RISE OF THE SILVER WOLF

Veronica "Where are my boxers?"Richard's voice cut through our house, sharp and demanding. I stood in the basement, my fingers wrapped around the shopping bags containing his favorite dinner, steak, the expensive kind, and a bottle of wine I'd saved up for. Five years of marriage, and I still tried to make every Valentine's Day special."Coming!" I called out, setting the bags on the kitchen counter carefully.I grabbed the fresh laundry basket and started up the stairs, my heart doing that familiar flutter it always did when I thought about surprising him. Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe tonight he will look at me the way he used to, before everything changed.His gray shirt lay crumpled on the third step. I picked it up without thinking, a habit now, after all these years. His pants were draped over the banister like a sign board. His belt coiled on the landing like a snake.But then I saw something that made me freeze. A woman's coat. Wine-red cashmere, elegant and expens

VeronicaI woke to sunlight cutting through the dirty window like a blade. My body felt wrong, too hot and too cold at once. Sweat soaked through my thin shirt, but I couldn't stop shivering.The room spun when I tried to sit up. My throat burned. My side, where they'd taken my kidney, throbbed with each heartbeat. I touched my forehead and my hand came away slick with fever.How long had I been here? One day? Two?The door creaked open. I flinched, expecting Richard or Catherine, but it was Margaret. She slipped inside quickly, balancing a tray with one hand while locking the door behind her."Eat," she whispered, setting the tray on the broken chair. Soup, bread, water. Simple food, but my stomach growled at the sight of it."Why are you helping me?" My voice came out rough, damaged.Margaret's weathered face softened. "I served your father for twenty years, child. Before he disappeared. I owe him that much."My father. The wound that never healed."Margaret, what do you remember ab

VeronicaI woke to warmth. That was the first shock. I'd been dying in the snow, frozen and bleeding, and now I felt warm. Soft sheets covered my body. A fire crackled somewhere nearby. The air smelled of pine and something else, something wild and unfamiliar.I opened my eyes slowly. The room was dark, lit only by firelight that cast dancing shadows on stone walls. This wasn't Richard's pack house. The architecture was different, older, built from mountain stone instead of modern materials.Where was I?I tried to sit up, and pain shot through my ribs. My hand went instinctively to my side, expecting to find fresh wounds, but instead I felt bandages, clean and tight. Someone had treated my injuries."You're awake."The voice came from the shadows near the door. Deep, rough, commanding. A man stepped into the firelight, and my breath caught.He was massive, easily six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders that filled the doorway. Dark hair fell to his shoulders, and a jagged scar

CHAPTER 7: REBORN LUNA VeronicaPain stretched through my body like a daring arthritis as I tried to move. A sharp moan escaped my lips and I lay back down, then it came flashing back. The dynamic energy that exploded through my veins. The strange sudden awakening of my long silent and inactive wolf… the rebirth of my wolf. That overwhelming and nearly dangerous desire to destroy anyone and anything that tried standing in the way of letting me get what I wanted. Even as I laid weak, I could still feel the aura of my wolf, builded like brazen walls around her. Alertness a hundred and one on point. My hearing seemed triple its normal distance capacity. And even my wrecked nerves were rapidly stretching back to place. The feeling was… surreal!Even before the surgery that broke my wolf, I didn't possess this level of agility. That was why the more I tried to make out what exactly could have stirred the powerful transformation of my wolf, the stranger it seemed. A partition ritual.