The Lure of the Wolf Read online

  Yet none of the scents made as deep an impression on him as that of the mortal woman.

  Even now he could smell her, could still feel the wonder and the heat of her soft flesh against him. The hunger she had aroused in him still pulsed so strongly that with every beat he had to fight the desire to turn back and explore the fire until he burned alive, which was likely why he’d been unable to shift into his spirit form. He needed to rid the woman from his mind and spirit before shifting again.

  Glancing back at her dwelling a brief moment, he wondered about the voice that had frightened her. It still disturbed him. He’d heard every word the man had whispered. A very deep pain lay hidden beneath the mortal woman’s fiery warmth, and the man had made the pain worse.

  Aragon took three steps back, drawn toward the woman, then swung away with his hands fisted. He couldn’t allow himself to get involved in the mortal realm. Time was running out….

  “These days, readers have a rich range of paranormal worlds to choose from, and St. Giles adds another powerful one to that list.”

  —Romantic Times, about The Shadowmen series

  The Lure of the Wolf is also available as an eBook

  Praise for the first book in The Shadowmen series Touch a Dark Wolf

  “A unique take on the werewolf world, and a thrilling ride.”

  —Lora Leigh, bestselling author of Harmony’s Way

  “Fast paced, full of mystery and a touch of danger, I couldn’t put the book down.”

  —ARomanceReview.com

  “Intriguing, well-written characters who draw the reader into the story.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “No question, the Shadowmen are definitely prime hero material, which means readers can look forward to much more from this talented and versatile author.”

  —Romantic Times

  And for other Pocket romances by Jennifer St. Giles His Dark Desires

  “Powerful and emotional, with complex characters…an excellent journey into the past you won’t forget.”

  —Rendezvous

  “In an era of overwhelming sameness when it comes to historical romance, His Dark Desires easily stands out from the crowd.”

  —All About Romance

  “With its dark, dangerous hero and sexy storyline, this historical romance will appeal to contemporary romantic suspense fans who enjoy danger and intrigue.”

  —True Romance

  “Teeming with menacing atmosphere…. St. Giles captures that Gothic essence with a sinister plot complete with unusual twists and turns, while maintaining a strong sexual tension between the protagonists.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  The Mistress of Trevelyan Winner of the Daphne Du Maurier Award

  “Full of spooky suspense…. [St. Giles’s] story ripples with tension. This tension and the author’s skill at creating the book’s brooding atmosphere make this an engrossing read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[An] intriguing, well-crafted romance.”

  —Library Journal

  “[An] excellent debut novel. St. Giles does a masterful job of evoking a Gothic atmosphere, and updates it nicely with smoldering sexual tension…. The story is compellingly told.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Also by Jennifer St. Giles

  Touch a Dark Wolf

  The Mistress of Trevelyan

  His Dark Desires

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

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

  Copyright © 2007 by Jenni Leigh Grizzle

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4565-1

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-4565-4

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  Come what come may,

  Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

  —William Shakespeare,

  Macbeth, 1:3

  This book is dedicated to all those who have helped

  and prayed for me during my difficult year.

  You made writing possible despite the problems.

  I send you my many heartfelt thanks and love.

  Prologue

  A SPIRIT WIND as powerful as Logos’s right hand moved over the mountain, whipping through the trees and twisting through the misty maze of souls that hovered in the twilight between heaven and earth. Dawn broke across the bleak horizon of the night, its light slicing through the shadow, ferreting out the darkness, seeking to wipe it from the face of the mortal world.

  “You must stop Jared, Aragon, before it’s too late! He may still have time left for redemption,” Sven said, pain lacing every word.

  Aragon turned from the outcropping of rocks where he watched Jared running up the mountain to the Sacred Stones. “No,” Aragon said harshly. “He is doing what must be done. He cannot become what Pathos is. Jared should be allowed to die a warrior’s death.”

  “What if you’re wrong, Aragon?” Navarre asked. “What if your anger toward Pathos and the betrayal you’ve always felt that he’d disgraced all Blood Hunters has weakened your judgment? What if Sven is right?”

  “Navarre speaks true,” said York. “Your anger against Pathos has burned for an entire millennium. Why? Your compassion should be greater that one once so mighty has fallen so tragically.”

  Aragon turned his back, refusing to let his mind travel back to what was too painful to accept. He shook his head, determined. “Jared cannot become what Pathos is.”

  “We all agree upon that,” said Sven. “But the time to assure Jared’s death is not now. Navarre and York agree. You must act with us, for the Blood Hunters are nothing if they cannot fight together.”

  “A warrior must lead even though none may follow, or he ceases to be one,” Aragon said harshly.

  “And a leader who cannot see the wisdom of the council of those whom he trusts and fights beside might be leading all the wrong way. Stop Jared from doing this.”

  Was he wrong? Aragon reached deep inside himself, yet could not see any light or truth. Then he heard Jared’s scream echoing in the blinding light of the dawn. It was a scream of a warrior dying, not of one damned beyond hope. In that cry, Aragon saw his error.

  Sven fell to his knees, groaning, as did York and Navarre.

  Aragon planted his sword into the mortal ground before Sven, causing the earth to violently shake. “You must lead now. I am unworthy.”

  Sven looked up, horror on his face. “I cannot lead.”

  “You must.”

  Another death cry ripped through the air, and Aragon turned. “Jared!” He turned his back upon his Blood Hunter brethren and ran to the Sacred Stones. Reaching the stone pillars, he found Jared suspended in the air within the center of them, his mortal body convulsing with pain as if every fiber of his being was suffering unimaginable torture.

  “Jared. No! I was wrong.” Aragon fell to his knees, his own pain and Jared’s agony ripping through him. He had made a horrible mistake in believing nothing good remained in Jared. He was unfit to lead the Blood Hunters, or to be a true warrior. He tore Logos’s amulet from about his throat and flung it into the air, praying that h
is spirit would die with Jared’s.

  Chapter One

  “N O!” ARAGON YELLED, leaping from his knees. Jared couldn’t die. Shifting into his were-form, Aragon had to save Jared or die trying.

  Breathing hard, his fangs and claws clenched with frustration, he threw the full force of his massive were-form at Jared, desperately trying to free him from the Sacred Stones’ killing hold. But Aragon hit an invisible wall before reaching the powerful force that held Jared’s dying body captive.

  “By Logos! Let him live!” Aragon cried, clawing at the barrier. The spirit wind gusted in response and slammed into him, throwing him back twenty feet. He sat up, dazed, shaking his head, finally realizing that it wasn’t his lack of might that was blocking him from Jared, but a force greater than any power he’d ever fought.

  Before he could react, he heard a mortal woman screaming Jared’s name.

  She appeared at the opening to the Sacred Stones, fighting the wind that had just thrown him as she plowed to the center where Jared hung in the air, twisting in agony.

  Aragon started toward the mortal woman to rescue her from the same blast of power that had thrown him. What had dazed him would kill her. But she flung herself at Jared before he could stop her—and penetrated the barrier with ease. She wrapped her arms around Jared’s convulsing were-form.

  Jared recoiled as she clung to him, desperate to save him; but the love pouring from her, one as powerful as the wind, had come too late.

  Aragon watched in horror as Jared’s spirit separated from his body and rose toward the heavens. The mortal woman held Jared’s lifeless body to her and pressed her mouth to his. Her cry of pain ripped through Aragon like a knife, rendering his heart in two. He’d not only caused Jared’s death, but he, who’d sworn to protect the Elan, had just caused great sorrow to one of Logos’s chosen.

  Instead of accepting Jared’s death, the woman pressed upon Jared’s heart hard with her hand and gave him the very breath from her lungs. Again and again she repeated the motions, refusing to give up, fighting with a valor worthy of any warrior. Then suddenly, Jared’s spirit came diving back down from the heavens, and his body shuddered back to life to feel the full force of the mortal woman’s love.

  Jared was saved.

  Aragon ran from the Sacred Stones, his soul burning from the pain and the damage he’d caused. To have sent his brother to his death, to have been so wrong about Jared, made Aragon unworthy of anything. It didn’t matter that love had saved Jared, that Jared had found salvation from the assassin’s poison corrupting him. That only proved how mistaken Aragon had been. He didn’t deserve to live, much less lead the Blood Hunters.

  He’d had no choice but to leave the Guardian Forces. His fate should be far worse than the punishment decreed by Logos for such an act—to be exiled as a faded warrior, one whose spirit would remain trapped in time for eternity, having substance neither in the spirit world nor upon the mortal ground.

  He didn’t know how much time he had before Logos stripped him of his warrior’s powers and threw him into the torturous void, but he knew there was one last thing he could do for his brethren: execute Pathos. The former Blood Hunter was a bane upon the mortal world and had shamed the honor of all Blood Hunters. It would be breaking Guardian Forces law to seek another’s death outside of battle. But Aragon had little doubt that he and Pathos would fight to the end, so bitter was the draught in Aragon’s soul.

  In the spirit world a warrior’s honor became entwined with that of the man who trained him. If he fought well, he brought honor to the one who’d done the training. But if he were cowardly or traitorous, he shamed his mentor as well as himself. When Pathos had become purely evil, taking up with Heldon within two short days of being poisoned by a Tsara, one of Heldon’s spiritual assassins, the betrayal cut like a knife that went deeper as Pathos became leader of one of Heldon’s most vile vampyric rings—the Vladarian Order. Pathos had led them to slaughter the Elan in a bloody reign of death that still echoed in the nightmares of mortals. Now Pathos led the Vladarians on an even more destructive path by making the ravenous beasts into an organized and deadly force. The souls of all mortals, not just the chosen Elan, were now in danger.

  Pathos must be stopped. And Aragon would be the warrior to do it.

  The rising sun chased the night chill from the Tennessee mountain air, but left Dr. Annette Batista shivering as if she stood in an arctic void. Too cold inside to accept the sun’s warmth, and too isolated in her pain to rejoice with friends, she stood on Spirit Wind Mountain with her heart silently crying.

  Around her, Emerald Linton, Sheriff Sam Sheridan, Erin Morgan, and Jared Hunter spoke softly, relieved that Jared had survived. But their tentative snatches of humor were tense; Jared’s near death, along with the cloud of evil hanging over them, weighed heavily on their hearts, etching lines of strain upon them all. For Annette it was worse.

  The pain she constantly carried sharpened to an excruciating point at the Sacred Stones cresting the deserted mountain. In the six months that had passed since her sister disappeared from the ancient worship site, she’d learned nothing more about what might have happened to Stefanie. Nothing had surfaced anywhere despite the numerous searches, the posted flyers, and the half million in reward money offered. Stef had come to the mountain to hike with her coworkers and disappeared without a trace.

  Amid the Druid-like pillars, Annette always felt as if she stood in an open doorway from this world to the next, at the threshold of a dark, vast void into which she wanted to jump to find her sister—even if the black abyss was bottomless. The morning mists lingering over the dew-dampened ground twisted eerily around her ankles, swirling about the Stones like lost spirits searching for a soul to hear their cries.

  I’m here. Talk to me, Stefanie! she silently beseeched her sister. Where are you? What happened to you?

  Fisting her hands, she squeezed her eyes shut against the brightness of the fresh day. She prayed for an answer with her whole being, just as she had many times before, but the Sacred Stones remained silent. She heard only the whispering kiss of a breeze, the voices of her friends, and the wrenching “what if” tearing her apart.

  Stefanie had called the night before she’d disappeared and left a message for Annette to call her back; that she had something important to talk about. But Annette had been in surgery when the call came and didn’t get out until well after midnight. With patients in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit still to see before going home, Annette had put off returning Stef’s call until the morning. By then it had been too late. Stefanie was gone.

  What if Annette had called just as soon as she’d left the OR that night? What if she hadn’t let her career take precedence over her family yet again? What if she had acted as fast with Stefanie as Erin had done this morning when Jared left? Would Stefanie still be alive?

  Annette had no doubt that Erin’s love and quick response in rushing to the Sacred Stones had saved Jared Hunter. Though Annette had never seen Jared’s Blood Hunter—aka werewolf—form, she no longer doubted that he was who and what he claimed to be.

  Nor did she doubt that there was a host of supernatural beings in the world. Since meeting Erin and Jared, she had learned that vampires were finding human victims at free health screenings offered by the Sno-Med Corporation and its twisted head, Dr. Cinatas—the very company Stefanie had worked for. A company whom Annette hadn’t questioned—she had even volunteered to help during their health expo last week.

  God! She’d placed the blood of so many children into the hands of those monsters. She shivered again as a flood of pain and self-disgust washed over her.

  “Please!” she prayed. “Please let me find Stef. Let me find something, anything.” Chest almost too tight to breathe, Annette slipped to her knees and pressed her palm into the leaf-strewn soil where Stef’s backpack had been found the day she disappeared. But all she could feel was the damp chill of the ground. Odds were that her sister’s body lay somewhere in the cold earth of
the surrounding forest, somewhere close, but hidden.

  Emerald had tried to keep her optimistic even though everyone else had given up hope of finding Stef alive. The volunteer searches had ended several months ago, and every time she spoke to the people in town, she could see the resignation in their eyes—if they spoke to her at all. Some avoided her, starting to turn down the grocery aisle before seeing her and quickly moving to the next, or crossing the street before reaching where she walked. They weren’t being cruel, but a tragedy hanging in limbo with no hope of closure was hard to face. She saw it in her nightmares and walked with it every day.

  Yet she couldn’t seem to resign herself as completely as Sam. Twilight’s sheriff never sugarcoated anything and always pared truth down to the bone. He believed Stef was dead, and had believed it within days after she disappeared. He still did his job, though—ran a crime scene investigation of the area, personally searched every nook and cranny within miles, tracked down every story of a woman found or a body discovered that buzzed along the law enforcement’s national and international wires, and questioned every stranger or vagrant found within a hundred miles.

  Blinking hard against her tears, she saw something shimmering in the sunlight next to her hand on the ground and gasped as she recognized the golden-bronze amulet as Jared’s. She reached for it. Before she even touched it, she could feel the warmth radiating from the metal into her fingertips. As she grasped it, a tingling shock danced from her toes to her scalp, and its heat went bone-deep into her hand, intensely comforting. With it clutched in her hand, she automatically brought the amulet to her chest and felt for the first time a fissure of warmth penetrating the cold that had imprisoned her for so long.

  The ends of the chain dangled loose, their thick links broken. No wonder Jared had lost it. The amulet felt very important to her for some reason, and she was reluctant to give it back, but she knew from Erin how much Jared’s badge as a Blood Hunter in the spirit world meant to him. She started to call him, but her voice died in her throat.