Prologue
Los Angeles, USA, June 2012 – Liv
“So, are you ever going to tell me?” I asked Lincoln as we sat on the beach, just the two of us. He loved it here, on the sand, in the warm June sun. It was the complete opposite to the cold, dark, magickal forest that housed Lance’s Castle.
“Tell you what?” he asked innocently.
“You know what. Don’t be coy.”
“Is it important?”
“Well, it was a huge part of your life, don’t you want to talk about it?” I pressed.
“No, not really,” he replied, looking away from me.
“Linc. Come on. I have told you things. You owe me one. Besides, we are supposed to be getting to know each other.”
“I know that. I love our chats. I feel like I can tell you anything, but I just don’t want to talk about the curse.” He sat forward, shielding his face from my interested stare.
“Just give me the basics then. You don’t have to go into details. Like for example, the other wolves, were they Shifters?”
“No, just the regular kind,” he said carefully.
“Oh. How did that work?” I asked curiously.
“In the same way a regular Pack works,” he snapped at me and I chewed my lip.
“Okay, fine. Be that way. You know everything that he did to me. Not even C…Constantine or Devon or Cole knows half of what I have told you.”
“Don’t make me feel bad about not sharing. That isn’t fair,” he sat back again and took my hand. It was a friendly gesture, nothing sexual in it. Not that my stubborn fool-of-a-sire would have believed it.
“I’m not. I’m sorry. You tell me whenever you are ready.” I was prepared to drop it as he looked pretty pissed off and, after having witnessed his aggressive side not even a week ago, I was not particularly ready to see it again.
“I had heard from a Feline Shifter in Chicago that there was a pack of Wolf Shifters in Romania. After what happened to my family, I wanted to find others. I was alone and an alone Alpha is not a good thing to have around,” he started, staring firmly at the ocean.
Hm, I thought with a slight gulp. Probably why the chosen profession of hitman for the mob.
“I got there and searched for weeks but got nowhere until one day, out of the blue, I picked up a trail. It, however, led straight to the forest around Castle Black. I was warned to stay away from there. Everyone in the paranormal community I came across, warned me but I didn’t listen.”
He stopped speaking and I guessed that was all I was going to get from him, but it was more than I knew before. To my surprise, he continued after a few moments.
“I was so desperate to find others, that I went anyway. As it turned out they weren’t Wolf Shifters, just regular wolves, but folklore and probably Lance had turned them into a myth. He lured me in and trapped me. He wanted the wolves for protection, to keep unwanted visitors out. Not that
anyone dared to set foot there anyway. He could only get them under his control with an Alpha Shifter. And there was me, dumb enough to give him what he wanted,” he said with a sad laugh.