Hunted: A Haven Realm Novel Read online

  A door slapped shut, and I opened my eyes. I glanced up at a ceiling in a dimly-lit room, a fire crackling nearby, its warmth cocooning me. Now this was the life… sleeping next to a fire at home. Wait! I didn’t have a fireplace in my bedroom, and a tidal wave of memories crashed through me. Me heading into the woods for wolfsbane, the priestess replanting wolfsbane in our neighboring land, and wolves attacking me. Even Mr. No Pants popped in there, reminding me of his warning about the wolves at war, and I’d gloriously gotten myself caught by a pack.

  The earlier jitters swarmed through me, and I scrambled off a long table, my lower back stiff, hoping to avoid making a sound. Darn, the wolves had me lying there like a roast so they could just sit down and devour their dinner. I patted myself and glanced down. Yep, still wearing clothes, but they were dry now. How long had I been out?

  A throbbing ache settled across my temple, and I rubbed the lump on my head from where the wolf had knocked me out.

  The room lay barren of decorations. It consisted of wooden walls and a ceiling. There was only the table in the middle, and a torn-up rug covered the hardwood in front of the fire; someone had scratched their claws on the frayed edges. No windows, just a closed door. And a strange musty and wet dog fur smell hung in the air.

  My mind failed to make sense of where I was, and I couldn’t formulate a thought. I turned on the spot, not recognizing anything. I froze, yet tingles pressed on my body to run, to put distance between me and the wolves. I choked the breath from my lungs and tightness clasped my gut. Time to leave. I retreated toward the door, but my foot hit something. I flinched and looked down, but I’d just bumped into a stack of logs for the fireplace. No sentimental objects sat on the mantelpiece behind me or paintings to indicate who owned the place. If this was a wolf shifter’s home, then crap. Everything I’d heard about them painted them as savages who lived off the land and who followed their alpha to the death if he asked it of them. Except here I was in a house that had required someone to build it. Unless the shifters kidnapped people to do their bidding? That notion sank through me like tar.

  I rushed across the room, desperate to get out of this house.

  But the door flung open, hitting the wall, a flurry of cold air colliding into me.

  My heart struck my throat, and I staggered backward as a man strode into the room. At first, my gaze bounced from his bare feet to his naked torso, to the chiseled specimen standing before me. Why hadn’t anyone told me shifters were gods in appearance? If I’d known, I may have stumbled into their territory before.

  I glanced behind down a long corridor with wooden walls and several doors. This cabin was a lot larger than I had first thought. What were in the other rooms?

  Then my gaze fastened on the red strip of fabric the guy wore as a skirt to cover his privates. So familiar. Near the bunched-up fabric at his hip, there was a small sigil of a black moon crest. Just like the one grandma had sewn on her hooded cloak. I scratched my neck, reaching for mine, but the cloak was gone. I scanned the room behind me. My bag sat in a corner alone. The wolves must have collected it after I’d dropped it in the woods. A sweet gesture and maybe not all hope was lost for me surviving the day.

  I swung back around to the man dressed in part of my cloak. Fire hit my cheeks, and I stormed closer, but he kicked the door shut, closing us inside together.

  But right then I didn’t care, not when an inferno burned me up from my toes to my head.

  “How dare you?” I said, snatching the fabric off him. It unraveled at my touch. “You tore my cloak? How could you?” My eyes watered as I stared at the flowing red material in my hands. Hollowness spread throughout my chest because I’d taken such good care of Grandma’s garment.

  “My grandmother gave me this,” I said, wondering if I could sew it back onto the rest of the cloak, except it would never be the same. I wiped my cheeks and raised my chin, staring at the man’s bangs, the color of cocoa, sweeping across his brow. Short hair edged along the sides of his head and the back. He studied me with softness in his eyes as if pitying me. And only then did I realize the impact of me stripping him, and I burned for a whole different reason.

  Oh, dear. His girth had my knees quivering beneath me.

  Okay, I’d had one boyfriend before, but he was normal-sized… Actually, non-existent in the downstairs department in comparison.

  The shifter laughed, his earlier stiff expression relaxed and unrestrained.

  I lifted my gaze, convinced I’d turned into a berry in color. “What’s going on? Why were you wearing my cloak and where am I? Where are your clothes?”

  The man closed the distance between us, and I recoiled, gripping the fabric. Despite fear clouding my head, butterflies twirled in my stomach from imagining myself touching the muscled curves of his chest. He carried a beauty about him with his small nose and boyish charm. He wasn’t built huge, but he had muscles and lots of them. His cheekbones brought out his glimmering eyes. The fire reflected in his pupils, flicking this way and that, changing the colors from a gray to a grassy hue. If I’d crossed paths with him anywhere else, I’d have stopped in my tracks and gawked. Now I wasn’t sure if I should run or chat him up.

  “You need not fear me,” he said, his voice honeyed and low with a trace of huskiness. The complete opposite of what I’d expected.

  “I beg to diff.” I squared my shoulders to look bigger, though I couldn’t achieve anywhere near the height of the stranger who towered over me. “Are you the shifter who rough handled me outside and head-butted me?”

  The corner of his mouth lifted in an arrogant triumph, and he ran a hand through his short hair, drawing my attention to his flexing bicep.

  “We prefer to call ourselves ‘hunters.’ ‘Shifter’ is such a human word, referring to anything that takes animal form.”

  “So you were the gray wolf?” My voice dipped.

  “No, I’m not gray. That’s Dagen.”

  I nodded, chewing on my cheek. Dagen. Must be the alpha? “So, what will you do with me? Can I leave?” Though the idea of returning home knotted my thoughts thanks to the situation with the priestess. What was worse? Facing off against shif… hunters, or an angry leader? Not sure yet.

  “Call me ‘Nero.’ And well,”—he licked his lips like a starved wolf who hadn’t eaten for a week—“we have a slight problem.”

  “Hmm.” I wasn’t liking where this was going, and I didn’t like being stuck in a house with Nero—and who knew where the other wolves lingered? Was their “slight problem” an inability to decide which one should tear me to shreds first? But Grandma had taught me to show no fear because sometimes wearing confidence scared away the enemy. I tucked part of her cloak into my back pocket.

  I straightened my posture and approached the man, my sights on the door. “Well, good luck with your problem, and thanks for not eating me. But I must go.”

  Despite sweat dripping down my back, I kept my composure together and passed Nero. Every nerve crackled. The door was in sight, and I reached for the handle.

  Nero leaned a shoulder against the door. He yawned as if this were a game… and what if it was?

  I tugged on the doorknob with no luck.

  “Little lamb, you’re not going anywhere.”

  Chapter 4

  “What’s your name?” Nero asked, studying me from behind hooded eyes, his voice low and husky. Shadows leaped across his cheeks from the fireplace, masking his true expression.

  But I wouldn’t let him intimidate me with his charming ways, or by standing there in the nude. Didn’t wolves wear clothes? And I’d heard enough tales to know when I ran from a wolf, it gave chase, so I stood my ground and responded, “Scarlet.”

  Maybe reasoning with him would save me from turning into his dinner. “You look like a kind man… Umm, I mean hunter. If you let me leave, I promise not to tell anyone about your secret den. And…” Think. What could I offer a wolf shifter who stared at me as if I were his meal? “Herbs. I’m an expert at healing and…�
�� I twisted around to find my bag and darted toward it.

  With the satchel tucked under an arm, I dug inside, as I had all my herbs packed in separate little pouches. But water soaked everything, and prickly herbs stuck to my fingertips, meaning something had opened, maybe even been ruined. Coldness wrapped around my chest at the thought that I had nothing to offer him. But I had no other option, and Nero wouldn’t know the difference. I just had to escape. Part of me toyed with the idea of tossing wolfsbane into his face, but I wasn’t ready to take on a wolf now or ever. First, I had to try to negotiate, so I showed him my small medicine bag I carried everywhere. Grandma had always taught me to be prepared. Guess she’d never believe I’d be in a wolf’s den, though.

  Water droplets fell to the wooden floor, causing Nero to arch an eyebrow.

  “It’s just water.” I choked a laugh. “But the herbs are great to make a healing tea or rub them on a wound to stop infection.”

  When he didn’t respond, I dove back into the bag, well aware that I had a batch of jimsonweed. The stuff was hard to come by and only grew high on the mountains where the bears lived. My fingers caressed the silky fabric, and I presented it to Nero, who tilted his head, studying the offering. Was he interested? That gave me hope.

  “Mix this into someone’s drink and they will hallucinate for a short while,” I explained.

  His nose wrinkled. “Why would a little lamb like you be carrying such a potion?”

  I swallowed the thickness rubbing my throat. “Grandma always told me to carry a small amount should someone ever kidnap me.”

  He smirked.

  Every inch of me tingled to recoil, but I refused to show him fear.

  Nero didn’t respond, and the jitters returned to my stomach. Had I said too much and now he saw me as a threat?

  “Listen,” he started and reached for my wrist, but the moment his fingers grazed mine, a spark zipped up my arm. I flinched back and his head shot up, his eyes widening.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  I shook my head because I’d never felt anything like that before—when I wasn’t amplifying plants, anyhow. The tiny spark now swirled in the pit of my gut, coiling in on itself. “As much as I’m enjoying your company, I think it’s time for me to leave.”

  He stared at me for the longest moment, but his stoic expression gave nothing away, and I clutched my wet bag to my chest, regretting it at once as the water soaked through my top, freezing my skin. The moment I lowered it, Nero’s gaze dipped, and I followed his gaze to my hardened nipples pressing against the fabric plastered to my body. My cheeks burned, and I caught the slight twitch of his hardness. Oh, crap… If he got aroused that quickly, had I been wrong about his intentions this whole time?

  Nero laughed, the sound powerful and crashing through me like torrential rain. He leaned in closer, his lips so close to mine, I could feel them on my skin. I didn’t back away, so hooray for me, though my legs wobbled. My palms tingled with the desire to reach out and see if his muscles were as hard as they looked. It was utter madness. I wasn’t supposed to get hot and bothered by my enemy, but he fogged my mind.

  Wolves had killed my parents, and I should have shoved the jimsonweed into Nero’s face, but Grandma’s words about my parents’ deaths kept resurfacing. Not everything in life is as straightforward as it seems. There are secrets everywhere. Nero appeared to be only a few years older than me, so he wouldn’t have had anything to do with their deaths. But a wolf was a wolf, known for their aggressiveness, their territorial ways, their suspicions of strangers. I had no reason to believe that his kind didn’t take my parents. I might have been next. With the way Nero was observing me, I ought to have run for my life. Yet a strange sensation teased me with the possibility of him wishing for more than a taste of my blood. Beyond all my rationale, I yearned to discover what he indeed wanted from me.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. We just saved you from the other wolves. But you keep teasing me that way, and…” Nero’s voice sliced through my thoughts, yanking back to the present. “I won’t be held responsible for what I’ll do to you,” he whispered, his lips pulling into a devilish grin, revealing a dimple in each chin.

  Desire thumped through me so fast, I lost my breath. His words should have terrified me, but instead, it felt as if an inferno had claimed my insides. A desperate, suffocating urge tightened around my lungs as I inhaled his musky and timber scent. I lost my mind to his gray-wolf eyes, and butterflies swarmed my stomach like the time Timmy had asked me on my first date. Except this was a hundred times stronger. It was too much but not enough at the same time. What was wrong with me?

  Catching my breath, I said, “W-What will you do?”

  He raised a hand and shifted a loose strand of hair caught on my lashes. He threaded his fingers to the back of my head and grabbed my hair in his fist, tilting my chin up with his other hand, our gazes meeting. Panic should have rattled me at the core, and I shouldn’t have allowed this, but flames circled my libido. I never liked dominant men… but Nero was doing something to me I couldn’t get enough of.

  His warm exhale danced across my face. “Little lamb, I’ll make you scream with pleasure.” His mouth grazed mine, and my knees buckled under me as his fiery passion engulfed me. Backing away was the obvious solution, along with shoving him away. But I couldn’t. Not when I pried open my lips for him and was sure my underwear had just melted right off me.

  I mewled against him, and he took my lower lip between his teeth, gnawing on it. An explosion of lights popped behind my eyelids. His fingers found my sex, rubbing gently. I squeezed my thighs together, muscles tense, and rapture owned me.

  When he pulled back, I whined and lost my balance, but Nero grasped me into his arms. Chest to chest, he winked and he might as well have licked me all over, because the apex between my legs burned with desperation.

  “What did you do to me?” I sucked in a rushed breath.

  “You’re so beautifully delicious.”

  We exchanged glances, unblinking, confusion knotting my mind. I felt as if I belonged to Nero. Craziest thought ever. He was a hunter and ate my kind… Heavens, how I’d love for him to devour me. The image of him between my thighs, licking me, had me shuddering.

  But he wanted me, and I had to have him. I dropped my bag and the herbal pouch, then clawed at his neck, wrenching him closer, our mouths clashing. His hardness pressed against my stomach. No reservations, only his actions, promising exhilaration.

  His hands skipped down my spine and cupped my ass, shoving me hard against the wall, our bodies plastered together. Breaths merged, and I moaned as he licked the length of my neck, his hands prying open my vest and top and his attention lowered to my cleavage. His hand slid inside, cupping a breast, kneading, my nipple beaded into a pebble.

  Arousal consumed me and clothes had to go. The fear vanished. I needed Nero in control, for me to surrender.

  I reached down between us and grabbed hold of his erection… so hard and big. A grunt tore out of him. Was it wrong of me to want this stranger to take me, to make me scream?

  A guttural growl echoed throughout the house, and I choked at the sound.

  Nero froze, halfway through biting down on the fabric of my top. He glanced up at me and smiled as if he knew something I didn’t. “We better go,” he declared, as if he hadn’t just brought me to the verge of an orgasm with a single kiss.

  I took a breath before asking, “What was that?”

  He broke away, and a chill found me. The moment he opened the door, a rush of cool air brushed past. I couldn’t move when my thoughts stayed on Nero and how I might encourage him to keep kissing me.

  Slumped against the wall, I gasped for air. I could barely move, let alone attempt walking.

  “Little lamb, the time has come to meet Dagen and for you help us with our problem.” He stretched out an arm, his palm upward, his fingers extended toward me.

  At first, I couldn’t find my voice. Confusion tore at my mind and emotion
s, from the threat prickling down my spine to the horniness to finish what Nero and I had started. I knew nothing about him, yet I was ready to give myself completely. Had he used a charm to seduce me? I’d heard tales of people getting kidnapped by wolves. And meeting with this Dagen had me shaking as I recalled the way he had stared at me in the woods while in his wolf form. Dagen had to be the alpha in charge. But in any case, it wasn’t as if I knew a way out of this house, so I’d play along until I found an escape, then I’d do what it took to get out. Though I kept wondering what in the world he’d done to make me fall over myself to kiss him.

  I picked up the dropped herbs, stuffed them into the bag, and accepted his hand. The guy towered over me, bigger than any man I’d encountered.

  Nero guided me the dark hallway with doors and now windows, the tapping of our footsteps on floorboards sounding around us. “Where are we?” I asked.

  We took a sharp left at the end before he pushed open a door with a ragged hole in the bottom paneling as if someone had kicked it.

  Unease hurt my stomach, and each inhale grew shorter, faster.

  “This is one of Oryn’s places,” Nero explained, as if I should know who that was.

  Was Oryn the black wolf?

  Nero drew me by the hand into a bedroom illuminated by a candle on a bedside table. In the middle of the room sat a bed with a man lying on his back covered by a woolen blanket that went up to his waist. The room smelled sickly sweet of wet dog fur. Shadows shrouded the corners, and again, there were no windows. What was the deal with that? Nero pulled free from my hand and approached the bed, placing a palm to the man’s forehead.

  “Is he sick?” I closed the distance, my boots clip-clopping against the wooden floorboards, when a growl echoed from my right.

  I flinched, my pulse jolting into hyper mode, just as a blur rushed me from the shadows.

  A cry fell from my throat, and I stumbled backward as something huge, black, and fast crashed into me. My feet tangled, and I fell over, hitting the floor. A wolf’s snout hovered inches over my face, lips peeled back, fangs on display. Hot breath streamed over me. The guttural sound of death churned through his chest.