Wolf Tamer (Moon Kissed Book 2)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Also by Harper A. Brooks

  About the Author

  Wolf Tamer © Copyright 2022 Harper A. Brooks

  Visit my books at https://harperabrooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher/author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  H.A.B. Publications LLC

  Cover Design: Ryn Katryn Book Covers

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  Editor: Words of Advice Editing

  Proofreading: Krista Cook

  Wolf Tamer

  Love is only a distraction, a weakness.

  Tasha failed.

  Her damned feelings got in the way of doing her job, and now, her coven has marked her for death. To stay alive, she has no choice but to turn to the very person she was meant to kill. Reid.

  To make things worse, her witch magic is returning and it’s interfering with her invisibility, something she desperately needs to find out what happened to her sister.

  Hiding Tasha among his pack has Reid questioning his hatred for her kind, while pretending to be her mate has him questioning his own sanity. What happens when fake feelings morph into something more? Something real and dangerous?

  They’re so close to finding out the secrets behind the Redcliff Pack and the Buson witches—so close—but the truth will not only be painful…

  It’ll end up changing everything.

  For my sister, Colie.

  Chapter

  One

  Reid

  They don’t want to just remove me as their alpha. They want to end me.

  Crane confirms the thought right as he lands another triumphant attack, this one with teeth slicing deep into the flesh and muscle of my leg.

  Fucking shit! That hurts!

  As a wolf, I shove against him to get him to release me, but Crane snarls as I rip out of his grip. Blood drips from his mouth, and his entire body trembles as he glares at me with murder in his eyes. My body struggles to heal with so many wounds and my adrenaline spiked.

  No time. I can’t even slow down for a second because Emily slams into me from behind, knocking me to the floor. Suddenly Crane is there too, driving his front paws into my chest with a howl of anger that shakes me to my core.

  This is a different level of fighting. This is pure hatred. The same kind I saw in Tasha’s eyes when we first fought at the ceremony. Crane’s been waiting for this moment for a long time.

  I don’t understand. Crane’s always been a gentle giant—quiet and unassuming and always willing to help when necessary. I handpicked him as my third once I assumed the alpha mantle because of those qualities. He had been unlike my father and his scheming beta and delta. Those wolves had been content to kiss Edmund’s ass and go along with his cruelty without question, only to flee the pack the moment Father died.

  What have I done to make him hate me so much? He’s been one of the people I’ve trusted the most in this pack.

  His betrayal hurts more than the bites and slashes, but he’s made his grave—Emily too—and now they’re going to regret challenging me.

  In the next breath, I slide my rear legs between us and jerk them up, embedding my talons into his soft underbelly. Then, I shove him with all my strength, throwing him across the kitchen.

  He hits the island, the side of his head slamming into the marble countertop, and when he crumples on the floor, his form ripples, unsteady. Another hit like that and he’ll turn back into his human skin.

  As I push myself up on shaky footing, every inch of my body screams in pain, but I lock my knees and elbows, determined to show no weakness. That’s when I notice Emily’s wolf slinking closer to Crane, a whimper crawling up her throat. She nudges him with her muzzle, encouraging him to get up, and the gesture sends a shiver of awareness through me.

  They’re mates.

  Just another thing I missed.

  When Crane doesn’t get up, a growl rumbles in Emily’s chest. She launches herself at me, mouth open and aimed for my neck. I muster up the rest of my strength and charge her, and when we collide, she stands no chance against my massive size, even weakened. I bulldoze over her, throwing her into one of the stools. It splinters and collapses under her, the loud sounds echoing throughout the house.

  Crane’s up again, shaking his wobbly wolf form back into place. Knowing I can’t hesitate, I rush him and slam my skull into his side, followed by a swipe of my claws across his snout. Blood spatters all over the floor. He snarls.

  I leap on him, pinning him beneath me.

  Dirty, traitorous rat! It’s time I end this thing now.

  “Fuck you, Reid!”

  A female’s voice captures my attention, and my head swivels just in time to see Emily, naked and back in her human form, swinging a cast-iron skillet at me. She brings the thing down in a heavy blow to my shoulder, and I cry out as pain explodes. I scramble back, limping with every step, unable to hold my weight up anymore.

  Cheap fucking move.

  Pan raised, she comes for me again, swinging it wildly. I do my best to dodge, but with my shattered shoulder, she’s able to land another blow to my ribs. The air is punched from my lungs, and I gasp and sputter my next breath.

  “Why won’t you just die?” Emily screams, her eyes wide with rage. She grips the skillet tightly, prepared to hit me again.

  I can’t answer her as a wolf, and if I could, I’d tell her just what she could do with that pan. Like shove it where the sun don’t shine. She’s going to regret using it on me.

  “Die, Holden!”

  This time, when she whirls it on me, I duck and then headbutt her in the stomach. She falls onto her ass, and the moment I see my opening, I chomp on her wrist, snapping bone. Her shriek and the bang of the skillet hitting tile fills the air.

  It’s too soon for me to celebrate my victory. Crane leaps onto my back, grabbing the scruff of my neck and swinging me away from Emily. My heartbeat falters.

  I howl as I struggle to shake him off. I refuse to give up. Curling in, I throw my body into a roll. Pain slices through me as he tries to hold on, but I manage to get out of his grasp. Then, I jolt forward and soon we’re both on the floor, with me driving him to the tile again and slamming my head into his face so hard that he yelps.

  Thrashing beneath me, fighting back for all he’s worth, Crane attempts to k
ick me while Emily cowers on the floor. I don’t need to look to know tears are streaming down her face. I hear it clearly enough in her sobs.

  An agonized whimper rattles through Crane, even though I maintain my position on top of him.

  Now it’s time to show them how I won the alpha title.

  Crane snarls, knowing what’s coming, but I wrap my jaws around his neck and bury my teeth into the flesh and muscles. Wrenching, blood fills my mouth as his neck snaps.

  He goes limp instantly, the whimpering and movement stopping.

  Dead.

  It’s done.

  I hurl the wolf aside with a furious cry that forces Emily to lunge away to avoid the body. A strangled croak of fury and grief rips from her throat as she throws herself over him. Tears stream down her cheeks.

  “You’re never going to win,” she shouts. “I hope you know that.”

  Forcing my wolf aside, I let the power of the shift push through me. It isn’t long before I’m a man again, but when I try to stand, it’s a struggle to regain my balance through the pain. I refuse to show it, though, and so I pull back my shoulders and stare down at her with narrowed eyes.

  Hopefully she’ll remember this moment. Remember watching the monster who leads this house dispatch any who choose to stand in his way. Family, friends—anyone.

  My father would be proud. The thought pinches at me in a conflicting, fucked-up way.

  She stares back at me with just as much hatred as before. But there’s fear too. “You’re never going to win—” Emily breaks off with a wheeze, taunting me the way she always taunted Tasha. “And your little whore will pay right along with you.”

  Just hearing her utter Tasha’s name raises the beast inside me again, wanting to protect its mate at all costs.

  I see her despite the way she tried to hide from me. A dangerous smile tugs at my lips, and although I’m struggling to breathe, I refuse to back down from her. I stand up straighter yet, approaching her while she continues to laugh.

  “What do you know?” I press.

  “I know your woman will be dead soon. I know you’ll never be fast enough to stop it.”

  I watch Emily use the windowsill to rise. Her legs tremble, knees knocking together, her skin stretched tight over her bones.

  “Just you wait,” she finishes. Her eyes clash with unyielding determination, the same kind I laud in myself. “You’re going to get what’s coming to you.”

  And despite the wound I thought would slow her down, she bolts past me. I’m a hair too late to grab her as she rushes to the back door and darts outside.

  My muscles bunch with the effort of trying to go after her, but I barely make it three steps before the pain takes me down. Collapsing on my side, I watch her until she’s nothing more than a blurry outline in the dark.

  Soon she disappears entirely, leaving me with a dead body and my own harried breath.

  Shit. That didn’t go the way I’d hoped on any front. Everything fucking hurts. My back arches against my will as I swallow the bellow of pain that wants to rip out of me. Too close to the edge. I’m too close, with blood dripping onto the floor and Crane’s sightless human eyes still seeming to bore into mine.

  I hold on to the love I feel for Tasha, darkness creeping ever closer across my vision, unconsciousness stealing everything away from me as I sink into the sensation. My world is nothing but pain. My lips part, my chest struggling to rise, and the rest of me as helpless as a newborn welp.

  Until footsteps sound at long last, and someone comes walking up to me.

  Too late.

  I barely manage to make out Julius and his too familiar face a moment before his scent winds its way to my nostrils. I want to take comfort in the familiar, but I know. I know too well why he’s here, and it’s a sick fucking twist from the universe that he should be the one to find me now.

  “What did you do?” he asks. He glances around at the blood, with shock glazing his eyes and his mouth set in a grim line. “What happened?”

  My brother has always wanted to be alpha. Now is his chance.

  Now is his time to take what he wants and dispatch me.

  As long as Tasha is safe. That is the only thing that really matters to me at the moment; making sure of her safety. Her happiness.

  Her smile is the only thing I need, and for the smallest stretch of time, she’d been mine. That has to be enough. I close my eyes and wait for Julius to finish me off, hoping I’ve done enough to keep Tasha from harm.

  Chapter

  Two

  Tasha

  The chill of the stone floor bites into my skin, seeping straight through to my bones. But that’s the way they had it planned from the start. The longer I spend in the cell, the surer I become of that.

  A fucking cell.

  That’s where the witches threw me, none too gently, and I have to wonder what kind of people have a witch-proof cell in the basement of their house. Sadistic, apparently. These Maine witches are no joke, and I want to slap myself for underestimating them.

  This is where they plan to keep me until my execution. At least I don’t have long to wait; they’ve scheduled it for the morning.

  Lucky me.

  For the most part, they’ve left me alone. Once they clasped me in irons, so to speak, most of the witches didn’t seem to think me a great enough threat to guard. The worst part is that they’re right.

  My powers don’t work for shit.

  They rarely have, even when my parents had been alive to see to my education on coven matters.

  And my invisibility powers, which are completely witch unrelated?

  Yeah, they aren’t working either.

  I’ve beat my fists and literal head against the wall looking for weak spots. I’ve kicked the door, I’ve kicked the stones—anything that I’m able to actually kick, I did. And nothing.

  Morning is only a few hours away, and the coven leader, Mae, and her cronies are probably doing a happy dance around my funeral pyre right now.

  I want to say that it’s an act of mercy on their part, for them to do away with me that quickly. It could be a lot worse. They might have tossed me into a rat infested, musty, and disgusting cell for weeks on end, wanting to break me before they kill me.

  Footsteps echo in the hall outside the door.

  “What’s the matter?” I taunt, muscles tense and ready for… something. I just wish I knew what. “Have you come to get one last look at me before you burn me alive? Huh?”

  Hearing my voice out loud is the smallest comfort. It seems I have to take what I can get.

  I swear I hear a snort before the footsteps recede, and I’m completely alone once again. So far in life, bravado has served me well. Currently, my well is running dry, and I’m down to the last dregs of acerbic wit I possess.

  Might as well use it all up before I croak, right?

  The Buson Coven have already assured themselves of my guilt, and sure, I didn’t kill my intended target the way they’d paid me to do. So what? Just because I have feelings for a target doesn’t mean I deserve to die.

  I refuse to call it love.

  I refuse to think about it at all because my so-called feelings for Reid aren’t going to get me out of this cell. Nothing is going to get me out of this cell because I can’t get my powers to work, and no one is coming to save me.

  For the first time in my life, my invisibility isn’t coming when I call it, and I’ve finally reached a point where I stand on the edge of literal life and death, a place I definitely shouldn’t be.

  Doesn’t it just suck?

  So I rant and I fight until my muscles ache, my bones creak, and my throat burns from the screaming.

  Finally, I drop weakly to the floor of the cell, with my knees tucked up against my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs to keep my warmth inside. The stones suck every ounce of heat from my body because, like all evil witches, these are no exception, and they have not provided me with a cot. Or blankets. Or anything to fight against the l
ate autumn chill in Maine. I swear there’s a breeze shooting straight up my spine.

  This is my fault, though, and I know it. I know it with every breath I take and gust of air I release in a puff of white in front of my face. I’d gotten complacent and thought I could outsmart these witches despite my own lack of witch magic.

  They got the jump on me because of it, and now look.

  Shit.

  It was simply another wrong move in the tragedy that is my life. And I still have no idea what happened to my sister. Maybe she’ll be waiting for me on the other side.

  Or maybe I’ve gotten too comfortable with the prospect of my own death.

  Oof. I’m not sure which bothers me more. Pink hair falls in front of my face when I shake my head.

  Glancing up, I stare at my open palms until my eyes blur, willing my invisibility powers back online in a single last-ditch effort to save my skin.

  “Come on,” I say out loud to myself. “If there is ever a moment for you to pull one last miracle out of your ass, it’s now. Please? Let’s do this! Let’s save me so that I can kill another day.”

  My powers don’t respond to threats or pleading. Right now, they don’t respond to much of anything.

  They hadn’t helped me with the vampire who nearly tore my throat out before I took the assignment to kill Reid Holden. They hadn’t helped me with the bloodthirsty alpha who turned out to not be so bloodthirsty after all.

  But the thought of Reid has me groaning and tipping my head back until it hits the wall.