Reckless Revenge: Book Four (Spellbound 4)

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
RECKLESS REVENGE (Part Four)
Copyright © 2014 Sherry Soule All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Moonlight Publishing
San Francisco, California
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Scores of people contribute to the birth of a novel, and so I would like to thank the following professionals for their time, encouragement, and support on making this such an awesome book.
Huge thanks to my editor, Carmen Erickson for her friendship and her incredible editorial talents. Carmen made revisions less painful, and I'm so fortunate and honored to work with her.
Thank you to my other editor, Deeylin Mullin. Her amazing editing skills made her the perfect "romance" editor for the job.
Also, I need to thank two extraordinary editors that worked on the original version: Rochelle French (Senior Editor at Entangled Publishing) and author, Jennifer Sommersby-Young for their superb help in polishing the first edition.
Extra gratitude and thanks to editor, Karla Gomez for her awesome editing proficiency.
And I am forever grateful to all the passionate book reviewers that have supported this YA series from the start. You guys rock!
As always, dear reader, I hope you enjoy my brand of storytelling.

Dedicated to Karen Hall
For my mother, who has always been my biggest supporter

Other Books by Sherry Soule
Adult Paranormal Romance:
IMMORTAL ECLIPSE
YA Paranormal Romance,“Spellbound Series”:
BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN (book one)
SHATTERED SILENCE (book two)
MOONLIGHT MAYHEM (book three)
RECKLESS REVENGE (book four)
DESTINY DISRUPTED (book five)
YA Romance,“Starlight Saga”:
LOST IN STARLIGHT - Volume 1
TRACING THE STARS - Volume 2
INTERSTELLAR LOVE STORY - Volume 3

These serial novels should read as if you are watching a TV series. Each new book is like a whole season broken up into six separate parts (so far). Some end with a cliffhanger and others without complete plot resolution. However, each book continues the ongoing story of Shiloh and her friends as they face new foes together and fight their own inner-demons, finding bittersweet romance and everlasting friendships along the way.

Please visit the
Spellbound Universe Blog
for more information regarding this popular teen series. And please don’t forget to visit the
Spellbound Character Gallery
, which includes Bios and pics of the cast.

Worst part about being a demon hunter was the waiting.

Not paranormals, with their ominous and deadly powers.

Not lycans, with their sharp fangs and unholy yellow stares.

Not even evil witch covens, with their perverse rituals.

Nope. For me it was the waiting that made my job so sucky. My patience was growing thin. I needed to hunt the lycan that murdered my dad—
before
it hunted me.

My fingers clenched the tiger’s eye gemstone hanging around my neck on a thin silver chain. Beyond the back fence, giant redwoods soared to heights that seemed to touch the clouds. Cold, inky darkness inched closer to the house, and a tremor slid through my limbs.

At night, most things went to bed. But
scary
things woke up for playtime. Especially living in Fallen Oaks, where they could hide in the habitual fog that drifted over from the San Francisco Bay.

My boyfriend, Trent Donovan—all tall and buffed and smoking hot—and I had been busy making out when branches at the edge of the yard parted and chilling howls pierced the night air. Not coyotes or wolves. This was Northern California. And it wasn’t something natural, either. More like a paranormal with a perverse bloodlust.

I held onto Trent’s arm, hoping this moment wouldn’t be our last.

Can’t a girl ever catch a break?

We pulled apart and glanced at each other. Fierce yellow eyes glowed in the darkness.

Now the threat wasn’t only hidden within the forest. The newest residents of Fallen Oaks were lycans that must’ve picked up my scent. Obviously, they’d hunted me down before I could hunt them.

My heartbeat quickened. The wolf’s sleek body gleamed in the half-light. His tail hanging down and its ears flat.

Trent glanced at me with a slight frown. He knew I wasn’t ready to fight these creatures, so he assumed a confident battle stance, and became hyper-focused on the lycan facing us down.

Here was my chance—what I’d been waiting for. And I didn’t even have to leave my own backyard to find the beast. It had come to me...

Now I was totally blowing it by freezing up.

Glancing about the yard, I searched for a weapon. Just the garden hose and dull hedge clippers about six feet away. Damn.

The lycan bared its sharp teeth, and my legs shook uncontrollably. Those fangs were capable of crushing bones into small pieces. Human bones. The weight of that malevolent glare seemed to scorch my skin and I clutched Trent’s arm tighter. The lycan’s hatred seemed almost palpable, tempered with intense resentment.

My demonic buddies—
shades
—crept from the shadows. They were only three feet tall and resembled dragon-puppy mutants, but Kasha, Bakaz, and Zrekam could do some serious damage when provoked. Within their ebony faces, red eyes peered out.

Rough fingers grabbed my hand. “We fight?” Bakaz asked in a growly voice.

I crouched and patted their heads. “Don’t attack…yet.”

The shades nodded in response and stayed by my side, like supernatural pit-bulls itching for a fight.

I pulled my hoodie tighter around my frame and slid the switchblade from my back pocket, holding it out in front of me. The blade probably couldn’t do much damage, but I’d read on the Internet that silver was like poison to lycans.

Let’s hope the website was right.

A low resonant growl built in the lycan’s throat. His gaze daring me, challenging me. Puffing up his fur even more, the lycan gave us another flash of his white fangs, and then took two steps toward us. Our eyes met. Neither of us could look away. I was gripping the switchblade so tightly that the handle dug into my hand.

My glare said:
Be afraid, Wolfman!

The big male lycan paced in front of us, shoulders undulating with every step. His scent assaulted my senses: the overpowering stench of fetid earth and wet tree bark. His fur was matted, as if he was sporting wolf dreadlocks—and when a stiff breeze brought me another whiff of his pelt, I tried not to gag.

I wrinkled my nose and blurted, “Sheesh, don’t you guys care about personal hygiene at all?”

Ignoring my snarky remark, Trent pushed me behind him. I stumbled back a few steps and frowned.

“Hey! What the hell—”

Faster than humanly possible, Trent jumped on the lycan like a wrestler and wrapped his arms around its neck while his knees dug into its sides. The lycan was scrabbling at the ground, tongue lolling and wheezing roughly. Even pinned, the huge wolf was still super dangerous.

“Don’t let it bite you!” I screamed.

Growling, the lycan reared up on his hind legs. Trent’s arms tightened around its neck to hang on, but the lycan teetered, keened, and threw Trent off his back. Trent landed on the ground with a loud
humph.

I quickly moved in front of Trent and created a mystical barrier, a ripple of indistinct azure lines that the lycan wouldn’t be able to cross. Too bad my magick was so unstable and the transcendent wall wouldn’t last very long.

The lycan loped forward and headbutted the magickal barrier, falling back on his hindquarters. Shaking his head, the wolf was momentarily dazed.

Trent stood and dusted himself off. His eyes had flickered to black, his irises dark as the night sky. Obsidian and glossy. Unnatural and demonic.

For a second I didn’t move.
Black eyes?
I blinked and stared up at him. His gaze was a fervent green. Was I just seeing darkness everywhere lately? Even in my crush’s pretty green stare?

“I got this, Shiloh.” Trent started to move past me, but I blocked him with one arm.

“No, Trent. Wait.”

The shades needed some pay back, too. One of the lycans had killed their brother.

I nodded a silent command to the shades and the three demons crossed through the shimmering barricade and attacked. Bakaz and Zrekam—the boy demons—used their sharp claws to rake over the lycan’s legs. Kasha, the female of the trio, bit into his tail. Blood seeped from the lycan’s wounds, but he shrugged off the shades like a dog shaking off water. The little demons scrambled to their feet and sprinted back through the barrier to flank me.

The magickal shield waned, the blue lines weakening.

Dammit.

Trent and I faced the lycan together. This would not end well. I crouched, waving the switchblade in front of me. My eyes narrowed. A prickly pain shot up my arm. The hideous scar on my forearm—the demon brand I’d had for years—burned like there was a splinter of fire wedged in the bone beneath the skin. I clutched it to my chest and gritted my teeth against the pain.

This might be the lycan responsible for killing my dad. A surge of magick—silver, purple, and aqua—crackled over my flesh, wildly lifting my black hair.

Inside my body, the dark blood awakened. The horrible, frightening stir of
Darkness
shifted under my ribcage. Expectant, ample, something living and gestating within me. On my skin, beneath the sleeve of my hoodie, the scar tingled with demonic power.

Not a good sign.

The acute pain was followed by an intense, primal wave of hatred that overcame my senses, an emotion so strong that, for a moment, it even wiped out my fears. A deadly hostility, shadowy as midnight, burst from me toward the wolf pacing only three feet away.

I lifted my scarred arm and struck the wolf on its side with a blast of fiery energy that zoomed out of my palm. The lycan’s hip was scorched and bleeding. It threw back its head and howled menacingly.

Good. I’d wounded the nasty beast.

Trent sprang forward and grabbed him around the throat again. The wolf tossed Trent backward against the side of the house as if he were a rag doll. Trent slid down, his legs splayed.

My heart rate tripled. Breath caught in my throat.

When Trent stood up and glanced at the lycan, his expression grew sly. His eyes flashing like black orbs again. “Go back inside. I’ll hold it off.”

I shook my head. “No. No way.”

The wavy blue lines of the shield faltered.

Oh, dear Mother Earth, we’re goners.

I glanced from Trent to the lycan, then to the shades. We were defenseless now and I didn’t have the energy to rebuild another magickal defensive wall.

Charging forward, I swiped the edge of blade at the lycan’s neck. He easily sidestepped my assault and snarled threateningly. Trent made a move to shove me out of the way again, and then stopped.

From within the forest, another howl rang out, bouncing off the trees. Somewhat different. It held the whisper of a growl. A summons.

The lycan loped off, disappearing into the darkness as silently as he’d come.