Falling For The Wolf (Crystal Lake Forest Wolf Shifters Series Book 4 Read online

  Falling for the Wolf

  Crystal Lake Forest Wolf Shifter Series

  Book 4

  By: Ovidia Pike

  Copyright 2019 Ovidia Pike - All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Image by Charmaine Ross

  Contents

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  Chapter 1: Camilla

  Chapter 2: Sam

  Chapter 3: Gabriel

  Chapter 4: Camilla

  Chapter 5: Sam

  Chapter 6: Gabriel

  Chapter 7: Camilla

  Chapter 8: Sam

  Chapter 9: Camilla

  Chapter 10: Sam

  Chapter 11: Gabriel

  Chapter 12: Camilla

  Chapter 13: Sam

  Chapter 14: Gabriel

  Chapter 15: Camilla

  Chapter 16: Sam

  Chapter 17: Gabriel

  Chapter 18: Camilla

  Chapter 19: Gabriel

  Chapter 20: Sam

  Chapter 21: Camilla

  Chapter 22: Gabriel

  Epilogue: Sophie

  PREVIEW: Chapter 1: Gabriel

  PREVIEW: Chapter 2: Sophie

  PREVIEW: Chapter 3: Gabriel

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  Chapter 1: Camilla

  I gritted my teeth in irritation as I stood at the front of the group, watching the ten guards in front of me sloppily going through the movements I had taught them and had been teaching them for weeks. It was only my second round of trainees but so far, they were no better than the first; I scanned over them with my eyes to see messy kicks and weak-wristed punches, and nearly threw my own spear down in frustration. As I looked, I caught a glimpse of someone standing in the trees at the back of the group. My eyes met his and I realized it was the same man I’d met in the forest, the one I’d saved from the predators who would have devoured him.

  I watched as the man gave me a small wave and a soft half-smile. He was clothed in black and wearing a black cowboy hat, which he tipped at me before he gestured to the group and gave me a thumbs down. I almost laughed at that, pulling my eyes away from him to the group.

  “You’re all dismissed,” I said in a stony voice. “Get out of here.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said one of the guards, and they dispersed quickly, eager to get out of my commanding presence. As soon as they were gone, the man approached me, taking off his hat to reveal a mess of dusty blond hair. His blue eyes were crinkled at the corners, a smile on his lips. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow to reveal tattoos covering his sculpted arms, which I forced my eyes away from so that I could talk to him instead of studying the intricate artwork on his skin.

  “I thought I told you that you should get out of here,” I said as he approached me, crossing my arms over my chest. He was taller than me by a few inches, which was rare for human men given that I was only a couple of inches short of being six feet tall myself. His shoulders were broad enough to encompass me in his arms, something that flickered into my head involuntarily, a thought I pushed away.

  “I have unfinished business in these woods, ma’am,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t you be going about your business instead of watching me?” I asked him, trying to feel more annoyed than I really was. In reality, the feeling of his gaze was warm and comfortable, just like the kind smile on his face.

  “I—you’re very good at what you do,” he said. “It’s fascinating to watch. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, I didn’t...think about that.”

  “It’s fine,” I said to him, breath catching in my throat when he caught my eye, finally holding it for a moment that seemed to linger.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Camilla,” I said.

  “Beautiful, Camilla. My name is Sam.”

  “What is your unfinished business, exactly? If the Alpha catches you out here—”

  “He won’t. I’m sneaky,” he said. I laughed.

  “Not sneaky enough. I caught you watching me.”

  “I made myself obvious,” he said with a grin. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  “You live in the village, right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean—temporarily. I go back and forth between the village and the city.”

  “Why the city?” he asked.

  “That’s where I’m from. I’m only here for training purposes. I was assigned to the village to help train the guards.”

  “Have you met everyone who lives there?”

  “Yes, I have for the most part. I guarded the human doctor when we first arrived.”

  “The human doctor? So you’re a shifter?”

  “No,” I said quickly, cursing myself inwardly for letting the word slip out. “I’m not.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Well, my brother lived in the village for the past several years. Left home to come here. I haven’t heard from him in months, so I’m here looking for him. I know that the Alpha does not allow outsiders in the village, especially not men.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “My brother told me. He said I couldn’t come to visit for that reason.”

  “I see,” I said. “So he’s missing?”

  “Yes, he is,” Sam said. “And I aim to find him. I need to find out what happened to him.”

  “The villagers are dying,” I said. “You do know that?”

  “Yes, I know. And it’s possible he was one of them. I just...don’t want to give up hope. I’m not leaving here until I find out what happened. I’ve been looking at those...things in the woods. The zombies. I haven’t found him yet.”

  “So why did you want to talk to me?” I asked him.

  “I was wondering if you knew anything about him, maybe recognize him,” he said, reaching into the pack slung over his shoulder and pulling out a tattered photograph of him alongside another man, their arms around each other’s shoulders. I studied the other man in the photograph, but he was only vaguely familiar, nothing special in a sea of shifter faces I had gone through when we’d first arrived.

  “I don’t know anything about him,” I said, handing the photo back. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” he said, slipping it back into his pack. He looked at me again with sparkling eyes, not looking put off in the slightest.

  “Have you talked to anyone else from the village?”

  “Nope, only you,” he said. “You’re the only one I haven’t been scared to approach.”

  I snorted.

  “You’re not afraid of what I can do?” I asked. “You’ve seen me fight.”

  “I’m no stranger to combat,” he said. “I think I could take you.”

  I stared at him for a moment before he winked at me, something that sent a flutter through my stomach.

  “Kiddin’. You could kick my ass. I know that about myself.”

  “I could,” I agreed, though I didn’t doubt that he was trained.
He chuckled.

  “I—” he began but paused when a voice came through the trees. I glimpsed over my shoulder to see Gabriel Alarick coming from the shadows, and I was about to tell Sam to get going when I turned and realized he had already left. I turned back to Gabriel then and gave him a bow as I approached, keeping my face blank so that he wouldn’t see the grimace I had reserved for him.

  “Hello, sir,” I said in greeting.

  “Hello,” he replied, approaching me, assessing me with his dark, piercing stare.

  “I was just curious how this bunch that you’re training is coming along,” he said. “I was hoping to see them in action.”

  “I dismissed them early. Their performances are abysmal,” I said. He gave me an irritated look.

  “Is it not your job to change that?” he asked coldly. I took a deep breath to steady my anger, the disgust I felt just looking into the wolf man’s eyes.

  “I’m doing my best, sir,” I said, forcing out the last word despite how much it pained me.

  “Do better,” he said with a dismissive wave. “There’s no reason for you to be here if you can’t train my people.”

  “Your people are weak and stupid,” I spat. He lifted an eyebrow.

  “Are they?” he asked.

  “Yes, they are,” I said. “It’s not my fault they can’t be trained.”

  He paused for a moment, then took a step toward me. I looked up into his eyes as he gave me a cool look.

  “Do better,” he said again, then turned and walked away. I gripped my spear tight in my hand, wanting to throw it at him, to impale him through the back. Instead, I turned away, trying to calm down before I went back to the village.

  Chapter 2: Sam

  I stripped out of my clothes and shifted after it’d grown dark, knowing that my smoky grey coat would keep me hidden in the shadows of the village, which wasn’t well-lit at night despite how heavily guarded it was. I had been watching the patterns of the guards for weeks and knew how they patrolled—I waited for the right time, just after midnight, before passing through the line of the woods and into the village. I stayed in the shadows and away from the dim lamps that lit the streets, putting my nose to the ground. I started to sniff around, desperately hoping to catch my brother’s scent, though I hadn’t even caught a whiff of it the last time I’d been here, when I’d saved a man from dying from one of the rotting wolves’ bites.

  I heard voices and darted between two huts, waiting for the women to pass. I kept an eye out in case I saw Camilla—I couldn’t help it. I had been making excuses to go and watch her since the first time I saw her out in the woods. She was beautiful and strong, tall and lean with powerful arms and a carved stomach, long, slender legs and a heart-shaped face. Her mouth was small but full, usually pursed in displeasure as she watched her trainees fuck up over and over again. I smiled to myself thinking about her hard expression, how it had faltered somewhat when I’d caught her gaze, her eyes such a strange brown that they almost appeared orange in the right light.

  The voices passed and I shook myself out of my daydream, starting again. I sniffed around the huts until my whole body perked up, catching a faint hint of my brother’s scent. I followed it quickly, desperately hoping that it wouldn’t drop away, and I was glad when it brought me to the door of one of the huts. I looked around me before shifting into human form and trying the handle, relieved to find that it was unlocked. I opened it carefully, peering inside, straining for any hint that someone was there. I heard nothing and there were no lights on, so I decided to go in, carefully shutting the door behind me. I started to search the place, only to find that it was completely empty, that everything had been cleared out. It raised more questions than it answered, and after I’d searched every corner, I left, feeling filled with frustration.

  I shifted when I got outside and was about to start toward the woods when I paused, glimpsing something standing just within the trees. It was a man, pale, and I couldn’t make out his features before he turned and started off into the trees. I paused for a second before trotting after him, keeping my steps quiet as I passed into the woods. He moved swiftly ahead of me, seeming to glide, like he wasn’t touching the ground at all. I felt fear shiver through me when he stopped and darted behind a tree, and peering at him, my heart stopping in my chest when I saw that he had no face, only a blank white mask where it should have been. He didn’t seem to see me, and I felt lucky as he turned and started moving again. I followed him for a long time, well away from the territory of the wolf village, until we arrived at the base of one of the foothills close to the mountain. The tall man slipped inside a crevice, a narrow entrance to a cave. I followed behind him, peering inside, a lump forming in my throat when I saw what was in there. There were dozens of people, some of them as rotted as the wolves that had surrounded me, all of them standing in rows, crowded together in the cave. They didn’t speak or move, only stared at the thin man with blank, obedient eyes.

  “Hello, my children,” the man said. “I brought someone here to meet you.”

  The feeling of coldness shivered through me as I tried to duck away, but it was too late—the faceless man gave me that blank look over his shoulder, gesturing to me with one finger.

  “Come here, Samuel,” he said. “Come meet my friends.”

  “No, thanks,” I said, but found myself drawn forward beyond my will.

  “Samuel, you have killed many of my children,” the faceless man said. “Too many. I don’t like it.”

  “They’re not children, they’re walking corpses,” I said to him, trying to keep my voice from shaking. The truth was, I had never felt so much fear as I did in that moment standing there, looking out at the murderous monsters I’d encountered so many times in the woods beyond the village.

  “Wrong,” the faceless man replied, his voice stony and cold. “They’re more than that. They will cause the destruction of that entire village by the time I’m finished with it.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. The man put a hand on my shoulder and gripped it tightly, squeezing so hard that it was painful. I tore away from him, backing up.

  “There’s not much you can do about it,” the man said. “You’re not going to make it out of this alive. You have to be punished, and I have no use for you unless you are dead.”

  “Try me,” I warned him, standing up tall. He reached forward, tried to grab my throat with his hand but I parried it aside and quickly landed a sweeping kick to his knee, sending him collapsing to the ground. He let out a strange, strangled noise as he tried to climb to his feet, but I kicked him hard in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him. I noticed the dead drawing closer, so I turned to run through the crack of the cave, barely making it out before I was frozen to the spot just on the other side. I tried as hard as I could to move, struggling within my body, but I was held fast to the spot. I could feel the faceless man drawing up behind me.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, circling me so that he could look at my face. “Now I’m going to use teeth.”

  There was nothing I could do but watch in horror as the man’s face opened up, a massive black hole. His jaw seemed to unhinge as he drew closer to me, but as he started to lift me into the air to drop into his mouth, I caught a glimpse of someone drawing near. I saw that it was Camilla, and didn’t have time to breathe before she’d lunged forward and shoved the spear right into the center of the faceless man, who instantly burst into a hundred crows that took off cawing angrily. I suddenly jerked forward, the spell broken, but managed to catch myself. I heard movement behind me and realized that the dead were pouring through the crack and toward us.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Camilla, grabbing her hand, beginning to run as fast as I could through the trees. She let go of me but was hot on my heels as we went, not slowing down, hearing the growling of wolves behind us. She started to gain on me, long legs carrying her so fast that she was flying through the trees ahead of me. I had to shift to keep up with her, the wolv
es growing even closer, until we passed the line into the wolf territory and they all froze, colliding into each other before they reached it, unable to pass. I stopped and shifted back, trying to catch my breath, and noticed that she had stopped and was staring at me with an unreadable expression.

  “I didn’t know you were a wolf,” she said.

  “Did you think I was human? I told you my brother lived in the village.”

  “Yes, I thought you were human. I...didn’t make the connection.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

  She said nothing in response but turned away from me and started to head toward the village.

  “Wait,” I said, jogging to her, touching her arm to turn her around. She shivered and pulled away from me, meeting my eye.

  “That’s the second time you’ve saved my life,” I said to her. She shrugged.

  “I saw you were in trouble and thought I should help.”

  “Have you ever seen that thing before?” I asked her. “The man without a face?”

  “No,” she replied. “No, I haven’t. What did he say?”

  “The zombie things are his. I think he’s...building an army or something. He says he’s going to take over the village.”

  “I see,” she said, not looking at all alarmed or afraid of what had just happened. I stared at her for a long moment, wondering who she was, what her history was like, what made her so quiet and reserved.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” I responded. “I’m wondering that myself.”

  “Well, stop wondering,” she stated, turning away again. I started to follow her, staying quiet, realizing that she obviously didn’t want to talk. I paused before we got to the village.

  “Thank you,” I said. She didn’t say anything, but kept walking, and I watched her until she entered the village before turning away to find a place to camp for the night.

  Chapter 3: Gabriel

  I walked aimlessly through the woods for a long time, glancing at the path where Sophie would be pulling up at any moment. I didn’t know what I would do when she got there—if I would hide in the trees just to catch a glimpse of her pulling up in the Jeep or if I’d actually speak to her this time. I had other things to do and deal with, but I’d been passing them off to Jackson and Harley, and instead wandering through the woods, waiting for the right time to approach her. We hadn’t spoken since I’d promised not to touch her or make my feelings known; I knew she was avoiding me, and the thought gave me an ache in the pit of my stomach.