War of Hearts (True Immortality 1)

Until the first time she couldn’t shift.

Her body just refused to give in to her wolf, even on a full moon. That’s when she finally allowed him to drive her to the city where after several tests, Brianna announced Callie had what wolves commonly referred to as apogee. Brianna knew of it but hadn’t ever seen a case before because it was so rare in wolves. Just like the human disease cancer, it was an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in the body. In Callie’s case, it was a malignant tumor on her spine.

Unlike cancer, there was no way to beat apogee, and the cases were so few, little funding had gone into developing treatment. Conall had given money to Brianna to share her research with a wolf in Sweden who was already studying the disease, but Callie would be long gone before they made any breakthroughs.

There was not a lot of time left to save her, and Conall couldn’t lose another member of his family.

He wouldn’t.

Chucking Callie under the chin, he grinned as she rolled her eyes and turned back around to face his waiting pack and the Canids. A man of few words, he merely watched them as the sun began to dip below the horizon, turning the leaves of the trees from green and plum to black. A burning, tingling sensation skated down his spine, signaling the call of the full moon.

A growl burrowed up from deep in his gut and he felt the sting of his teeth elongating. He yanked his shirt over his head and threw it aside. “Ceannsaichidh an Fhìrinn!” He bellowed their clan motto in Scottish Gaelic, the words warped by the guttural rumble of his wolf.

His pack lowered to their knees; everyone but Peter and Richard Canid followed suit. A pack alpha did not bow to another pack alpha, that was understood. Richard, however, should have been on his knees beside Sienna. His father clamped a hand on his shoulder and forced him to them.

While Conall’s packs’ expressions strained from the forced beginnings of the shift, Richard’s strained with distaste. Conall concentrated every inch of his powerful energy toward the recalcitrant pup and watched the blood leach from Richard’s face as he felt the power of the alpha overwhelm him. He fell to his knees, trembling.

Conall’s pack felt his power too, their own growls, purrs, and howls filling the air. And then as one they all cried, “Ceannsaichidh an Fhìrinn!”

Truth Conquers.

Their truth conquered them every full moon, and they reveled in it.The studio apartment Thea rented was farther into the Nowa Huta district than the last, which meant an even farther and more expensive commute to the pub restaurant on Stolarska. But there didn’t appear to be any vampires nearby, so Thea was calling it a win.

Not that the shitty apartment with its stained mattress could normally be considered a win.

However, the apartment was not what was on Thea’s mind. For the last few days, she’d felt like someone was watching her and she was constantly on guard. Suspicious that the vampire called Abram might have followed her scent, she’d been looking over her shoulder everywhere she went. Today that feeling of being watched was heightened but since there was no internal warning of danger, she didn’t let herself get too worked up about it.

Still, it was annoying. Every time she swept the busy bar for a possible source, she couldn’t find anyone paying any particular attention to her.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. The middle-aged American couple she was serving were watching her with a gleam in their eyes she recognized and did not like. She nicknamed them The Oranges as soon as they walked in because they were both wearing fake tan. They weren’t exactly orange, but it was obvious their current skin color had been purchased. The Oranges signaled to her as she was passing. “I’ll be right there,” she promised.

Once she’d given an order to the kitchen, she reluctantly returned to the couple’s table. “Would you like to see the dessert menu?”

Mr. Orange curled his finger at her. An unpleasant feeling roiled in Thea’s stomach as she bent toward him.

“My wife and I,” he said in her ear, his lips almost touching her skin, “were wondering …” Thea felt his hand smooth over her ass. “If you’d like to join us at our hotel after your shift? We’ll generously compensate you.”

If Thea hadn’t been exposed to the worst of humanity at such a young age, perhaps she would have scoffed to hear such a story. It was so cliché. A western couple with more money than sense trying to pick up a poor fellow countrywoman in a foreign country working a menial job, to prostitute her for their shared pleasure.

Well, clichés were clichés for a reason.

They were often goddamn true.