Wayward Wolves: Book One
Gibson Keller’s days are fairly routine: wake up early, get some work done, drink lots of coffee, and take care of Ellis, his older brother, stuck in wolf form after coming home from the war. It’s a simple life made up of long runs on two legs—or four—and quiet evenings…. Until Ellis chases a handsome man off a cliff and into the frozen waters beside their cabin, changing Gibson’s life forever.
For Zach Thomas, buying an old B&B is a new start. Leaving behind his city life, he longs to find peace and quiet, and hiking the trails behind his property seems safe enough—right up to the moment an enormous black wolf chases him into a lake, nearly drowning him. Discovering werewolves are real astounds him, but not as much as the man who rescues him from the icy water, then walks into Zach’s heart as if he owns it.
Loving a werewolf—loving Gibson with all his secrets—has its challenges, but Zach believes their love is worth fighting for, especially since his heart knows the big bad wolf is really a prince in disguise.
Buy links: Dreamspinner |
Amazon US | Amazon UK
Cat gives this one 4 Meows (No purrs (all sex is off-page))...
Gibson's brother Ellis has gone wolf after is return fro the war. Gibson has been taking care of him since keeping him safe not only from the sheriff but his own family that wants to put him down. Gibson still has faith he will come back to them.
Zach Has bought the Inn at the bottom of the mountain after a terrible accident that left him disabled. One day he takes a hike to find himself prey to a black wolf.
I really liked this story a lot. As Usual Rhys Ford has some incredible Characters. I even loved Ellis in wolf form he still had a lot of personality and was a hoot! My only issue was that the book was a little sort and I would have liked more background on Zach.
If you like war heroes, shifters, slow burn and off page sex this is for you. I can't wait to see more in this series.
Excerpt...
HIS LIFE wasn’t supposed to end like this.
Not now. Not like this. Not when he’d just snatched it back from the doldrums.
Not when he’d just shocked himself back to life.
The winter air clutched at Zach’s lungs, plunging its icy fingers down his parched, tight throat to hook its claws into his heaving chest. His breath came out in short bursts, misty clouds of panic and fear hitting the frosty air. The green dank scent of the lake seeped into the hills near Big Bear, something Zach thought he would eventually get used to, but with the enormous shadow hunting him through the tightly packed trees, it didn’t seem likely now. There was no safety. He had no idea where he was. Plunging through the thick snow seemed like a lark a mere half an hour ago, a new experience for a city-born-and-bred boy.
The light shifted in quickly, and his walk turned deadly. In an instant, the shadows turned blue and the pale-barked trees became stygian harbingers, the ice-gilded canopy darkening when the sun disappeared from the sky, drenching him in a muddy gray light. He’d heard a clap of thunder, a rolling pound of bone-shaking rattles striking the surrounding mountains, and he’d turned back from his ramble only to discover the path he’d taken—a clearly defined cut-through on his newly purchased property—had disappeared as neatly as the trail of crumbs left by fairy-tale children.
A bit of wind carried a tickle of uneasiness, primordial whispers ghosting over Zach’s spine and grabbing at the base of his neck. He’d dismissed the rumbling growl as soon as he’d heard it, shoving it past the realm of what-ifs into the more probable echo of a thunder roll in the far-off distance.
That’s when he saw the large silhouette of a wolf behind a stand of trees. Or at least he thought it was a wolf. Growing up in Marin County didn’t give him a lot of experience, but really, what else could it be? Even with the creature’s features were lost in the darkness, its yellow eyes were fiery bursts of rage glowing through the shadows. It was enormous—far larger than he imagined a wolf could ever get—and its silent vigilance on the rise above him grabbed every thread of terror in him, corroding his reason. He’d known better. Or least he should’ve known better, but his feet and his brain had their own conversation, one he was not a part of.
There was something sharply bitter about fear. How it spread through a man’s mind, an oily coat drowning out all thought. He couldn’t breathe before he took the first step away from the shadow lurking over him, and by the time he found himself in a full sprint, Zach knew he’d already signed his death warrant. The crunch of leaves and twigs behind him was barely audible beneath his own agonized, tortured breaths, but it was loud enough for Zach to know the wolf was in pursuit.
The animal should have caught him by now. He’d been at a hard run for about five minutes, or least that’s how long it felt. Time slipped away from him all too often. Recovering from the accident blurred his life into a series of paper cups of medication, excruciating tests, and long empty bouts of weeping he never seemed able to control. The doctors all told him it was normal to find himself sitting up in the hospital bed, tightened with pain and fighting waves of emotion he couldn’t control. The months of physical therapy brought him back up to the fitness he’d enjoyed before the stolen armored truck slammed into his Audi and his world was filled with flashing lights and screaming sirens, but the tiny Swedish woman who’d struggled with him to re-achieve his mobility could never have imagined he’d run into a mountain of fur and teeth.
Some part of his brain still tried to work out how large the creature was. It was odd how the mind worked when all thought should have been on how to avoid death. A blanket of pine needles proved to be his downfall. His right foot hit the slippery mass, a silken tug on his balance. The downhill slope only hastened his fall. Zach was on his ass before he could blink, tumbling down the rock-strewn hill.
Trees rushed past him, hard lines against the softer weald, and what little reason he had left told Zach to grab anything he could. His hands closed in on a large log resting against a boulder, but the fallen branch wasn’t anchored to anything and it crumbled in his grasp, the debris slapping at his face. He choked on the spray of dust and leaves, careening out of control.
Stars filled his vision, his forehead throbbing fiercely, and Zach realized, with the taste of blood in his mouth, he’d struck a tree. It was too hard to breathe, and the world was going by him in a rush. Snow crept in everywhere, his shirt, into his mouth, and the cold dug into his torn-up hands.
He saw the rock, a fallen moon lodged into the shoreline, but the angle of the hill was too steep and he couldn’t stop. God, he couldn’t stop. And still behind him there was the shadow, slavering and now on silent paws, but it danced in and out of his line of sight, keeping pace with his descent. Zach tried to angle his legs, to do anything to prevent himself from hitting a piece of the Earth’s bones, but no amount of gyrations helped. Much like the flight the wolf triggered in his mind, the rock filling his sight prepared him for pain, his brain calling up every single frazzled nerve and torn muscle he’d lived through months before.
If he saw stars for the tree, he unspooled the Milky Way when he struck the boulder. The pain was immense. Flashes of crackling red through his already abused muscles, and bones he had knitted together so carefully before strained under the hit. There wasn’t any time to scream. Zach was choking on his own tongue when he struck the lake. He hadn’t realized he was so close to the shore, so very close, and glancing off the boulder, his body twisted around and he skidded into the water.
For a brief moment, the unbearable cold felt good. He was hot with pain, and the frosted-over water quenched the embers set alight under his skin. But the relief was over in a flash, and then agony overwhelmed him. His muscles seizing, Zach struggled to find solid ground beneath him, stretching for the shore in the hopes of grabbing something he could pull on, but his trembling hands found nothing.
The cold was swallowing him whole, a ravenous snake consuming him as prey. A darkness as thick as the menacing shadow in the trees began to take him, and as the not-quite-frozen lake stole the life from his body, he saw the wolf mount the boulder, throw its head back, and cast out an eerie, haunting cry.
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and was a 2016 LAMBDA finalist with her novel, Murder and Mayhem. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.
She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Yoshi, a grumpy tuxedo cat and Tam, a diabetic black pygmy panther, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.
Thank you for the excerpt!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good review, Cat. I love the cover on this. I like the werewolf storyline and havee enjoyed learning more via Rhys' posts about werewolves. - Purple Reader,
ReplyDeleteTheWrote [at] aol [dot] com