The Mercy of Promise

  THE MERCY OF PROMISE

  (THE WOLVES OF PROMISE FALLS, BOOK 4)

  A SPINOFF SERIES FROM OATH OF BANE

  By T. S. JOYCE

  The Mercy of Promise

  Copyright © 2022 by T. S. Joyce

  Copyright © 2022, T. S. Joyce

  First electronic publication: July 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)

  The Blood of Promise (Book 3)

  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

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Up Next in this Series

  Newsletter Sign-Up

  More Series from this Author

  For More from this Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Aspen Moore checked her rearview mirror, glancing over the line of RVs following her.

  This was a bad idea.

  This was a horrible, terrible, never-gonna-work, awful idea, but what choice did she have? What choice did any of the Trader Pack have?

  They had so many wars hovering over them, there would be no surviving for any of them if she didn’t drag them under the protection of the dragon.

  She had to tread carefully.

  She needed to hide her people on the edge of this territory and pray they weren’t found out by the monsters who lived here. The Trader Pack hadn’t been invited.

  Marsden had let her down, and now it was time for desperate measures.

  She just had to hope she could bargain her Pack’s survival long enough to untangle the mess her previous Alpha had gotten them into.

  And pray that Stark Wulfson, the Lost Wolf himself, didn’t find out what she was about to do.

  In the truck behind her, Ru was arguing with Trey. God, they were always arguing now. Everyone in this damn Pack was at each other’s throats.

  If they wouldn’t be picked off one by one by their enemies, they would’ve all split up the second Nathaniel was killed.

  Everything had gotten so messed up.

  The RV behind Ru’s truck swerved and dragged her attention back to the rearview mirror. She could see Ru through the front window of his Dodge, veins popping in his neck as he yelled at Trey. The truck jerked again, and the RV behind it twitched into the other lane. Shhhhit.

  With a snarl in her throat, Aspen took her eyes off the road long enough to connect a call to Ru, their new Alpha. Trey was a problem. He should’ve never ridden with Ru in the first place.

  The trip from Peyton, Colorado to Leadville, Colorado was way too long for those two to be stuck in the cab of a truck together.

  Ru didn’t pick up.

  “Don’t ignore my call!” she yelled, laying on the horn.

  Ru’s truck swerved, dangerously this time. She connected the call again. Come on!

  No answer, and now Trey had a middle finger in front of Ru’s face, and she could see both pairs of their eyes glowing like lanterns. They were definitely going to Change.

  Aspen yelled a curse and slammed her hand onto the wheel. Why couldn’t one damn thing go right?

  On the road up ahead, a man stepped out of the woods, and Aspen gasped as she recognized the behemoth werewolf with the blazing-blue eyes, long hair, and feral snarl on his lips.

  Stark. Wulfson.

  Aspen slammed on her brakes, but the RV she was towing was extremely heavy. Behind her, the screeching of tires was deafening to her oversensitive ears. Ru’s truck slammed into the back of her trailer and catapulted her forward.

  She was going to hit Stark. Shit! She was going to hit him!

  “Move!” she screamed.

  But Stark just stood there in the road, his eyes the shade of blue flames, his face twisted with rage, his fists clenched at his sides.

  Aspen turned the wheel, but she was in a full skid and her camper jackknifed behind her.

  And just as the front end of her truck was about to make contact with the Alpha of Promise Falls, he disappeared.

  The sound of shattering glass and screeching metal filled the air, and as Aspen’s truck rocked to a stop, she looked around in shock. Where had he gone?

  On the side of the road sat Stark, in a different colored tank top, sitting in a neon-orange lawn chair, sipping on a drink with one of those little umbrellas in it. He wore red sunglasses, and pulled them down his nose to stare at her. Even his hair was pulled up in a topknot, instead of down and flying all around his face. He gave a two-fingered wave.

  What the hell?

  Stunned, Aspen shoved her door open and hopped out of her truck, which was now angled dangerously on two wheels as her RV was offset at a forty-five-degree angle. The front end of Ru’s truck was smashed into the side of her home.

  “Oh my gosh,” she whispered to herself in utter shock as she glanced down the line of RVs in various stages of wreckage. No one had been able to stop in time.

  These were their homes.

  These RVs were their big move. Their shot at escaping their territory and finding somewhere safer.

  She turned to Stark, who took a long sip of his drink and set it into the cupholder of his eye-scorching chair.

  “What have you done?” she murmured.

  Stark pointed to wide, black marks that marred the edges of the road ahead and trailed into the woods. Trees were burned with no remaining leaves, and the faint scent of smoke still lingered over these woods. “This is the edge of my territory. You almost made the mistake of crossing into it.”

  God, he looked different from when he was a wild, unkempt, dirty, violent boy. She still remembered the day he’d fought Nathaniel. He’d torn her Alpha’s stomach open and placed Nathaniel’s guts in his own hands. He had barely survived those injuries. How many times over the last twenty years had she wished Stark would’ve finished the job?

  “We have nowhere else to go.”

  “That’s a sad story that I don’t care about.” He slurped the last of his drink loudly.

  “How did I not hit you?” she asked. “You were here.” She gestured to the middle of where her truck had rocked to a screeching stop.

  Stark gave her an empty smile and tapped his temple. “I can do insane things to your mind, Aspen.”

  Chills rippled through her middle. He could mess with her mind? How? Through a bond? Shit, did she have a bond to the Lost Wolf? She searched her mind but couldn’t feel anything tethering her to him. Ooooh, this werewolf was very powerful. This had been a massive mistake.

  The others in the Trader Pack were getting out of their trucks, assessing damage, yelling, and rushing for her. “Stop!” she yelled, putting her hand out. She didn’t want them anywhere near Stark.

  Ru had slipped out of his truck. His RV was completely disconnected and laying on its side across the road. The asphalt sparkled with shattered glass, and the air was thick with the smell of fear, anger, and shock.

  “She said stop!” Ru yelled, to no avail.

  The Trader Pack was still coming.

  Stark narrowed his eyes. “Poopert, your Alpha orders don’t seem to be working.”

  “My name is Rupert,” Ru snarled.

  “Stop!” Stark ordered, standing as his voice bellowed and echoed through the mountains.

  Bootlace, Ben, Trey, Lake, and Stryker’s legs all locked up in unison and they pitched forward, fell to the ground.

  Stark’s frown was deeply etched into his Viking face as he studied each of them. “Why are you here?”

  “To beg sanctuary,” Aspen said quickly.

  “Lie.” Stark stalked toward her. Aspen tried to hold his gaze but couldn’t. His dominance was so thick, it weighed down everything and froze her lungs. “One more try, Aspen. Why. Are. You. Here?”

  The truth tumbled from her lips without her consent. “Because we have no leadership, and it’s just me making decisions. They’re picking us off one by one, and we are stuck together in a territory that is unsafe. I didn’t kn
ow what else to do. I came to hide us on the edge of your territory and hoped to come up with a plan while we were under the safety of the dragon’s protection. I hoped you wouldn’t find out we were here.”

  “What kind of shitty Alpha doesn’t know an entire Pack is in his territory?” Stark closed the distance between them a little more, and she could hear it clearly—his wolf snarling in his chest. He smelled like fur.

  “You remember me,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. “You remember my name, so you must remember me from your time with the Trader Pack.”

  “I remember a little girl,” he said, the growl tainting his words. “She was at the meeting where I was thrown away. She sat there and stared at me like I was a monster. She sat in the corner, nodding in agreement while Nathaniel shamed me for a life I had no say in.”

  Aspen dragged air into her lungs, her nostrils flaring, and gritted out, “I hated Nathaniel, too. He took from all of us. I wish you had gutted him deeper that day.”

  The fury in Stark’s eyes faltered. “Truth,” he said softly.

  Stark backed up a couple steps and rested his hands on his hips, assessed the long trail of road damage. He whistled. “You’ve really made a mess of this.”

  “Me? You were standing in the road. I was trying not to hit you.”

  Stark gave a predator smile. “Oh no, little girl. I was sitting over there. Me standing in the road was all in your mind.” He turned and sauntered off toward his chair. “Maybe you’re going crazy. You should probably get this all cleaned up before someone sees and the cops show up. There’s an officer who is a straight-up douchebag. He’s real protective of his roads. Probably will arrest you just for getting glass on it.”

  “Can we stay?”

  Stark turned and laughed. “Fuck no. You have it in your head that this territory is under the protection of Nuke, but there is no dragon here.”

  Aspen pointed to the burned road ahead. “Those dragon scorch marks tell a different story.”

  “We learned a big lesson that night. Did you know that there is no controlling a dragon? It was the damndest thing. I think Marsden is still healing burns. This isn’t the dragon’s territory, Aspen.” Stark curled his lips back over too-sharp teeth, and his eyes blazed almost white. “It’s mine.”

  Just the power of those last two words was enough to suffocate her. “We could join you,” she said in a desperate rush.

  Stark’s blond eyebrows raised high. He pointed to Stryker— “Control problems, hunts too much, is only comfortable in his own skin if he’s directly involved in a fight.” He pointed to Trey— “Won’t stop challenging the Alpha. Won’t stop fighting everyone. Thrives on chaos.” He pointed to Ru— “Not dominant enough to hold Alpha, was Nathaniel’s right hand, and how many werewolves do you think he’s killed for Nathaniel?” Stark cocked his head. “Bloodstains like those on a soul leave mighty big scars. It’s hard to stop bleeding the people around you when your life revolved around it.” He pointed to Ben and Lake— “You don’t even want to know how they are built, or why they pledged fealty to an Alpha like Nathaniel. And you?” he asked, eyes drilling right through her soul. “You watched everything that monster did for three decades, and you did nothing to fix it.” Oooh, this man could hold a grudge.

  Aspen’s eyes burned. He was speaking of Pack dynamics he hadn’t been around, though. It wasn’t a fair assessment of her people. “You think you know everything—”

  Stark tapped his temple again. “I know I do. What use would you all be to me, or to the people I protect in my Pack? Go fix your damage. My advice? Cut the dead weight.” He tossed a meaningful look at Lake and Ben. “They have plans for Ru, and I don’t think you’ll like them.”

  “Fuck you,” Ben yelled. To Aspen he said, “He’s lying!”

  An empty smile spread across Stark’s face as he knelt down on the road and glared right at Ben. “Tell them.”

  Ben gagged, and Aspen twisted around to see him fighting the command.

  “I order you,” Stark gritted out, “to fucking tell them what you’re going to do.”

  Ben gasped out, “Kill. Ru.”

  “What?” Ru uttered.

  Stark scrunched up his face and made a clicking sound behind his teeth. “Not my kinda circus. You want to stop rotting? Toss out the bad apples.” He stood and walked to his chair, grabbed it, and walked into the woods. Without turning around, he called out one last piece of advice. “And find an Alpha who is worth a damn.”

  Chapter Two

  “Find an Alpha who is worth a damn, he says,” Aspen muttered to herself as she scribbled Stark’s last bit of advice at the bottom of her to-do list. “Just like that. Just find an Alpha. No big deal, easy peasy lemon squeezy—”

  “Who are you talking to?” Ru asked from her doorway.

  “Aaah!” she yelped, jumping hard. She hadn’t heard him approach, because she was off in la-la land, which was one of a dozen reasons she herself couldn’t be Alpha of this Pack. She wasn’t qualified.

  Angry at being caught unaware, she looked around her destroyed home. “Myself, Ru. Who else would I be talking to? None of you motherfuckers tell me the truth, so conversations with any of you are freaking miserable lately.”

  “Hey, you’re pissed at Ben. Don’t take it out on me.”

  “Yeah? And who was the one that distracted me on the road today? Who was the one who dragged all my attention to my rearview mirror because he thought to himself, ‘Hey, I’m gonna start a fight with Trey on the mother-freaking road?’ That’s not Alpha behavior, Ru!”

  “And I’m not built to be a fucking Alpha!” He let off a snarl and shook his head, locked his arms against the doorway of her RV, then dragged his bright-gold eyes back up to her. “I didn’t ask for this. I was the knife, Aspen. That’s all I was. I was a blade to drive into the Packs Nathaniel started fights with, and now I’m having to manage bonds and make decisions for people I don’t fuckin’ trust anymore. I was never cut out to be a leader of anyone.” He shoved off the RV so hard, it rocked. His eyes softened and pleaded for understanding. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  So am I. She wanted to tell him that, but the words got clogged in her throat, because she, Aspen Moore, had learned long ago that a female werewolf should never show weakness. Aspen sighed and asked, “Where’s Ben?”

  Ru shrugged up his shoulder. “He and Lake are in the wind.”

  “They left their RVs?”

  “They left one. Trey is already moving his shit into it.”

  “Why didn’t you call Ben out?” she asked. “Why didn’t you sic your wolf on him the second he admitted his plans on killing you?”

  Ru stared out into the woods with a faraway look in his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest. “Because I’ve known Ben since he was a kid. We’ve lost enough people, don’t you think?”

  “You’re going soft,” she said.

  One more flash of those gold eyes and then he told her, “I’m getting tired.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  An empty, exhausted smile stretched Ru’s lips just slightly. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Aspen watched him disappear from her doorway, then ran her hands down her face. She understood. After the last year of hell, she was tired down to her bones, too.

  This Pack was down to a handful of wolves, and she wasn’t stupid. She knew the Piston Mountain Pack, the Rye Valley Pack, and the Palisade Pack would never stop hunting them until every last one of them was six feet under.

  That was Nathaniel’s final curse on the Trader Pack before he got himself killed. She didn’t blame them either. Nathaniel had done something unforgivable, and his Pack would pay in flesh for his betrayals.

  The wind kicked up and whistled through the massive amount of damage done to the back of her RV from the crash. The bedroom was wrecked. Ru’s truck had slammed into the back of it and it was no longer accessible. She was going to have to work just to reach her drawers of clothes. All of her belongings had been in boxes on the other side of the queen size mattress, and she didn’t even want to think about how destroyed all of that was. The mattress itself was blocking part of the door. She could see the stars through the top of the bedroom from here.