Page 1 of Redeemed Wolf

Chapter 1

Silas

The wind shifted, bringingwith it the scent of damp soil, moss, and in the distance, rain. Closer, though, the scent we’d been waiting for: fresh game. Sweat and musk on its pelt, blood pumping in veins, hot and coppery. Our stomach was already full, but this hunt wasn’t about sating our hunger. It was about something far more complex than our base instincts. Politics, social etiquette. Those were human motivations, but for now, there was only wolf.

And I was grateful to lose myself to the beast. Then it was easier to ignore the voices inside my head repeating every word my bitter pack had uttered to me over the past several years. That I would never be good enough. The complaints when I made the wrong decision about our winter’s food supply or allocation of funds, the pushback I received when I asked someone to pitch in to help with housing repairs.

“You’ll never be half the Alpha Thorn was,” Samson, one of the alphas from Overlands, had said with a sneer. Good, Ithought bitterly. I guess that made me less than half a piece of shit.

Focus, my beast snipped at me, urging me to quiet my mind.

My wolf kept low to the ground, hidden in the shadow of a wide cedar tree. He kept perfectly stiff, even as the breeze tugged at our fur. Even as the doe moved slowly into view.

He was far more patient than I was. I knew better than to rush him. Not that he would listen. It was his turn at the wheel, and as much as I didn’t like to admit it, he was the superior hunter. Saliva pooled beneath our tongue; he could almost taste the red meat. The muscles in our haunches twitched, and he held our breath. Anticipation itched at me as we waited… waited…

This was easier to do as a pack, working together to take down a larger beast, but there was no way my pack would’ve helped with this, knowing what I intended to do with it…

A twig snapped behind us and to the right, under someone’s boot, and the deer whipped her head up, her ears swiveling, nostrils flaring, muscles coiled as she prepared to bolt from the threat.

Before the deer could run, we exploded from the undergrowth with a burst of energy, our heart pounding. The deer flinched back and took off, trying to deke through a narrow gap between trees, but she didn’t make it before our teeth found her throat. She reared, thrashing, but it was too late. Her blood poured into our mouth and down our chest, coating our fur crimson, and my wolf dug our claws into the loam to find purchase, being dragged forward. Even as her life drained from her body, she continued to kick, until she was heaving for every breath. Her pulse slowed.Thud, thud… thud.

Adrenaline made us stronger, and while she fought well, there was no escape for her today. She sagged to her knees, panting. My wolf finally let go, shaking the stress free from our body as the deer tipped to her side and finally lay still.

We looked over our shoulder at the man who was leaning against a tree, arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing combat boots, jeans, and a black leather jacket, and even though he looked out of place in the woods, even a human could sense the predator that lurked beneath his playboy charm. “This isn’t your land, you know,” Tristan said, narrowing his eyes at me. “You’re about five miles too far west.” He pointed to the left, as if I didn’t know which direction home was.

My wolf’s reply was a sneeze, then he moved back and let me take my skin. Muscle and sinew stretched, joints popped, and with a groan, I rose from a crouch in my skin. I scowled, looking down at myself. “Dammit,” I grumbled, wiping at the blood over my chin and chest, but it was no use. This wasn’t coming off without a dip in the creek, and that water was cold this time of year.

Tristan was making a face, grimacing at the mess I’d made, and I scoffed. “What? I’d like to see you bring down a deer by yourself without spilling a little blood.”

He waved me off dismissively. “Nah, I’m too pretty for hunting. That’s Jude’s job.”

“Then what are you doing out here?” I asked.

He pushed off from the tree and came to stand in front of me, staring down at the carcass. “I caught a whiff of your stench and decided to find out what you were up to. Poaching, apparently.”

“To be fair, the deer would’ve wandered into my neck of the woods eventually, and you don’t actuallyownthe forest, so it’s not technically poaching. Let’s call it a gift, from my pack to yours.” I forced myself to smile, but it felt strained, unnatural. Hell, my wolf was better at this too. Polite social interactions weren’t my forte. I preferred sarcasm and inappropriate flirting.

Tristan raised a blond brow, his blue eyes icy. “You’re gifting us our own deer?”

Heaving a sigh, I gestured down at the animal. “Don’t suppose you want to help me carry it back to your camp?”

“Not a chance,” he said without blinking, before he turned and walked away.

I sighed again, my wolf mirroring the sound in my head like an echo. This was exhausting. Things were so much easier when I was in my fur. When we were hunting, the emotions were so much easier to manage. It was all hunt, kill, eat, fuck, sleep. It wasn’t until I took my skin that human emotions like guilt and regret and longing sank their claws into me. That was when shit got more complicated.

Regardless of whether or not I was poaching, I knew I could pick this deer up and take it back home to my own pack. Tristan wouldn’t stop me. I was Alpha of the Overlands pack, and they were my responsibility, and as Beta of the Grim Wilds pack, I knew Tristan understood that. He was all talk.

The truth was, though, my pack didn’t need this meat. We had plenty of hunters and hardly any children to feed, and honestly, most of us just preferred to run to the grocery store or order pizza. Grim Wilds, however, was some kind of backwoods pack in the middle of nowhere. Just a handful of shifters (plus one human), living in a collection of rough-built cabins. I honestly had no idea how they managed to scrabble out an existence at all.

Between fighting off rival packs to vengeful hyenas and government soldiers, they just refused to be kept down. Everyone loved a good underdog story, I guess.

It made zero sense to me, but even through the bitter resentment I felt, I still found myself crouching to pick up the carcass. I draped it over my shoulders, wincing as my skin got even grosser. I simply wasn’t going to look my best today, but as tempted as I was to give up and head home, I didn’t. Instead, Ifollowed Tristan’s path back to his camp. I’d meant what I said about it being a gift. Or maybe more like a bribe.

Gods, I hate myself so much right now, I thought,groveling to these nobodies.

Liar, my wolf said snidely, throwing some serious side-eye my way. He knew me better than anyone, and he knew how I really felt.

Beneath the disgust, the resentment, the determination to feel anything else, there was a lingering sense of awe for this pack that seemed determined to not just survive, but to thrive.

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