Hear my call the wolves.., p.1
Hear My Call (The Wolves' Challenge Book 1), page 1
Hear My Call
The Wolves' Challenge - Book 1
Yvette Bostic
Copyright © 2021 by Yvette Bostic
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Dedication
1. Jess
2. Garret
3. Jess
4. Garret
5. Jess
6. Garret
7. Jess
8. Garret
9. Jess
10. Garret
11. Jess
12. Garret
13. Jess
14. Garret
15. Jess
16. Jess
17. Garret
18. Jess
19. Jess
20. Garret
21. Jess
22. Garret
23. Chapter 23
More from Yvette
I’d like to start by saying, while there are some references to places and events, any similarities to specific people are purely coincidental.
I had a blast with this story! The characters completely ran wild and took over everything after the first chapter. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
I want to say thank you to the people who’ve helped me throughout this process. My husband has been my encouragement, as well as the perfect sounding board and first-draft proof reader. I could not have done it without his positive attitude and patience.
Thank you to my wonderful editor, Hannah, at Between the Lines Editorial (www.btleditorial.com). She is an extremely talented young woman who’s also a joy to work with.
I also want to thank the talented young woman from Infinity Designs who created the cover art for the series.
Thank you to my very gracious beta readers. Your comments and opinions about the characters, events and time lines make all the difference!
And last but not least, thank you to my readers! You’re the reason I continue to write.
Okay, one more thing before I go -
The Wolves' Challenge is a spin-off from The Call of the Elements Series. While you don't have to read Call of the Elements to enjoy The Wolves' Challenge, I highly recommend it. Several of the characters are introduced in Call of the Elements.
Chapter one
Jess
I slammed the hood of the old Ford 250 I’d been working on, listening to the engine rumble just like it should. I loved being a mechanic. Taking something broken and making it work again always felt good. Having that accomplishment at the end of the day made it a whole lot easier to walk into my broken home each night. Something I could never fix. Not just because it was an old-as-dirt trailer either. No, nothing that easy. My emotional home was in pieces, and there was nothing I could do about it.
So for now, I’d get this old truck back on the road for a paying customer.
“Take it out for a test drive, Danny!” I called to the guy sitting in the driver’s seat.
Danny’s arm was hanging out the open window, and he gave me a thumbs up. “Sure thing, Jess.”
One of the two bay doors rolled open on squeaky tracks, and the truck slowly inched out. Danny drove it across our gravel parking lot, disappearing around the corner of the building. With the shop being on the edge of town, he had plenty of road for the test drive.
“That your last one?” My boss, Slim, rubbed the back of his neck as he emerged from the shop’s small office. Gray stubble covered his square chin, and a few hairs still attempted to grow on his mostly bald head. He got his nickname because of his tall, lanky body.
“Yep.” I picked up a nearby rag and smeared the oil and dirt from my hands. “Unless you got something else for me.”
“Go home, Jess. Get a shower. Then find someone to spend your evening with.” Slim’s blue eyes narrowed at me like they did every single day. He didn’t approve of my solitary lifestyle. He thought he knew the reasons why I avoided relationships, but he really only knew the lie I’d told him.
“Whatever, old man,” I teased, tossing the dirty rag in the pile with the rest. “I have a standing date with some drywall compound.”
I pushed past him, heading to the office to clock out for the day. He followed me, of course.
“Rejected Danny again.” He didn’t ask; Slim knew I already had.
He pretended like he didn’t eavesdrop on all our conversations, but I knew better. Slim was the father I never had. Even though I’d moved out of his house a couple years ago, he still treated me like the daughter he never had.
“He’s not my type.” I dropped my card into the old-fashioned time stamp machine and waited for the inevitable ‘pop,’ trying hard to ignore the stern expression wrinkling the skin around Slim’s eyes.
“That’s a load a shit and you know it. That boy sees past all your bullshit and still likes ya.” My boss leaned against the old metal desk behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t keep shuttin’ people out just cuz they care about you.”
I ground my teeth together to keep from saying something I’d regret later. Slim was just as guilty as me. Both of our worlds had fallen apart the day my mom disappeared. Neither of us let anyone else back in. His reasons revolved around love. Mine were so much more complicated. It didn’t change the fact that we isolated ourselves.
Mom was my reason for living. Breathing. The sunshine in my chaotic life.
When we showed up in this remote town in the middle of the northwestern Texas plains fifteen years ago, Slim didn’t stand a chance. Me and Mom ‘people watched’ for three whole days before she picked the tall, lanky man who sold her a used Chevy Impala.
Mom could see people’s souls. Literally. She always said Slim’s was pure goodness. I never doubted her. He took us in and cared for us at a time when we needed him most. Most men would’ve got one look at my thirteen-year-old self and left Mom at the curb. Not Slim.
We’d moved more times than I could remember before stopping here. We’d been running from Mom’s past for years before settling in Texas. Each time, her ability to see the evil in someone’s soul saved us. I never realized hers was a paranormal talent until I hit puberty at fourteen. Everything in my already screwed up life became even worse. I found out I wasn’t human and neither was my mother.
In hindsight, I realized my age and transition were why we stopped running.
Mom spent the next four years telling me about the life we ran from.
Sort of.
I realize now she’d left out a ton of details. But at the time, I fought her like the rebellious teenager I was. I hated what I’d become and hated the secrets that came with it. I could never be a normal girl with a normal life. Not that I’d ever had a normal life the way we moved every few months, but after my fourteenth birthday, the choice was taken from me completely. I’d always be the outcast, living in a human world but never part of it.
Of course, Slim knew nothing about who we really were. He fell in love with a beautiful woman and her rebellious daughter. He was still heartbroken today, even though Mom left us years ago.
I smiled at him now like his comment meant nothing. “When you bring home a woman, I’ll think about taking Danny to dinner.”
Slim’s already narrowed eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. We’d had this conversation too many times. Before he could respond, Danny walked through the door.
“Damn, Slim. My stilted love life’s been your fault all this time?”
Danny’s wide smile eased the tension in the room. So did the dimples on each side of his upturned lips. The smear of grease smudged across his cheek didn’t take away from his rugged good looks. He was a year younger than my twenty-eight but didn’t look a day past twenty-two. I constantly told him to grow a beard so he’d quit getting carded at the bar. He claimed the girls couldn’t fawn over his dimples if he covered them with facial hair. He was probably right.
“Yep. It’s all Slim’s fault,” I quipped, grabbing my phone and keys from the tray with my name on it. “How’s the truck? Any noises that aren’t supposed to be there?”
“Runs good, just like I knew it would. You never let anything leave the shop broke.” Danny stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the door. “This Friday’s the thirteenth and a full moon. The perfect excuse for letting me buy you a drink at Keith’s Bar & Grill. You can claim you weren’t in your right mind.”
I stuffed my phone in my pocket, deliberately avoiding his brown eyes and boyish grin. For all the same reasons he’d just mentioned, I wouldn’t be in town Friday night. I’d be running wild across Slim’s two-hundred-acre ranch. They didn’t know my real reasons, and I wasn’t fixin’ to tell them.
“Sorry, dude. You know I’d just drink you under the table. Besides, I already got a date.”
Both men laughed. I barely refrained from rolling my eyes.
“A date with a skill saw doesn’t count, Jess,” my boss said. “That trailer ain’t going nowhere, and neither is the trim you want to put in the living room.”
“Whatever,” I snapped, tired of this conversation and the two men pressing me to do something I could never do. Especially on a full moon. “Get out of my way.” I pushed past Danny, rushed through the garage, and headed straight for my own beat-up truck.
I could feel their eyes on my back as I went but couldn
My mother’s words echoed through my mind as I climbed into the driver’s seat. They’re human and we aren’t. An honest, open relationship with Danny could never happen, which was why I continued to reject him.
My truck’s engine roared to life, shaking rust from the old frame. I cringed as it ground into first gear. I needed to quit putting off the repairs to my own vehicle.
Shania Twain bellowed from my speakers as I rolled down the windows and pulled out onto the two-lane country road. But she couldn’t drown out the memories of my mom now that they’d been dredged up.
“Shit.”
I turned up the radio and focused on the acres of pasture rolling by, trying to force visions of my mom’s delicate face from my mind. Just like every other time, I failed miserably. She was there for every part of my life … until she wasn’t. Once she revealed her magic and mine, she told me everything. She was fae and my sperm donor was a wolf shifter, making me something else entirely. I could shift, too, but my wolf was so much more than it should’ve been.
When I got home one afternoon in the middle of my senior year of high school and she was gone, I knew why. Her past had caught up with her, and she ran to keep me safe. To draw away the monsters who hunted her. And I waited for them to figure out she had a daughter.
I probably should’ve moved when I graduated high school, but I didn’t know where to go. Slim didn’t know our past, and I could never tell him, but I couldn’t make myself leave him either. So here I was a decade later, tempting fate.
My old trailer came into view thirty minutes later, just as the sun set behind me. Someone had painted the front half a horrible shade of aqua blue. They must have run out of paint because the back half was covered in a faded mustard yellow. But the roof didn’t leak, and I got the plumbing and electric working.
I’d paid for the twenty-year-old mobile home, and Slim paid to have the septic and water well dug. He argued the entire time, insisting I could just stay with him. His old farmhouse had more than enough room, but my need for privacy overrode his need for company. I’d always tried to hide my wolf from him, and it worked until he caught me sneaking in the house at sunrise after a full moon. He didn’t catch my wolf, just my not-really-human self.
He’d assumed I spent the night with Danny who lived a few miles away. I couldn’t tell him I spent the night hunting and howling at the moon. So, I let him believe I finally lost my virginity at twenty-two, then started saving up my money to buy the first semi-livable trailer I could find. We parked it against a tree line on the north side of his property, out of sight from the road and the house.
Since then, I’d been fixing it up. It kept my hands busy and sometimes distracted my mind. It also provided lots of privacy. It was ugly as sin, but it was mine.
I parked the truck and hopped out. A prickle of unease settled between my shoulder blades, almost like someone was watching me. It gave me goosebumps despite the hot August air. I left my phone in the truck in case I needed to leave in a hurry. After a couple seconds of scanning the trees behind my house, I opened the front door. I never locked it, because really, how many people wanted to cross twenty acres of pasture to get to my broke down trailer?
I should’ve locked the damn door.
Two people sat on the worn leather sofa in my dark living room. I stood in the doorway, giving them a perfect silhouette of my wide, not-at-all-feminine shoulders and almost six-foot-tall frame. The prickle of unease turned into a sharp warning to get the hell out. They were not here to sell me encyclopedias.
“Welcome home,” a husky male voice said. “Come in and have a seat.”
I laughed because what else could I do?
“How nice of you to invite me into my own house,” I said, not moving from my spot. “How about you get the hell out? I don’t like company, especially when I didn’t ask for it.”
Neither of my guests budged from my horribly uncomfortable couch. My mind ran through all the possible scenarios and reasons for them being here, the most troubling being my mother. Were these the people looking for her? Had they found her and then discovered me? It seemed most likely.
“What do you want?” I asked, still not moving from my spot at the door.
“You,” the man replied. “Why else would I be in this horrible trailer with no air conditioning in the middle of this awful pasture, sitting on furniture more suited for the garbage bin?”
He did not just insult my palace! Okay, it was a dumpy trailer and I’d gotten my sofa from a yard sale, but it was mine, damn it!
“You’re welcome to carry your ass back down the highway and leave my dumpy trailer behind,” I snapped. “I’m not keeping you here.”
I swung my arm and pointed at the driveway with a frown. How did they get here? My old truck was the only vehicle sitting in the yard.
Movement from the ever-darkening tree line drew my attention, and fear joined the nagging, uneasy feeling that hadn’t gone away. Six more men emerged from the forest dressed in blue jeans and button up shirts like they were on their way to a casual dinner. They didn’t make a sound as they crossed the brittle grass in my yard. Any suspicion they were human flew out the window when the closest one smiled at me. Long fangs protruded from his upper jaw, and his eyes flashed red.
“Holy shit.” I spun on my heels, slamming the front door on the faces of the two in my living room.
I didn’t make it to the corner of the trailer before a strong set of arms wrapped around my shoulders and forced me to the ground. My wolf stirred at the violence, and we both growled. My body pulsed with a flood of magic rushing through my veins, ready to shift. My muscles tensed, and my wolf howled with pleasure. We’d kill these bastards and bask in the glory of their deaths!
Or not.
A soft click and cool metal on my wrist acted like the door I’d just slammed on my visitors’ faces. My magic swelled against the sudden barrier, threatening to burn me alive if it couldn’t release. My feral instincts battered my thundering heart, confused and angry at the sudden prison.
My capturer picked me up, his arms still banded around me like a steel trap. I slammed my head into his shoulder, but he didn’t move. My booted foot collided with his shins, and he laughed at me. I opened my mouth and screamed with fury, dying to let loose the magic still trapped inside.
Chapter two
Garret
An air-piercing scream echoed across the pasture, followed by a concussive blast that slammed into the trees between my team and the run-down trailer our target called home. I fell on my ass from the impact and barely held on to the 9-millimeter pistol in my hand.
“Fuck! What the hell was that?” It couldn’t have been the target. She was just a shifter.
I glanced over my shoulder and found my team sprawled on the ground behind me with the same puzzled look on their faces.
“Beta and Charlie Teams move out,” I ordered, swiveling back to the vampires as they jumped to their feet as well. Maybe they weren’t all vampires like I thought. The only bloodsucker not on the ground still held onto the target. “Looks like six more joined in—eight total. Leave no witnesses.”
“Roger that, Alpha,” Noah’s voice clipped in my earpiece before he and Mickey moved across the field.
“Copy, Alpha,” Ruby mimicked as she and Tanner followed close behind.
“Oliver, I need eyes.”
My earpiece chattered for a second before Oliver answered. “Copy, Alpha. Looks like eight, all converging on the target.”
“Copy. Is the truck ready?” I asked, sprinting to catch up with Ruby.
“Yes, sir,” Oliver replied. “Waiting a half mile from the farmhouse for pickup.”
I didn’t answer. They’d be ready to roll out as soon as we arrived. I just hoped we wouldn’t have to initiate Plan B once we got there. Who was I kidding? We always had to initiate Plan B and sometimes even Plan C.
