Behind the Beginning (Becoming the Wolf Book 1) Read online

  BEHIND THE BEGINNING

  (BECOMING THE WOLF, BOOK 1)

  By T. S. JOYCE

  Other Books in this Series

  Hold Steady (Book 2)

  Protect Mine (Book 3)

  It Begins with Her (Book 4)

  Behind the Beginning

  Copyright © 2014 by Tera Shanley/T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2014, Tera Shanley/T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: August 2014 as Silver Wolf Clan

  Rights reverted back to Author February 10, 2019

  T. S. Joyce

  www.tsjoyce.com

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Contents

  Other Books in this Series

  Copyright

  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

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  Chapter One

  Grey jolted awake. The air stirred with something just beyond his senses that made the blood in his veins run cold. Something unnatural. He untangled his legs from his sleeping bag and sat up, made his way to the zipper door of his tent and looked out into the darkness. The campfire had gone out long before and the slow burning embers offered little light. The full moon sitting low in the night sky illuminated the woods around him a little, but his eyes still needed to adjust. Silence surrounded him in the forest, except for the sound of his breathing and the beating of his heart. Erratic and fast, like wings of the birds that had been scared into stillness.

  What woke him?

  A scream echoed through the woods, there terror in in it lifting instant chills up his spine.

  He jumped up and flew into action. The large buck knife his grandfather had given him gleamed from his overturned boot near the fire pit, and he pulled it and turned in a slow circle. Where had the sound come from? The horror-filled scream of a woman was something he never expected to hear out here in the peace of this campground, and especially not when he thought he’d made his camp far enough away from everyone. His eyes were adjusting. Another scream rang through the woods, more frightened than the last, and now the chills weren’t just tremoring up his spine. The hairs rose on his arms. He needed action. The scream came from the west, that way, through the woods.

  He ran, ignoring his unprotected, bare feet on the uneven, obstacle riddled ground. Branches whipped at his face, and tree roots reached for his feet.

  He was close. The woman sobbed in between screams and there was something more. A child crying? He skidded into a clearing, hands hitting the ground as he tried to stop. He gripped the knife even tighter, but as he laid his eyes on a monster, he knew the weapon wasn’t nearly big enough. The furred animal had to be a bear. Nothing else made sense, but what was a bear doing deep in the woods of Texas?

  A woman swung a flaming torch at the animal as it stood protectively over something on the leaf-covered ground just outside the fire light. A little girl, maybe two years old, huddled near a small tent, whimpering.

  “Let her go!” The woman screamed.

  The animal turned its head and the flames lit its face. Oh God, it was a wolf. Dark, wet lips pulled away from gleaming, red drenched teeth and the monstrous creature emitted a bone chilling snarl. Its glowing eyes were trained on the woman. She stood her ground, dark hair whipping around her shoulders in the wind. She couldn’t be over five foot-two, and slight. No chance against the predator.

  “Hey,” Greyson yelled at the woman. “Back up slowly.”

  She hesitated but didn’t turn away from the snarling animal. Her voice shook like the flickering of the torch’s flames. “I can’t! It has my sister.”

  Shhhit. The wolf charged her, and with a yelp, she fell backward, the torch falling to the ground beside her. Grey was already in motion, bolting for the animal as it lunged at her. With a grunt, he hit it in the side just as it bunched its muscles to leap onto her, and he rammed the long buck knife deep into its chest.

  The snarl of pain the animal exhaled was deafening, and it turned on him so fast, the creature blurred. Pain raged through Greyson’s entire body as the wolf sank its teeth into his forearm. Burning pain seared through him as the wolf held on and shook his arm so hard it rattled in its socket. Desperate, Grey gripped the handle of his buried knife, pulled it out and stabbed at the monster over and over. Smoke billowed from the creature’s slashed skin, and the smell of burning flesh assaulted him. Made no sense. Why was his skin burning where the blade cut him? Furiously, he kept at it as the wolf shook him and clamped down harder with long, penetrating teeth.

  As suddenly as the beast had lunged, it let go with a roar, and disappeared into the night.

  Numbness caressed his muscles, and he pitched forward, landing hard on his knees. Sobbing, the woman crawled to her sister. Terror was written all over the woman’s face as she chanted “Marianna, Marianna, Marianna,” as if a name would revive her.

  Grey fell backward, his spine arching against the ground as fire burned up his arms and legs, burning from his very veins, blistering every nerve ending on the way out. Why was the pain tearing through his chest? The wolf had maimed his arm, not his torso. He wanted to ask the woman for help, but nothing came out except a quiet groan. Was he dying? He arched his neck toward her sister, Marianna, but he didn’t want that to be the last thing he saw. So he kept his blurring gaze on the woman. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, could only see her profile illuminated by the glowing campfire near them. Her cheeks were pink, nose like a pixie’s, full lips and eyes that looked brighter surrounded by those wet, dark eyelashes. So pretty.

  Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe he was still asleep, back in his campsite a quarter of a mile away. He’d been sleeping there only a few minutes ago. Maybe he was just having a vivid night terror and he would wake at any moment to the relief that this wasn’t real.

  “None of this is real,” he whispered to himself, but he didn’t recognize his own voice. It was gritty with pain.

  The woman gasped, and locked eyes on his. Pretty green eyes. Crystal clear but swimming with shock and sadness. She slid over to him, but he was already panting in pain. The fire in his blood burned him up.

  Her mout
h moved, but he couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in his ears. Like helicopter blades, the sound drowned out everything. When his vision blurred, he tried to focus on her face. She was so beautiful. Even prettier close-up. Like an angel. Tiny woman, delicate like a hummingbird. Even through spilling tears, the moss green color of her eyes was bright and compelling.

  Her voice overcame the screeching in his ears. “What’s your name?”

  “Greyson,” he rasped. “Greyson Crawford.” Someone should know who he was. Someone should notify his dad of what had happened there in the woods of Enchanted Rock. “What’s yours?” he forced out past his tightening vocal cords. It was getting so hard to breathe, and maybe words were a waste now, but he had to know. It suddenly felt essential that he leave the world on her name.

  “Morgan. My name’s Morgan.”

  His body seized and the edge of his vision shattered inward, collapsing to a pinpoint. An unimposing, all-consuming star. She smelled so good. Everything blurred into unimportance except the soft rose color of her lips. He couldn’t hear what she said, but it didn’t matter anymore.

  Nothing mattered.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Bright rays of sunlight filtered through the tree branches overhead and stretched across Grey’s barely opened eyes. He had flashes of running through the woods trying to escape…something. Every muscle ached and his head throbbed so badly, when he tried to sit up, he immediately retched. The forest had become a deafening retreat and his ears rang with waves of sound and pain. His vision blurred and refocused, only to blur again. A desperate thirst scorched his throat. Where was the backpack and canteen? His tent? The safety of his sleeping bag? Instincts, loud and immediate, screamed that he wasn’t okay. Something in the woods was off. Electricity crackled in the air, and his skin buzzed with the unnaturalness of it.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Trying not to jar his body too much, Greyson looked around cautiously. Nothing but trees and falling leaves surrounded him. How long had he been unconscious? A few hours? A few days? He didn’t know.

  Morgan. Her lips, trembling with fear as she whispered her name. Her eyes, the color of evergreens, with dark lashes dampened by tears. The smell of summer and something more had clung to her skin, a confusing scent both alluring and unnamable. The shock on her small, pale face as she’d asked questions that he couldn’t understand. The vision of her face made the pain more bearable. He remembered a tear on her cheek, and that snarling, raving beast so large it couldn’t be real, shouldn’t exist, staring hungrily at the tripping pulse in Morgan’s throat. Memories pounded against him, crashing waves of misery until his body clenched with wracking pain. The agony burned through his blood, and he screamed, but the sound in his throat morphed into an unrecognizable growl.

  The monster was near, and what could he possibly do to protect himself? Weak, barely able to move, he was wolf chow. The growling got louder and louder, and Grey waited for it to come; the death he expected. The wolf panted and snarled, so near, and he frantically searched the woods around him. Shrubs, trees, roots, leaves. No monster. The wolf sounded close, so why couldn’t he see it? The late summer air told him a million things but spared him a hint at the direction of danger. Why was he sniffing the air? He smelled the musky scent of animal fur. A fresh wave of panic had him seething with blinding pain, as if his very bones were being ground to dust. His muscles snapped and stretched, and he groaned against the loss of himself.

  This was it. This was the end.

  Seconds dragged on, feeling like hours, but eventually the pain ebbed. Memory of it was still fresh and raw, but at least now Grey could move. He tried to stand but everything tilted at an odd angle. It was impossible to sit upright and nothing in his body seemed to work properly. The effort from trying to sit up had him panting.

  Panting? The smell of animal filled the air around him but he was all alone. He didn’t feel danger.

  Everything had a sound. Every leaf falling, every branch swaying with the wind. Every bird, squirrel, and rabbit resonated a distinct note he identified right away. What the fuck? Chest heaving, Grey looked down at his hands, but they weren’t hands at all. The blood drained from his face as he stared in horror at huge black-furred paws.

  He jumped up, unaware of how to use this body, stumbled backward and hit the side of a large rock. He’d meant to yell out a string of cuss words, but all that escaped his throat was a dog’s whine. He sat and looked at himself as far as his new neck could stretch. Black tail, legs, paws and body. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening.

  And in his panic, something awful happened.

  His Change began again.

  Chapter Three

  It only took six months to go to hell. That’s what Grey’s life had morphed into. He didn’t have a high paying desk job anymore because he’d been forced to quit the moment he’d grown fangs in his off-time. Probably nobody would want a werewolf changing in the office and eating the clientele. He’d moved from a comfortable townhome in uptown to a crappy one-room apartment in a much less savory part of Dallas. After half a year in a friendless purgatory, not much scared him anymore. He’d had a small circle of people he trusted before the bite, but not like this.

  This was loneliness a man could drown in.

  The old trusty trust fund wasn’t an option. His dad would look too hard into it if he withdrew money, take it as an overzealous sign he’d come around to the idea of running his father’s companies. As it stood, Dad couldn’t ever see him like this. One look into his eyes and he would know Grey wasn’t his son anymore.

  Nope. He hadn’t touched the money before he’d turned wolf, and he sure as hell wasn’t touching it now.

  Instead, he’d cashed out his retirement and lived meagerly for months.

  The worst part of it all was Wolf. His head was filled with the separate, violent, frightening voice of a soulless animal he could rarely control. Wolf fought for space, pushing harder and further until very little of the old Grey broke through. Thanks to that bite in the woods, he was on a fast train to insanity, woo wooo.

  Lack of control over when he changed into the beast inside him meant there was no longer a place for him in the modern human world. Thankfully, he didn’t Change all the time, and he could tell when he was close. The rage would build up, and there was no use fighting Wolf. When it was time, he went off in the woods and camped for a few days, well away from people where they could be safe from him. That had worked well until he’d almost killed a hiker that had surprised him on a trail. Wolf didn’t give many fucks, and was obsessed with the hunt. How could he be sure he’d be able to stop him next time? His next plan was to buy heavy chains and lock himself into an old abandoned cabin he’d found on one of his camping trips.

  Try to escape those, asshole, he said to his inner wolf.

  Gladly, Wolf replied, his tone dripping with smugness.

  They were not friends.

  Grey had braved buying much needed groceries for the first time in two weeks. Plastic bags ruffled in his hands and he fumbled to pull keys from his pocket. As he started up the stairs to his room, some deep-seated instinct brought him to a halt.

  “Hey, hold up,” a man said softly in the stairwell below.

  If he were human, he shouldn’t have been able to hear that, so turning around if the message wasn’t intended for him would’ve looked suspicious. In his attempts to blend into human society, he’d learned a few tricks. Nobody would appreciate a creepy neighbor with supersonic dog hearing.

  He climbed the stairs steadily while the man below remained where he was. And he wasn’t alone. Grey could hear two of them, two beating hearts, to different breathing patterns.

  Wolf, as he called the trespasser living inside him, growled his alarm deep in his gut but as usual he told him, shut the hell up. That didn’t help, as usual. Wolf pushed back right as one of the men below quietly said, “Greyson Crawford, we’d like a minute.”

  There
was no putting Wolf neatly away after they’d uttered his name. He bolted for his door, scenting a trail that matched the redolence of the men the entire way. On alert, Wolf had picked up on it first, and as Grey opened the door, he already knew he’d find their scent in his apartment as well. Red flag, red flag. The two men were close and the wolf inside him snarled, warning him not to get cornered. The men entered his apartment, and shut the door behind them.

  “My, what big eyes you have,” the shorter of the intruders said through a menacing smile.

  At maybe five-foot-eight and thickly muscled, with dark hair and eyes, the man would be downright imposing if Grey possessed any fear of the human world anymore. As it stood, not much scared the monster snaking in his gut. The taller of the two men turned from shutting the door, and his eyes glowed a vivid and unnatural blue. The scent of fur hit Grey’s sensitive nose at the same moment. Werewolf.

  “We need to have a chat,” the taller blond-haired man said. The light shone off a scar running down the side his face.

  If they were going to kill him, fine, but there were questions he wanted answered first.

  We’ll kill them and leave nothing but bone, Wolf spouted. Weak weak weak. You’re weak if you allow them to live after they’ve stepped foot in our home. Our territory. Change. Let me out and I’ll kill them for us. I’ll rip their throats out and bleed them, let them go slowly staring at the ceiling of a room they should’ve never entered. I’ll smile at their last pathetic breaths as they run rivers of red across the floor.

  Ew. Grey was about as submissive as a man could be, and fate had shoved the most dominant creature in existence directly inside his head. Fuckin’ shoot me already. Wolf’s gross threats weren’t a bluff though, he would absolutely kill them and smile over their bodies. Probably hike a leg and piss on them while he was at it. Whatever cruel twist of fate had thrown their two personalities into the same being was a dipshit.