Leviathan only wanted a new feeder. He ends up with something so much better.
Eryn is broken.
A werewolf who can’t control his shift, Eryn is a liability to his pack. It wouldn’t be so bad if his wolf would at least submit to the pack Alpha, but the beast inside him is feral. Eryn knows he won’t be allowed to stay forever, but he has nowhere else to go. None of the other packs want him, either.
When his wolf goes too far one full moon, he’s left with no choice but to flee. After putting his trust in someone he shouldn’t, he ends up at a Flesh Market. Trapped in a contract he has no hopes of surviving, the last thing Eryn expects is to fall for his new master, a Blood Demon named Leviathan.
Leviathan is lonely.
One of the only Blood Demons allowed to remain on earth after the Collapse, Leviathan spends most of his free time with his nose in a history book. He can’t remember the last time he went on a good rampage. He has a few trusted servants, and who needs more than that?
Unfortunately for him, he still needs to eat. His trip to the Flesh Market is supposed to be uneventful. Instead, it leads him to Eryn, a broken werewolf who manages to slip past all his defenses.
Can Leviathan move beyond old hurts to become the Master that Eryn needs, or will the young werewolf’s fears come true?
Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, references to childhood neglect and abuse, scenes of public sex, blood drinking and blood play, and kidnapping.
General Release Date: 31st October 2023
Eryn
My room is cold.
Not just the bitter cold of winter—though it is that, too—but a lonely sort, a chill that starts in my chest and spreads outward. My breath flickers like a specter on the windowpane before turning to frost. I scuff it away with my forearm so I can peer through the yellowed glass.
Two shadowy figures are standing on the wilting lawn, but I know Alpha Carrick must be the one by the porch. I can only see the top of his head, with its shiny bald patch glinting up at me, but I don’t think Alpha would let a stranger between him and his pack.
Alpha’s shoulders are stiff—tense and strong.
I wonder what he’s saying. If he would turn toward the window, I could read his lips. Instead, I’m stuck interpreting his body language.
The other man steps away, shaking his head. His dark hair flops over his face, but I notice the way his lips turn down. Alpha moves forward, but the stranger lifts his hand. He slashes it sharply across his chest in an obvious refusal. I don’t need to see any more. My shoulders slump as I twist away from the window.
I’ve been passed over.
Again.
I wilt against the glass and let my bare feet thump against the wall just one time. A single show of disappointment before I swallow it down. It’s sour on my tongue, like the sugar-free lemonade Alpha’s mate serves at summer’s end.
I’m not surprised. Most packs are overpopulated now, with the laws dictating where we can settle. Well, where we can settle if we want to be able to shift freely, anyway. I’m not an Omega—one of the rare male wolves able to bear pups—and I’m not particularly smart or strong. I’d be having a hard time even if I wasn’t a freak.
Maybe I should give up, accept that I’m destined to be on my own. It won’t be the first time. I don’t need a pack, because lone wolves survived in the wild. I just need…
I close my eyes, trying to find my inner wolf. He’s there, somewhere, pacing under my skin, antsy and rabid—a growling mutt. But even though I can feel him, I can’t touch him. My ribs could be silver bars, as well as they keep the beast caged.
Caged, but not docile.
I slide off the windowsill and dart to the bed, the wooden floor icy under my soles. I dive under the comforter before grabbing my pillow, dragging it over my face so I can scream into the sheets as the beast growls at me, snapping his jaws in threat.
The phantom press of his claws digs into my fingertips. I curl my fingers toward my palms without thinking. They slice into my skin like shattered glass. At least the pain distracts me from the ache in my teeth. I can smell everything—the forest through the window, out of reach, the bleeding meat in the fridge, the salt of Alpha’s sweat.
Trying to tame my inner wolf is as useless as asking my shadow to dance. Neither listen.
I manage to choke down my scream just as Alpha’s heavy boots hit the stairs and start climbing. My door whines as it swings open.
“You up, kid?” Alpha Carrick’s voice is deep as thunder. As much as I’d like to ignore him, I know he can hear my ragged breathing. I shove my hand out from under the pillow and give a half-hearted thumbs up. It won’t be the first time Alpha has seen my hands covered in blood, and I doubt it will be the last. At least this time, it’s my own.
My feral wolf never bothered learning to submit, not even to me.
Alpha is quiet, but then the mattress dips under his weight. I slap my hand against the sheets to keep from sliding into him. Alpha awkwardly pats my back. “I don’t think that pack is going to be a good fit for you. Alpha Reed is…old-fashioned.”
“I saw through the window.” My voice is muffled by the pillow. “He didn’t want me. You don’t have to lie.”
“It’s not that he didn’t want you. He just doesn’t have the resources to…” Alpha hesitates so I fill in the blanks for him.
“To babysit a freak.” I barely have the words out of my mouth before Alpha slips his hand under the pillow. He pinches my ear and drags me out like an unruly pup, ignoring my yelp.
“You are not a freak.” Alpha does that thing that all adults do—say something that isn’t true, then expect me to believe them. Because for some reason, adults are allowed to lie if it’s for your own good.
I’m an adult now. I sit up and cross my arms over my scrawny chest—too small, too wimpy…a runt not even worthy of belonging to a litter.
“I am a freak. Everybody says it.” Even she’d said it, the woman in my dreams. I can’t remember her face, but I know she smelled of nicotine and mint, and when she sang, her voice was gritty. And I remember she had kind hands.
Until she didn’t.
“If everybody said aconite tastes like cotton candy, would you eat it?” Alpha’s question is pointed, his voice cross.
“Maybe. At least then no one would have to put up with me.” My jaw juts out stubbornly as I lie.
Alpha cuffs the back of my head. “Eryn Laurier, don’t disrespect me with words like that.” He grips my nape tightly, forcing my face up to meet his pale eyes. They are stern but kind, lined from years of laughter. “I don’t ‘put up’ with anything I don’t want to, and I certainly don’t ‘put up’ with you, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” I shove my hair out of my face. If I were a kid, I wouldn’t have to leave. If I were a kid, the last pack run wouldn’t have ruined everything. Instead, at nineteen, I was too old for my wolf’s antics to be excused. A wolf who couldn’t submit was a wolf who couldn’t stay.
The mattress creaks as Alpha stands. He gives a heavy sigh as he walks. I barely hear him mutter, “I guess you’re not.”
I want to retreat to the safety of my pillows. Hide away from reality and let it pass me by like an autumn storm, but there are chores to be done before dusk falls tomorrow.
* * * *
Goddess Moon hangs pregnant in the sky. Around me, the woods echo with the sound of breaking bones and shifting skin. I watch Old Jeb fall to his knees, his skin rippling over unnaturally bent joints. He makes it look easy, the transition from man to beast happening in an instant. His wolf, with its shaggy, silver-streaked hair, trots off into the woods, snapping at a teenager caught mid-transition, fur sprouting in clumps over his lumpy spine.
Alpha said it takes bravery for a wolf to submit to the pull of the Goddess so fully. That only the strongest wolves, like the pack Beta, who is already shaking out his dark fur, can change so quickly. But only the oldest can resist the pull entirely, like Alpha Carrick.
And me, but not because I’m strong.
Because I’m weak.
Like the rest of the pack, I stand naked in the clearing. The grass, stiff with frost and its color faded, pricks the soles of my feet. I can no longer fight off the shivers. They come, one right after another, until it feels like I’m having a seizure. My blond hair is long enough to tickle my hipbones but does little to shield me from the cold, not even when I curl forward, clasping my arms tight around my waist for warmth. A breeze whispers along the shell of my ear. And the light—
Goddess Moon’s light does nothing but paint my pale skin in tones of blue. I feel nothing…just the beast, pacing in my belly. I try to reach it like Alpha says, to put a leash on its neck and drag it into the light. Again, he cowers from me, snapping his jaws in threat.
A frustrated growl slides between my flat, clenched teeth.
Alpha grips the nape of my neck, the only point of warmth in the winter night. “Take a deep breath.”
I know it will be pointless, but I gasp one in. The cold air hits my lungs like a lit match.
“Good boy. Now another,” Alpha guides me through taking the breaths as slow and deep as I can, despite my body’s shaking. Each breath helps a bit more. The cold leeches away until all I feel is numb. The only thing keeping me from melting into a puddle of mercury is the weight of his palm.
Goddess Moon glints through the bare branches above me. Alpha tightens his hand on my neck, his claws scraping my skin where they push through his fleshy fingertips. His voice is deeper now, guttural under her sway. I can tell he’s fighting to stay out of her riptide long enough to talk me through this, like he always does.
He is a good Alpha. Even though my wolf doesn’t accept him, Alpha still takes care of me. He doesn’t lock me in the kennel like she used to or drag me down to the lake to…to… I clench my eyes shut and concentrate on anything but the memory.
It feels like hours—like days—but finally, I feel the itch of fur stirring under my flesh. My knees collapse, and I strike the dirt with a cry. The shift is agonizing. I can hear myself screaming as my bones break and mend and rearrange. Skin tears then knits itself back together, sensitive as a sunburn. Twice, the shift tries to revert as I cringe away from the pain, but Alpha growls an order to push through, dragging my wolf from under my skin by his scruff.
Finally, it’s over.
The pain becomes a hollow parody. I slowly push myself up onto four paws, my spine popping. Handfuls of fur finish sprouting, and I whine at the overwhelming need to scratch the itchy pelt.
My gait is awkward, a halting stumble toward the woods where the rest of the wolves are already running. Alpha overtakes me quickly. He is twice my size, his fur brindled. The other wolves are quick to move out of his way.
For a moment—just a brief stretch of lucid seconds—I think that this pack run will be different.
I feel my mind blurring at the edges and panic sets in. I whine when my beast shoulders me out of the way, stumbling when he briefly takes control of my forelegs. I struggle to leash him, to keep him chained to my will. In this body, he is stronger than me. The beast growls, the sound rumbling from my chest, and instinctively, my mind cowers back, giving ground before it.
It is a mistake. I don’t know why my wolf is so much wilder than the rest of the pack, why he won’t bend to my will as he should. Instead, he tamps me down, burying me under the instinct to run, to hunt and claim. It feels like falling asleep, but each month, I slip under easier.
One day, I’m afraid I won’t wake up.
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