Blood of the Wolf

Blood of the Wolf
A
Cruentus Dragon
Story

By Brynn Paulin

Resplendence Publishing, LLC

http://www.resplendencepublishing.com

Resplendence Publishing, LLC
2665 S Atlantic Avenue, #349
Daytona Beach, FL 32176

Blood of the Wolf
Copyright © 2010, Brynn Paulin
Edited by Christine Allen-Riley and Jason Huffman
Cover art by Rika Singh

Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-222-8

Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Electronic release: December 2010

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

For Karen, whose true love lives on in her heart.

Prologue

Four Years Ago

Lucan Cooper tapped his fingers on the steering wheel of his midnight-blue Porsche as he navigated twisting mountain roads by rote. Though he should pay more attention to the familiar route, his mind lingered on the intimate scene he’d played out with Meda that morning after he’d woken from that horrible dream. She’d made that awful foreboding go away.

God, he loved her. Every day with her seemed the greatest gift a man could be given.

The love they’d shared this morning surpassed any other. He wanted to turn around and get another dose of that perfection.

That was his life. Perfection.

Great job. Fantastic woman. Wonderful home. A promising future… And hopefully soon, a family on the way. Not bad for a man who’d started out with nothing as an abandoned infant.

He navigated another turn which would take him east toward town. The sun was beginning to break the horizon, the glorious beams of dawn promising another balmy, cloudless, blue-skied day. Maybe he and Meda could eat outside on their deck tonight. It might be slightly chilly, but he was aching to use his new grill.

Absently, he pulled his sunglasses from the visor before the growing light blinded him.

“Man, it’s hot this morning,” he muttered. He rolled down the window, wondering why he was so warm when the forecast had called for sixty-degree weather. The fresh air rushing past the car did little to help cool him. As he went around a slight curve and sunlight filtered through the open window, he bellowed in pain.

On fire!
He was on fire! His skin bubbled under the sunlight. Tongues of flame erupted down his arms, and he screamed, his voice a higher, more terrified pitch than he would ever have imagined. Almost immediately, his clothing ignited, and the scent of scorched skin and hair filled the vehicle. He clawed at his garments to get the material off his body and slapped at the blaze engulfing him.

Unable to recognize anything through the blinding pain and the desperation to make it stop, he couldn’t avoid the guardrail designed to keep travelers from plummeting down sheer cliffs as they navigated hairpin turns. The screech of metal ripping metal melded with his shrieks as the car tore through the barrier.

Even through his terror and pain, dread and desolation filled him, empty finality filling his soul. As he fell and blackness overcame him, he knew he’d die. Just like in his dream. And he’d never hold his beloved again.

Chapter One

Now…

“Lucan…”

Lucan looked up to see his brother, Janos, approaching him. He closed his eyes and bit back a groan at what he knew was about to happen. The discussion. Lucan had been avoiding it for weeks, dodging his brother, who also happened to be the leader of the Cruentus Clan.

Janos had an agenda, and Lucan wanted no part of it.

“No,” he said, glaring at his sibling. Though he’d lived here for only four years, since Janos and their brother, Niko, had rescued him from the fiery accident that had ended his old life, he felt a familial closeness that allowed him to stand up to the clan leader when few others would.

“You can’t avoid this,” Janos said, pulling a wrinkled piece of parchment from his pants pocket and sitting in the chair opposite Lucan in the great hall of the Cruentus compound. Four levels of balconies circled the cavernous space, and though Lucan was alone with his brother, he felt the curious stares of the other Dragons who lived in this community.

Lucan cringed. The dreaded paper. He knew exactly what it was. He’d seen Janos bandying it about, and Lucan had been having vague dreams about it for over a week. It was the list of Cruentus Dragons and the mates that had been detected for them by the Dragon council. Janos had been systematically going through the scanty offering, that in no way came close to covering all the clan’s members, and connecting his people to their matches.

“Stop right now,” Lucan told him. “I don’t want to know who’s on your list—”

“She’s your mate, Lucan.”

“I
have
a mate. I don’t need another one.” Meda would always be the woman for him. It didn’t matter what some magical scrying said. It didn’t matter that she thought him dead or that they could never be together. She was his one true mate, and the rest didn’t matter.

Janos tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I understand how you feel. I know how I’d feel if I was separated from Scarlett.” Scarlett was his woman, to whom he’d been joined a little over a year ago. “But you’ll feel differently about being alone in a hundred years or so. You’ll get…lonely. Trust me. I know. I’m far older than you.”

Older was an understatement. Janos was the spawn of their father’s first mating, nearly a thousand years before Lucan’s birth, but in Lucan’s opinion, that didn’t make his brother any smarter about what was going on in Lucan’s heart.

“I choose not to mate,” he said firmly. “If in
a hundred years or so
, I feel like I want to fuck someone, I’ll find someone to screw.” He stood and stared down at the raven hair so like his own. “But as far as lonely goes, I don’t think I can get any worse off. Another woman won’t make it better. That might make me a lovesick fool in your eyes, but the fact of the matter is, I committed to her and even though I’m dead to her, even though we can’t be together because of this stupid
curse
on me, I belong to her. Period.”

Turning on his heel, he marched off, heading toward his personal quarters—unfortunately a few doors away from his illustrious leader’s. Janos fell in step with him, and Lucan didn’t bother to suppress the growl that rumbled in his throat. At this rate, his scales would be sliding into place, and he’d be spouting fire at Janos. The Dragon inside him was just as agitated as the man who shook with the irritation of being told he had to take a woman he hadn’t chosen.

“It’s not a curse,” Janos said quietly. “It’s your species. Dragon shape-shifter. A gift.”

Lucan let out a burst of derisive laughter. “Gift? Are you for real? We have people trying to kill us—just because we exist and they don’t like it. Talk about xenophobia. Being able to become a Dragon isn’t all that great. In case you’ve forgotten, it hurts. Being engulfed in a ball of flame—involuntarily—the first few times, that was a bitch, too.”

“I know the molting is uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?” Lucan muttered under his breath. Maybe if he kept walking, his “big brother” would leave him alone.

“And the shift gets easier the more you do it. You need to stop fighting it. That’s why it hurts.”

“I fight it because I don’t want it. You know what I want? I want to be normal. I don’t want to live for thousands of years. I don’t want to have scales and fly. I had a great life. That’s what I want.”

“Geez, Lucan, put on your big girl panties and deal,” a new voice enjoined.

Lucan glared at Janos’ twin, Niko—the brother who pissed him off more often than not. “Fuck off, Nicky.”

Niko growled. He hated the nickname, and Lucan knew it. “Perhaps the one who needs fucking is you,
Wolf
. Just take the damn name from Janos, go get your woman—poor thing—and get on with life. We’re all about done with the whining.”

“I don’t whine,” Lucan grated. “I just want to be left alone!” He pointed at Niko. “And don’t even start in on me about sulking. I do what I have to around here and keep to myself. There’s nothing wrong with that.” And that was how he’d gotten the nickname, Wolf. A year after he’d come here, people had taken to calling him the lone wolf since he spent most of his time away from everyone.

Janos gave Niko a pointed look. “Go away. I can handle this.”

“It’s always the same,” Niko complained. “’Shut up, Niko. Go away, Niko. Blah, blah, blah.’ You guys need to lighten up.”

Lucan kept walking, ignoring both his brothers. His suite of rooms was on the top floor of the compound, and since he refused to shift and fly, he had a climb ahead of him. His leader continued on at his side while his other sibling shifted and flew off with a few muttered words of reproach. Though Lucan happened to like Niko a lot, today, he was glad to see him go, especially after his unfair words.

Yeah, Lucan wasn’t thrilled by the turn his life had taken, but he wasn’t sitting in a corner mourning his losses. He wasn’t listening to depressing, emo music and writing bad poetry. He was getting on with his life, doing his job in the Dragon’s community and trying to forget his old life. He even managed to keep the memories at bay for hours at a time now, something he’d once been pretty sure wouldn’t ever happen.

He and Janos continued on in silence for a few minutes.

“Lucan,” Janos finally said. “I fear I’ve left you alone too much.”

“I’m fine.” Lucan’s gaze shifted away from his brother even as he kept his face forward. “I’ve been busy.”

“I assigned you a weighty task.”

“There’s no one better to do it,” Lucan replied. “I’m the best web designer and information systems tech in our community. It’s taking time to build the network is all. It’s good ‘wolf’ work for me,” he chuckled.

“A Dragon called Wolf,” Janos laughed. “Who would have thought?”

“Around here, stranger things have definitely happened. I might be the most normal man in this place.”

“Perhaps. So…things are going well and you’ll be able to free up time soon? Maybe start working normal hours…”

Lucan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “There’s a lot of work to be done,” he replied slowly. “Why are you asking?”

Janos shrugged, one side of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. “Meda might want more of your time than you’ve made available lately. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve been working from the time you roll out of bed until you crawl back into it—showering optional. For the record, you’re giving IT guys a bad name.”