“Unseen Past : A Hidden Wolves Prequel” is now out

I wasn’t going to write more wolves, but when I started a little prequel flash fiction as an Advent story, Sawyer and James hijacked my heart and mind and I ended up with a novel. Unseen Past is now available on all vendors.

Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/mgPkpD
Amazon US : https://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Past-Hidden-Wolves-Prequel-ebook/dp/B0BX9WTY5H/

excerpt:
Sawyer stared down at the unconscious man. If the guy’d been hit on the head and needed any care more complicated than rest and warmth, he was shit out of luck. Still, wolves were tough. If they didn’t die right away, they usually healed. Sawyer knelt and ran his hands through the wet, black hair, feeling the man’s scalp. As his fingers brushed a slight roughness in the skin, the man’s eyes snapped open.

Gray. Yeah. For an instant, their gazes met and held. The man took a sharp breath, which Sawyer echoed.

Then the stranger scrambled to get off the couch, naked long legs and arms flailing inelegantly. Sawyer could’ve pinned him in place, but he could read fear in the man’s posture and scent. Sawyer rose and backed off, hands raised, palms out. “Hey, chill out. You’re fine. James, right?”

“Who’re you?” James’s voice came out deeper than Sawyer expected, with a hint of Southern drawl.

Still baritone to Sawyer’s bass, of course. “This is my cabin.” For the week, anyhow. “I get to ask the questions.”

“I’m naked on your couch. The hell you do!” That angry flash of gray eyes was a good effort, but Sawyer figured he could put James in his place with one hand tied behind his back.

Sawyer narrowed his gaze. “What was that, pup?”

James scrambled to his feet, put his hands on his hips, then hissed in pain. “Ouch, dern it, my fingers.” He swayed on his feet. “And toes.” Shaking his hands gingerly, he eyed Sawyer. “I’m not a pup. I’m a full pack member. Are you…” He glanced around the small cabin. “Are you a lone wolf? Are you Sawyer Holt?”

Sawyer leaped and shoved James back two steps, pinning him against the log wall of the cabin, a hand on his throat. “Where’d you hear that name?” He got up in James’s face, leaning heavily on him, using his size and weight to dominate.

For a scrawny youngster, James didn’t flinch or drop his eyes the way he should’ve. “I was sent to look for you. Let go of me, you lunkhead. My feet are killing me.”

“Boohoo.” Sawyer didn’t back off an inch. “Who sent you?”

“Rick Brown, the Chicago Alpha. You ever heard of him?”

Heard of him? Hell, yeah. I know Rick Brown… Memories cascaded, jolting Sawyer into loosening his grip on the pup’s throat. “How do you know Rick Brown? Why’s he giving you orders?”

“He’s not my Alpha.” James pushed Sawyer’s hand away with a forearm and Sawyer let him go. “My Alpha’s in Roanoke, but he sent me and—” He shook his head. “The details don’t matter. Alpha told me to make myself useful to Chicago’s Alpha while I was there. Rick Brown looked me over like he knew the color of my underwear, said, ‘I have an errand for you,’ and here I am.”

“But how?” The cabin was well off the beaten path. Sawyer didn’t think even Rick was that psychic.

“He sent me to a man named Bill Stoltz in Minot with a freaking code word. Stoltz looked at me, said, ‘Oh, you’re the kid,’ and told me how to find this place. I’ve been driving twenty-four hours to deliver the Chicago Alpha’s message.”

At least that made sense. “What message, precisely?”

“He said to tell you—” James’s eyes unfocused. “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Oscar isn’t dead, and he’s good friends with Leon now. It’s time for you to move on.”

“Fuck.” Sawyer whirled away, restraining his impulse to sweep every loose item within reach to the floor, make everything smash. His boss would take the damages out of his paycheck, and apparently he was going to need all his money. “Fuck!”

“What does the message mean?” James stepped toward him, then hissed in pain. “I’m gonna sit down. My toes feel like they’re fixin’ to fall off.”

“Because you’re the idiot out in a snowstorm dressed like a Sunday picnic.”

James dropped onto the couch and felt carefully around his reddened nose. “Wolves can handle cold better’n humans. Don’t need much protection. Everyone knows that.”

“Cold, yeah, up to a point. But below freezing, a blizzard? Have you ever even seen snow?”

“Hey, it snows in Norfolk. Some.”

“Yeah, right.” Sawyer strode over and tapped on the frost-edged front window where the thermometer hung against the glass. “It’s five below out there and dropping, and there’s at least ten inches on the ground by now. You get that in your precious Norfolk?”

James blew on his fingers without answering.

“Thought not.” Seeing the guy flinch and then shiver, Sawyer backed off his attitude a bit. He snatched the throw blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over James’s naked shoulders. “Let me see those fingers.”

The look in James’s eyes wasn’t friendly, but he held up his hand. Sawyer caught his wrist and peered at the skin. He held back a whistle, seeing the ends of each pale finger red, swollen and shiny. Not blue or black, at least, but… “Gonna lose some skin, I’d bet. Let me check the rest of you.”

James growled under his breath but didn’t push Sawyer away as he checked James’s extremities. Toes… might lose a couple of tips there. Gonna be a mess. Ears and nose, just a little damage. He restrained himself from checking the man’s dick. That would be bad.

“Frostbite, for sure. You’d be best off shifting if you can. Get some healing started.”

“You aren’t afraid of me being wolf while you’re in skin?”

Sawyer let himself laugh because he had a feeling humor was going to be hard to come by. “You planning to challenge me, boy?”

James flushed and shrugged. “Just wanted to ask. But before I shift, I need to know. What did that message mean, and why’d it make you cuss like that?”

Saying none of your business would be true, but it might be best to warn James, at least a little. “Leon’s an old enemy of mine in the Chicago pack. Oscar was a friend. When I left the pack and came here, Oscar was one of the few who knew where I’d gone.” Or that I survived. Rick made my death look good.

“And Rick Brown thinks that Leon guy might come after you? All the way out here? Jeez, it must be five hundred miles. What did you do to him?”

Humiliated him after stealing our father’s affection, if you were to ask Leon. And then escaped my punishment. After fifteen years, he’d hoped Leon would’ve cooled off and given up, but since Rick had sent that warning, then clearly not. “Why is none of your business. You just need to know, if some other wolf shows up here looking for me, it won’t be a friendly reunion…”

Read more about Sawyer and James in Unseen Past – Universal Link