Of Beast and Brawn (Wolves of Ossary #1)

Chapter One

Just Outside of Boston, Massachusetts

Present Day

–Kaia–

THERE WERE ONLY two ways to go now.

Right or left.

Toward the house nestled in the woods or straight back to hell and all that came with it.

Neither held much appeal, but what choice did I have? None.

My wheels needed to be eating up the pavement between what I’d left behind and where I was going if I had any hope of surviving the curse that had turned me into a beast.

Better put half wolf.

So, instead of heading south toward Boston and the Irish bastard who had sunk his nasty teeth into me, I swung my bike onto the highway and headed north.

Autumn was peaking in New England, and the air had a pleasant bite.

The hard, familiar angles of the city fell into the distance in my rearview mirror, and the vibrant crimson, orange, and yellow-leafed trees lining the road ahead felt more welcoming than I’d expected.

“It’ll be good for you,”

my uncle had said gruffly the week before, snuffing out what he swore would be his last cigarette.

“Good for all of us, half-pint.”

How could he be so sure? Why was he so certain the house he’d purchased in North Salem, New Hampshire, would be safe from all that was bound to come for me and my cousins? Simple.

Uncle Connor was as cursed as the rest of us.

Part of a faction of the Irish mafia completely off my radar until a month ago.

When an incoming call flashed on my console, I breathed a sigh of relief and answered via the Bluetooth in my helmet.

“Hey, Naya.

Does this mean what I hope it does?”

Getting Naya out of the city would be no small task, so her calling me was good.

A start.

Or so I hoped.

“Hell, no,”

Naya exclaimed, eerily in sync with me since we had been cursed.

“This definitely doesn’t mean what you hope it does.

I don’t do the country any more than you do, and I sure as heck don’t run from a fight.”

Cursing under my breath, I swung into the fast lane and screamed up the highway before I became too tempted to get off at the next exit and head back.

Leave it to Naya to make life more complicated than it already was.

“I can’t take care of you both,”

I said through clenched teeth, holding back the animalistic growl that nearly found its way out of my mouth.

It seemed one had been hovering in my throat too often since I was bitten, especially when dealing with stubborn family members who refused to take steps to keep themselves safe.

“That’s fine because I can take care of myself.”

Naya snorted.

“As to Storm? Good luck.

Love her, but she was stone-cold crazy before all this, so I don’t understand why you think she’d change now.”

She chuckled.

“Just leave her be and get back here.

This curse isn’t as bad as you're all making it out to be.

In fact, I kind of—”

“No,”

I growled, finally letting a little animal out, and it felt good.

Too good.

“You can like being half wolf all you want, but that doesn’t change what they’ll turn you into if you stay and you know it.

Uncle Connor did everything he could over the years to keep us out of trouble. The least you can do is give him some peace of mind and head to New Hampshire because he’s worried. Really worried, and you know it. More so now than ever since there’s a full moon tonight.”

Naya responded, but her voice was choppy before cutting out altogether.

No wonder, given things didn’t seem quite right.

“What the?”

I whispered, confused when my vision blurred.

The highway morphed around me and snapped back into focus, leaving me well north of where I’d just been.

A shiver shot through me.

The console showed it was a half hour later, and my exit was less than a mile away.

Cutting over a lane, ready to hop off the interstate, another shiver tore up my spine when the highway vanished, and a familiar country road unraveled in front of me.

A quick check of the console showed even more time had passed.

I was almost there and didn’t remember the drive.

“You’d think that’d be enough to make you turn back, Kaia,”

I muttered under my breath, talking to myself.

Since shifting for the first time, I’d been doing that more often.

Almost as if I were talking to the beast growing inside me.

Because it was growing.

Changing.

Turning me into something else in more ways than one.

Whatever Niall—the loser who turned me—had done, it wasn’t nearly finished wreaking havoc on my human side yet because I barely recognized myself half the time.

“You’re just a more intense version of yourself now,”

my uncle had said as he wrapped a blanket around me when I’d woken up beside the railroad tracks in the North End.

A place no Southie girl with Irish mafia connections should be, let alone sleeping without a stitch of clothing on.

Fortunately, wolf or not, I’d steered clear of the Italians and ended up under my uncle’s safety net again.

A net that stretched further than I ever could have imagined.

Not far enough, though, because in the end, we weren’t fleeing our Italian rivals but fellow Irish.

Now, here I was, turning down a dirt road and passing a small ranch-style house on the left with nothing but trees around me.

Fleeing to somewhere the opposite of all I’d ever known because my uncle said we’d be safe here.

Not only that, we all knew Storm shouldn’t be alone.

Unlike Naya, Storm had wasted no time leaving Boston after she’d shifted the first time, finding her way to an area that suited her better than city streets, rush hour traffic, and hot summer smog.

Storm had always been different, more reclusive, and oddly detached despite her sometimes-confrontational spirit.

Much different from Naya, who loved being around people.

Especially the opposite sex.

Yet there was no sign of Storm's car when I pulled up in front of the quaint old Colonial at the end of the road.

All was quiet.

The air held the pleasant tang of potential snowfall when I removed my helmet and shook out my long, black hair, relieved by how great it felt.

Usually, I hated anything that meant getting off my bike and the freedom it offered.

How bloodshot were my eyes this time? That had been happening a lot since my first shift.

Uncle Connor said it was my body adjusting to the changes in me, but I wondered.

There seemed to be more to it.

Something more primal. Blinking into the rearview mirror, I was surprised to find them clear and bluer than ever. Strikingly blue, for that matter, standing out against my thick, ebony lashes.

“You made it,”

Storm exclaimed from somewhere above.

Once again, everything was off because one second, I was checking to see if my eyes were bloodshot, and the next, I was glancing up to discover Storm’s car was parked in the driveway.

What the fuck?

If that wasn’t strange enough, I wasn't on my bike anymore but standing beneath an old oak tree in front of the house.

Its leaves were bright yellow and sunset orange, intensely vibrant as they floated down around me, caught on the same chilly wind blowing through my hair.

“What is this?”

I whispered, staring up into its gnarly branches, sure I would find something there, but nope.

Everything was as it should be.

“Are you all right, sweetie?”

Storm asked from above, looking down from an upstairs window.

Her finely arched reddish-brown eyebrows pulled together, and her large, brilliant emerald eyes flashed with concern.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She pulled her fiery auburn locks back into a ponytail and cocked her head.

“Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so pale.”

Pale? Really? Given I wasn’t entirely Irish and by no means had a redhead’s complexion like Storm, that was telling.

Something was wrong, even though, strangely, everything felt right.

Why, though? Woodsy places were no more my jam than Naya’s, but something about this place was different.

I gazed up into the branches swaying in the wind.

Something about this tree.

“Kaia?”

Storm said, startling me when her soft voice was right next to my ear, and her gentle hand lay on my shoulder.

I whipped around, ready to bitch at her for scaring me—better yet, sneaking up on me when she’d just been in the window above.

“Oh, hell no, this can’t be happening,”

I choked out, biting back fear when she wasn't there.

Scarier still? The upstairs window was shut, and there was no sign of her car in the driveway.

Crouching down, I held my head, reminding myself I was in a transitional period that could include hallucinations, and counted down from ten to one, like I had as a kid when I needed to pull myself together.

Back then, I knew the only way to soothe Naya and Storm was to remain calm and assure them everything would be okay.

We were a team.

Our parents might be gone, but we had each other and Uncle Connor.

Determined to be the one who made things better, I closed my eyes, counted down, and breathed deeply.

Everything in me screamed to run away, not face the nightmare I’d been thrust into, but that wasn’t who I was—not then, and not now.

If I had to face more bad things, I’d do it head-on.

So despite how frightened I was, I stood with clenched fists and narrowed my eyes because I didn’t trust any damn part of it.

Yet everything seemed perfectly normal.

Even the New England-style barn across from the house looked like it had when I'd been here before.

“I don’t get it,”

I muttered, frowning when an icy snowflake landed on my cheek.

Could that be it? Had the change in weather somehow affected what was going on inside me? Uncle Connor said the next few weeks would be a period of adjustment for me and my cousins, so that had to be it.

The changing weather was affecting our inner beasts.

Snow instead of rain. Incoming winter and outgoing fall.

Did that mean I might not shift tonight?

I could only pray.

Not just for myself but for Naya and Storm, too, because we were supposed to do it together our second time shifting.

Run as a pack and keep each other safe, my uncle had said.

That was a thing, it seemed. Shifting with other wolves the second time would bond us in ways I couldn’t understand. I thought our connection was already unbreakable, but apparently, if we shifted together tonight, our bond would be untouchable in ways I couldn’t begin to fathom.

So what happened if my cousins didn't show up because Naya had sounded like she had no intention of coming and who knows where Storm was? Would things change between us? I hoped not.

It hadn't after our first shift, but then we hadn't done it together.

Newly bitten wolves rarely did.

We suffered alone through the nightmare. At least what we remembered of it.

All I recalled was pain.

Lots of it.

Boatloads.

Bad, bone-splintering, hellish pain.

I shivered and did my best to shove the memory aside.

Focus on the present.

I would face whatever hell was coming later, but right now, I needed to get my bike in the barn and out of the snow and ice.

Once it was safely tucked away, I headed toward the house. Knowing this would be our new home for now, Uncle Connor had paid our realtor, Adlin, to furnish it since it had been sitting empty for a while.

“Not bad,”

I murmured, taking in the simple yet tasteful décor we'd all like when I stepped inside.

At least it would appeal to me and Storm.

Naya would be a hard sell either way because she was City to the bone.

Only nowadays, it wasn’t in a run-down triple-decker apartment in the South End of Boston but a plush uptown high rise with furniture she would have sold her soul to own in our youth.

“Okay, so I’m not totally losing it,”

I whispered, spying the note propped against a basket of fresh vegetables and other vegetarian-friendly foods on the kitchen counter.

“So that you feel at home, Kaia,”

Storm had written.

“Be back soon.

Coping with this in my own way. Promise.”

“But you’re not supposed to,”

I growled, again liking how it felt.

The way it rumbled in my chest like a pent-up beast I could control rather than the other way around.

“We’re supposed to do this together, this time.

All three of us.”

Well, four, because Uncle Connor wanted to be here, but there was no sign of him yet.

Though he’d said he wouldn't be here until later, deep down, I had a feeling he might not show at all.

He felt guilty about what was happening to us, so I suspected he didn't feel worthy of being bonded into our pack.

After all, he had kept a huge secret from us.

Little did we know our uncle and savior, the man who had raised us when we’d lost everything, was also half wolf.

I frowned at the note and tossed it aside.

Screw this.

Where was she? I sorta kinda understood Naya staying away, but Storm? Not okay.

Guilt trip worthy. I pulled my cell from the pocket of my black leather jacket to let both cousins know what I thought of them bailing on me tonight, only to catch something out of the corner of my eye just outside the window.

Was Uncle Connor here already? I hadn't heard his bike, but maybe he’d caught an Uber or Lyft because these days you never knew.

He liked to fly under the radar using different aliases.

Or maybe it was Storm being weird again because she excelled at it lately.

Yet when I opened the front door and stepped outside, I suffered another time lapse because it was dusk, and I sank into a few inches of powder-soft newly fallen snow.

“Oh no.”

I shook my head.

My warm breath came out in foggy puffs.

“Not yet.”

Whether I pleaded or not, this curse wasn’t like praying to God for a miracle but hoping the devil gave me half a chance because when my gaze rose to the sky and the retreating clouds, only the full moon was left to greet me.

Even worse? When pain splintered through me, and I dropped to my knees, I realized I wasn’t alone anymore.

My inner beast was taking over, and the devil had a face.

More terrifying still?

He had just emerged from the forest and was heading straight for me.