Wicked Wolves, page 1
Wicked Wolves
Rejected Mates Paranormal Omegaverse
Wolf Reborn
Book 1
Lucy Auburn
Contents
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Author’s Note
1. Rina
2. Rina
3. Rina
4. Rina
5. Rina
6. Rina
7. Rina
8. Rina
9. Rina
10. Rina
11. Rina
12. Rina
13. Rina
14. Thale
15. Rina
16. Rina
17. Rina
18. Rina
19. Rina
20. Rina
21. Rina
22. Rina
23. Rina
24. Adar
25. Rina
26. Rina
27. Rina
28. Rina
29. Rina
30. Rina
31. Rina
32. Rina
33. Rina
34. Rina
35. Rina
36. Everett
37. Everett
38. Everett
39. Rina
40. Rina
41. Rina
42. Lucian
43. Rina
44. Rina
45. Rina
46. Thale
47. Rina
48. Rina
49. Rina
50. Rina
51. Rina
52. Adar
53. Rina
54. Rina
55. Rina
56. Rina
57. Rina
58. Adar
59. Everett
60. Everett
61. Rina
62. Rina
63. Rina
64. Rina
65. Rina
66. Rina
67. Rina
68. Rina
69. Rina
70. Rina
71. Lucian
72. Lucian
73. Rina
74. Rina
75. Rina
76. Lucian
77. Rina
78. Rina
79. Rina
80. Rina
81. Rina
82. Rina
83. Rina
Excerpt: Rejected Exile
Also by Lucy Auburn
About the Author
Copyright 2023 Lucy Auburn.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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Author’s Note
Wicked Wolves does not have violent scenes between the heroine and her mates, but it does contain violence, including sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised.
Chapter 1
Rina
He touches me with broad, calloused hands that coax pleasure from the unlikeliest of places. His voice is deep and full of wit, turning a phrase into a joke at a moment's notice.
The steady beat of his heart is as relentless as the ocean's waves, thrumming against a broad, massive chest. And his kisses are full of scorching desire for me, so hot and lustful that my thighs burn at his touch.
I toss and turn, dreaming of him. His hands, his voice, his heart, his desire.
I feel his touch. I twine my hands in his silky hair and kiss his hungry lips.
But with each kiss he changes. He's tall and muscular, with dark skin. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Deep brown eyes.
He stands patiently and still by a cliffside—he screams in joyful abandon as he jumps off the cliff—he fights and rages, he sits and waits, he jokes, he changes.
My lover. The First Alpha. He used to be only one thing. But as time went on, as I grew up and reached the age where my Mating Ceremony would be completed, his steadiness became this. An ever-changing, constantly confusing image of a man.
A man who rejected me. The pain of that surges within me, makes my heart pulse and twist like a broken thing.
I know that I'm dreaming, but the agony of heartbreak is real. I don't want to greet the waking world.
For a moment, he settles. Sitting in an open clearing in the woods with his back to me, he braces his hands on his knees and quietly hums.
I approach him from behind. The twigs and leaves of the forest are familiar to my bare skin. It's easy to curve my feet around them so I walk quietly.
When I'm close enough to see the shell of his ears and smell the sharp, masculine smell of him, I ask my mate, "What is your name?"
He turns his head.
His eyes are dark and empty.
Looking up at me, he sneers in disgust.
I back up, heart pulsing, and shift into my wolf form. She comes to me easily: small, with grey fur. Dainty and useless in a fight, she's fast and agile, capable of turning on a dime.
I run from my mate, racing through the woods, careless of the twigs and leaves now. I push myself to my limits, running as fast as I can. My lungs burn and my paws ache.
But I can hear him just behind me.
He's faster than I am. He's so large and strong that he outpaces me quickly. With a snarl, he leaps on me, his wolf form a black blur of violence.
Teeth sink into my neck and tear. I scream as my belly is ripped open. Reaching into my pack's bonds, I cry out for support.
They don't come. They've left me, and they'll never return.
It's all my fault. I did this to myself. The First Alpha rejected me, and now I deserve to die.
Going limp, I stare up into my mate's dark eyes and let it happen.
He tears me to pieces.
Burning in agony, I wake up—and stare into a woman's unfamiliar face. Forest green eyes with a brown chip in the right eye. Maroon hair. A scar on one side of her neck.
My vision swims. Her face blurs in a sea of tears that fill my eyes.
I feel panic deep inside me, leftover from the terrible dream. My pain has followed me into the real world.
For a moment, I can't remember what happened to cause the pain.
Then it all comes crashing back, and I can barely breathe, it hurts so badly.
"Caterina Birch, this is your moment." Morgan turned to me with pride in his eyes, raising his hands above his head. "Your pack and your family celebrates you. Five years ago, the First Alpha chose you to be his mate.
"Tonight, he chooses a sacrifice from you to bind your souls forever. In exchange, you will be vaulted and powerful, and the pack will live through endless summers."
I expected almost anything from my Mating Ceremony. After all, most of the First Alpha's sacrificial mates lose something when they're tied to him for the rest of their natural lives.
The sweet sound of a singing voice. A strong sense of smell. The ability to see clearly, or even read and write.
In exchange for being his mate, we have something taken from us. Something real and valuable.
We receive freedom and strength in return.
And a second wolf form: that of a strong, jet black werewolf with a crescent star on its forehead and a white-dipped front right paw, said to be the First Alpha's form.
That was what I always looked forward to the most. My wolf form is so small that the pack healer once thought I was sickly. My mother brought me to our coven more than once, hoping for a potion or spell to cure me, but there was never any explanation.
I wasn't strong or big like the other wolves my age, so I decided to be agile instead. Speed, after all, is a skill. While the big wolves tussled and played, I learned all I could about running quickly. How and when to breathe, what muscles push my body forward in either form, when to use endurance and when to favor speed.
None of that stopped me from wanting that second wolf form. Finally, my day came. I turned twenty-one years old, and the stars aligned for a Mating Ceremony. So I stepped into the circle, surrounded by my pack, our coven, and of course, faced by our alpha.
He was supposed to come to me in his spirit form and bless me. It's something he's done for every generation of Mountain Pack wolves. His last mate was there, older and grey, her eyes encouraging despite what she lost to mate with him.
I waited for her to see his spirit first—the last mate always sees him approach his new mate. She gives her blessing, and her sacrifice is undone. For our last mate, that would mean regaining her hearing. Everything she said to me indicated that she was eager to listen to music again, hear the sound of her pack's howls, and raise her voice in joy
Instead of seeing her eyes widen in recognition as our alpha finished the ceremony, I saw her startle in fear.
Then she began to scream.
For long seconds, the pack didn't know what to do. Then we sprang into action.
Our witches raised their arms and began to chant protection spells. Most of our warriors assumed an outside threat, like lone wolves or vampires, had appeared. They shifted and ran outside the circle in search of the intruder.
But the threat came from inside the Mating Circle.
And he had his eyes set solely on me.
I saw him moments after the last mate did. Her screams still wrenched the air as he shimmered into being in front of me.
His eyes were black as darkest night. He moved like a predator, as if his wolf was alive beneath his skin.
And the way he looked at me.
It wasn't how the First Alpha looked at me in my dreams.
It wasn't like that at all.
"How are you feeling?" A woman's voice draws me out of my miserable memories. "What you've just been through is difficult. I'm surprised you're awake at all, to be honest."
My voice croaks as I speak. "I don't want to be."
"I understand that. Sleep is a welcome retreat after going through a trauma."
Peeling open my eyes, I look into the woman's sympathetic face. She's young, maybe a few years older than me. There's a sorrowful look in her eyes, as if she's remembering her own pain.
Meanwhile, I'm trying not to think about mine. Because after the First Alpha approached me with those dark eyes...
I shudder, struggling to sit up. Pain across my middle makes me hiss and drop down again. There's a creaking noise, and I realize with a bit of surprise that I'm not in my bedroom.
"Don't try to move. You're still hurt."
"Where am I?" Looking back and forth, I don't spot anything familiar. I'm in some kind of dark canvas tent with room for two, maybe three people at most, and right now the marooned-hair woman is the only person around. "Who are you?"
"My name is Delilah. I came here from thousands of miles away because your pack needed help," says the woman, bending down to press the back of her hand against my forehead. "You're in a temporary healing tent near your pack's Mating Circle. Apparently your coven of witches tried to move you, but it got worse when they did."
I blink at her. "What got worse?"
A frown crosses her face, and she looks over her shoulder towards the closed tent flaps. "She was supposed to be back by now..."
"Please." I grab her arm and drag myself up into a seating position, ignoring the waves of pain that crash down at the movement. "Tell me what's going on. I remember some of it, but... what happened to me?"
Screaming. Pain. His dark, dark eyes.
Some kind of glowing aura...
"Please stay calm." The woman sighs. "As far as what happened to you... you've been through a trauma, so it's not surprising that your memory has gaps in it. You were rejected at your final mating ceremony."
Her voice is sincere, but all I feel at her words is confusion.
I wasn't rejected; I was chosen.
We all saw the thick silver line leading from my feet to the mountaintop on my sixteenth birthday. I've always known that I was the First Alpha's mate, and it was confirmed on that day, just like my mother and I knew it would be.
Even though the mating thread shimmered with four different colors... even though I sometimes dreamed of four different men...
"I've healed your bonds, but only for now. I'm sorry that I can't do more. The bonds are just all wrong."
I open my mouth to ask why I needed healing and what's wrong—then scream, scrambling away from her.
There's a complete stranger standing behind her, staring right at me.
Chapter 2
Rina
When I blink, the stranger is gone.
He was just there. Tall, with brown skin and eyes, silky red hair, and a strikingly muscular body.
There was annoyance in his eyes. As if I'd displeased him.
"What's wrong?" Delilah jumps to her feet and whirls around, her hands coming up in a defensive position. Magic glows around her, strange and different. "Did you hear something?"
I blush. "No, I... saw someone. But it must've just been part of my dream."
He looked like the First Alpha has in my dreams.
No, he looked like one version of the First Alpha from my dreams. Because for some reason, in the past few months, my mate has been changing.
Shaking my head, I try to relax, wincing at the pain in my body. "I'm sorry you came all this way. I don't even know why you bothered. We have perfectly good healing witches here. Maybe one of them will know why I'm having visions."
Delilah stares at me, then slowly relaxes. "It must just be your fever."
I have so many questions that I want to ask, but before I can ask them, two women come racing into the tent and cram themselves inside.
The first woman is my twenty-two-year-old best friend and Mountain Coven witch Abigail Allegra Shade. Also known as Ali, she's a skinny beanpole with white-blonde hair, fierce brown eyes, and more freckles than there are stars in the sky.
The other, much smaller woman is my mother Talon, who barely looks old enough to have given birth to me. She gave me my five-foot-two height and spunky attitude, though I didn't inherit her envious red hair. Right now she's looking at the back of Delilah's head like she might catch her on fire—something she normally does on accident in the kitchen.
Both are barely inside the tent before being pursued by an aggravated-looking man. He's an unfamiliar werewolf who smells like citrus, bergamot, and cloves. With summer-blue eyes and a brown tan, he's currently glaring generally in my mother's direction.
"Talon, we told you to wait," he says, his voice commanding. "Interfering now could ruin Delilah's weaving magic."
Weaving magic? I've heard of it, but our coven witches said it died out years ago.
"I'm done now, Roarke." Delilah leans forward to kiss him softly, and he almost instantly relaxes. "All the bonds have been fixed, at least for now."
I can't even ask any questions because Ali slips through and kneels beside me.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't able to help you." Ali grabs my hand and squeezes it so tightly that I wince. "I didn't know what was going on. No one did. Laurel didn't want to bother doing anything, so I called Roarke—"
"What do you mean, my daughter isn't cured?" My mother's sharp voice interrupts Ali in the middle of her guilty babbling. "We brought you here to fix this, not give excuses."
"It's exactly as I said." Delilah sounds tired but firm. "I did what I could for the bonds, but there's something wrong at the heart of them. If I had to guess, your Mating Circle has something to do with it."
My mother bristles at this, and I instinctively do as well, though I don't have the energy right now for fighting.
Talon defiantly says, "We're the Mountain Pack. The First Alpha created our Mating Circle. There can't be anything wrong with it. If there were, there'd be something wrong with yours as well. Now get back in there and fix my girl."
Roarke frowns, stepping up to stare down at my mom, clearly protective of his mate. "Delilah has done all she can."
"Actually." Looking over at me, Delilah hesitates. "There is something I can do now that she's awake. It won't fix the bonds, but it might help clarify things."
"Then do it." My mom doesn't even stop to ask me if I'm interested. "Whatever it takes."
Kneeling beside me opposite Ali, Delilah puts her hand on my forehead and looks into my eyes. "I'm going to bring your mating and pack threads to the surface. That may sound like nothing, but they're buried deep now because of the poison. It could hurt—are you sure you want this?"
I glance over at Ali instinctively. She squeezes my hand and nods. Looking at my mother, it's clear she's not going to let me get out of doing this.
"If you think it'll help."
Delilah answers honestly, "I don't know if it will. What I do know is that it could bring up painful memories. So just tap out if needed."
"Okay. I'm ready." I close my eyes, breathing shallowly around the pain in my middle. "Do it."
Delilah chants something in a low, strange voice.
