Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) Read online

  Wolf Sirens Night Fall by Tina Smith

  What Rises Must Fall

  Uncover what Happens After Dark in Shade

  Wolf Sirens Night Fall

  By Tina Smith

  Copyright 2013 Tina Smith

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Image Copyright Tina Smith. All rights reserved – used with permission.

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted without express consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book may not be given away. Each reader is required to purchase their own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Narine’s Empire

  1. Awakening

  2. Fortuneteller

  3. Protectress

  4. Moon Chosen

  5. Dahlia & Aylish

  6. Welcome to the Jungle

  7. Old Blood

  8. Breaking The Broken

  9. New Leaf

  10. Monsters Know My Name

  11. Black Lashes

  12. New Blood

  13. Spilled Blood

  14. Cold Jane Doe

  15. Jackson the Lone Wolf

  16. The Hand that Feeds

  17. Scathed & Scorned

  18. Crescent Sky

  19. Cage

  20. Blood in Blood Out

  21. Correcting the Balance

  22. Way Back

  23. Lonnie is Alone

  24. Ahead of the Pack

  25. Lonnie Makes a Friend

  26. Lonnie Meets Paws

  27. Waking the Mountain Pack

  28. Pack Meets Pack

  29. Lily’s Beach House

  30. The Boy

  31. Torn

  32. Slaughter

  33. Charm

  34. Saving Cres

  35. Belly of the Beast

  36. C.J

  37. Lila Bites

  38. Blair Whitlock

  39. Blood Moon Rising

  40. Baptism by Fire

  41. Dead and Buried

  42. Only Cowards Hide

  43. The Safe House

  44. Finding the Mountain Pack

  45. Tisane meets Aylish

  The Characters

  Lila (L) Crain.

  Tisane (Tis) Hunter

  Tormey Hunter

  Cresida James

  Tabetha Horrel

  Bronsen James

  Sophie Knight/Crain

  C.J (Caroline Jane) Doil

  Aaron Doil

  Sam’s pack

  Samantha Thompson

  Sky Harton

  Bianca Benson

  Lily Page

  Jackson Hastings

  Reid Davies

  Giny Archer

  Mountain Pack

  Greta (Gret) Rivers

  Patrick Dolan

  Agnes Stone

  Christian Freeland

  Bert (Robert) Hills

  Cult Pack

  Paws (Dieter) Pawston

  Narine Sinclair

  Blair Whitlock

  Greg Sutton

  Angele (Angie) Bekert

  Shell (Shelly) Bealy

  Tyler Smyth

  Aylish Kempsy

  Lonnie Richards

  Dahlia Srivastana

  Andy (Anderson) Young

  Genna Bowman

  The Fallen Angel

  Apollo has cursed the huntress to desire, the burn of a wolf’s kiss upon her skin, letting the blood out and the venom in. My body as sinewy and hard as a twisting branch, a shrine to the huntress, forged into a weapon and imprisoned within her marble body, skin as pale luminescent as the moonlight, fated to her plight. The path before me branched. Steam escapes the hungry devil’s grin. My bolt lay down, the fronds sliding from my fingertips, the thorny wolf skin crown, lying at my feet. Eternity calls, my dagger drawn. Surrendering, I plunge the knife, deeply in. The serene forest eyes of Artemis, do weep with the sting as the blade breaks her lunar skin. The tears of a monster fall, over the blood of a mortal life stolen, merely to begin again. He saves her, only to enslave her, to immortality with poison. Awakening, to a life where a new heart beats within. To become reborn, the angel falls, to Apollo’s sin...

  A Fronte Praecipitium a Tergo Lupi

  A precipice in front, wolves behind

  Prologue

  In stories, the hero wins and the curse is lifted. The good prevail, the Gods applaud, and all the players live happily ever after. In Shade the fate of the people is ruled by the Gods and we live in their shadow.

  There is an ancient myth that says Apollo God of the Sun and Zeus, rage war. The king of Gods refuses to undo his curse upon the valley and his thunder racks the sky. Clouds block out the sun, but as Apollo gains more power the days become warmer. Shade is descending into change, in which Apollo rules.

  After a jealous deception the demi goddess has fought to find a way back from beyond the gates of Hades. Regret causes her to wander the trees in search of her lost beloved, who was taken by her own hand. Now she has found him once more, trapped with the wolves. Those cursed by Zeus, that are mankind by day and creatures that hunt when night falls upon the valley. Artemis must defend the vulnerable and avenge unjust actions in her forest – this is her blight - my cross to bear.

  It seems this war will end only when Apollo or Artemis prevails and I fear the goddess is losing the battle.

  The Demi Goddess must make a choice forever – to avenge the laws she upholds with her sisters - or to forsake them. Apollo has cursed me to fall - to relinquish my sister’s legacy in a conflict no one can win, bending to his will, and weak to mortal desires.

  He underestimates his sister.

  Story of the Satyress

  In the time of the gods the fair maiden Persephone was foraging out in a meadow one spring day when she disappeared. Her mother, Demeter, frantically searched for her, even using her powers to give the sirens wings so that they could find daughter. Soon she learnt that Persephone was kidnapped by Hades. Infuriated, Demeter refused to let the earth fruit until Persephone was returned to her.

  Persuaded by Zeus, Hades eventually consented to release Persephone, but on the night he was to set her free he presented his new bride with a feast. Unable to resist the fare she ate the fruit of a rare lily. Once Persephone had tasted the food of Hades by law she was trapped forever in the underworld. But due to her despair and Demeter’s fury, an agreement was struck in that she was allowed half of the year in the sky but the other part must be spent in Hades.

  Her annual return to the earth in spring was marked by the flowering of meadows and the sudden new growth of grain. Her return to Hades in winter begins the dying down of plants and the halting of growth as the earth becomes cold once again. Known forevermore as the goddess of spring growth – Persephone’s ascent no longer affects the seasons as it once did. Clouds engulf the sun, hindering Demeter’s crops and changing the seasons.

  The new queen of the underworld secretly selected a few satyrs from Hades. Persephone sends them to the earth in disguise to protect Artemis in hopes of ending the feud and to help the chosen hunter win the curse, many years after its creation. Silently she hopes her betrayal will help to abolish the three curses successfully, to return the seasons from the heat, cloud cover, war and death, which looms closer the longer it manifests.

  Some of the satyr
s were killed but one of Persephone’s satyrs still lives and she works to help the chosen Agrotera to end the curses of Shade. In desperation Persephone prepares to send another satyress...

  Narine’s Empire

  While her family worried that she was brainwashed by a cult the truth was more grisly than that. She couldn’t come back. It wasn’t her mind that had been poisoned but her body riddled with fever. The first night at the compound when she couldn’t leave, she cried delirious screams. The venom affected her slowly and violently. Paws held her while she cried, changed and screeched. In the morning his bed was wet with sweat and she was emaciated. Dieter was leader of the pack and she was to be his new mate. But before he took her as his mate, as a final test, he threw her to the pack of waiting wolves, once the fever had eased.

  After the shock subsided, colour returned to her face and life in the pack house suited her well. She was top bitch and she set about revolutionizing the pack order. This was her turn to be everything she wasn’t in life, to be respected. She appointed herself as head Alpha female. In truth, she was the alpha and the law of the werewolves in this territory and word spread. She wanted to dominate, to be queen. She was a big bitch in stature as she had been tall in human life. Narine saw it as a second life and she was suddenly enthused with fight, prepared to take a swipe, but preferring manipulation. Now, she was strong and she could feel it. Narine and Paws wanted to improve the life of the modern day werewolf and she listened intently as he explained the underworld to her.

  As the heads of the largest pack in the Southern Hemisphere, they became the superpower pack of the region and self-appointed lords. They laid down the law in their community of bloodthirsty animals-cum-humans. Narine became the dictator queen of the wolves and wielded her power with a firm hand, using every tactic at her disposal, even if it meant fraternizing with the enemy and cooperating with other packs.

  She was the godfather and she wanted to have eyes and ears all over the country. Their determination and strength in numbers was matched by nature, though their pack was still small-scale. But the seeds of hunter grew and Narine needed a new approach to dispose of or deal with them, as killing them only seemed to double their numbers in later years. The werewolves risked dwindling numbers and even being outnumbered by hunters - a scary thought.

  Management came to be her specialty, and with Cresida on-side, Narine's plans for the future were promising security and less competition on the ground. She aimed to disable and disarm them, keep the adversaries weak. Instead of murdering them, she simply aimed to make them as ineffectual as possible. It was an astonishing plan, quietly delivered; in fact, so slowly the new young hunters would be like frogs in the pot. Like Lila. Characteristic of the way a wolf operates, she came at them from the side, and in the dark with a silent force to equal a savage.

  The bloodline that ran down the women’s side in Tisane’s veins did not course through Narine’s, but their father’s blood kicked and coursed through hers. Narine wasn’t psychic like her sister, but she was street smart, hardened by life and desperate for the notoriety she had lacked in human life. Cleverly, she had initiated a silent war.

  Cresida, the compromised huntress had been a gift. She was vulnerable to the wolf kind because she had their venom in her veins. Narine’s plan, only in its infancy had made bounds, making her predecessors look like common animals reacting in fear. She was a more tactical and more manipulative wolf than others of her kind. ‘Act, don’t react,’ was Narine's mantra.

  Narine was a new breed, hand-picked by Paws who stalked and chose her wisely after many failures from pig-headedness and bad pack management. He found her and she had proven her talent by fighting for her place. He didn’t bed her for three weeks, and watched her fight and squabble amongst the pack ranks and competing bitches. He smiled. After a bad few years – decades, even - a new era had arrived. She earned her place.

  The passive aggressive She Wolf was the medicine they needed. He chose her to empower the pack, to be his queen, and though he stood out as the leader, soon everyone knew it was she who pulled all the strings.

  Her mind churned and she had a fierce survival instinct. She was a more natural wolf than she was a housewife. Blood and the elixir of life flowed through her again. She seethed when angry, but channeled it well. She was fair and strict as long as she was obeyed and got what she wanted. She harnessed her popular voice as leader. She was respected and feared. Paws had chosen better than he could have ever imagined. Until, in a twist of irony, he almost resented how good a choice he had made.

  1. Awakening

  If Apollo is the sun, Zeus the storm and Artemis the moon, then perhaps the wolves are the dark night. Where the Artemis rolls through the green farmland hills into the heart of Shade, the people are shut away in their houses because when the sun sets the wolves stalk the land.

  On a full moon night, under gloomy cloud, a tabby is standing on the footpath, feeling the warm pavement under his paws, when suddenly he vanishes. The street is deserted in a breathy plume as a massive wolf-like beast strikes him from the earth. Wind rustles the poplar leaves above.

  The hushed night is broken by a loud rumble, as a clap of lightning flashes in the sky and a distant howl echoes through the valley.

  We all have our demons. Some people chase dreams but I run from them. Thunder often woke us from sleep. I awoke with a start that morning, despite the lack of it, and exhaled deeply. It had been a full moon and I had a feeling the wolves had wreaked havoc. I gritted my teeth. It was a hot and I was plagued by nightmares. Summer was covered by clouds, dark silver and angry. The earth’s nearest star warred with Zeus and the result was a humid atmosphere. I had heard the wails from the mountains in the dead of night.

  My demons were real.

  Filtered daylight reached in the window. I’d had the dreams again – where the black wolf chased me. I threw my legs over the edge of the bed and pulled on Tormey’s worn in, mud-soiled boots. I gazed through the curtains. Tisane’s house was hidden, we couldn’t see the blue trees of the mountains, and that meant neither could the wolves see us. But they wouldn’t remain at bay forever. The sky was never clear anymore, and nor were my dreams.

  I paced to the bathroom where I splashed my face. I rubbed my tense neck, with cold fingers and felt for the dog tag. I held it and stared at the crescents, proof I was undeniably part of Shade's curse.

  Crunching on a cold piece of toast, I flicked on the old analogue T.V. The Sunrise news came on. If the wind blew up from the nearby coast, or a storm was brewing, the temperamental reception often failed. Needless to say it was rarely worth turning it on.

  Tisane was asleep. Nowadays we woke at dusk and slept at dawn, as the sun rose. She tended to wait up for me. I kept the volume down, when she did sleep I dreaded to wake her. Though she was always pleasant no matter how grey the prints under her eyes were.

  The Morning Show was shot in Horkum. Shade was rapidly becoming a blip on the radar of our major city, due to the fact that we had an abnormally high incidence of crime for such a small population. It was my job to keep the perpetrators under control and currently I was outnumbered.

  In a corner of the room beside the rusted rifle, now leant a bow. The handgun travelled with me but I had taken to rediscovering the arrow; Artemis’s silent weapon. I had spent hours perfecting the string and carving the bow and still my attempt was poor at best. Tisane was an artist, she took my bad handy work into her work room and toiled. Managing to produce something masterful from my clumsy prototype design.

  My face was positioned too close to the flickering television screen when I was confronted by the last thing I had ever expected to see. My interest spiked immediately as I heard the name. Daniel Angus Lovett. Daniel Lovett, I couldn’t forget the name. I leant in to turn the dial up, listening intently.

  “...Has been reported missing under what is believed to be suspicious circumstances. The man in question had missed a court date two weeks ago and police are on the hunt.
” His image glanced blankly at me from behind the screen and I looked at the fuzzy image, into the absent eyes and face of the man I had obliterated with a bullet, all those weeks ago in the mountains with Cres. The news castors half-jokingly mentioned they hoped it wasn’t the mysterious wolves of Shade.

  The female presenter laughed in an abrupt way that made me think she wouldn’t be in a rush to make a live report from our valley. Shade was becoming as infamous as the Bermuda Triangle. I watched the following segment on the weather, which had become increasingly bad along with the atmosphere – this was slowly becoming the wettest summer on record and some statistic was given about lighting strikes.

  But my mind was elsewhere. My victim had been accused of raping a minor three weeks before we hunted him – I contemplated this information intently. Maybe I should have felt better right then. But Cres hadn’t been honest with me. I considered my dear friend, her absent stare of guilt and my heart dropped. Something had always been wrong with that hunt. I doubted that he was even turned by the pack. Her blanched face and the cadence of her voice had always spoken the truth. I huffed. He was probably nothing more than a manufactured distraction. I dreaded to think what she had done. It went against the grain.

  This latest information strained my faith in her. I turned off the television. Right now I had no choice but to cautiously trust her, though she had betrayed me in the past. But perhaps my judgment was as clouded as the sky.

  2. Fortuneteller

  Tisane heard the whisper of the wind brushing the oak trees as the belly of Shade growled in an echo that vibrated the leaves. Maybe I felt it whisper, but she heard it roar.

  Something stirred in the silence around the cabin, Tisanes eyes stilled on the page as the tree trunks creaked and swayed in the outside breeze. A feeling of trepidation inched its way inside, creeping through her skin. Her mother’s framed picture stared at her from the bookshelf. She placed a tarot card to mark the page in her book.