Wild Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary, #4)

by Caroline Peckham

Do you know how valuable an Incubus Order would be to one of Roland Vard’s clients?”

OMG

“Sorry,” Hastings gasped. “I…went for drinks and then when I turned back the hunters and prey had returned and that guy over there asked me to erm…do something to him like the pathetic little toad he was. I don’t want to mention the exact phrasing he used, but I lost track of the others while trying to escape him.” “And did you?” Roary asked. “Did I what?” “Did you punish him with your cock like the pathetic little-” I jabbed him in the gut with my elbow as poor Hastings turned utterly beetroot, his ears, neck and the small amount of skin we could see around his eyes betraying his embarrassment.

LMAO ROAR

“How dare you,” he snarled. “I’m an Acrux, a Dragon, a- “Cunt,” I finished for him then lunged, sending fire spiralling towards his face to blind him while circling around the back of him at speed, readying to snap his neck with my bare hands.

“Hasslings, you’re a miracle man!” he yelled and okay, he’d gotten my name a little wrong, but I’d done it! I’d found him and freed him and followed the destiny which Rosalie had set out for me and- I barely registered the man who ran at me from the corner of the room, only realising he was at my back as a fist coated in stone collided with my skull. And everything fell into darkness.

I didn’t belong there. Not yet. Not while my Rosa still breathed. I would remain at her side, I would be her protector, her mate, her warrior.

Gustard’s screeches were silenced and I shoved him backwards with a grunt of effort, rising to my full height as I did so and gazing down at the dead monster at my feet.

Finally

“No!” I bellowed, shooting forward with a burst of speed and shoving her out of the way as the fire blasted from his jaws. It slammed into me and I was thrown onto the ground from the force of the flames, engulfed as they burned into my chest. The snow melted around me in a pool as Benjamin towered over me and blood bubbled at my lips. His gaze turned to Rosalie as she stood to face him once again, but a snarl left me at him looking at her with a promise of death in those murderous eyes.

Omg!!!!!!!!!!!

I took the fallen dagger into my grip and swore on the moon that this woman would not die at the jaws of my oppressor. Within a whip of fire that could have cracked the sky in two, I sent the dagger flying towards his open jaws, every ounce of power I had left going into the cast. It slammed into the back of his throat and drove upwards at the will of my fire, slicing in with a certainty that could only equal death.

Ahhhhhh omg

A heavy breath left me and it was laced with all the what ifs I had hoped to claim in this life. Rosalie was crying my name. I swear I heard the moon whisper to me that I had done well and then the world was too dark and death was tearing me away from the sole Fae who owned me to my core. Death stole all chance for goodbyes, the sureness of it closing in around me and guiding me from Rosalie Oscura. She was the last thing I saw, haloed by moonlight with my name on her lips. And peace found me through the love burning in her eyes. Because if there was one thing in this world that had been worth giving everything for, it had been her. Forever her.

FUCK THIS

With my chest agape and bloody, I’d torn the key to my magical cuffs from the pocket of a weaselly looking nurse then bit his ear off for good measure before releasing myself along with my magic.

This is crazy

“Sin,” he laughed, though it sounded a little tight. “You won the game!”

Please dont fall for this

For you. I did it for you. My brother.” “Brother,” I exhaled, a smile to my voice, but my frown inched in again. Something wasn’t adding up. Two plus two equalled five, everyone knew that. But this? I wasn’t coming out with the right answer. Like all the numbers were jumbled, giggling as they pranced out of reach. “You did this…for me?”

Its not equalling 5 babe

“What about Rosalie? And Roary, and Ethan, and Cain, and our pet Hasslington?”

Pet lmao

He snatched his hand away, a blade appearing in it as he used his earth power and with a swipe of his arm he stabbed it right in my neck. The betrayal stung me like a wasp, the truth a monster that had been there all along, living in his eyes, always staring out at me. I’d been used. Used like an old rag to scrub a filthy window. And Jerome knew how I felt about being used. He knew I hated being the Incubus everyone needed, everyone except myself. And all along, he’d been the worst of all. I ripped the knife from my neck and he backed away, preparing to cast again, but I was upon him like a wraith, latching his limbs to his sides with air while driving his own knife into his chest.

Omg

“He got what he deserved,” Max said darkly. “True brothers don’t use each other. They don’t sell each other out.” “Even if their brother is death in Fae form?” I rasped. Max took my hand, drawing me to my feet and cupping my cheek in his hand. “Even then. I think I’m starting to understand why you do the things you do, Sin. I see why they want you locked up, and I see exactly why you shouldn’t be.”

“I won’t accept this fate,” I growled, my gaze lifting from Cain’s too-still features and finding the sky above where clouds shrouded the celestial being who was bound to me as surely as I was bound to it. “I won’t.” My skin tingled as power grew within me, the cool light of the moon shimmering to the surface of my flesh and lighting me up from the inside out.

Oooo moon girl

The moonlight continued to spill from the sky, falling over us in sparkling lumps which appeared like snowflakes. They tumbled past me, all of them moving with purpose, directing themselves onto Cain, touching down on his skin and melting into his flesh in every place where the curse had stained it. I sucked in a sharp breath and held it, my tears spilling down my cheeks then falling still as I watched in amazement while the moon washed him free of the curse, every piece of it fading away until nothing at all was left.

Because she had heeded my call to break the curse. But that wasn’t enough to return Cain from the claws of death.

Dude!!!!!!!!

“Mason?” The voice was familiar, haunting in ways, but so damn comforting too. I looked up, finding myself kneeling on a riverbank where a golden mist hung in the air. Across the eerily still water was a boy with warm eyes and a bright smile. Merrick looked just as he had the day he’d died, youthful, full of life, but there was an ethereal quality to him here in this strange place. “I’m sorry,” the words I’d wanted to say to him all these years spilled out and his form burned a little brighter. “It wasn’t your fault,”

SHUT UP

“Mason Cain,” he spoke in a withered voice, my name like a summoning that drew me to him. “It is time to cross into the after. Your soul is perched here because you are clinging to something that no longer belongs to you. Let it go and board my ferry.”

No fuck off ferryman

His hand reached out from within his cloak, a gnarled, skeletal thing that curled around my arm. My skin lit at his touch as if with moonlight, a glow igniting along my flesh and making the Ferryman snatch his hand back. “You are Moon Touched,” he gasped. “It has been many, many a century since I have witnessed the power of She.”

“I cannot take you,” the Ferryman whispered, his voice akin to spitting fire. “The moon demands another fate.” “Rosalie!” I cried, stepping into the mist, reaching, running, hunting. “I’m here!”

A rush of power flooded my veins and as Rosalie drew back, we both looked to the waning moon marks that had ignited on each of us right over our hearts, like a symbol of the life she had just restored to me. “You denied death my soul,” I breathed. “It wasn’t death’s to take,” she said, her lips finding mine again. “You are my mate.”

MATESSSS

“If I am to die, then my legacy will live on through you,” he hissed, his fingers twitching. I lunged, trying to douse the flame he cast, but I missed and it came speeding towards me. No, not me. The jar. The fire slammed into it, shattering the glass and my Lion spilled out of it, the ghostly form of it like smoke pouring across the snow, still glowing that golden glow. But it was fading. Already dimmer, losing light by the second. “No!” I roared, dropping to my knees, trying to gather it in my hands, bringing it to my chest and feeling its essence swirling around in my palms.

Omfg no

“Please stay. Don’t go. Don’t leave me,” I pleaded, cupping the shimmering smoke in my hands and watching the life fade out of it. A vital part of me would die with it and I would never be whole again. “I can’t let you go.”

My Lion glimmered, its glow growing fainter and fainter until it was nothing but smoke, evaporating into the freezing air. My hands shook as I tried to grasp at the emptiness in its wake, but there was nothing there. It was gone. The absence of it was terrifying, its loss a pain I couldn’t bear to accept.

Im sobbing

A shimmer of silver light made me turn my arm over, finding my mate mark gleaming on my wrist. A ragged breath left me as I touched it, the silver glow turning molten gold, flaring to life and making my heart thunder in my chest. That flood of light washed along my skin, dousing me in its beauty and making me gasp in confusion as it sank into my blood. The light of the moon slid into my chest and I could have sworn it was stitching the pieces of my broken soul back together, weaving something utterly beautiful into my being. With a feel of rippling, heated liquid, something settled inside me and I shivered at the sensation of my Lion reuniting with my body, the power tumbling through me, giving me a head rush. I glanced up at the moon in shock, sensing her watching me and a thanks parted my lips in a heady groan. She had done this, granted me this gift and allowed my Lion to return to me. I could feel how easy it would be to shift, to return to that incredible, natural form of mine and let it free at long last.

WAIT OMG

I was made anew, reborn as a beast that was built from the man I had once been as well as the man I had become. A man who belonged to that stunning creature out there in the snow from now until eternity.

VAMPLION

My teeth sank deep into his shoulder and I whirled around, hurling him from me, the roar of a Lion echoing through my blood as my eyes fell on my mate in his shifted form. Roary roared again, shaking his mane of stunning, dark hair before breaking into a run, his eyes locked on the screaming, crying Vard who was trying to crawl away through the snow.

YESSSSSSZZZVUCSF

Both Lion and Vampire at once, two Orders housed in one Fae.

Holy shit thats so cool

He leapt at Vard, his teeth sinking through flesh and bone, the screams of the bastardo who had caused him so much pain and suffering falling to silence at last as his head was torn free of his body and hurled away into the heaped snow beside us.

BYE BITCH

“Hi,” I wheezed, waving up at them. “Ah shit. I knew I was forgetting something,” Sin said, glancing at the rubble of the tower which he had clearly taken part in destroying with his fire. Rosalie smacked him on the bicep. “For fuck’s sake,” she hissed. “Didn’t hear you mentioning it, love,” Ethan muttered. “That’s because…” she faltered, looking at me with an apologetic expression on her face. “I’m a total stronzo apparently. Sorry, Hastings. But I knew you were too tough to be taken out by a little tower tumbling down.”

Dude jack get away from these assholes

brows dragged together at the sight I found waiting for me. My inked moon was glowing silver, as bright as a shimmering coin. The moonlight was pouring over us from above and as I looked up at the celestial being who had so many secrets hidden in her hat, the truth of what she had just offered us became starkly clear. My tattoo was changing, and Rosalie tugged up her shirt, revealing the very same mark curling around her hip bone.

Yay!!!!!!!

“They’re here!” Sin squealed, half hiding behind the curtain as he stared down the drive, shimmying in and out of sight, then pressing his full face to the window. “Real subtle,” Rosa laughed. “I’m not going for subtle, I’m going for unnerving,” Sin said, flapping the curtain like the wing of a bird. “I’ll keep your Pops on his toes.” I smiled, happy to find out how unsettled Sin could make my father.

Despite Sin’s more sadistic tendencies, him and Leon seemed to be on a wavelength that made me realise they were pretty similar people.

100009090%

Our family had grown to include seven kids at this point and none of us seemed inclined to slow down in adopting more.

Jesus

Sin snatched the book, gazing at the words hungrily and my smile lifted as he started reading it. He had been learning along with the kids these past years and I was kinda proud of him.

Ill cry my eyes out

He was the kind of father that wore socks with his sandals and carried kids supplies around in a pink backpack that was covered in glittery moons.

Ofc he is

I swiped at bubbles as Sin let out another stream of them and he beat his wings, ready to take flight. Cain leapt onto his back with Gianna locked tight against his side and Eloin ran to climb up with them, snuggling close to the once-grumpy Vampire who rarely looked unhappy these days.

Im so sad

(I meannnn, never say never because we have Tharix, RJ, Taya, the spares, the future Heirs and plenty of other lil’ Fae babies whispering ideas in our ears but for now, we are done!)

Please give me more!!!!!!!!