Chapter 1

St. Piran’s Abbey

Present Day

Adriana Mulroney was running with no help or end in sight. The overhanging limbs of the gnarly trees were like the arms of demons reaching out to pull her back into a nightmare from which she might never wake.

Even asleep, she knew it was a dream. She was tired of this dream. Tired of having to relive that devastating turning point in her life. Knowing it was a dream didn’t help. She was tired of not being able to rouse herself from her troubled slumber until the critical point had passed. Even in her dreams, she could not change the outcome of that moment. After that, she could wake. The problem with waking was that she still had to live with the consequences of the nightmare.

Driving the back roads of County Clare, Adriana was on her way home to Lahinch from the busy market town of Ennistymon when she heard a loud crack from under the hood of her small hatchback. That would have been bad enough, but it was immediately followed by smoke billowing out from the engine and the entire vehicle going dead. To make matters worse, there was no mobile phone coverage in this area. Coasting to a stop on the side of the two-lane highway, she climbed out, grabbed the perishables, and started to walk down the dark road.

In the distance the sound of a lone wolf howled, which made no sense at all as wolves had been extinct in Ireland since the late eighteenth century. She stopped and listened again. She’d heard that some people mistook the howl of a wolf for the cry of the banshee or vice versa. Adriana knew the difference. She was a direct descendant of the banshees.

The howl didn’t frighten her until it echoed through the night, far closer than it had been before, and was accompanied by the snap of a twig. When the rustle in the underbrush got louder, Adriana picked up the pace. Something about the sound’s malevolence rattled her badly.

She should have turned and faced it, casting a spell to keep her safe, but instead she turned, threw the bag she was carrying at the noise, and began to run, tripping over her own feet and falling to her knees.

Behind her a great wolf rose up and towered over her. It raised its muzzle and howled at the moon as it moved through the clouds like some kind of beacon of evil. A dark, swirling mist encompassed the beast, accompanied by lightning streaks and thunder. Adriana was mesmerized by the sight as wolf became maelstrom, and maelstrom dissipated into man.

She recognized Eoghan O’Shea, a minor alpha of an unimportant wolf pack with delusions of grandeur, as he emerged from the contained chaos that accompanied the shift. He fell on her before she had a chance to recover her wits. He sniffed her neck, growling low in his throat he took a long swipe down the length of her neck with his tongue, making a low keening noise.

He pushed her down and rolled her over onto her belly, pawing at her clothes until she was bare below. Grabbing her hips, he pulled her onto her knees, kneeling between her splayed legs, lining up his cock and thrusting deep. He stretched her painfully but took his own pleasure with no thought to hers. There was a gush of liquid as he withdrew.

Lifting her jaw and chin in his rough, calloused hand, he opened his mouth, showing elongated wolf-like fangs. Adriana screamed as he lowered his mouth to her neck, growling, and sank his teeth into her throat. The savage bite robbed her of her voice, and her struggling did her no good.

As she began to lose consciousness, he lifted his head, blood—her blood—dripping from his mouth. “You’re mine now. The Master has a use for a witch/wolf-shifter hybrid. You should do nicely.”

“I am a sister of the Caoineadh Coven. I belong to no man,” Adriana managed, gasping as he backhanded her.

Inside, everything was spinning. And yet, frozen at the same time. Had that really just happened? The pain between her legs told her it had. He dragged her to her feet by the roots of her hair, hauling her close.

“Think what you like, bitch,” he sneered. “You are now my mate and will bend to my will. The Master will pay well for you. Until then, I will take my pleasure from you.”

She opened her mouth to scream—to call for her ancestors—but the sound died in her throat. She’d been turned without her consent and against her will. Marked and mated to a man who bore her no love and only saw her as a means to an end.

Adriana woke up drenched in sweat. Eoghan had thought to make a profit from what he’d done to her, but so far, he had failed, although not from lack of trying. She shook her head, trying to stave off the last vestiges of the nightmare that haunted her sleep.

Over and over the two questions resounded in her head like a demented pinball machine. Why hadn’t she killed him? She’d had opportunities, but the tenets of her coven—the coven that had banished her as an abomination—forbade her from using magic to do so. Exiled from the only life she’d ever known, she had questioned what she was going to do with the rest of her life. At the time, she’d had no answer to those questions, and it was why she hadn’t killed Eoghan that, more than anything, kept her from sleeping.

The lights that normally shimmered in the gloaming were not yet visible in her room in the Abbey of St. Piran. It was still too dark, and windows weren’t plentiful in this part of the abbey, but it was the part Adriana preferred. Its outer wall bordered on the angry sea that crashed against it. Electricity was virtually non-existent in this part of the abbey, but she did have running water and a tankless water heater ensured she had the means to take a lovely hot shower in her chambers. She preferred oil-burning lamps and coal or wood-burning stoves to provide light and heat. Both required more tending to than most of the abbey’s people wanted to do, but Adriana enjoyed it.

She kept to herself although Brie Reynolds—the leader of the Shadow Sisters—had recruited her to their cause. Had it not been for Brie, Adriana was unsure of what might have happened to her. Not only had she been rescued by Brie and her mate, they’d given her a purpose in life. Who better to know the horror of being turned or forced into a pair bond against their will than one to whom it had happened?

While Adriana had been well trained in the magical arts by those in the Caoineadh Coven, she’d had no training in weapons, martial arts or just fist fighting. That was changing and she had the aches and bruises to prove it.

As she lay in bed, it became obvious that sleep would elude her until the moon began its ascent into the heavens to look down upon her not with a benevolent eye, but with a cackling, mocking laughter. She was quite sure the cold-hearted orb and its twinkling companions took bets each night as she closed her eyes to guess how long it would be until the nightmare and its aftermath robbed her of her rest.

Rising from her bed, adorned with only her moonstone necklace, she grabbed the robe she had left wrapped around her bed post and shrugged into it. Maybe a walk along the ramparts of the outer sea wall would help her to shake off the bone-chilling fear that the dream always left her with. As the sun rose and a new day began where she had things to do, she could most often stuff the fright down into a small corner of her psyche—only to find it creeping out again as sleep enveloped her.

Adriana moved down the cold stone hall of the abbey, moving more like a wraith than a mortal soul. She pushed on the door that led outside; the elements pushed back. She leaned into it with her shoulder and was able to move it just enough to get outside. It was cold, dark, stormy—just the way Adriana liked it. There was something about feeling the elemental forces of nature and becoming one with them that went a long way to restoring the parts of her that had been lost to Eoghan’s bite.

Lifting her face to the fading night sky, she felt alone and yet with an odd sense of peace—a peace that had been elusive of late. Leaning against the edge of the parapet, she stared out toward the dark horizon. Taking the moonstone pendant set in filigreed sterling silver in one hand, she spread her arms to either side, holding her palms up in supplication. Adriana closed her eyes, trying to still the restlessness that seemed to be her almost constant companion.

“May those who are frightened cease to be afraid. May those who are bound find the freedom they seek. May those who are powerless be gifted with the power they need. May those who walk in the trackless, fearful wilderness find their path to wisdom and peace,” she chanted.

A certain kind of peace fell around her like a protective shroud, and she opened her eyes. She smiled as starlight danced and twinkled at her fingertips and the force of the wind softened to become a breeze ruffling her hair. She looked toward the moon as the echo of a banshee’s cry could be heard amidst the sounds of the sea. Her ancestors were close.

Adriana had been raised among the female elders of her coven, groomed to become their leader and live her life without the touch of a man. They had indoctrinated her to believe that to remain pure was to embrace the power of the sisters who had come before her.

Those from her former coven had always been associated with the banshees; Adriana could trace her bloodline back for more than a thousand years to them. It was said those of her bloodline who died young were often doomed to become one of them. When Eoghan had first claimed her, she had wanted to be one of them—not so much because she wanted to die, but she wanted to be able to curse him and cast his soul into the darkness for all eternity.

Troubled that the feeling of peace and oneness with the elements was being edged out by dark thoughts, Adriana chased the moon’s dying light up onto the edge of the wide stone barrier. She wanted nothing standing between her, the sea, and sky. Once again, she held her arms out from her body, palms up to embrace the sky and the moon. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and spoke silently to her ancestors.

Just as a benevolent light and peace began to fall all around her like the stars in the sky, a pair of strong arms closed around her, jerking her backward. She and her captor tumbled to the stone floor, rolling together until she was beneath him, looking up into the furious gaze of Decker Rhys-Davis, the captain of the guard.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, you daft female?” he growled.

She started to push at him and then suddenly realized he’d thought she meant to either fall forward or jump to her death. Had ending her life ever been a part of her plan, she would have done it either when Eoghan had raped and turned her or when she’d been in Abraham Strode’s clutches. Adriana burst out laughing.

Rhys-Davis jumped to his feet and looked down at her. “Have you lost your wits, woman?”

Adriana tried to call up some anger but couldn’t. The more she thought about it and the captain’s reaction, the harder she laughed. It felt good to laugh. She hadn’t laughed like this in a very long time. The more she laughed, the easier it seemed to spill out.

“A lot of people put their lives on the line to get you back from that bastard Strode. You find it amusing to think suicide could heal whatever ails you?”

Again, she wanted to disabuse him of his assumption and even to take him down a peg or two, but she couldn’t find the words—only more laughter.

“You ungrateful brat…”

“Don’t you mean bitch?” she chortled, managing to scramble to her feet before devolving into another round of laughter.

The captain seemed at a loss—not only for words but for how to deal with her. Adriana rather imagined that was not something to which he was accustomed.

“I do not,” he snarled, advancing toward her.

First, he thought she wanted to kill herself and now he wanted to threaten her. Well, maybe threaten her wasn’t what he wanted; perhaps it was more intimidation he was wanting. The thought of a witch of the Caoineadh Coven being afraid of a wolf-shifter was rather amusing and Adriana began to laugh again.

Rhys-Davis grabbed her by her upper arms and gave her a little shake. “Enough.”

“Enough? Enough of what? You being an overbearing idiot?”

The captain shook his head as he set her back from him. “You need a keeper.”

“You volunteering for the job?” she jested.

“You wouldn’t want me for a keeper.”

“Why not? You afraid you couldn’t get the job done?”

“There’s no fear of that. You might not ever sit down again but trust me, I’d put you in your place and keep you there.”

Suddenly, the captain wasn’t nearly as amusing as he had been, as she knew many wolf packs kept their she-wolves in line by the liberal use of corporal punishment. Adriana shook her hair back and stepped into his personal space.

“Have a care with how you speak to me, Captain Rhys-Davis. I am no mere she-wolf to be threatened. You are speaking not only to a member of the Shadow Sisters, but a fully trained witch with the blood of the banshees flowing through her veins. You might find it difficult or impossible to do most of the things you enjoy if I turned you into a toad.”

Instead of backing away as she’d expected him to do, the captain stepped forward, reducing the space between them to almost nothing. With one hand fisting her hair and tugging her head back as the other wrapped around her waist, he hauled her close, his head descending so that his mouth could claim hers in a fiery kiss. He didn’t wait for her to acquiesce or trace the seam of her lips with his tongue. Instead, his tongue thrust into her mouth, tangling with and dominating hers.

Adriana heard herself moan and almost sagged into him, clutching at his arms to steady her, but there was something in the way his confidence seemed more like arrogance that snapped her back to reality. She may not have yet mastered all her combat skills, but there was one with which she had proven to be particularly adept. She brought her knee up into his balls with enough force to send them back into his body cavity.

The captain released his hold and dropped to a knee as one hand cupped his balls. The one thing Brie had taught her from the beginning was that when faced with a superior enemy, the instant you were free, you ran like hell. Adriana was nothing if not a good student.

Spinning on her heel, she bolted.