Page 1 of The Warrior's Captive

Chapter 1

Castor

Wyoming had nearly ten million acres of forested lands, but with one of the best trackers who had ever been born on their side, they’d found the remains of his twin brother in under ten days. They’d set up a home base in a piece of shit run down motel while they pieced together what the fuck had happened. Every question led to ten more, a spider’s web of lies and loyalties, but they were certain now they were ready for vengeance.

“They took your brother. We’re going to take one of them as repayment. What’s our next move, Hades?”

Hades. God of the underworld. Caretaker of death.It was a fitting codename. He liked it much better than the name his mother gifted him at birth. Castor, he hated that he was one of two parts.

One of twin stars in a constellation. Every time he looked at the sky, he couldn’t help but wonder if his brother was up there. The black of night was once a comforting blanket, but now it haunted him. As kids, they’d been obsessed with the stars, with the Milky Way, with the myths and legends, especially the ones they were named for. They’d loved the idea of those two brothers up there in the sky. Greek legends.

His name also meant pious. It happened to be one of the biggest jokes ever perpetrated. His mother clearly hadn’t had an ounce of foresight. She couldn’t have foretold that the innocent baby she’d held in her arms would turn into a cruel, hardened man who took mercenary jobs for a living after his time in the military was over.

Hades. Yes, that would have been much better suited. Everything he touched turned to ash.

The motel room wasn’t big enough for one man, let alone three, but since they took turns sleeping in shifts, the one bed was enough while the other two kept watch. Most nights, they didn’t sleep at all. The early July sun beat down hotter than normal and without any air conditioning, the room was stifling.

Castor longed to shift. He wanted to sit in solitude and let the peace and wisdom of the wolf wash over him and guide him. He trusted his animal spirit far more than he trusted the savagery of his human heart.

“We could take his kids. Nothing hurts a parent like having their children stolen from them.” Jax, code name Apollo, clearly relished the idea.

There’d always been something off about the guy. A bigger piece of shit the world had never known. His talent, other than being a first-rate asshole, was muscle. He was a big bastard, as large as he was annoying. If he could piss people off past their breaking point, he could also snap them clean in half. A better athlete and a finer hand-to-hand combat fighter probably didn’t exist. His forte was using his brawn, not his brain, and Castor was getting so tired of it that the urge to test the guy’s combat skills with his own might was getting more and more appealing as the minutes ticked on.

Castor rounded on the larger man. He grasped his sweat-soaked t-shirt in his fist, twisting and shoving him back into the wall. Apollo grinned back at him, a sick sneer that peeled his lips back away from his teeth. Castor snarled in his face, an animal in human form. “We don’t hurt kids. What kind of a monster are you? Only a sick asshole makes a kid pay for the sins of their father. The sins of anyone else.”

“Whoa. Jesus. I know what happened to you and Pollux as kids. I wasn’t suggesting that—”

“You weren’t suggesting anything because you’re going to shut your fucking mouth. Say another word and I’ll take you outside and throw you off the balcony myself.” The railing was shoddy wrought iron, twisted and warped to the point that it was more of a suggestion than a safety standard. It was only waist high. He could easily heave Apollo over.

“It’s fourteen feet in the air. I’d land on my feet.”

“Not with my axe sticking out of the back of your skull, you wouldn’t,” he shot back.

“You’d turn on your own like that?”

“Who knows. On this mission, at least, I’m the god of death.”

“I remember when you used to have honor.”

He shook Apollo hard, so his head smacked into the stained patched drywall.

“This is all about honor. My brother was taken from me. Do you think a child had the wherewithal and the strength to kill a grown man? A warrior wolf?”

“Those kids are probably ten or eleven years old. They could fire a bow. Shoot a gun,” Apollo snapped back. He had an overinflated ego that consistently told him that he was too big to kill. He was wrong.

Zeus, real name Ireland, was hands down the best tracker in their pack despite his youth. He was barely twenty, but a big man as well. He was tall and sleek, a good athlete, but it was his skills in seeing the unseen that made him so valuable. He had a sort of sense for things, the hidden and the other, that he’d proven time and again were real. It was like he could see into other dimensions and realms. Death and the past, even the future, held very little sway over him. He was quiet and attentive. Meditative would probably be a better word. He liked quiet and he was constantly playing the peacekeeper between his two other packmates on their mission.

Nerves were frayed from day one and it had been a constant war between Apollo questioning the orders of his leader, challenging him whenever he could. Zeus had been busier than he wanted to be, stopping fights and standing Apollo down when he became too much.

“Hades,” Zeus touched his hand. Despite his massive body, he had the strangest, almost delicate fingers. Fingers that they’d both witnessed do unnatural things. It was like the earth and the air, the water, the trees, the rocks themselves spoke to Zeus. One brush of those fingertips over the earth and he’d be able to tell them that just beyond where the Nightfall Pack lands officially started, Pollux’s blood had been shed.

He’d bled into that dirt. The life drained out of him in the very spot Zeus pointed out, just a nondescript stretch of field left for grazing. He’d been burned there too, his body turned to ash. The marks were long gone, but Zeus found them anyway, caressing the earth, bending his cheek to listen to the spot as if it whispered its secrets in his ear.

This was the first mission Castor had ever worked with Zeus. Ever worked with anyone since his military days. He was a lone unit. A lone wolf.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up at Zeus’s touch. There was most definitely something wrong with him, but it made him insanely valuable.

He backed off, letting go of Apollo. He didn’t bother fixing his clothes, just kept leering at Castor. “Could a child hide their tracks?” he questioned more reasonably, in control of himself again. “There were others. All in the same spot. Could two little kids kill an entire band of adult wolves who were seasoned fighters?”

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