She kept her eyes down. The look of shock and amazement didn’t give her any satisfaction, nor did the small stroke of his hand down the back of her head. She had done well. The men were shouting out questions. One had even gotten out of his seat to come near. Mr. Barnet’s hand tightened on her chain. No one was allowed to touch her. Look from a distance but come closer and he would kill first ask questions later.

She knew, she had seen it more times than she cared to remember.

“Are there more like her?”

“How much?”

“I’ll take her!”

“Can she do any form or just a wolf?”

Mr. Barnet held up his hand and cut off their questions. “Please, sit.” Both of them looked slightly embarrassed, shouting out and approaching like they had. These were men of too much wealth and not enough treasures. She was something glittery that had cough their eye.

When they both had situated themselves back in their chairs and had drinks in hand, Mr. Barnet had loosened the leash. She knew she would have a red line from where the chain branded into her skin. He tended to forget his strength when she was in this form. Unintentionally marring her skin and then apologizing profusely for doing so was common, although he hadn’t done it in some time. It didn’t take long to learn what he expected of her in one of their training sessions. She tried to catch on quickly to avoid any pain. He didn’t want her marked. It took away from her curb appeal, he would say. But pain could come in many forms.

She knew there was at least another hour of negotiations. The nameless girl sunk into herself. She found that place inside where she could tune out the world and just exist.

“Now Gentleman,” Mr. Barnet said with a smile in his voice and a hand back on her head. “Let’s talk price.”

*****

Thank god he got to go home in two days. Never again would Zach be suckered into spending anything longer than a weekend at home. This was day two of a four day excursion his mother has guilted him into for her birthday. Usually he’d go home for the day, possibly spend the night but only if it was a holiday. Zach knew better than to give in to his mother’s pleas. Even if he wished that it would turn out differently, he knew the moment he got home he’d be shunned like the black sheep he was.

Being the only submissive in a family full of dominates was not something he would wish upon his greatest enemy. A no point in his life had he ever felt any sense of belonging within him family. Only Chuck made him feel welcome. It’s why at eighteen, Zach left home and went to straight to his Uncle Chuck’s, who was also a submissive wolf. The man had practically raised him so he wasn’t surprised to see him there at two o’clock the afternoon of his birthday.

Zach believed his family secretly rejoiced when he left. No longer did they have to pretend to care. Although, pretending was a stretch. He was an obligation. There were times when Zach thought he saw something that might resemble love in his mother’s eyes but that glimmer was sporadic at best. Mostly she just guilted him into coming home. He had spent many hours in the library avoiding home contemplating this conundrum. Why would she care if he came home or not? She was just going ignore him like the rest of them did. The best he could come up with was that one of her friends asked how he was and she had no way to answer. Feeling embarrassed she would call him up and then invite him home because that’s what she was supposed to do. But by the time he came home enough time had passed that the feeling that had invoked the invitation was now a distant memory.

One of these days he’d learn his lesson.

Zach was browsing the shelves of his library. He was a regular growing up, the library was one of the places in town that offered a safe haven for him. His brothers never stepped foot in there which made it a kind of sanctuary for Zach. He had two older brothers and one younger, all dominate and all assholes. They saw him as a blemish on an otherwise perfect family.

It was here at the library that he had escaped their tormenting game of hide and seek and beat the crap out of the submissive, and he met Miss Amber Greene. She was the reference librarian and had watched him run down the street and come inside. She had whistled at him, and pointed under her empty desk. “They are coming. Get under unless you liked being beaten up.”

Zach didn’t argue and dove under the desk right as they had come in. Miss. Greene gave them all the stink eye. “Can I help you find something?” she asked them coldly as she continued to set up a display on the front counter.

“Did a kid, eight years old about this high, come in here?” his oldest brother Isaac asked her.

“Let me rephrase,” Miss. Greene said with polite indifference. “Can I help you find a book?”

“Just tell us if our brother came this way,” Wade, his other older brother asked as they looked around. Zach flattened himself against the back of the desk and prayed that he became invisible.

“No,” she said simply. “This is a public space and people can come and go as they please. If this boy came in here then it was from the back entrance in the children’s section. You are welcome to look around, however, I ask that you do not disturb the other people here.”

She came back to the desk and knelt down as she pulled open the drawer by his head. “Stay down here till they’re gone.” Then she was standing and talking to other people. It was ten minutes later that her friendly voice had gone cold again. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“No,” Wade said.

“Pity. Well, unless there is something else I can help you find then I wish you a good afternoon.”

Zach had fallen in love right then and there. This woman was a godsend. Not only did she give him a place to hid but she just dismissed his band of bastard brothers in a voice dripping with honey coated venom.

Miss. Greene tapped him on the shoulder when they were gone. “Out,” she said but her voice was back to the warm, inviting smile she had used with the others. “Let’s have a look at you.” Miss. Greene was a short and round woman with big eyes and a wide smile. She was in her mid-thirties and had hair shorter than his.

She frowned as she assessed the bruises and cuts on his arms and face. “Do you want and ice pack?” she asked about a fresh bruise that was blossoming on his chin.

Zach shook his head. “No, Ma’am. I’ll be ok. Thank you for what you did.”

“I don’t tolerate bullies. Family or not, this isn’t ok,” she said motioning to his face.

Miss. Greene gave him a lesson on the library that day. She took him around to all the areas, helped him get settled in a big comfy chair by her desk and handed him enough books to keep him occupied for hours.

At the end of her shift she walked him out. “Feel free to come back any time.” And he did. Every day he came and would sit in the chair that would soon be known as his. Over the years Miss. Greene had kept him safe from his brothers but also gave him the gift of knowledge. He read and listened to everything he could get his hands on. Soon she was giving him projects to research to keep him busy. One particular project brought him face to face with his kind. It was all filed under mythology but she had given him the books to his ancestry.

Zach learned about submissives. There wasn’t much on the subject, but the few books and articles that did mention them painted a much different picture than the one his family had. Submissives weren’t the weak ones of the pack. Their inability to change had nothing to do with strength. Although dominates believed they were the ones with the control, it was actually submissives who held that title. The reason they didn’t shift was because they learned how to live simultaneously with their wolf instead of fighting it.

Yeah, they weren’t the fragile ones, they were the evolved ones.

“Find anything interesting?” she had asked him one day when he had his nose in too many books to count.

Zach looked up at her with questions spiraling like a tornado in his eyes. “How did you know?” was the one that surfaced first.

Miss. Greene gave a little smile and patted his shoulder. “It’s my job to know about a lot of things.”

She wasn’t one of them. He had found that out a few weeks later right around the time he found out that she had cancer. Her health had gone downhill when he was in high school. She had to quit her job his junior year and died the following summer.

Miss. Greene had changed his life, so when he was in town he came to the library to sit in his spot and escape his family just like the old days. He felt closer to her here than anywhere else on earth.

Zach had just gotten up to browse the biography section when he heard two men murmuring from an aisle over. People go to the library for all types of reasons, he had seen all kinds there over the years. Because of this he ignored them and kept browsing.

“No, I mean she was a wolf sitting at his feet like a trained dog and then she was a woman. It was incredible.”

Zach slowed his step. What was this?

“That’s…I don’t know, Murphy. It’s far-fetched. Are you sure?” the other man asked.

“I know what I saw. She was perfect.”

“And he can get more like her?”

The first man scoffed. “For a price. Barnet deals in acquiring unusual requests. There is no item he cannot get if you want it bad enough.”

“How do I get invited?”

“A referral or a reputation. I’m waiting to hear back from him once he gets a new shipment in. I’ll bring up your name if the opportunity arises. Here’s his card.”

Zach looked between small slit between the top of the books and the shelf above and watched one man hand the other a business card.

“Is that her?”

“Yeah. A beauty, isn’t she?”

There was a murmur of agreement as one of their phones rang. “I need to get back,” the man with the card said.

“Alright, I’ll call you after I talk to him again.”

Zach waited for them to leave the section and then rushed around the aisle to get a better look. All he had seen was their waists and hands. They had gone by the time he turned the corner.

Someone was buying and selling shifters. He had no idea what to do with that information. As he walked down the aisle a small black rectangle in the floor caught his attention. Zach picked it up and flipped it over. There was a man, his head down, face concealed, sitting on a leather chair. His pose, suit and lighting made him scream power and money. Beside him sat a wolf. She was large for a female, all black and had the saddest eyes he had ever seen. The only words written on the card was a name.

Corwin Barnet.

“Shit,” he breathed out. This was bad.