Marie Harte - [Mark of Lycos] - Wolf Wanted, AAA do posortowania
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Wolf Wanted
ISBN # 978-0-85715-457-6
©Copyright Marie Harte 2011
Cover Art by April Martinez ©Copyright January 2011
Edited by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination
and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or
places is purely coincidental.
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The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs
and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator
of the artwork.
Published in 2011 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank, Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL,
United Kingdom.
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature
readers. This story has been rated
Total-e-melting.
Mark of Lycos
WOLF WANTED
Marie Harte
4
WOLF WANTED
Marie Harte
Chapter One
“Put your name in the goddamn box,” Michael Barton said through gritted teeth, teeth
that looked much longer and sharper than they had just moments before. “The Wolf in the
Forest is waiting, and you know the spirit has a lot of clans to visit tonight, Anson.” When
Anson continued to ignore him, his uncle lowered his voice. “Everyone else is doing it.”
Yeah, and everyone else looked downright miserable. Anson’s friends and cousins
dragged their feet, forced into this stupid tradition because their elders had been forced into
it. No escaping mandatory happiness, not for any of them.
Except maybe for Anson.
“Boy, move your ass.”
He pretended not to hear his uncle and edged closer to his escape. He now wished he’d
listened to his brother’s warnings. A few more steps and he could scurry between the raised
dais and the outer edge of the crowd into the surrounding forest. As long as he kept out of
sight until the moon waned from its peak in the cycle, he could avoid the matrimonial noose
for another ten years.
Everyone else is doing it.
Please. He wanted very badly to answer, “If all my friends
jumped off a bridge, should I do that, too?” But poking a stick at an angry alpha in front of
the pack didn’t make much sense, not since he wanted to live to see his twenty-sixth
birthday. Hell, he’d only recently come into his full pelt. The pack barely recognised him as a
voting member and wouldn’t have allowed him to the mating ceremony if he wasn’t directly
descended from Lycos the Bold.
He tried to step away, to follow his twin who’d made it as far as the woods, when his
uncle grabbed his arm and held him there. Anson watched from a distance as Fenris, his
mirror image in every way, mouthed something at him, flipped him the finger, and took off
while he still could.
“Uh uh.” His uncle pulled him forward. “Don’t worry. Fenris isn’t as free as he likes to
think he is.”
WOLF WANTED
Marie Harte
5
“Come on, Uncle Mike. You know this is bullshit. I’m too young to be tied down.” Once
mated, a wolf couldn’t stray. And if the great Wolf in the Forest decided against him, he’d be
stuck with a shrew for the rest of his life. Considering Uncle Mike was just shy of five
hundred, Anson didn’t think his request to wait a while was all that unreasonable. Hell, most
of the other matrimonial sacrifices were at least well into their second century. What the hell
was Uncle Mike thinking?
He’s thinking the unmated females in this pack want Lycos’s kin. My damn birthmark is no
blessing. It’s a curse.
He glared at his right forearm, at the star-shaped mark that glowed like the sun in the
face of danger. A direct link to Lycos the Bold, beloved wolf, leader, and harbinger of doom
to his enemies. A thousand years ago Lycos had beaten back the sorcerers and claimed the
heart of the forest for those with animal blood. Years later, his descendant, Uncle Mike, had
thrust the bears, foxes, and the Red Clan beyond the border, where the rest of the magic-bent
lived, among the
humans
.
“Boy, you
will
obey me in this. It’s time you passed on your legacy. Lycos lives on in
you.”
Shit. As he’d suspected. He was no more than a wolf out to stud. How embarrassing.
Anson pretended to falter on his feet and tugged at his arm.
His uncle tightened his grip and muttered under his breath, not impressed with
Anson’s dramatics.
“I’ll shrivel into the worst kind of creature,” Anson complained loudly, staring at a
cousin who’d recently mated. Poor Shane. “A henpecked shell of a man forced to obey his
mate’s every insane whim.” His cousin’s wife didn’t particularly care for his comment, nor
did her three ugly-ass sisters hoping to snag him tonight.
“Boy, pup or not, you’re going to obey me in this.” His uncle’s eyes glowed a bright
green, a sure signal to back down. Anson could feel his hackles rise as his uncle tried to put
the fear of The Wolf into him—an alpha’s power, to instil fear and subservience in those he
led.
The pack didn’t know that his uncle’s mojo didn’t work on him, a sign that meant
Anson could take up the mantle of alpha when the time came for Mike to pass it on. A
circumstance Anson wanted to avoid at all costs. Better Fenris take over. He had the
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