Heart Of The Wolf
Authors: Dianna Hardy
Tags: #Erotic, #Dark Fantasy, #werewolf, #werewolves, #breeding, #Shapeshifters, #Lightning, #shifter romance, #thunderstorms
Wolf
(Eye Of The
Storm)
by Dianna
Hardy
A dark, adult
paranormal fantasy
for the call of
the wild in us all.
Set in the
Surrey Hills, England.
Smashwords
Edition
Heart Of The
Wolf (Eye Of The Storm)
copyright ©
2013, Dianna Hardy
Published by
Satin Smoke Press, via Smashwords, December, 2013
Satin Smoke
Press is an imprint of Bitten Fruit Books
The moral right
of the author has been asserted.
In this work of
fiction, the characters, places and events are either the product
of the author's imagination, or they are used entirely
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights
reserved.
No part of this
book may be reproduced by any means or in any form whatsoever
without written permission from the author, except for brief
quotations embodied in literary articles or reviews.
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Cover photo ©
Wallenrock | Shutterstock.com
Cover design by
Dianna Hardy
Satin Smoke
Press
Surrey, UK
Blurb
(Book three of the
Eye Of The
Storm
series.)
Lydia becomes
ever closer to her three mates. However, with unrest all around,
she is struggling to keep her wolves together for her first full
moon, just twenty-four hours away.
A trip back home for Ryan could bring much needed support for them
all, but at what cost?
As The Trident close in on Ryan's pack, the pack itself becomes
divided over Lydia's presence and Lawrence is encouraged to return
as the Alpha. But they don't know his secret, and he's doubtful of
his ability to protect them. Can he fulfil his rightful role, or
will his efforts prove fatal?
Meanwhile, among the arid plains of Egypt, in a long-forgotten
city, one man is pitting himself against the beast inside him in
order to find salvation, only to realise, so much more is at stake
than his soul.
NOTES: This is
an adult paranormal fantasy novel (at over 63,000 words) containing
scenes of explicit sexual content and some violence, entwined with
romantic elements. Written in British English.
Contents
Recap: Werewolf Biology and Other Terms
A Brief Recap of Werewolf Biology and Other
Terms.
Werewolves are
a natural animal-human hybrid of unknown origin. Generally,
werewolves are born, not created. However, 1 in 10,000 human males
bitten by a werewolf on the night of a full moon will become
genetically altered and turn into a werewolf. Women cannot be
turned in this way.
Hunted by
humans over the centuries, and more recently, Tridents, they are
now on the verge of extinction. Although werewolves can be killed
by most means, it is very difficult to do so. They heal quickly.
Silver is their one weakness and acts as a potent poison when
ingested or injected into their system.
Mating
Werewolves have
no say in who their mates are. There is, traditionally, one mate of
the opposite sex for each wolf. Who their mate is, is determined by
DNA compatibility. This is mostly discovered through scent.
Male wolves
must find their mates by the age of forty or their cells
deteriorate and they die, and the age is exact.
Female wolves
must find their mates by their mid-twenties (the age is less exact)
or they will also suffer from cell deterioration and die.
Both genders
suffer from intense mating pains every lunar cycle, peaking at the
full moon, until they are able to mate. Mating creates longevity
for each wolf, and both are subsequently able to live for up to
three hundred years, although because of societal and environmental
dangers, most will not live beyond one hundred.
Mating can only
occur on the night of a full moon, during an electrical
thunderstorm, the lightning acting as some sort of charge that
binds both mates' genes.
Once mated,
breeding (impregnation) can take place at any time, and is very
easily achieved.
'Bonding' is
separate to mating, although the two terms are often used
interchangeably. It can happen at any time between two wolves,
after they have mated. Whereas mating cements their biology,
bonding is a more personal act that seems to be triggered by
'feelings'. Most wolves never bond.
Shifting
Male werewolves
are able to shift into their wolf forms from birth.
Female
werewolves can not shift until their first change. Their first
change can only occur one lunar month after the mating takes place,
their body needing that time to fully accept and integrate the
genetic alteration.
Storm-wielders
A female
werewolf with the ability to manifest and draw down a storm,
including lightning. The male can also carry the gene, but it is
not active within them. Extremely rare, storm-wielders have become
feared by packs worldwide since Tridents discovered of their
existence and have been hunting them down, infiltrating and
destroying packs in the process, in order to use them for their own
mating and breeding needs. For decades they have been killed at
birth, or banished, to ensure the pack's safety, but as a result,
no one knows enough about storm-wielders. There is no known
research on them. It is rumoured that their unusual gene also
demands that they take three males as mates instead of one. This
rumour adds fuel to the fear surrounding them, most wolves
believing that where a storm-wielder exists, two other female
wolves will die from having their [potential] mates taken from
them.
Tridents
A Trident;
plural, Tridents, or 'The Trident' when referring to their entire
species as a group. A 'medical experiment gone wrong', Dr Evan
Trident, obsessed with werewolves, succeeded in creating his own
breed of 'werewolves' from human beings in 1789, by combining their
genes with that of the werewolf and using the newly discovered
lightning rod to activate the merged cells. Tridents are monsters
of the werewolf world and have become their number one enemy. They
look more beast than wolf and are ruled by primal, animal needs and
savage instincts. Although they can be killed by most means, it is
very difficult to do so. Nectar from the Datura flower is their one
weakness and acts as a potent poison when ingested or injected into
their system.
Tridents rarely
find their mates, but when they do, it is usually in a human who
they will then turn into a Trident.
Unmated,
Tridents only live for five years. Mating brings them longevity in
the same way it does for werewolves.
Tridents cannot
breed, but increase their numbers by using the same method that Dr
Trident used to turn humans into Tridents.
Operiphur
A pungent
liquid used by both werewolves and Tridents, that when adorned or
released into the atmosphere, acts as a shield for all other
scents. It is often used to cover tracks and hide scents that can
be used to identify a werewolf, person or object. It is expensive
and used sparingly.
Dedication
To all those
with the courage to open the door…
no matter where
it might lead.
“Prayer is not
asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's
weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than
words without a heart.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Wolf
Prologue
He
retched.
Retched into
the gag – the only thing trapping his soul in his body at this
precise moment, he was sure.
His sister
screamed to his left, the shriek of it deafening, and expressing
everything he could not.
The roar of a
chainsaw filled the room, but nothing was louder than his heart
pounding in his ears – only marginally greater than the high pitch
of metal meeting bone.
And the sound
of everything he was, being ripped to shreds.
Lydia's eyes
flew open, already wet from tears she had shed in her sleep. If
she'd made any noise on waking, Ryan hadn't heard it. He lay to her
right, snoring in slumber; one protective, heavy arm slung across
her abdomen.
“Fuck,” she
whispered to herself. These weren't dreams – they were memories.
Lawrence's memories cascading through her system because his blood
also did.
Brendan's
lifeless face embedded itself in her mind's eye, and Lawrence's
historic pain imprinted itself on the rest of her.
On instinct,
she wiggled her toes and cried more silent tears when she could
feel them.
Christ.
It had been
four days. Four days since all manner of shit had hit the fan –
since she'd found Brendan dead and mutilated, his legs sawn off in
a show of dominance and warning to the pack, and particularly, to
Lawrence. On his own property.