Lone Wolf (The Wulf Pack Book 1)

Rage whipped his blade with a rag, cleaning, polishing and sanitizing it. The alcohol dampened rag landed in the bucket with the other soiled cloths. Each tool was treated this way, each cleaned with a new rag, always cleaned with alcohol. The alcohol no only leaves each tool shinny and clean, it sterilizes each tool and doesn’t corrode or leave a film behind.

“Uhh...” a soft voice said from behind him. When he turned he found a blond female standing in the doorway to the cell. Her blue eyes were caught on the source of the mess.

A male’s body, still warm and dripping as it hung suspended from the ceiling.

“Do you need something?” Rage asked when the girl stayed frozen. She jumped at the sound of his voice, it bounce aound the empty cellar and sharply shot through her mind.

“Yeah...” he eyes flickered to Rage and then back to the body, “I was sent to tell you..,” her wide eyes seemed to take in the whole scene. The blood spatter, both old and new, on every surface, blood pooling in the red sand like powder on the floor, and the blood covering him, nearly from head to toe.

She gulped as he continued cleaning his tools, unfazed by all of the blood or the lead body next to him.

“Your brother, the High Alpha, keeps calling. He says he needs to speak with you,” the girl couldn’t see the smirk the spread across his face as she unintentionally explained why she was here.

No one else would come down here, not while he was working, carving up rogues for information.

“I will call him back later,”

“He has been calling all day, he says it’s urgent,” Rage hummed in understanding but doubted it was that urgent.

“He didn’t seem to want to tell anyone, but he said it was about your mate,”

Rage froze, anger and possessiveness pored from him. The shook in fear. She had thought they were the right words to say, but clearly she was wrong.

“What about her?” He asked, half snarling as he stopped his task to turn on her. She nearly wet herself as she looked at the males twisted face, the demon flickering in his eyes.

In that moment she knew, the had only been blindly poking the beast in the dark, the bites she though he shot back were nothing but swipes of claws. Rage was more than she though, darker and more dangerous than others probably realized.

“I don’t know,” she sputtered out as she stepped back, her back meeting the wall of the hallway, “that’s all he said,”

A growl thundered through the stone rooms. Rage bared his teeth for a moment before leaving the cellar, revealing the mess once more to the she-wolf, her stomach flipped.

Fresh from the shower, Rage headed for his tent, his hair still dripping water down his bare chest.

He cut across the yard, nodding his head as he passed by old pack mates. No one tried to stop him, no one ever did.

Pulling the heavy leather tent open, he caught an unfamiliar scent. Ducking past the flap, he spotted the naked female sprawled on his cot.

He growled, raising his lip in distaste. The she-wolf tried to hide her shaking, but to him, it was clear.

“Get the fu*k out of my tent!” He was glad he didn’t have to speak twice as she scrambled to pick up her things, and rushed from the tent, still nude.

Rage sighed, running his hand over his face. Shameless females, he thought as he headed for his cot. If they kept this up he would start staying in the house where he could lock the door.

Lowering himself onto the cot, he pulled his duffel over to him to dig for his phone. It had been a few days since he last used it.

The screen showed twelve voicemails and so many calls that the phone just indicated twenty- plus.

Clicking on his brother’s name, he placed the phone to his ear and listened for the rings. It barely rang twice before Hunter answered.

“Rage, you need to come home, something happened...” his back stiffened at sound of his brother’s voice. Rage could almost feel the anxiety through the phone.

“What is going on?” the chill in his voice didn’t not help Hunter get to the point.

“Willow... Fury attacked her...”

“What!” Rage yelled, shooting up off of the cot, his whole body tense, hoping, praying he heard wrong.

“Rage, something happened with Fury and he- he attacked Willow...” his body shook, every fiber of his being screaming at him to run, but his body was frozen.

“What happened?” he demanded through clenched teeth.

“I will explain everything when you get here,” Rage growled, moving his head from side to side as he pushed down the urge to shift. His imagination was running wild with images, bloody images, that made him see red.

“Where is he?” he didn’t bother to use their brother’s name, couldn’t bring himself to say the name with venom dripping from the words.

“We have him downstairs...”

“And Willow?” he wasn’t sure he wanted to know how much she was injured, not while he was so far away, though he suspected she wasn’t in a dyer state, Hunter would have started with that information.

“She is alright. She is in the clinic, sedated, while she heals,” Rage nodded, despite being on the phone.

“I will leave within the hour,”

“There is one more thing...”

Everything stopped as a howl echoed through the air, silencing everything around.

Rage cursed and strained his ears to listen for the sounds that were coming.

An echo of howls followed, closer this time, and Rage’s stomach dropped.

“Rage, what was...”

“We are being attacked.”