Lord of the Wolfyn (Harlequin Nocturne)

163 Pages·2011·0.79 MB·English

by  Jessica Andersen

Soft warmth against his lips. Silky heat on his tongue. Spice and
flowers. Curves.
The sensations rocketed through Dayn. Gone was any hint of reserve or control.
Growling low in his throat, he crowded Reda back against the tree until their
bodies were aligned, touching from knee to chest. He kept his hands on her face,
willing them to stay there with the last threads of his control, knowing that if he
touched her—really touched her—he would be truly lost.
It had been two decades since he had held a woman out of anything other than
necessity. But now, as their tongues touched and slid, as his body went tight,
tense and hard, he wasn’t just kissing a woman. He was kissing a dream he
hadn’t been aware of having.
Books by Jessica Andersen
**
Harlequin Nocturne Lord of the Wolfyn #123
Harlequin Intrigue Secret Witness #762
Intensive Care #793
Body Search #817
Covert M.D. #833
The Sheriff’s Daughter #850
Bullseye #868
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Ricochet #893
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At Close Range #911
*
Rapid Fire #928
Red Alert #945
Under The Microscope #964
Prescription: Makeover #982
Classified Baby #1005
Meet Me at Midnight #1012
Doctor’s Orders ##1036
Twin Targets #1061
With The M.D….At The Altar?#1068
*
Manhunt in the Wild West #1093
Snowed In With the Boss #1120
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Mountain Investigation #1147
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Internal Affairs #1164
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Bear Claw Conspiracy #1280
JESSICA ANDERSEN
After going from research scientist to riding instructor and then on to romance
novelist, Jessica Andersen is now the New York Times bestselling author of more
than thirty novels. She writes both romantic suspense and dark, sexy
paranormals, and loves both genres. When people ask her to describe her books,
she says, “I’m always writing about two people finding the love of their lifetime
in the middle of high-stakes action and suspense.” For more on Jessica and her
books, please check out www.jessicaandersen.com.
LORD OF THE WOLFYN
JESSICA ANDERSEN
Dear Reader,
Blood drinkers, werewolves and warlocks. Oh, my! Welcome to the Royal
House of Shadows.… Do you dare enter this dark, dangerous and sexy world?
I loved, loved, loved writing the story of a secretive magical prince and a
redheaded cop with a penchant for archery and no luck with men. When sorcery
plucks them from their rightful homes and prophecy throws them together,
mayhem, adventure and a hot, sexy romance ensues…and asks the age-old
question: Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Lord of the Wolfyn follows Gena Showalter’s Lord of the Vampires and Jill
Monroe’s Lord of Rage, and next month comes Nalini Singh’s Lord of the
Abyss. It was an absolute blast working with these talented ladies and imagining
how these royal siblings would avenge their parents and save their kingdom.
Happy reading, Jessica Andersen
To lone wolves and life mates.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Prologue
O
nce upon a time in a magical land, a dark sorcerer—the Blood Sorcerer—
coveted the only power denied him: the right to rule. So he led his army in a
vicious attack on the Royal Castle of Elden, vowing to wipe out the royal family
and take the throne. But he hadn’t counted on the king and queen’s love for their
children, particularly the rebellious, headstrong Prince Dayn….
Branches stung Dayn’s face and lashed at the bloodred chestnut stallion he
rode, but neither of them flinched. They were trained for this, had been born for
it: Dayn was the king’s second son, Hart a royal warhorse descended from
generations of beast-chasers. Together, they guarded Castle Island and the
villages surrounding Blood Lake and kept the foul monsters of sorcery trapped
in the Dead Forest.
It was a noble role, a dangerous calling…and an incredible rush. At least, it
usually was. Tonight, though, he rode in anger with his reins white-knuckled in
one hand and his loaded crossbow in the other, his mind not on protecting his
castle or the country folk, but on the kill itself.
Full of his master’s mood, Hart snorted, grabbed the bit in his teeth and leaped
a thorny tangle they normally would have dodged around. Dayn shouted and
grabbed the sturdy beast-chaser’s flowing mane, and the two landed together and
pounded away, now with a clear view of the monster they pursued.
The bristling, pony-size gray creature could have been one of the giant wolves
that hunted the high country beyond Elden, save for the saddle of reddish fur at
its heavy nape and the golden stripe that ran along its spine. Those things
marked it as something else entirely: a wolfyn.
The older hunters told of the wolfyn taking human form and seducing the
most beautiful women they could find…and then killing and eating them. Those
were just stories, though. And the legendary shape-shifting was a way to explain
why, back when they first set out to exterminate the creatures, the ravenous
beasts would retaliate by attacking at a village’s weakest point and go straight
for the strongest warriors and then their beautiful wives, as if they were at war,
not hunting.
Those days were gone now, the wolfyn nearly wiped from the kingdoms. The
few that remained, though, were deadly and had to be killed for the safety of all.
At the moment, though, all Dayn cared about was riding hard enough to leave
everything else behind—his father’s anger, his mother’s disappointment…and
the look on Twilla’s face when he’d broken it off with her after hinting at
marriage.
His father’s words echoed in his mind. You must wed a proper princess. You
are the protector of the royal forest and your brother’s right hand. And the gods
knew that dark, seductive Nicolai wasn’t settling down anytime soon, so the king
and queen—and their advisers—had pinned their hopes for profitable alliances
on Dayn and his sister, Breena. The very thought of it—and the argument he’d
had just now with his parents—had Dayn riding hard away from the castle and
its politics. He was twenty and six, and his kind lived for hundreds, sometimes
thousands, of years. Yet his parents wanted to sell his life to whichever royal
house bid highest. Gods and the Abyss, he wished he had been common-born.
But he hadn’t been, so he kicked on until the wind stung his face and the
ground blurred beneath Hart’s hooves.
His man-at-arms, Malachai, who was riding well behind them on his sturdy
gray gelding, whipped around the thorny brake Dayn and Hart had just sailed
over, bellowing, “Damn it, wait!”
Dayn’s former-tutor-turned-companion said something more, but it was lost
beneath Hart’s loud snort as the trees thinned and they caught another glimpse of
the wolfyn. The stallion accelerated after the beast, which looked back at them
with too-intelligent amber eyes, and Dayn gripped with his knees and raised his
crossbow as the gap narrowed. The trees opened up around him, but he focused
on the reddish saddle mark, which outlined the target for a kill shot.
The wolfyn gathered itself for a last burst of speed, and—
Mindspeak screamed suddenly in Dayn’s skull, filling him with pounding
emotions that weren’t his own: rage, defiance, fear, betrayal. Before he could do
more than jerk with surprise, wind whipped up around him, squeezing him in a
giant’s fist of spell-power, and then yanking him clear out of the saddle and up
into a rapidly forming whirlwind that suddenly spun overhead.
“Ambush!” Malachai shouted, his voice wind distorted and quickly growing
faint as the tornado sucked Dayn inward and air screamed past him.
He fought the magic that held him, but it was too powerful, too all-
encompassing, a physical force that roared and keened, and then flattened,
reverberating in his soul as he reached the calm at the center of the whirlwind.
There, he hung suspended—seeing nothing but the moving wall of gray-brown
surrounding him, feeling nothing but the magic. His pulse hammered and his