Chapter 1
Not even a full day ago, Misti Wolventon had married Talon Kastner, and already she was a widow. The one tie that bound the Wild Shades to her side against her old pack, the Red Nightwalkers, was gone. Hundreds of werewolves around her were fighting, Wild Shades and Red Nightwalkers and Shadowed Stars.
Her husband had been murdered by a Shadowed Star, one she had given her body to many times, one she may have given her heart to as well—Anders Kraus.
Why? Why had they been fighting? Because of her? Red Nightwalkers and Shadowed Stars were closing in on them, actually working together to annihilate the Wild Shades, yet the two of them had thought it better to fight each other instead of their real enemies.
And Talon had been the one to fall.
Misti eased herself off the ground, but her back injuries were too great, and her legs collapsed from under her. If a Red Nightwalker or a Shadowed Star were to discover her in her hiding place in the underbrush, she wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. She would be the next to die.
Pain flared from her wounds whenever she breathed, and eventually, her eyes closed. Only for a moment, or so she thought, until she opened her eyes and realized the battle was over. The sun was beating down on those tending to the wounded, but the rays didn’t touch her in her hiding place. She was cut off, separate, away from everyone. It mimicked how she felt inside—all alone and isolated.
Footsteps approached, and she looked up to see Anders staring down at her. He was in human form, naked, and she realized that she was too. When she had passed out, she must have shifted out of her wolf to her human shape.
“You’re wounded,” he said, horror twisting his features into rage and bewilderment.
He left and returned a moment later with some water and a piece of cloth. Tenderly, he helped Misti into a sitting position, washed her, and then bandaged her. He had to go get a lot more cloth pieces to cover each inch of the deep claw marks on her back.
“What happened?” he asked. “You’re such a strong warrior…”
Her lips she held still, even when he tied the next cloth piece a little too tightly.
“I hope you killed the werewolf that did this to you. If not, I’ll tear him from limb to limb.” His upper lip curled back, and his teeth changed into fangs.
She glanced away.
He finally fell silent as he tied on the last cloth piece. “There. Does that feel better?”
Misti glowered at him.
He hung his head. He’d been kneeling beside her as he dressed her wounds, but now he sat beside her. “I know you saw what I… what I did,” he said stiffly.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” She wanted to stand, to walk away, to leave him behind, but her body was too weak.
He handed her some willow bark.
Misti didn’t want to touch him to take it, so she turned away.
“Stubborn,” he muttered. “Here.” He dropped the bark onto her lap.
She took the medicine and closed her eyes. “I should rest.”
“You can. You will.”
But she didn’t hear any footsteps away.
Misti opened her eyes. “Leave.” Again, she shut them.
She could hear grass and leaves crinkling and then felt a presence beside her.
“Seriously?” Her eyes opened, just little slits, even to glower at him.
“We should talk about it.”
“So that I could try and convince the Wild Shades not to kill you for?—”
His hand clamped over her mouth. “They don’t know I was the one.”
“And you want to keep it that way.”
“Well, yes.”
If he wouldn’t shut up and let her sleep, she’d at least talk about what she wanted to. “How did the battle end?”
“David Youngless… you know him? Second in command to Kastner? Well, he set a fire around the perimeter of the battle.”
Misti sniffed. Yes, she could smell smoke and burnt wood. Strange that she hadn’t smelled it earlier. Her senses were not as sharp as they should be. The constant battles her body had fought recently were taking their toll on her. She might not survive the next one.
For a moment, she wondered what the point of it all was. Why bother to keep on fighting? So many lives wasted.
From here, she couldn’t see any of the other werewolves, but she knew they were nearby, gathering the dead, tending to the wounded. She should be helping, but she was injured herself.
It made her feel weak and helpless, and she despised feeling like that.
Anders shifted beside her, and she just knew he was going to bring it up again.
“Don’t.”
“You need to know.”
“No, I really don’t.” Actually… “Fine, I do, but not now. Just go.” Her head was starting ache almost as much as her back. Sitting wasn’t helping her any. With a groan, she struggled to lie down on her stomach. She crossed her arms beneath her head and used them as a pillow.
Anders lay prone beside her, his lips close enough to her ear that she could feel his warm breath. Her traitorous body shivered at his proximity. “I killed him to protect you.”
“Protect me?” she nearly shouted.
“Yes.” Anders stared at her. His eyes were the same as ever—full of expression and emotion and lacking any sign of deceit. His lips twisted into a nasty scowl, and he turned his head to the side and spat. “He sold us out. All of us. His own pack!”
Now Misti didn’t know Talon all that well. She hardly knew him. But his father, the alpha of the Wild Shades, insisted on the match before he would have his people fight against her Red Nightwalkers and Anders’s Shadowed Stars. Without their aid, she and Anders would have been hunted and killed. The ten werewolves sent to kill them Misti and Anders had been able to fight off by themselves, but if they hadn’t formed an alliance with a pack, the next set of werewolves would have been more than they could have handled.
That he had been willing to marry her when it meant his people would be going to war told her a great deal about him. The Wild Shades had been forced from the mountain that the Red Nightwalkers and Shadowed Stars still fought over. He had hoped to reclaim the mountain for his people, that they would be able to shift to their werewolf form without fear of humans discovering them.
“He sold us all out,” Anders repeated in a hushed tone that hid none of his contempt.
“How convenient,” she snapped. “No proof and no way for him to defend himself.”
She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. Finally, after a few long minutes, Anders stirred and left.
A few tears leaked from her eyes. Why exactly she was crying, she didn’t know, but eventually, she cried herself to sleep.