The Blood of Promise Read online

  THE BLOOD OF PROMISE

  (THE WOLVES OF PROMISE FALLS, BOOK 3)

  A SPINOFF SERIES FROM OATH OF BANE

  By T. S. JOYCE

  The Blood of Promise

  Copyright © 2022 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2022, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: June 2022

  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.

  Editor: Alyxandra Miller

  Other Books in this Series

  The Fall of Promise (Book 1)

  The Rise of Promise (Book 2)

  Contents

  Copyright

  Other Books in this Series

  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

  Epilogue

  Up Next in this Series

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  More Series from this Author

  For More from this Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Stop!

  The Alpha’s order boomed through his brain like a detonated landmine. He hunched down and searched the woods as chills rippled up his arms. Something was wrong. “Daylen?” he whispered, knowing his Alpha wouldn’t answer. He wasn’t here. He was talking through their bond.

  A roar bellowed through his head so loud, he clapped his hands over his ears. It sounded like Stark, but not. Another roar, and he grunted at the pain in his head. Tessa’s Pack had done something awful. Something unforgivable. Something that had earned her an eternity in hell. He could see it. He could see it! He could see the monster inside of Stark, and that monster wasn’t supposed to exist. Tessa had done this.

  The scene in Carly’s head glitched. God, she wanted to pull out of this vision. She didn’t understand what she was seeing, and her clairvoyant powers were giving her an awful headache. She gasped at the flare of pain in her mind.

  “…tell her to hold on…”

  “…Carly? You can’t pull out of it now…”

  The man in her vision turned and looked right at her, his eyes glowing an inhuman green that terrified her…

  She shouldn’t be here.

  The man was balanced on the balls of his feet and the palms of his hands. He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at her. How? How could he see her? She was a ghost here.

  He didn’t have any clothes on, and every muscle rippled in his powerful arms as he moved slowly toward her. Chiseled face, three-day beard, dark hair cut short on the sides but messy on top. His features were too sharp. Dangerous. Coming closer.

  “…h-h-he knows,” she stammered, nearly choking on the fear clogging her throat.

  “Carly, not yet!”

  A whisper in the woods, and his attention jerked up to the sky. There were crows flying above them. Circling, crowing…a roar echoed through the woods and the man muttered a curse. He gave one last glance to the house he’d been watching.

  Not…yet…

  Carly pitched forward and everything went dark, and then she was in his head again.

  Daylen had told him to watch the fox den, but Lyndi’s parents had never come home. Something was wrong, and now Stark was roaring.

  He took off running, but fell forward. She thought he’d tripped until she saw his paws hit the soft earth.

  Oh my God.

  A snarl rattled through her and the man…animal…shook his head so hard, he nearly ran into a tree. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking anymore. The words in his mind weren’t human.

  The woods blurred by, faster and faster, until she wanted to close her eyes just to stop the nausea.

  …hated this…hated this…God, she hated this…

  The animal skidded out of the woods and onto a road. The night was ignited by shattering glass and the scream of tearing metal as a truck slammed against a tree and scraped off its door, and now Carly could see a wolf…a wolf? Fuck, that was a wolf!

  He ran faster. Faster. He wanted to kill the wolf but the truck was back on the road and speeding away.

  Stark, Daylen, Marsden! Help us! The words were screamed in his head, not said out loud, but the terror in them was palpable. He drove his legs faster.

  Lyndi, go! he demanded.

  Carly could understand that. She could understand! Lyndi? Who was Lyndi? Was she driving? Had to be, because he was aiming straight for the speeding truck.

  There they were, up ahead, illuminated by the high beams of the truck—Tessa’s Pack. Lyndi slammed on the brakes.

  Shhhhit! They have her parents, the man…animal…thought. Don’t stop!

  “Stark, if you can hear me, I’m sorry.” The whisper of the woman’s voice was filled with agony.

  Fuck. Lyndi, no! Wait for me! The man was running so fast, the pads of his feet were wearing thin on the asphalt.

  Lyndi jumped out of the truck, but she didn’t land as a woman. She turned into a black fox right in midair.

  He could get to her. He could help! He could kill them. He could protect Lyndi and Denver for a few moments, but he couldn’t keep them alive long. Stark! Where the fuck are you, man? We need you! He needed whatever fucked-up monster Tessa’s medicine had created.

  Stark had the Grim Reaper in him now. The girls needed the Reaper.

  He was going to make it. Lyndi’s jaws were clenched onto Jake’s throat, but he threw her off, and her leg gave out as she skidded toward a shallow ditch on the side of the road. Over and over she tumbled, but it was okay…he was here! He’d reached—oof!

  A white wolf barreled into him and latched onto his shoulder. Rage consumed him and he turned into it, let his control go…let the animal have him.

  Blood…pennies…copper…wet…splattering the concrete, and the white wolf’s eyes were vacant as he went limp on the ground.

  Lyndi! He looked up, knowing she would be gone…but she wasn’t.

  A monster fought on two legs, though he was anything but human. Massive paws with black nails, fur the color of gun metal, eyes that glowed ice blue as he shredded his way through the Pack. Stark.

  He bolted to help and the night was painted with red.

  Such…raw…violence…

  A massive grizzly was fighting beside him, but as a shadow covered the night, he flattened his ears back and looked up just in time to see the Murder of crows that flew above.

  A roar shook the ground beneath his feet, and for the first time in as long as he could remember…he felt fear.

  “We should go,” a human woman called from the woods, eyes on the sky. “Lyndi, we should really go!” she said, tugging at the back leg of the black fox.

  What the fuck was that? He flattened down to his belly at the electric power that jolted through the air like wind currents. Something massive was coming.

  The woman yelled, “They have a dragon!”

  Here, now! his Alpha ordered, and he couldn’t help himself. His legs moved without him asking them to.

  He bolted for the woods behind the others, who were also running for their lives. Behind them were piles of wolf bodies. He dared a glance up at the sky just before he disappeared under the safety of the canopy, and he saw something that sent terror sizzling through his entire body.

  The black dragon with the enormous, battle-tattered wings opened its mouth and clicked a sound just as the scent of some kind of firestarter demolished his senses.

  He couldn’t breathe as the first trail of lava and fire spewed up the road behind him, blasting burning heat against his back. He grunted with the pain.

  Don’t stop, Daylen ordered. Run!

  He pushed his legs harder and harder, but the fire was everywhere. It was inescapable. It was consuming, threatening to eat the whole world up. Nothing would ever be okay again, because the blistering heat was everything.

  And then it wasn’t.

  It stopped.

  He skidded to a halt, digging his paws into the earth. He turned slowly, and Carly was catapulted out of his mind and against a tree. She knelt there, gasping for breath, trying to shake off the nausea that came along with these awful powers.

  Weakly, she lifted her face and, tears burning her cheeks from the smoke in her eyes, she looked at the enormous gray wolf with the bright-green eyes.

  His lips didn’t move, and no words escaped him, but she coul
d hear the words tumble through her mind just the same. Don’t tell anyone.

  And then the flames from the outskirts rushed forward and burned everything until she couldn’t see a thing.

  Carly screamed as she landed back into herself.

  Tears burned her eyes as she choked on smoke that was no longer here. Her hands were splayed over the massive scorch marks that had destroyed this road, and though they were weeks old, they burned as if they’d just been made by that…that…dragon.

  She flinched away and stood in a rush. She swayed weakly and nearly fell, but Darren caught her.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he chanted, but it wasn’t. He didn’t know.

  “Don’t touch me!” she shrieked. God, he knew better. Her skin was on fire. It was always on fire when she did this shit for him.

  “You shouldn’t have asked,” she sobbed, pushing her brother off her.

  Darren held out his hands to the other two police officers from his department who had come with them. “It’s okay. She always has a hard time coming back.”

  “Like you know,” she cried. “Like you know how it is, and you still ask.”

  “What did you see?” he asked low. “What has you so spooked?” He gestured to the huge scorch marks that painted the earth here just outside of the small town of Leadville, Colorado.

  Carly’s entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

  Don’t tell anyone.

  Who was he? Who the hell was he? She hadn’t caught the wolf-man’s name. Only his friends’ names, because she had been inside his mind. He hadn’t referred to himself as a name. He’d tried to help them. Save them. Lyndi. Denver. Stark, and Daylen. He’d killed wolves. Were they animal-people, too? She’d watched him kill them. It had felt like she’d helped. The taste of blood still lingered in her mouth.

  She was panicking. Couldn’t breathe.

  Darren was saying something, approaching slowly. “Who did this?” he asked.

  The dragon! The dragon did this!

  Don’t tell anyone.

  Above them, a dozen crows flew across the sky and she couldn’t…she couldn’t…

  “Who did this?” Darren asked louder.

  Don’t tell anyone.

  Curse the awful things she could do and see.

  Carly’s body buckled, and her knees hit the scorched asphalt. The last thing she saw before the world went dark were the crows landing in the trees.

  Chapter Two

  Marsden Wyland checked his ringing phone and muttered a curse for the name that came across his caller ID. In a rush, he turned down the volume of his phone and yanked open the door of his landlord’s office.

  Ricky glanced up from his desk and held up a finger as he finished up on a call.

  He didn’t have time to chat today, so he set the envelope of cash for this month’s rent on the desk and gave a two-fingered wave.

  “Hold up,” Ricky told him.

  Crap. He needed to get to work. Marsden’s phone vibrated in his pocket again. One quick check, and yep, a ghost from his past was definitely trying to ruin his day. Ignoring the call, he shoved the phone into his back pocket again and took a seat in the old, worn chair in front of Ricky’s desk.

  Marsden turned the family picture on the desk toward him and studied the three boys’ smiling faces, and Ricky’s wife, grinning under the safety of Ricky’s arm around her shoulders. Cute family. God, Ricky didn’t even realize how lucky he was. Nor did his kids.

  He replaced the picture as Ricky ended his call. “Sweet setup,” Marsden murmured, gesturing to the picture.

  “They’re pretty cool,” Ricky agreed. “So, what’s up? You going to be late on rent every month, or is this a one-time deal?”

  Marsden sighed and clasped his hands hard. Patience wasn’t one of his virtues. “It’s a one-time deal. I had to miss a few days of work the last couple of months.” Because he was healing dragon burns, but Ricky didn’t need to know such details.

  “You were sick? Or lazy? Because I have to tell you, if you can’t remember when rent is due, I have two couples wanting a house that is just like yours, and I can have that place filled the day after you move out.” Aaah, threats.

  “Ricky, I like you,” Marsden said, standing. He offered him an empty smile. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  His phone vibrated in his pocket again, and Marsden gritted his teeth against the urge to chuck the damn thing through the single glass window in Ricky’s office. He gave his landlord a nod goodbye and shut the door firmly behind him.

  This time the caller ID said his new Alpha, Stark’s, name. Huffing a low growl, Marsden answered. “What?”

  “Testy, testy,” Stark uttered across the line. “Next time I would like you to answer the phone, ‘Hello, milord, how can I fulfill my duties in a more efficient way today?’”

  “Fuck off. What do you want?”

  “Fine. ‘Yes, master’ works too.”

  Marsden came to the end of the hallway and shoved open the exit door. “I’m hanging up.”

  “You can’t hang up on your Alpha.”

  “Stark. I’m having a shit morning, and you’re making it worse.”

  “Why am I getting calls from your old Pack?”

  The question caught Marsden so off-guard, he locked his legs and came to a halt in the middle of the small parking lot. “You mean from your old Pack?”

  “I don’t claim them. What did they ever do for me? Why, Marsden? Why are they asking me to tell them where you are?”

  Marsden hooked a hand on his hip and looked heavenward, mouthed the word ‘fuck’, and strode for his old, banged-up Jeep Grand Cherokee. Right about now, he wished he was on a weekend trip up in the mountains, rock crawling this thing. He needed a break from life. “What did you tell them?” he asked Stark.

  His Alpha snorted. “I asked what his name is, and he said Rupert. I laughed and said that rhymes with Poopert, and then I said I wanted to fight him and asked him to tell me where he is, and he hung up.”

  Marsden bit back a smile. Aaaand there was his Alpha. Rupert was currently Second in his old Pack and had always been a dickweed. From this day forth, he would be known in Marsden’s mind as “Poopert”. Thanks, Stark.

  “I’ll handle it,” Marsden assured him. He moved to hang up, but Stark asked, “Marsden?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You good?”

  Marsden caught a glimpse of himself in the driver’s side window of his Jeep. He looked haggard. He was unshaven, and his hair was a mess on top. He hadn’t been sleeping because something he didn’t understand was haunting his dreams. Late on rent, light on time, needed to catch up on work, and he couldn’t get this girl out of his mind. This ghost girl. That, and his old Pack was breathing down his neck. He knew exactly what they wanted from him and it would change the entire course of his life for the worse. No, he wasn’t good.

  “Yeah, man. All good.” Marsden disconnected the call before Stark could ask more questions about why there was a blatant lie in his tone with that answer.

  One last glance at his reflection in the window, and the necklace Vanna, his adoptive mother, had given him glinted in the sun. The clasp had slipped down near the sterling silver wolf pendant. She’d gotten it for him for a birthday present just a few months after he’d come to live with her. It was kind of a joke between them. Silver was supposed to hurt werewolves, right? That’s what the legends said. But here he was wearing a silver pendant right next to his heart. Usually, he kept it tucked under his shirt, but this morning it was right there on full display—a reminder of why he was here.

  He’d come here for Vanna.

  He’d stayed for Stark.

  The chain was cold against his fingers as he slipped the clasp to the back of his neck, then tucked the necklace into his shirt.

  He reached for the door handle but stopped, because he wasn’t alone in his reflection anymore. There was the ghost woman, standing behind him. Her blonde hair lifted in a breeze that didn’t exist, and her full lips were parted in question. She was pale as a sheet, her blonde eyebrows and lashes the same color of her skin. She looked as tired as Marsden felt.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t wear makeup today, and her big blue eyes stared at him with so much emotion he didn’t understand—as if she wanted to say something to him, but didn’t know how to speak. It was always the same. He didn’t know why he asked her questions.