Her Chosen Wolf: The Were Chronicles, Book 1

  She chose the wolf she needed and got the man of her dreams.

  The Were Chronicles, Book 1

  Sent to live in the city long ago for her own protection, Saffa has always longed to return to her mountain home. She is a multimorph, and women of her rare bloodline are highly prized by those who aspire to supreme power over the pack. The last thing she wants to be is anyone’s stepping stone—especially Bardo Redmaven’s. Justice Ambervane would be her first choice…if only he’d stop holding her at arm’s length.

  The wolf within Justice would eagerly take Saffa as his mate, but for secret reason of his own, his human conscience has always resisted. He can’t believe Saffa risked coming out of hiding, even to warn him of the disturbing activities of the power-hungry Redmaven clan. She’s dangerously close to her first breeding cycle, and giving in to her irresistible scent makes him a marked man. And Saffa even more of a target.

  What he needs is backup, and there’s only one wolf he trusts enough: Drew. As the coming fight backs all three of them into a tight corner, the heat explodes into a passion that Justice wonders if he’ll live to regret…

  Warning: Quick, erotic tumble with a frisky trio.

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  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.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Her Chosen Wolf

  Copyright © 2009 by Renee Michaels

  ISBN: 978-1-60504-659-4

  Edited by Heidi Moore

  Cover by Anne Cain

  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.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: September 2009

  www.samhainpublishing.com

  Her Chosen Wolf

  Renee Michaels

  Dedication

  To my daughter, Alexandra. Who caught me when I stumbled, and proves daily I raised wonderful girl.

  Chapter One

  Built for short bursts of speed rather than a marathon, the muscles in her flanks burned like acid. She couldn’t run very much farther. Her chosen form was stretched beyond the limits of its endurance. She quivered with exhaustion.

  Saffa inhaled harshly. The icy air sliced through her starved lungs like splinters. The baying in the distance elicited a sob of desperation, testing her resolve. Her sprint to the river was almost at an end. She just had to maintain the punishing pace she’d set.

  The sinew in her hind legs bunched as she prepared to leap. She vaulted into the air. A yelp escaped from her when a full set of canines sunk into the ruff at the back of her neck. She fell hard on the loamy ground. Every bone in her body shook painfully. It took a moment for her limbs to obey the commands of her disoriented brain.

  Snarling, she bucked to throw off the bulky body pinning her to the dirt, but it didn’t budge.

  Christ, she’d made the mistake of underestimating Bardo’s determination to secure the title of supreme alpha. It was going to cost her, dearly.

  Bardo’s low growl sounded like a gloating rumble to her ears, cocksure and triumphant. It spurred her to renew her struggles.

  Twisting her body from side to side violently didn’t loosen his hold. His larger, heavier body gave her little room to maneuver. He curled his lower shanks intimately around her hind quarters. Saffa heaved her hips, rejecting his overture. He bore her down to the ground.

  Panting, she fell onto her belly, her limbs buckling under the pressure he exerted.

  She was thankful for the density of a cheetah’s fur because his fangs hadn’t broken her skin. Her blood spoors wouldn’t be carried on the air to lead his lackeys to them.

  The son of a bitch’s tenacious hold on her was impossible to break. He outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, and her feline sleekness was no match for his lupine mass.

  The insistent prodding at the base of her tail sent a tsunami of outrage through her. She kept her tail lowered to prevent penetration. If he thought she was going to lie there submissively and allow him to mount her, he had another thing coming. She wasn’t a multimorph for nothing.

  She didn’t have much left in her. Only a change or two, so she’d had to make them merit the toll they would take on her. Damn, she wasn’t thinking straight. If she hadn’t been god-awfully frightened, she wouldn’t have wasted precious energy attempting to fight her way free.

  Brains would triumph over brawn.

  With everything in her she pushed up on her forelegs, sending both their bodies toppling over onto their backs. Bardo clamped his teeth deeper into her ruff and shook her in a show of dominance.

  Grimacing, she distorted her lower body into genus ursus. Pain shot like sharp shards through her tortured flesh. Saffa gritted her teeth against the pain at the stretching of her muscles and the thickening of delicate bones as she forced her body into a swift transformation. Sweat dampened her skin and she trembled from exertion. She smiled inwardly while her physique altered and flowed into what she wanted.

  His surprised yap was delicious.

  The bulky lower half of a bear’s body pinned Bardo to the ground. He clawed and bit to set himself free, but it was like a gnat swatting a brick wall. She’d never wanted a big, bulky behind, but in this case it came in handy. He pushed on the dirt to slither from under her.

  Like hell.

  She wasn’t going to make it easy for him. She had him, and she’d be damned if he’d slink away from her small bit of retribution.

  Saffa elongated her neck and torso into a sinuous reptilian undulation and twisted around to face him. Her newly formed triangular head wavered hypnotically before his horrified eyes.

  Black and forked, her tongue flicked in and out between her curved fangs. Bardo shrank back. His fear of snakes was common knowledge. She could get used to him groveling before her.

  If she had the time, she’d have savored the fear and vulnerability in Bardo’s eyes. But Saffa tasted the musk of his approaching pack members in the air, and in her weakened state she couldn’t hold him for very much longer.

  Spraying eye-searing venom into his face, she dodged the wild, desperate swipes of his paws, evading them easily in this fast, flexible upper body.

  His infuriated howl echoed through the woods, and the answering cries had her moving laboriously off of him. Bardo twisted up onto his legs and lunged blindly at her. Rearing back, she struck him on the temple, disorienting him further.

  His brothers would be snapping at her tail in no time, but her desperate act got her what she wanted.

  She was free.

  But if she didn’t get a move on, she’d be at his mercy again, caught between two opposing forms. Saffa turned to run, but coordinated she wasn’t. Her torso swung in the opposite direction of her bottom-heavy ass.

  A belly-deep scream rose up out of her. Shedding the two forms she’d assumed in a hurry was like shoving a hot blade through her gut. Naked, her limbs weighted down by fatigue, Saffa lay on the cold ground racked by rippling tremors. She doubted her legs could support the weight of her body, so she didn’t try to climb to her feet. If she weren’t totally exhausted, she’d have tried to morph into a bird. Smaller w
as harder, but she’d expended too much energy already. It would be too hard to sustain the compact form of an avian for very long. In a few moments, adrenalin would pump heat and strength back into her limbs, but for now she did the next best thing.

  She struggled to her knees. A frigid breeze skittered over her bare skin. She paused to get her bearings. Cold damp twigs, leaves and God knew what else bit into her skin.

  On hands and knees, she crawled up the bank, tremors shaking her body with each move. Her limbs wobbled under her as she scrambled over the short incline. The thumping of paw beats grew louder to her acute hearing.

  She cursed aloud when her knees slipped. She hadn’t anticipated how steep the embankment was and she tumbled over the bank. She didn’t have the strength to stop her free-fall. At least she was making more progress than she would have under her own steam.

  She rolled to a stop in an inelegant heap and groaned. Her dignity took a beating and her butt would be black and blue in a couple of hours, but she had to keep moving before her body stiffened.

  Tentatively, she pulled herself up onto her feet. When she didn’t fall flat on her face she took a step. Always one to press her luck, she pushed off into a tottering run, gathering speed and grace with each lope. Her eyes fixed on her goal.

  All she had to do was get to the bridge connecting Redmaven territory to the Ambervanes’ domain. The bridge itself was a joke. The ruling council had ordered the overpass built to cement the peace pact the two warring clans paid only lip service to. The Ambervanes had figuratively given the council the finger by building a bridge as shaky as its tenuous control over the Ambervane pack. It never lasted for more than four seasons. They constructed it with slender, green, uncured branches. A risky crossing in the spring and summer, but now in the dead of winter it was brittle as spun glass. Anyone attempting to cross it took his life in his hands.

  Saffa hoped it’d hold up under her weight, or she was going to take a very cold bath. She wasn’t particularly concerned about the temperature of the water. Her race wasn’t affected by the cold as humans were. The river was a raging whirlpool, driven by melted snow from the mountains. Ice floes dotted its surface like innocuous puffs of whipped cream. If she took a header into the icy water, one hit by a slab of ice and she’d be sent under before she could take her next breath.

  Setting an exploratory foot on the bridge, she sighed with relief when it didn’t immediately collapse under her. She took a few incautious but necessary steps to take her to the center of bridge. Each step a test, she held her breath and prayed.

  “Saffa, you’ll never make it!” Bardo’s frustrated shout reached her from the rise.

  Saffa looked up at him dispassionately. Naked in all his glory, his sculptured body would be lust-inspiring to the unsuspecting. Broad shouldered with lean, sinewy flanks, and in spite of the cold, he was still blatantly interested.

  He must be in a lust-driven rage to be able to manage an erection in this weather.

  Saffa knew from the gossip about his conquests that he used his sexual prowess like a blade, and she wasn’t in the mood to be sliced open. Her coolly dismissive glance made his face tighten in anger.

  “I’ll take my chances with the Ambervanes, Bardo,” she taunted. Saffa used the enmity between him and Justice Ambervane to prick his overblown pride. Taking another determined step earned her an ominous creak from the fragile platform.

  An aggravated growl floated down to her as he charged down the embankment. With his brothers spread out on either side of him, Bardo started down the berm at a full run.

  Bardo stopped at the end of the bridge, seemed to struggle with his temper for a moment and then lifted his hands in an insincere gesture of conciliation. “The council has sanctioned our union,” he informed her. The jerk couldn’t prevent the gloating tone from slipping into his voice.

  Saffa snorted. “You can tell the council they have no jurisdiction over me. I’m a multimorph. By law, my conduct is guided by the matriarchal teachings of my mother’s people.”

  “Your father was a member of the Redmaven pack. You belong to us.”

  “Yeah, was. Thanks to you. Watch your back, Bardo. You won’t know when I’ll come, but my hand will hold the blade that slips through your ribs.” It was an empty threat because she hated the smell of blood, but it’d give him something to think about. She skipped back a few feet when he placed his foot on the end of the bridge. It creaked and groaned threateningly.

  “I’ll find you no matter where you go.”

  Their eyes met over the slender length of the intertwined branches separating them. The intent in his black eyes was as uncompromising as hers.

  “Not if I’m mated to a wolf of my choosing.” Her words seemed to ignite something inside him that she’d never seen before, an unparalleled rage.

  Eyes fixed on her, he marched onto the bridge. When would she learn not to jerk the rabid dog’s leash?

  The splintering of the flimsy branches reverberated over the swishing of the swiftly running water. The sound sent Bardo scrambling back as the bridge came apart under her bare feet. She plunged into the icy river. The frigid water punched the breath from her lungs.

  The men on the shore raced ahead of her and quickly formed a human chain on an outcropping of rock. To make the pain stop, all she had to do was twist her body in their direction. But stubbornly, she let the river pull her downstream. Too weak to swim against the current, it dragged her along like a piece of flotsam.

  “You bitch. You’d drown yourself to thwart me.” The irritation in Bardo’s voice warmed her.

  Bardo trotted along the shoreline keeping pace with her, shouting instructions to her. She ignored him, and he didn’t dare enter the river. This side of the river fell within the boundary of Ambervane land.

  If she could work her way over to the side of one of the ice floes she might be able to push off and get to the other side. Her chances were slim, but the alternative was being Bardo’s brood mare.

  She’d rather drown than become Bardo’s mate.

  The rapid beating of her heart wasn’t a good sign, and her muscles were already constricting. She was losing body heat faster than she’d anticipated.

  A flat slab of ice barreled toward her. This was her chance. Her fingers were numb and her mind woozy.

  She needed a set of claws, a partial transformation. Saffa concentrated on her nails, they grew into a set of lethal talons. As the block of ice floated past, she dug in and embedded her claws into the ice.

  She hoped to God they were in deep enough because the darkness engulfing her was too hard to fight any longer.

  Tugged willingly along, her body rebelled against the cold. She drifted with the water and so did her mind. A smile flitted across her face as Bardo’s enraged roar echoed thorough the valley. Every shifter within hearing distance would recognize it. A few would sympathize, but more would rejoice in his loss.

  It was the last thing she heard before she lost consciousness.

  Chapter Two

  Had she died and gone to hell? She must have because the furnace-like heat surrounding her made her skin tight and achy. The warmth pressing into her body had a strange weightiness to it, making it almost impossible to move. Saffa wiggled restlessly to break away from the oppressive heaviness.

  Opening her eyes took more effort than it should have, but it was worth the effort. The concern in the glowing amber eyes inches from her own sent a flood of relief through her.

  Justice. He’d found her.

  She smiled wearily up at him. “I want a Tootsie Pop?” she croaked.

  His full-bellied laugh at the mention of the candy they shared a weakness for told him she was fine. The bulky masses packed tightly around her shifted to life. One by one, wolves lifted their heads to nuzzle her before leaping off the bed to trot out of the room. Justice untangled his body from hers and rose from the bed.

  Hell, she’d been in bed with Justice and his pack brothers and hadn’t been coherent enough to
a take advantage of it.

  “What the hell were you thinking, jumping into the river like that?” Justice admonished, tucking the blankets around her shoulders.

  “I didn’t jump. I was helped into it by the insult of a bridge you built,” she shot back weakly. “Besides, I was trying to get away from Bardo at the time.” She licked her chapped lips.

  His face hardened into grim lines. “How did he come to be anywhere near you? You were supposed to stay in the city.” He said the word “city” like it was an epithet. He slid an arm under her shoulders, lifted her and held a glass of water to her lips.

  She’d have to bare her soul to explain to him the real reason why she came. “I wanted to come home, be with my family for a while. The minute I drove onto pack territory, I was surrounded by Bardo and his boys.” She managed a lopsided smirk. “Their toys aren’t so pretty anymore. I T-boned Bardo’s Hummer.” His responding grin warmed her and took her breath away.

  Damn, down girl. His grin tugged at the animal in her, and worse, the woman in her responded to it fully. She sat up gingerly and swung her legs over the side of the bed to prevent herself from drooling over him. Little good it did her.

  Unable to help herself, she allowed her eyes to roam freely over him. The shaggy fall of black, silver-flecked hair belied the youthfulness of his face. His wide brow was broken by a ferocious frown as he took in the black and blue blotches covering her body. Somehow, it didn’t detract from his masculine beauty. The smooth planes of his face ended in a strong, determined jaw. She had always been tempted to flick her tongue in the cleft in his chin, but she’d restrained herself.

  Justice was tall and powerfully built, his shoulders and thighs stretched the denim he wore tautly over them. She ached to slip her hand under the cloth and smooth her fingers over his bare skin. Imagining the sinew bunching and quivering under her palms had her vaginal muscles pulsing.