Damon (Raleigh Texas Wolves Book 1) Read online

  Damon is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

  Designer: Regina Wamba

  Photographer: Regina Wamba

  Editor: Stephanie Marshall Ward at Eats, Shoots, Edits

  Formatter: Brenda Wright, Formatting Done Wright

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Connect with Teagan Wilde

  More from LeAnn Ashers

  This is for my readers, who are following me on this new journey. This is for you! <3

  Farren

  I am so ready to get out of this place. I sit on a chair on my porch, staring at the huge field in the center of all our cabins. My place is small—just the necessities—because a single woman has simple needs until she finds her true mate.

  From the moment we’re old enough to know what a true mate is, we crave it; it’s the center of our being. Our mates have been created for us by The Great Alpha. A woman can’t be touched sexually by another man without being in pain. We can only be touched by someone with innocent intentions. And if a man is not mated yet, he cannot touch a woman sexually without becoming sick because, as I said, each of us is meant to be with one person for life.

  But if a man loses his mate, he can touch another woman without becoming ill. That’s why Ken is obsessed with me. His mate died. Most people do not survive losing a mate, but he did—and he walked out of his house the day of the funeral smiling. I will never forget how sick I felt when I saw that smile. I was fifteen at the time.

  Then it all changed when I turned sixteen. My body changed; everything grew and expanded in ways I had always hoped they would. But I no longer welcomed these changes, which drew Ken’s attention. As I said, he became obsessed.

  The alpha of the pack threatened Ken, but he didn’t do anything until Ken grabbed my ass. I fell straight to the ground, my whole body screaming in agony. It’s the worst pain I have ever felt: the agony of my body rejecting a man’s touch. The alpha of the pack kicked his ass and sent him to the woods for a month. Since he came back, he has just watched me. Right now he is leaning against a tree, his arms folded across his chest, watching me. Why can’t he just leave me alone?

  He moves away from the tree, his arms falling to his sides, and struts his ass across the field in my direction.

  Fuck me, why?

  I roll my eyes, looking toward the sky, dread filling me. I just want to be left alone to wait for my true mate. But no, I have to deal with this fuckwad, and he is starting to really creep me out. His obsession with me is getting worse, and I am getting major bad vibes from him.

  I can only kick his ass one way, and my wolf form is ready to be unleashed. I can feel her moving beneath my skin, uneasy. When he steps in front of me, I don’t move from my spot on the porch. I eye him, pissed off that he has come into my territory. “What do you want, Ken?”

  He grins that sleazy grin, and my stomach churns at the sight of his yellowish teeth. “You.”

  I snort at his ridiculous statement, because it’s obvious that he wants me. “Well, I am sorry, I am spoken for.”

  His smile drops; he is no longer pretending to be friendly. “Well, your mate is not here, and I am here. I say you’re mine.” He growls, taking a step further.

  Wait, what? Is he really serious right now? Most shifters are extremely protective of women, but there are a few that you have to worry about. Like the man in front of me.

  My stomach twists, and my hands are tingling. My wolf is ready to come out and tear his face off for suggesting such a thing. “You know that is impossible because, if I were to mate with anyone, I would be in pain.” Vomit crawls up my throat. “It would likely kill me.” A woman, many years ago, attempted to have sex with a man who was not her mate, and she died. Her body could not handle the pain. If a man has bad intentions and he touches us, we get zapped; it’s like a warning.

  “I am willing to take that risk.” He chuckles darkly; then he bends down and takes my hand.

  The pain is like an electrical zap running through my hand. I wince and pull back as hard as I can, and my foot collides with his privates. He curses and falls back.

  I shoot up to my feet. He committed an unforgivable offense. That is the ultimate sin in the eyes of the shifters: taking another’s mate, even if they have not met each other yet.

  The second is trying to force a woman into mating.

  Third, he touched me, causing me pain, making it clear he intended to harm me.

  With that zap the alpha immediately knows something is wrong. The alpha is connected to us and knows if we are in danger. I am not a damsel in distress, but the women are protected at all costs; that is one thing I am 100 percent certain about.

  I take off my shirt and unbutton my pants in seconds as I shift into my gray wolf form. I drag my paw across the grass, growling at him.

  He strips off his clothes and we come face-to-face, both of us in wolf form.

  Try it, fucker. I am a dominant female—I could be an alpha female if I wanted to—and he just messed with the wrong woman.

  He charges toward my shoulder, and I bite his neck, taking skin and fur with me. He yelps, and I let go and grin. He charges me, and I jump out of the way just before his jaws clamp down on my neck. He is trying to kill me.

  I turn around, growling deeply. I am done with playing games. I run straight for him, and he runs straight toward me. I jump, grab the back of his neck, and stand on his back, shaking my head hard from side to side.

  He snaps his jaws around my paw. I yelp and bite his ear off.

  He lets my paw go and I jump off his back, ready to kill him. He is tackled, from the other side, by the alpha.

  One of the betas is holding a blanket for me. I change back into human form, holding my broken hand—which will heal later today. He wraps the blanket around my shoulders, and I grip it with my good hand. The alpha has Ken by the neck. I shiver at the feel of Ken’s eyes on me.

  “Change back!” The second-in-command tells Ken. He slowly changes back and, after the alpha lets go, Ken runs straight for the hills.

  The alpha changes back into human form, gripping his heart. “He left the pack.” His voice is strained; it’s never easy when someone leaves the pack without the usual ceremony. “What happened?” he asks me. He is my brother’s friend; we all grew up together.

  “He wanted to force a mating,” I whisper, my voice rough with emotion. Now that I am in human form, the adrenaline is wearing off, and the horror of what just happened is finally sinking in.

  The women gasp and the men growl. The alpha curses. “I should have taken his life years ago. I knew he wanted you, but I never thought he would force it. He broke the bond, Farren.”

  I close my eyes. He broke the bond—that means the alpha has no way of tracking Ken. He is rogue, which makes him dangerous, and the darkness will eat him, making him ten times worse.r />
  Evil.

  You never know what rogue shifters will do, how they will attack.

  “You need to go live with your brother. Their pack is bigger, more men.” That is true. My brother moved to another pack, which is very powerful, and he is the second-in-command.

  I nod. “I will call.” I turn around, not wanting to look at the members of my pack, the people I’ve grown up with and have known all of my life. I can feel their eyes at my back, and I can feel their sadness radiating throughout the bond. Before too long I won’t even feel that bond. It won’t happen instantly. The connection will drift away, and my bond with the new pack will grow.

  I close the door behind me, resting my back against it, my eyes closed. I am filled with dread of everything that’s about to happen, and I’m on edge. He is out there, and I don’t know where he is or whether he is lying in wait, still wanting me.

  My brother Maverick’s club will be a fresh start; I have been restless for a long time. I am coming, Maverick.

  Damon

  I finish working on her cabin while her brother Maverick meets her at the front gate. This house was built recently, and it still needed a few finishing touches. We have also set up safety features around her cabin, including a panic button.

  We are a newer pack; we all wanted a fresh start without the rules of the elders.

  I got a phone call from the alpha of my beta’s old pack; his sister needed a place to stay because of an obsessed rogue. They can’t protect her. She will be the first official woman in the pack, and the guys are more than excited at the possibility of finding their true mate. We have invited women to join our pack, but their leaders have told them we are wild, mean, and without morals. That is not fucking true; we just wanted to be ourselves without being under the thumbs of those who love to control everything.

  About half of the packs out there are like that. They are especially controlling of their women. They also suppress us men, so we don’t become dominant and take over. We have morals—more than those fuckers do, actually. We are free here, we live well and, once we find our true mates, this land will be ready for them and our pups.

  So I created this pack as a safe haven where everyone is accepted. One thing that is never talked about, and is a big no-no in most packs, is gay couples; they don’t see them as being true mates. That shit is fucked up and stuck in old times. We have three shifters in our pack who are gay, but they haven’t found their true mates yet.

  Next month is the annual gathering. It’s a week-long thing that brings packs together. It’s chaos, but it unites a lot of true mates.

  It will be my first gathering as an alpha. I have been the leader of this pack for three years but, until now, I didn’t feel secure enough to join in. There are fights and challenges, and sometimes a fucker wants to take your pack from you. I needed to be sure my pack members have my back, because people are conniving.

  “Yo, they are walking up the trail!” one of my packmates yells, and I can hear them running outside. I laugh because they are so excited. I wipe my hands on the rag I was using to clean the counter and stick it in my back pocket.

  I walk out last, heading down the steps. I can’t even see her because everyone is surrounding her as she introduces herself. I hear her laugh, and everything inside me stops. Then the guys step back, I look at her, and my whole fucking world stops. I breathe deeply, my nose flaring. “Mate,” I growl and her head snaps around to look at me. She breathes deeply as realization sinks in.

  Farren

  Waiting at the gate outside of The Knights Pack’s property is my brother. He snatches open the back door and tears me out of the vehicle. He touches my face. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that someone was bothering you?”

  I roll my eyes at his protectiveness. “Mav, I thought he would never act on anything.”

  He glares down at me. “Never underestimate someone, sis. Look what happened. I could have lost you.” He gets a pained look on his face. The fight could have ended badly if he hadn’t trained me in secret. My pack does not want the women to learn how to protect themselves; they are bit old-fashioned. And I am all Maverick has left. My mother was shot by a hunter, who thought she was a real wolf, and killed instantly. My father soon followed her. The heartbreak literally killed him. They had the kind of love that others could only dream about.

  “I know Mav, I am here now.” I hug him and close my eyes. For the first time in a year, I have hugged my brother.

  “Love you, sis. It may be a fucked-up situation, but I am glad you will be living here now. I have missed you.” He tugs on the ends of my hair. I smack his back hard and he laughs.

  “Glad to see you’re as mean as ever.”

  Mav and I have always been really close. We are close in age; I am twenty-two years old and he is twenty-four. From the moment I was born, we have been attached at the hip—until he moved to a new pack. He did not want to leave me, but I knew if I went with him he would be distracted. S0 I stayed, planning to join him years later, but it happened much sooner. Meanwhile, Mav has spent ten years helping build this pack, and I have heard rumors that they are the strongest pack in the world.

  I guess we will see.

  My brother takes my bags out of the back of the SUV, and we walk through the gates, which swing shut immediately. I am in awe of a beautiful tree hanging over the road.

  “You will have your own cabin, it will be next to ours. They are twice the size of the old pack’s cabins. The families live in houses on the other side of the territory. The alpha has many businesses, so the pack lives very comfortably.”

  I nod, not saying anything, just taking in the scents of my new territory. We walk up a trail, and a bunch of cabins come into view. “How big is the property?” I ask him. I breathe deeply, loving the smell of the woods.

  “Right around 20,000 acres.”

  I look at him in absolute shock; this is a huge property.

  “He wanted everyone to run as they please, to be free. Enjoy being a wolf. He also put cabins in the woods, throughout the property, as a getaway.” Well this alpha seems amazing and very thoughtful

  A bunch of men are waiting at the bottom of the road, but I don’t see any females. “How many women are here?”

  He looks uneasy for a second before he answers. “You’re the only one.”

  Did he just say that I am the only female? “What do you mean?”

  He stops and looks at me. “You know how hard it is for packs to give up their women.” I nod. It is absolutely true. Most of the older and more traditional packs have their women under tight control. The women in my old pack aren’t so old-fashioned, because we had a younger alpha. But women in other packs have not been that lucky. They are kept in traditional roles: they mate and have babies—that is their life. Their alphas think women should be kept hidden and protected from everything. If the group is under attack from a rival pack, the women are expected to stay inside and watch their mates being slaughtered. Hell, no. If I knew my mate was fighting, I would be right by his side.

  Mav has told me that, in this pack, you can be yourself and enjoy a lot of freedom.

  “I was planning on transferring here anyway,” I tell him.

  “Yeah. I know, sis.” He smacks me on the back, being a brother, and I roll my eyes because he is just asking for his ass to be beat.

  We finally make it to the end of the road, and I come face-to-face with a bunch of hot-looking men. They all breathe deeply, taking in my scent, to see if I am their mate. One by one, they all introduce themselves. I’ve got to admit I am going to love seeing all of these young, hot men around me all the time. We all shake hands. This is their way of saying they are not going to cause me harm, and I appreciate that 100 percent.

  One of the guys smirks at me. “Beautiful lady, I am now your gay best friend.” He could be on the cover of a magazine. He has beautiful blue eyes and dark brown hair. He is not as tall as most shifters, but he is still huge.

  I laugh at him.
I can already tell he is goofy and is right about being my new best friend.

  From the corner of my eye, I notice everyone parting. I hear a growl, then a word: “Mate.”

  My head snaps around, and I see the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life. I stare into his eyes, which are a piercing blue. He is huge. He has broad shoulders, dark brown hair that reaches his jawbone, and scruff on his face, giving him a mountain-man look. He is wearing a red plaid shirt, with the sleeves rolled up his forearms, which looks heavenly on him. He is just pure beauty in my eyes. If I had to picture a dream guy, he would be it—hands down. He breathes in deeply as he stares at me intently. I breathe deeply too; then it hits me like a ton of bricks. He is my mate. I can’t believe it. “Alpha?” Mav asks him. He is the alpha?

  “She is my true mate,” he tells him.

  I blink, taking a step closer as it slowly sinks in. That I’ve finally found him. “You’re finally here,” I whisper; then he splits the distance between us and pulls me into a hug. He lays his head against my neck, breathing deeply, and I close my eyes. A shiver runs all the way down my body.

  I can’t believe that he is holding me. One second I was on the run from Ken, and now he is here in my arms. As emotions take over, I start to shake and he tightens his arms around me. “Finally,” he growls, his voice deep. His nose runs back and forth across the crook of my neck.

  I fist the back of his shirt, wanting to crawl into his body. My stomach is twisting and turning.

  He pulls his head back, looking down at me. I have always heard that meeting your mate is the most emotional thing, but I never imagined it would be like this. It’s like the world has stopped, and my heart stopped and then restarted in sync with his. His eyes turn golden, as his wolf is on the verge of emerging, and I know mine are exactly the same.

  “Well, I never imagined this,” Mav says, interrupting the moment, and I let my hands fall from the alpha’s back. I try to step away, but he snatches me to his side.

  Everyone’s eyes are on us. I smile because this is everyone’s dream—to find their mate—and I just found mine in such an unexpected way. “Me either,” I whisper, looking at Mav. In minutes, my life completely changed.