Forbidden Wolf (The Shadow Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Forbidden Wolf

  The Shadow Chronicles 1

  Copyright 2021 by C.R. Robertson.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Contact Information:

  [email protected]

  www.CRRobertson.com

  https://geni.us/RobertsonsOtherworld

  https://www.facebook.com/CRRobertsonauthor/

  Publication Date: 11th May 2021

  Cover Artist: BRoseDesignz

  Thank you so much for reading my eBook. I really hope the characters touch your soul, and make your mind wander to a different realm for a few hours. If you enjoy Forbidden Wolf, please consider leaving a review and have a look at my other paranormal romance novels.

  Books by CR Robertson

  The Otherworld Chronicles:

  The Gates of Hell Trilogy:

  1 – Elements of Flames

  2 – Elements of Dragons

  3 – Elements of Fae

  ***

  4 – Elements of Karma

  5 – Elements of Light

  6 – Elements of Souls

  7 – Elements of Redemption

  The Gaian Otherworld:

  1 – Dragons of Destiny

  2 – Dragons of Fate

  3 – Dragons of Chaos

  4- Dragons of Retribution

  Dark Princes of Purgatory:

  1-Curse of Seduction

  2-Curse of Darkness

  3-Curse of Deception

  4- Curse of Vengeance

  The Vendetta Brotherhood:

  1-Nicklas

  2-Samson

  3-Kristian

  Midnight Dynasty:

  1-Midnight Seduction

  2-Midnight Danger

  3-Midnight Legacy

  Contemporary Romance:

  Stronger Than Love

  ***

  A Note on Language

  Please note CR Robertson is from the UK.

  Therefore, spellings and some turns of phrase will appear in British English.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to all the wolves in my life.

  My pack who supports me every step of my journey.

  Whether they be the alpha, the omega, the sigma, or the small furry beasties that follow me around the house.

  You inspire me every single day…

  ***

  Tasha

  Every day took me nearer to my twenty-first birthday in a few weeks, a step closer to conscription into the vampire army, to kill our mortal enemy: the lycans. The war had lasted centuries and consumed so many lives that I doubted anyone kept a tally anymore. So many new recruits didn’t survive a year that I doubted I would see my twenty-second birthday.

  After dragging my long black hair into a messy bun on top of my head, I pulled on my converse trainers. The need to escape pulsed deep in my veins. All the metal shutters in the facility were firmly in place to stop any harmful rays of the sun creeping in to cause death or injury to any of the vampires in the science core.

  The metallic scent of blood tempted me toward the feeding hall, my stomach rumbling since I hadn’t eaten for days. I tended to pick at human food and drink coffee to keep my stomach filled between meals since blood was scarce this far into the Amazon rainforest in Guyana. There was no nourishment in human food, but it kept the hunger pangs at bay.

  My fangs throbbed in my gums like athletes readying themselves for the starter pistol to sound. A bead of sweat formed at my brow in anticipation as I paced to where the commander stored the blood. Would there be any left?

  The only benefit to enlisting in the army was that I would be given a ration; right now, I had to rely on what was left behind at the end of mealtime or ask my father to share his. He already gave to my little sister, so I hated to make him share it three ways. I didn’t want to be a burden to my family.

  As I opened the door, the red light bleeped. An almost empty bag sat at the bottom of the fridge. Occasionally, the scientists left some blood for those of us without ration status. As my fangs ripped into the bag to gulp down what remained, my eyes closed in ecstasy.

  Mother worked in another facility that didn’t allow offspring. There, she studied lycan pack behaviour and hunted for a rare species of flower believed to be able to neutralise their wolf form. Father studied vampire and lycan genetics here in this laboratory. They were far from the frontline of war since they’d served their twenty years conscription in the army and were now allowed to work in their chosen specialist areas.

  Stretching and allowing the blood to strengthen me, I began to jog around the facility until the last rays of sunlight disappeared over the horizon. It helped to calm me as I prepared to escape into the night-time world. My palms itched even as I bounced up and down on my toes. The shutter slowly opened to reveal the inky darkness outside.

  Night.

  The aroma of the flowers in the rainforest combined with the distinct scent of every animal out there to form a cacophony of flavours to tickle my senses. My feet hit the edge of the precipice, and I flung myself headfirst into the forest, my hands grabbing a branch to swing myself up to crouch in the tree. My night vision could make out every tree and branch for miles around, detect the tiniest moths drinking nectar from flowers.

  Freedom called to me like a seductress tempting me to sin. Every day I waited for this moment when I could stop being me and become merely a shadow in the night. Just another ghost in this huge ecosystem the humans had yet to explore. It was one of the few places on Earth that the night creatures could roam freely, without fear of discovery.

  My nails elongated into claws that allowed me to leap between branches or climb tree trunks. At times, I flew alongside bats as I jumped from one tree to another. The air cooled my skin and allowed me to breathe fully after being locked inside that metal box all day.

  Freedom made time irrelevant as I joined the other night creatures that I sensed around me in a myriad of emotions. Darkness was my protector from prying eyes below. A large shape caught my attention in the forest basin, so black it blended into its surroundings. I’d seen many jaguars on my travels and had heard rumours of a rare black jaguar in this area of the forest. My pulse leapt with excitement that this could be the big cat I’d been stalking for the past week.

  Usi
ng my claws to climb down the tree, I cautiously jumped the last few feet to try and catch a peek of the elusive beast. Too late, I realised it was a black wolf prowling low to the ground. He reared around and snapped his canines. They dug deep into my arm, tearing through my flesh. I retaliated and bit his shoulder to try and force him to release me.

  We lay on the ground, breathing hard as we stared at each other in horror. Our blood dripped onto the ground from our wounds to permeate into the forest floor.

  Dead.

  I was dead.

  Lycan bites were deadly to vampires, and as much as we’d searched the globe, there was no cure. I knew that from reading Dad’s research.

  His form slowly changed from black wolf to a male around my age. There was a feral magnetic energy emanating from the man that screeched danger. The wildness of nature resided in his tawny hazel eyes that met mine, shock in their depths.

  “You fucking bit me,” he snarled, twisting his head as if to inspect my bite on the back of his shoulder. His solid muscles flexed as his body moved, making me feel small and weak in his presence.

  When I imagined my death, it was in a heroic situation where I saved humans from the lycan threat. It never occurred to me that it would be as a virgin, lying deep in the heart of the rainforest on my ass, poisoned by a lycan bite.

  I lay stunned on the ground, holding the wound that began to throb and burn on my arm. The wolf was well over six-foot tall with messy black hair. He was completely naked, his wide chest covered in ropes of muscles that led all the way down to a substantial cock between his legs. Although some of my friends in college had boyfriends and indulged in sex, no one had caught my attention until this very moment when faced with this naked male. Although I was scared and in pain, something about this wolf held me in his thrall. This apex predator towered over me with waves of power emanating from him.

  He glared daggers at me, his eyes glowing amber as his beast emerged.

  A foreign emotion curled low in my belly and radiated up my spine. Heat pulsed between my legs and made my thighs tighten. Pushing myself onto my feet, I gave him my best impression of my mother, arching an eyebrow and scowling.

  “Technically you bit me first. What the hell are you doing out after dark?” I snapped.

  His eyes cut away, and his jaw tightened. There was an unwritten law out here that the daylight hours belonged to the lycans and that the night was owned by the vampires.

  “You jumped out of a tree on top of me,” he said, returning his deadly stare and shifting the blame to me.

  No one ever told me that lycans could perform magic, but there was something in his gaze that held me immobile. A mesmerising quality that made me stop in my tracks and stare at him. I waited for the terror I felt when I saw other lycans in the forest—it didn’t appear. Instead, my panties felt tight and my stomach knotted.

  “I thought you were a black jaguar and wanted to see one for myself,” I admitted, folding my arms across my chest to try and make me look more threatening.

  His jaw dropped and he gawked at me. He looked like he was going to say something, but pursed his lips together, his brow wrinkling.

  My arm throbbed from his bite, and a whimper escaped as the pain pulsed up my arm into my shoulder. My fingers covered my injury.

  His stare moved between my face and my arm. Sighing, he stepped forward.

  “Hold still,” he said, taking my arm in his big hands to study the wound. “It’s deep but hasn’t hit anything major. If you clean it out, there should be no infection.”

  “That bite will kill me long before infection sets in,” I said, pulling my injured arm away from him. His touch confused me and left me breathless. “You murdered me.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and his lips slowly turned up into the sexiest smirk I’d seen in my entire life. Maybe the toxin was starting to affect me because my legs were trembling and my heart thudding heavily in my ears.

  “You’ve got that the wrong way round, sweetheart. You’ve killed me with your bite.” He took a threatening step forward while enunciating some of the words in an attempt to make me the villain of this story. “My buddy’s uncle was bitten by a vamp last year and died within a few hours.”

  I’d never heard that before. And even if it were true, it didn’t change the certainty that the wound currently pulsing with pain on my arm was my death warrant.

  “Great,” I said. “We’re both going to die because you couldn’t keep your canines to yourself.”

  The world spun around me. I slid down a tree to sit at the base of it, then rested my head back. All my senses were numb, except for the pain in my arm. I should run and escape, but my legs refused to move. There was nowhere for me to go, nowhere that I belonged.

  His gaze followed the gesture before slowly coming back up to my face. He copied my actions, his legs tucked up toward his chest to cover his modesty.

  What the hell where we doing sitting here beside each other? A voice in my head screamed that I should be running away from this wolf who bit me. Another instinctive voice whispered that I needed to stay with this wolf.

  He leaned his head on his knees and stared at me. “What’s your name?”

  My head canted to the side, and my forehead creased.

  He exhaled heavily. “I’m Levi. Since it looks like we’re both going to die, I thought it would be nice to know my executioner’s name.”

  “You just can’t stop being a dick,” I snapped. “You can tell the devil when you meet him that you killed an innocent vampire named Tasha.”

  His deep chuckle should have enraged me, but it sent a shiver of awareness down my spine. “Innocent. Yeah, right.”

  My claws dug into my palms. He was such an asshole! There was no way I was spending my last few hours alive with an arrogant wolf. Pushing myself to my feet, I growled and stomped in the general direction of home. The poison from the wound was already starting to make me feel dizzy and nauseous. Since I couldn’t use my arm to climb into the trees, I doubted I would make it back to the facility to say a last goodbye to my family.

  My fingers clung to a tree as I stumbled, and a strong hand grabbed my uninjured arm.

  “Why don’t we have a truce for the few hours we have left? Neither of us are going to make it home, so right now, we’re all each other has.” Levi’s heat permeated into my back, and I tried to suppress the tremor that rippled through me. “There’s a cave not far from here that we can sit in.”

  He kept hold of my arm and led me toward his cave. In my head, I knew I should shrug him off, but I couldn’t fight the strange sensation of safety he gave me.

  I wanted to scream and be angry, but the overwhelming feeling was relief that I wouldn’t be conscripted for twenty years into the army and fight in a war that I didn’t start. I would die free in nature.

  Father had always complained I was too much like my mother, and that she was too soft for a vampire. She used to tell me stories from long before the war, when vampires and lycans were known as the beautiful immortals. Both species co-existed until something happened and the war began. History reported that the lycans turned against their night-time masters, wanting to seize power for themselves. In a forgotten time, this lycan and I could have been friends.

  The burn from my arm leaked into the rest of my body to scorch my senses. I bit into my bottom lip in an attempt to swallow the pain. Wolves had big mouths and lots of sharp teeth that penetrated deeply. At least my bite was only two small fangs. My arm felt shredded, the flesh swelling even as I looked at it. Bile bubbled up the back of my throat when I landed on my knees to vomit the precious blood I’d drank earlier.

  “Shit,” Levi said, lifting me to carry me against his chest. “I guess my bite really is poisonous to you.”

  My body burned and teeth chattered as I peered up at him. “Did you think I was making up my eminent demise?”

  His lips twitched. “Yeah, I did, actually.”

  If I had the energy, I would have rolled my eyes at him
since it made my father mad when I did that. Right now, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep. My temperature soared and perspiration beaded on my forehead and pooled at the curve at the bottom of my spine. His touch soothed me as his fingers swept across my forehead.

  The cave was just big enough to fit both of us, the bushes outside hiding it from the rest of the rainforest. Our thighs touched, and I was unnervingly aware of his presence, his unnatural heat sinking into my flesh to make me burn even hotter. The night was slipping past hour at a time, every one bringing me closer to death.

  I’d seen wolves out hunting in the forest, and I’d stayed far from their reaches. Occasionally, some had been brought into the research facility. They were vicious, biting and snarling at anyone who came near them. Savage beasts who couldn’t control their urges.

  So why wasn’t I terrified of Levi the way I’d been with those other wolves? Why did sitting here with him bring me comfort? I blamed my confusion on the venom poisoning me.

  His chest expanded as he took a deep breath. “I was supposed to join the army this year. Dad said I needed to improve my hunting skills, so I’ve been spending time in the forest alone to hone my abilities.”

  He chatted as if we had all the time in the world to talk about life in general.

  I tried to join him in the pretence. “I was just exploring the forest as I’ve done for the past few weeks since I arrived here after college finished.”

  If I’d been a bookworm like my sister, I would have been curled up in a corner somewhere reading the latest romance book to arrive at the facility. Vampires were built for speed and stealth, but we definitely seemed to be lacking when it came to romantic genes. My friends at college selected their boyfriends on their abilities, not their attraction to them. They had sex because it was expected that we should produce as many offspring as possible. We learnt to supress our emotions from an early age.