Wild Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary Book 4)

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I sighed, rolling over in bed and trying to ignore the strange itching feeling which had started up beneath my skin and seemed determined to drag me from sleep. It was no good.

I sat up, gently moving Roary’s arm off of me and untangling my legs from Ethan’s.

Moonlight poured in through the window above my bed so brightly that I squinted up at it as I blinked my eyes open. A frown dug rivets into my brow as that discomfort increased, the itching intensifying, urging me to get up.

“Alright,” I murmured sleepily. “I’m listening.”

The moon was urging me to move faster so I stole out of bed, scrubbing a hand over my face and taking stock of the room. Sin was missing.

“By the stars,” I groaned, irritation puncturing my sleepy haze and bringing me fully awake at last. I gave the room a sweeping look, finding Sin’s clothes gone and a crumpled note left in their place.

I crossed the room and picked it up, expecting him to have left some kind of explanation. Instead, I found a drawing of a lemon, a squid and a thumbs up.

“Fucking Sin,” I muttered, tossing the note aside and grabbing a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. I didn’t wake the others as I headed out of the room. This was something I needed to deal with myself.

I slipped through the house, the sounds of my sleeping famiglia coming from within many of the rooms I passed where pack huddles were the norm and my often solitary existence was more than unusual. Though I supposed I was conforming now that I had my men sharing my bed more often than not.

I passed the room that Cain was sharing with Hastings, hiding my passage in a silencing bubble so that even his Vampire senses wouldn’t detect me.

When I made it downstairs, I headed to the cloakroom just off of the front door and hunted around in it until I found my leather jacket and a helmet hidden in the back. I quickly laced a pair of boots onto my feet, scowling at the mud coating them, making it clear one of my family members had made use of them in my absence.

Outside the moonlight was even brighter, illuminating the world in lines of silver and making my skin tingle with the rush of the celestial being’s power.

That sense of urgency only increased and I broke into a run at her command, racing down the track to the barn and selecting a motorcycle from the lineup. I could hear Leon’s voice carrying from somewhere close to the house, cursing out Sin for stealing his car and knew it couldn’t have been long since he’d left.

I tucked my hair up into my helmet and muttered several colourful swear words about my Incubus as I started the engine and roared out of the barn, though I hid the sound within my silencing bubble so only I could hear it.

The drive was illuminated in a river of silver light far brighter than that surrounding us, the moon offering me a path to follow, leading me to where I needed to be. I sent up a word of thanks to the moon as the power she had gifted me flared in my blood, the path becoming all the clearer.

The gates swung open, allowing me to exit and I raced out onto the road beyond. My eyes fell on the FIB vehicle which was parked up to watch the exit to our stronghold and I grinned as I found the pair of agents inside it fast asleep, no doubt the work of the beautiful being hanging low and fat in the sky above me.

I made it down to the crossroads where I expected my path to lead me back into the heart of Alestria, to Jerome’s apartment if I was being entirely honest about it, but instead the glimmering trail of moonlight directed me south towards the coast.

I frowned, but only hesitated for a beat before following the guidance of the moon and tearing away towards the sea at high speed.

The road was clear and open the entire way, either by design of the moon herself or maybe it was just because it was the middle of the night and no other motherfucker was travelling this way.

The prickling within my skin was growing fiercer, the sense that something truly awful might come to pass if I didn’t make it to my destination in time eating at me.

I headed further south, the world slipping into a rugged terrain around me, nature left to keep hold of this wild expanse of open woodland before I broke free of the trees and found myself up on the cliffs overlooking the sea.

There weren’t a lot of properties out this way but there were several hulking mansions owned by rich and famous Fae and used for summer getaways. We tended to leave them alone and they left us alone in turn but I knew that every one of them were powerful, important people. The kind who even the Oscuras avoided messing with.

“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, Sin?” I growled.

The moonlight veered off of the road, leading me onto a well maintained track which speared out towards the sea, descending rapidly with the cliffs rising up around me and the trees thickening once more.

The bike ate up the distance to the foot of the cliffs and I dismounted as I found a pair of heavy iron gates barring my way on, making sure I left the track far enough away for any CCTV cameras to be able to pick me up.

I cursed in a low tone as I spotted a bright orange sports car dumped in the trees at the edge of the path, barely concealed within the greenery, the engine still running.

I closed in on it, unsurprised to find it empty and I shut the ignition off before straightening and looking around for another clue from the moon.

Patches of silver light puddled in spots throughout the trees to my right, the moonlight punching holes through the canopy and leading me around the perimeter of the property.

I reached out with my earth magic and guided the plants and greenery aside as I crept closer, giving me a clear path which eventually led me out of the trees to the side of a stunning beach house set back from the glimmering sea beyond.

A low picket fence ringed the property though clearly it was protected by powerful wards which were the real security in place. I reached out tentatively with my magic, feeling for the wards and hunting for some way around them but as I began to work my will into the solid wall of magic, the brush of fingers down my spine made me jerk around in alarm.

I snarled a warning, an iron dagger forming in my fist as I twisted to look all around me, finding nothing and no one there.

An unnatural breeze rustled the swaying leaves closest to me and as I glared out into the darkness, a breath of pleading reached my ears.

“Stop him, Moon Wolf.”

My heart leapt at the words, the tumbling echo of them seeming to span the ocean and beyond while still being so quiet that it was hard to make them out at all.

The leaves rustled faster, the crash of their tiny bodies against one another forming a chorus of words which I couldn’t pick out, but the harder I strained my ears to listen for them, the more of them spilled over me.

Lies. Concealment. Falsehood.

“Shit,” I hissed, moving closer to the wards again but I was forced to turn as that same brush of fingers ran down my spine.

I eyed the space around me warily, not seeing anyone there but I could feel them as if their presence had laid an imprint on the world around me like the shape of a body nestled into blankets.

“Speak,” I commanded, leaning into my connection with the moon and feeling the rippling fabric of The Veil flickering around me as if someone were trying to push through it from the other side of death.

“Whitney cannot follow this path,” a voice called to me in desperation and I almost flinched at its proximity. “He is headed towards a fate that can’t be undone.”

“What fate?” I demanded, my eyes scouring the nothingness though the presence seemed closer than ever, the impression of a beautiful woman with wide, deep-set eyes which were filled with pure terror, filling my mind.

“His father resides in that house. The man who never knew he existed. In life I was forced to forget my son but in death I see it all…”

Her voice trailed away and I cursed in Faetalian as I rounded on the house again, pushing my will against the wards. There wasn’t time to be subtle. So I threw everything I had at them and hoped I’d be able to find a way through before Sin Wilder made a mistake that might ruin his entire life.