Cloaked in Secrecy
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CLOAKED IN SECRECY
Wulfkin Legacy, Book 2
T.F. Walsh
Avon, Massachusetts
Copyright © 2016 by T.F. Walsh.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street
Avon, MA 02322
www.crimsonromance.com
ISBN 10: 1-4405-9733-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9733-6
eISBN 10: 1-4405-9734-0
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-9734-3
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © The Killion Group, Inc.; © David Carillet/123RF
So many wonderful people have contributed to bringing Cloaked in Secrecy to life, from my adorable husband who gives me endless support and love, to my writing partners, who are a wealth of knowledge and inspiration, to Crimson Romance for believing in my story, to the talented Jess and Annie for uncovering the missing parts essential to the story, and finally, to my amazing mom and dad who have been my number-one fans from the very beginning.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
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
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
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CHAPTER ONE
ALENA
I sprinted after my brother, Nicolai, wanting to wring his neck each time the brushwood tore at my pants. If this continued, I’d end up in my underwear, frozen and drenched, if the storm clouds were any indication. But we had to track down our fellow wulfkin, Mila, before a human found her.
Dodging a low branch covered with ivy, I trailed after Mila’s pungent, sweaty smell through the strip of woodland that ran alongside a freeway.
“I hate Mila being locked away.” Nicolai slowed his run. “Alena.” His voice climbed as if I hadn’t heard him the first time. He glanced over his shoulder.
“I don’t like it either, but you’d rather allow her to roam free and eat our circus customers? Yeah, real smart. She has no control while she’s stuck in her wolf form. And we wouldn’t be out here, freezing, if you didn’t keep letting her out.” I hadn’t intended for my response to sound so bitter, but Nicolai drove me insane with his antics.
He tripped over a root but caught himself and raced ahead, speaking with his back to me. “Put me in charge of her. I’ll stay with her every second.” Looking back, he flaunted his smile, the one that made girls either hate or love him.
I definitely wasn’t in the latter group this morning. Dark hair framed his pale face, and with his strong chin, he reminded me of our father, though I’d never seen Father wiggle his eyebrows that way.
“And have her run off like this every day?” My hair snagged on a tree limb. Groaning, I stopped and rubbed my head, glaring at the auburn strands twisted around bottle-green leaves. I’d knock some sense into Nicolai. This was all his fault. Didn’t he realize Mila was unpredictable in her wolf form?
He halted several paces away. “She responds to my music. It calms her. She’ll behave, I promise.” And then he broke into beatboxing, his shoulders bopping and his fists pumping to the tune he made with his mouth.
I refused to waste time on Nicolai’s deranged ideas—we had to catch the escapee wulfkin before any humans frightened her and she attacked. If I were stuck in my wolf form twenty-four seven, it would mess with my mind, so I had no plans of giving up on finding Mila a cure. Two weeks ago, we’d been blessed with a red moon—the Lunar Eutine—a time when moonwulf were transformed into wulfkin and the moon no longer controlled our wolf side. I’d changed, as did Mila, but because of her young age, something went terribly wrong and she ended up stuck in her wolf shape, unable to shift back into human form. No one knew why, but I would find a way to break her free. Especially since Interpol was on our doorstep asking about Mila going missing a couple of weeks ago from her mom’s place. It didn’t help that she’d last been seen at our circus. The poor girl wasn’t even part of our pack, but her wolf side drew her to us, and now it was our responsibility to help her.
A truck zoomed down the nearby freeway, coughing puffs of gray smoke between the enormous oaks of the forest, and I snapped to attention. Focus.
We broke back into our run, my boots launching a couple of stones ahead of me. At least I’d had the sense to wear hiking boots after being dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour. As we approached the end of the narrow woodland, Mila’s scent strengthened.
“Father’s going to be pissed,” I called out.
Nicolai huffed and leapt over a dead log. “Don’t care. I plan on leaving the pack. I’m not taking over from Father as alpha. No one wants a moonwulf like me, still controlled by the moon, to rule over a pack. They consider anyone who didn’t change into a wulfkin to be weak. You go be the strong alpha.”
Every part of me yearned to smack him in the head. “Stop being selfish. Your future isn’t just about you. Don’t forget about me. We need to stay close.” With Nicolai being reckless, my days might be shorter than I’d like. As twins, we’d been born with a curse that linked our souls, and if one of us died, so did the other.
Nicolai halted. “Sis, relax. You ain’t gonna catch no guy with your face all scrunched up.”
I whacked him in the arm—twice, for good measure. “This is the last time I’m helping you when you let Mila out of her cage. Don’t ever ask me again.”
One boy screwing up my life was terrible enough, but with tradition expecting me to find a mate now that I was a wulfkin, I couldn’t handle two.
I sniffed the wind. Mila. Her pungent smell skimmed the back of my throat. “Hurry, she’s close.” We broke into a dash through the ribbon of trees. Nicolai retrieved a leather cord from his pocket, and while I hated the idea of any animal being leashed, it was a necessity
with Mila so she wouldn’t run away again.
Another semitruck gunned down the road, motor grunting, horn blaring. The rush of air slapped my side, sending hair into my eyes and causing a flurry of cascading leaves around us.
Nicolai remained caught up in a tune in his mind by the look of his hands scratching an invisible record. I loved my brother, I did, but at twenty-three, he still had foolish dreams of becoming the world’s best DJ.
Inhaling deep pockets of arctic air, I froze. Mila’s scent had shifted to our left—toward the homes. Shit. The truck must have terrified her.
“She’s on the move.” I changed gears, crossing the woodland away from the freeway as adrenaline tightened my muscles. Foliage cracked under our steps.
“Mila,” Nicolai called out.
Thunder boomed across the heavens. The first trickle of rain licked my brow as we emerged from the cluster of trees into a lane behind a row of homes. Tall, wooden fences concealed the cottages. I counted on those barriers and the morning darkness to cloak Mila from prying eyes.
The car fumes, chimney smoke, and damp soil smells carried on the wind diluted her scent, but she was close, though I couldn’t pinpoint her exact location. And another odor drifted on the breeze too: a wulfkin I didn’t recognize.
I stopped near a fence and tried to collect my thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” Nicolai halted several steps ahead.
My hackles raised. Rival packs often sent scouts to spy on us before they attacked. The threat came with being Europe’s largest pack. But this would be the first scout we’d found since arriving in Bulgaria. Better find Mila fast and inform Father about the trespasser.
I scanned the residential area—two alleyways faced us, weaving in opposite directions. Licking my dry lips, I turned to Nicolai. “There’s an unknown wulfkin here. Be careful. Go left, I’ll take the other path, and if you find Mila, take her straight home. Don’t wait for me.”
“I got this.” Worry streaked his tone despite his words. “Her paw prints head left, so I’ll track her down.”
Those rare moments when I could get Nicolai to concentrate, he was an incredible tracker, even as a moonwulf. Outside the full moon, moonwulf generally retained no strength or wolf qualities, yet Nicolai had a natural hunting talent. At the next Lunar Eutine, he’d finally transform into a wulfkin. He would be able to choose when he transformed into his wolf form, instead of turning into a savage and uncontrollable wolf once a month under the full moon. As a wulfkin, our transformations were magical, giving us full control over our furry side. Except the next destined eutine wasn’t for another ten to twenty years.
“Go,” I said and bolted into a deserted alley flanked by lofty fences that cast long shadows. Eeriness folded in around me, and the prickling instinct at the base of my belly was on full alert. The whole scene seemed off, but I couldn’t identify the problem. Were we being stalked by this intruding wulfkin? My first instinct told me to grab Nicolai and get home, but we couldn’t leave Mila behind.
Rain pitter-pattered on the leaves of plum and apple trees sprawling out over the tops of the fences. I tensed at every sound. Perhaps splitting up hadn’t been such a great idea.
One of Nicolai’s so-called nuggets of wisdom came to mind: Handle what you’re dealt. I hadn’t understood when he’d first said it, but the saying made sense now.
Mila’s scent faded, but the stranger’s fresh firewood-and-fur smell strengthened. I whirled on the spot, finding no one else there, only me and two parked cars. The thump of footsteps resonated from an adjacent alleyway, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. I dashed forward.
The intruder’s smell smacked into me, and a snarl rumbled in my gut.
He burst out into my path, several feet away, from an adjacent lane. I froze on the spot, and his blue, piercing eyes hooked into me. He sniffed the air. “You’re wulfkin.”
It wasn’t a question.
The tall, broad-shouldered man was branded with two gash marks down the side of his face and neck, and blood smeared his cheek. He wiped it away with his hand as his gaze deepened with darkness.
I studied his stubbled jawline, his ocean-blue eyes, and inhaled the fresh blood. It belonged to him.
Wind fanned across my back. It had been a long time since I’d faced off with anyone. Father had brought me up to use my head, not my teeth.
“What pack do you belong to?” My voice sharpened, and a growl hung off my last word. Show no fear.
He studied the path I’d taken. “There’s a loose wulfkin in wolf form here, and I think she’s wild.” His gruff voice raised goose bumps up and down my legs, and I recoiled. “Is she yours?”
My next inhale wedged in my chest. Had Mila been caught or injured? “Where is she?”
“Why would you allow her out amongst humans? Are you trying to reveal us?”
Flames spread over my cheeks. “Who the hell are you? It’s not your business what happens on our territory.”
Since we ran a traveling circus, we claimed any location where we performed, though we rarely stopped in places already taken by other packs. Lucky for us, the majority of them steered clear of cities.
The wulfkin leaned forward, his voice rough and low. “I tried catching her before anyone saw her, but as you can see”—he pointed to his recent wounds—“she wasn’t overly friendly.” Running a hand through his short, black hair, he stared at me.
When the breeze bathed me in his scent again, his muskiness almost knocked me over, and my eyes dipped south although my brain screamed, “Don’t!” This wulfkin should never wear jeans in public unless he wanted every single female to ravage him. And the leather jacket did nothing to hide his muscles.
When I looked up, he wore a sly grin.
Heat scalded my body, and my wolf pressed against my insides, whimpering, demanding we claim him. She wanted this stranger? Working in the circus, I’d seen all kinds, but no one had ever affected my wolf this way.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I refused to allow him to openly knock me off my feet with his gorgeousness. Scratch that. With his audacity.
“Why isn’t she transforming into human form?” he asked.
My hands curled into fists. “I don’t have to tell you anything.” Studying the passage ahead of me, I inhaled the crisp air for signs of Mila. “If you remain here, you’ll have dozens of wulfkin on your trail, ready to tear you to shreds—”
He narrowed the gap between us, his square shoulders stiff.
“Or, you can help me find M … the wolf girl, and return with me to the pack to explain yourself.”
His ravenous gaze remained on me, searching for who knows what. Every hair stayed in place, despite his bleeding wounds, and a smile was on the verge of breaking the edges of his mouth. Maybe he was only a hungry wolf ready to pounce on his prey.
A train-car-sized load of words bubbled on my tongue, mostly threats, but when a single howl in the distance broke the morning silence, every thought vanished.
My head snapped up. Nicolai. Mila.
Police sirens rang out above the drone of the highway.
“We better get out of here,” the other wulfkin said.
My heart bounced against my rib cage, and I ran past him. No! Please, no.
The rain, now sudden and fast, drenched every part of me, filling my boots and threatening to bowl me over. I rushed along the curve of the backstreet, following my nose, and came to an intersection between two lanes. Cars were parked bumper to bumper near the fences in all directions, but there was no sign of Nicolai. The smell came from my left. I swung in that direction and bolted down the path until I hit a T-crossing, which brought me to an abrupt stop. My insides curdled. The downpour and mist rising from the ground clouded my vision, but what I did see was wrong—very wrong.
Halfway down the lane on my right, Nicolai hunched over a blood-soaked figure sprawled on the ground. A red pool encircled them. Mila? No, it wasn’t Mila.
My legs wobbled, and a whiff of the breeze i
dentified the victim as human. Killed by Mila. Of course, I should have known, and in truth, I had but didn’t want to believe it.
Where was Mila? And why wasn’t Nicolai running away?
“Nic.” I walked toward him. He didn’t seem to hear me. Maybe it was the sheets of rain, which even made it impossible to hear my own thoughts.
His face was white as paper.
Lightning flashed, and I flinched. What had happened here?
Figures appeared from within the folds of the ferocious downpour on the other side of Nicolai. I stopped.
My brother started convulsing, and in a flash, I realized he’d been Tasered. He collapsed to his knees and rolled onto his side, shaking. His eyes grew wide as they finally found me. “Aleee … ”
“Nic!” I dove forward, but someone grabbed my arm.
I snapped around to find the strange wulfkin had followed me. Water drenched his face, his brows were bunched up, and a snarl warped his lips.
“Let go.” Tugging against his grip got me nowhere. “My brother needs me.”
“Keep quiet.” His words barely registered past the rain splatter. “We have to go.” He scanned the area behind us.
“No.” I wrenched my arm from him.
Nicolai and I shared a single lifeline. We couldn’t die here. Not like this.
A whistle blew.
Behind me, three police officers circled Nicolai, who still squirmed from obvious pain, and now their attention was on us.
“On your knees!” one yelled. Two others approached, guns and Tasers pointed in our direction.
My legs refused to move. I couldn’t leave Nicolai in the hands of humans who had no idea our kind existed, but I couldn’t let myself get caught. Releasing my wolf played across my mind. I could quickly knock out one or two of the men, but maybe not before they shot me a few times.
The wulfkin at my back growled, snatching my hand. I stumbled after him but tore free from his grasp, my leather glove still in his grip.