The Rise of Promise, page 1
THE RISE OF PROMISE
(THE WOLVES OF PROMISE FALLS, BOOK 2)
A SPINOFF SERIES FROM OATH OF BANE
By T. S. JOYCE
The Rise of Promise
Copyright © 2022 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2022, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: April 2022
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Editor: Alyxandra Miller
Other Books in This Series
The Fall of Promise (Book 1)
The Blood or Promise (Book 3) Coming May 2022
Contents
Copyright
Other Books in This Series
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Up Next in this Series
Newsletter Sign-Up
More Series from this Author
For More from this Author
About the Author
Chapter One
Tonight, Stark Wulfson was a hunter.
Scratch that. Stark was a hunter every night, but tonight he was stalking something very different than his usual prey in the woods. Tonight, he was hunting his ex-Alpha.
Tessa Hoda should’ve left town when the new Alpha, Daylen, had told her to. Yet here she was sauntering into Zaps Bar and Grill, dressed in an oversize hoodie with the hood up, looking as suspicious as a cunning she-wolf could look. She tossed a look behind her before she opened the front door of the bar, but she wouldn’t recognize his truck. Why? Because he’d traded in his Camaro, his baby, for this diesel truck to haul the new home he’d just bought himself.
Tessa disappeared inside, and that was his cue.
Stark slipped out of his truck and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. It was a warm night as spring had officially sprung in Leadville, Colorado, but putting his hands in his pockets was a habit.
As he made his way around to the back door, he scented the air. If Tessa’s footprints weren’t clear as day in the mud around the side of the building, the smell of her perfume would’ve been a dead giveaway. She’d tried to get in the back way, but her problem was her social skills. You see, Tessa was hated, and justly, but Stark? He could charm the pants off a nun. It was his gift.
Plus, he knew the people who worked here. Kind of.
The back door was locked, as he expected it to be, so he rang the buzzer. It took a good forty-five seconds before the peephole-window opened. All he could see was the top of a head of brunette hair. It had stripes of blonde in it now, but he recognized the part, and the voice as she said, “Go around the front.”
“Lyndi, it’s me,” Stark murmured.
Lyndi stood up on her tiptoes and glared at him. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were damp.
“Whoa,” he uttered, shocked at her disheveled appearance. Lyndi was always put together. “Did you splash water on your face?”
“No. I’m crying. Go away.”
“Ew.” And Stark considered it—going away. He looked longingly to the parking lot where his new rig sat right at the curb, ready to book it to Main Street and back into the mountains where he belonged.
But…
“Tessa’s here.”
The door unlocked with an echoing click, and Lyndi pulled it open. In a rush, she ran her knuckles over her cheeks to dry them. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Why is she still in town?”
“Hell if I know. She’s been poking around all of Daylen and Denver’s favorite spots, and last night she got bold enough to come into Daylen’s territory. I could smell her wolf all over those woods when I woke up this morning.”
“Maybe she’s here for a drink,” Lyndi muttered, her shoulders slumped.
“More likely she’s here to fuck with you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re Denver’s sister, and it’s a way to get to Daylen.” Stark narrowed his eyes. “Without telling me all your girl-shit, which I don’t care about at all, what’s wrong with your leaking eyeballs?”
“Oh, you know. Just falling apart.” She threw her arms into the air and led the way down the hallway to a storage room. “Everything’s on fire, but I’ll survive. I’m very tough.”
“Great. Well, if you need anything, don’t ask me. I don’t do emotions.” He gave her a little salute and stalked toward the bar area to see what Tessa was up to.
“Stark?”
“No,” he said over his shoulder.
“If you see Denver tonight, could you have her call me back?”
Stark frowned and stopped in his tracks, then turned slowly. “She isn’t answering you?”
Tears streamed down Lyndi’s cheeks and her face crumpled as she slumped back against the wall. “I really need her tonight, but I think she’s out with Daylen.” She lifted her gaze to him, and her eyes were blazing the gold of her fox. He hadn’t seen this much heartbreak on a face in a while.
“You need to put on sunglasses,” he muttered, gesturing to her face.
She just stared at him like she hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
Stark shoved his hands in his pockets again, and cast a glance toward the bar before looking back to Lyndi. “Look, maybe you should leave work early—”
“I’m not working tonight.”
“Oh. Then why are you here?”
“Because I didn’t want to be alone.”
“Fuck a bucket,” he growled as he canted his head. “Lyndi, get your ass to that bathroom and clean up your fuckin’ face—”
“You’re being rude—”
“You need rude. You can’t fall apart.” He closed the distance between them and gripped her arms, leveled her with his gaze. “You’re Lyndi motherfucking Mosley. Say it.”
“What?”
“Repeat it. I’m Lyndi motherfucking Mosley.”
“I’m Lyndi mother…”
“…fucking Mosley, and I’m a badass. I’m a fox shifter. I could eat any one of those pitiful little humans in the next room. I’m Goliath! Repeat it!”
“I’m badass, and a fox shifter, and I eat people.”
“Oh God, that’s good enough. Look, you’re hot. Too hot to be crying like this. And what have you done to your hair?” he demanded, lifting a streak of the platinum blond between his fingers.
“I was spiraling and I thought highlights would make me feel better, but now I look like a skunk!” She was on the verge of wailing.
“A hot skunk. Repeat it!”
“I’m…” she frowned and swallowed hard, sniffed, then said, “I’m a hot skunk.”
“Now go wipe those tears off your face, get your life together, and come back out to the bar. I will have one of those god-awful blended mango margaritas waiting for you, because there isn’t a thing in the world a margarita can’t fix. For girls. A margarita would make me yak, and probably suck my dick up into me and create a vag—”
“How do you know what kind of drinks I drink?” Her pert little nose was all wrinkled up, her lashes had water on them, her eyes were the bright hue of molten gold, and her cheeks were all pink. She really was a pretty little skunk…errr…fox.
Honesty was best. “I pay attention to everything. I have to. It’s how I was built.”
There was a question in her eyes, but before she could ask him something he wasn’t ready to answer, he played defense and asked her a question instead. “Why aren’t you afraid of Tessa? I told you she’s here, and you don’t even smell scared. Why not?”
Lyndi shrugged up her shoulders and told him, “I’m not afraid of anything anymore.”
And then she turned and made her way to the bathroom, leaving Stark to wonder what the hell had happened to the little fox to kill her fear of the wolf.
Stark pulled his phone out of his back pocket and opened a text to his Alpha’s mate, Denver.
Come get your sister, she’s at Zaps dancing on a bar top. Send.
There. His duty was done. He wasn’t a babysitter for some broken-hearted, bleeding-heart, emotionally-charged woman. Didn’t matter how pretty she was.
He would rather stick his pecker in a fire ant mound than ever see tears again.
Chapter Two
Her hair really did look
Lyndi slathered on another layer of foundation to cover the red in her cheeks, and blinked several times, like that would get rid of puffiness. She looked like hot garbage in a dumpster that was rolling down a hill on fire.
No wonder Jake had become so uninterested in improving himself for her.
A snarl rattled up her throat, and she swallowed it down as the bathroom door opened. A twenty-something blonde smiled at her and disappeared into a stall. It was Friday night, and she actually had the day off for mental health reasons, per Gary the Bartender, and yet here she was.
Why? Because her job was literally the only thing that made sense in her life right now, and she needed an anchor to keep her from floating up into space and losing her way completely.
Maybe her hair would look better in a ponytail. Nope. A messy bun hid the bad dye job a little better. She would worry about fixing it tomorrow, before her tattoo appointment and getting her nails painted glossy black.
She’d never spiraled quite like this before.
The desperation to change herself into someone entirely different for a little while was overwhelming. She just wanted to escape the discomfort of her own skin.
Stark had seen her in the worst moment of her life. Stark, of all people.
He was the most careless, most dangerous, most aggressively annoying, most unstable, most antagonizing, most obnoxiously hot werewolf in existence. Now, she’d never met all the werewolves in existence, but she felt pretty safe in feeling like he was the gnarliest.
Her mortification would be infinite tomorrow, when she felt anything but the thousand-pound glugging broken heart in her chest cavity.
One more layer of mascara, and she put her emergency makeup kit back into her purse.
Boobs out, chin up. Your life isn’t over. It’s just going to look very different from today on.
Jake had really done it.
She was the biggest failure in the fox shifter community, and by tomorrow night, everyone would know it.
Maybe she should become a hermit and live in the mountains in a hidden shack, raise baby goats, throw her cell phone into Promise Falls, and lose all contact with society.
Starting tomorrow, she was determined to do just that, but for tonight? She was going to do her best to take a breath and absorb the happy chatter around her.
She shouldered her purse and pushed open the heavy, swinging bathroom door, then tromped down the hallway, forcing her chin up higher.
As Stark had promised, there was a mango margarita sitting on the bar top, but someone had placed a rubber film over it. She sat down on the stool right in front of it and cocked her head. Was that a…?
“Who put a condom on my drink?” she asked Gary the Bartender. His real name wasn’t Gary, but Denver had called him that so many times, the name had stuck in Lyndi’s head.
Gary was behind the bar pouring a line of shots with a deep frown on his dark features. He twitched his head toward the back corner, where Stark sat next to Tessa Hoda, embroiled in some deep conversation that had both of them looking pissed.
Gary told her, “That guy put one on your drink and told me it was so I don’t drug you. I tried to explain I’m the one who made the drink and that I’m friends with you, and you are my boss, and I’m not the type to drug girls, but he growled like an animal and called me a ‘waffle’ and walked away, and that’s the story of how your margarita got a magnum condom over the top of it.” Gary scoffed. “Magnum.”
She popped the rubber ring off the lip of the glass and put it on top of the packaging trash he’d left behind.
“He probably left that trash there so you could see the size of the condom. Magnum,” Gary scoffed again.
“He probably didn’t,” she uttered, reaching for a straw. “More likely he’s just messy.”
“You know that guy?”
“Yep.” She took a long drag of the margarita and let it fill her mouth. “There’s no alcohol in this, is there?” she asked suspiciously. It tasted too good.
“Nope. He ordered you a non-alcoholic one. Said something about ‘skunks don’t spiral well.’”
Lyndi snorted a laugh. Okay, that had caught her off guard.
She took another sip and twisted back around to study Stark’s profile. He looked different than he had when he lived here before. He’d only recently moved back to Leadville after two years of being away on some mystery mission with the rest of his wolf Pack, but that time away had done him good. He used to have shaggy blond hair that covered most of his face, but now he had shaved the sides and wore the mohawk in a topknot that accentuated his chiseled cheekbones and bright-blue eyes. He wore a burgundy T-shirt over black work pants, and boots that looked well-worn. The strong curves of his shoulders stretched the thin material of his shirt, and dayum. Maybe the Lost Wolf, as the entire shifter community called him, had been working out more. His lips were twisted into a snarl with whatever Tessa was saying to him. He cast Lyndi a quick glance, like he knew she was ogling him. She felt busted thinking about how hot he was, so she looked away as fast as she could. That flash of blue in his eyes had been so bright. He must’ve been very angry at Tessa.
The sound of Tessa’s chair scooting backward hard rang against Lyndi’s oversensitive ears, and her shoes thudded against the floor as she strode closer and closer. Don’t react, her inner fox said softly. The animal had been quiet since she’d heard what Jake was about to do to her.
She could smell the wolf and the fur and the dominance, and it grew overpowering as Tessa settled on the stool next to her. “Lucky little fox,” she purred. “You got yourself a little guard dog tonight.”
Lyndi slid a glare to the ex-Alpha of the Sheridan Pack. “Look, I’ve had a real shitty day. I don’t have enough patience left in my body for one of your fuckin’ riddles, Tessa. What do you want?”
“For you to give Denver and Daylen a little message for me.”
Shhhhit. “And what is that?” Oh, she already knew the answer. She could see it in that evil she-wolf’s sharp-toothed grin.
Tessa flinched back with a closed fist, and okay. The humans were in for a show tonight. Tessa was fast, but Lyndi’s fox reflexes were something else, and she was fueled by being a woman scorned and then targeted for no good reason.
She lurched out of the way of Tessa’s incoming fist and blasted a punch across the woman’s face so hard that Tessa went flying off the bar stool, and Lyndi went off balance too.
Her chair clattered to the floor as Tessa stood.
Gary’s yelling and Stark’s booming laugh covered the growl that rattled from Tessa as she stood slowly, facing off with Lyndi.
“You should remember your place,” Tessa growled.
“Pretty sure she just showed you her place,” Stark said, hands on his knees as he huffed laughter. “Oh God. I’m crying. Am I crying?” He wiped his fingers under his dancing eyes. “I’ve never cried before. That was awesome. Is your nose broken?”
Tessa’s eyes blazed gold, and she bunched her muscles to jump at Lyndi. In that second, everything changed. The clatter of yelling bar patrons morphed to a roaring sound in her ears, and she braced to take Tessa’s impact. Time slowed for a single moment, and she could see it all so clearly. Tessa reaching for her.
Stark’s smile had faded, and he placed himself in front of Lyndi. Tessa’s hand stretched out, and her nails clawed across Lyndi’s cheek as Stark absorbed the impact with such force, the floors shook and the front windows shattered. Their collision was like a bomb going off.
Lyndi flinched, but when she opened her eyes again, Stark and Tessa were gone.
Just…gone.
All that remained were the townies hunkered down with matching looks of baffled confusion as they looked around.
Gary whispered, “What the fuck?”
The front door swung closed, and Lyndi bolted for the back exit.
Stark wouldn’t fight Tessa in the front parking lot where people could see. Probably. He was smarter than that. Also probably.
He would take her somewhere out of sight, and there were woods behind Zaps.
Lyndi hopped over the stairs and sprinted for the tree line. Tessa was an ex-Alpha and horrifically dominant. If Stark was in trouble, it had something to do with Lyndi, and she couldn’t leave him to Tessa’s teeth without backup.
