Wild Wolf
by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti
Self-Published
Book 4 in The Darkmore Penitentiary Series
Freedom never tasted so bitter.
A stolen love. A strangled curse. A heart of sin. And a fate touched in moonlight.
My men weave a tangled web around my soul, and I’ve formed a pack that will go to death and back for me.
The moon hangs low over my heart as the call of the endless sky draws me closer and I find myself lost in the abyss that was waiting for me out here.
Fate has left a bitter taste on my tongue, the haunting echoes of the past mocking me at every turn. But I’m not a pup anymore. And I won’t let another ten years pass without mending the rift in my heart.
Darkness draws near enough to devour me but I have forged a pack of wild creatures at my back and I won’t be pulled into the grip of despair.
I’ll find the stars in this endless night and force them to hear me howl.
I am Rosalie Oscura and I will claim my happy ending, even if I have to claw it from the hands of destiny itself.
Genre
Triggers
Violence, Torture, Death
I'm not going to lie. I honestly wondered if they were ever going to finish this series.
That cliffhanger in the last book was a cruel ending, only to leave us waiting over two years.
With that long of a wait, I'm not going to pretend my interest didn't wane. I mean ... I knew it would all work out. It was all a matter of how.
So Wild Wolf sat on my kindle for a few weeks before I got around to it.
I enjoyed it.
I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it. I felt like Caroline and Susanne wrapped up the story nicely. And it didn't take me long to get immersed in this world, and these characters again.
Obviously I was very invested in Roary's story, and Rosalie's, but I loved everyone else's arcs as well.
Even Hastings arc, hilariously enough.
I also loved seeing the Ruthless Fae gang all again.
Everyone's personal arcs, as well as their relationships with one another, were wrapped up in a nice little bow.
I don't have a lot to say about Wild Wolf, honestly. While I enjoyed it, it was easy to walk away from it and move on to another book. Perhaps Zodiac Academy just exhausted me of this world altogether. Either way, if you haven't gotten around to this series yet, it's fun.
Bianca: “Take that pain and forge it into something fierce, something powerful, something real, Rosa. Make it drive you or it will break you.”
Hastings: “I’m done, Mason,”
he said in a shaky voice.
Hastings: “I’m fucking done trying to control those animals. You don’t know what I saw in that place. They…ate Officer Kato’s brain. They bound me and tortured me and I witnessed so many fucked up things. I saw potatoes endure a fate worse than death…”
Cain: “What the fuck are you talking about, potatoes?”
Cain demanded while Hastings’ eyes flicked to Plunger then away again as he cringed back into the foliage looking haunted.
Plunger: “Oh, is it time for them to be used, Ma’am?”
Plunger asked me, drawing my eyes to him where he stood butt naked, covered in smooth, grey hair, fists on his hips as he dropped into a squat.
Sin: “That’s savage,”
Sin muttered, fascination lacing his words as his gaze remained on Plunger.
Rosalie: “I’m not good enough for you, ragazzo del coro,”
I told him softly.
Rosalie: “I’m all sharp thorns stained in blood beneath these pretty petals. You deserve a far sweeter flower than me.”
He frowned, swallowing thickly, words building between us, but Sin got there first.
Sin: “And she fucks like a demon too, bro,”
he said seriously.
Sin: “All the holes. Over and over. She likes to dominate, be dominated, get rough, get violent, choke on one cock while taking another in the ass, and you, my friend, daydream about pretty little good girls gasping your name between soft thrusts in dim lighting. Don’t get me wrong – I ain’t yucking your yum, but you never could have handled our wild girl.”
Rosalie: “You let Carson take on your appearance?”
I asked my cousin, knowing already that it had to have been him.
Dante: “Yes. Though I will admit that I’m concerned about what he will have done to my reputation while I was supposedly at that party,”
The look of amusement on Gabriel’s face confirmed that ‘Dante’ had gotten up to all sorts of reputation-altering nonsense, but I couldn’t summon the interest in that to ask about it further.
Andre: “What is this one for?”
little Andre asked, poking the serrated crescent moon symbol of the Lunar Brotherhood where it was inked proudly across Ethan’s chest – which had only been revealed because Roberto had grabbed the collar of Ethan’s t-shirt and half ripped it in his eagerness to find more tattoos.
Maria: “You know that one, Andre,”
Maria drawled, all seven-year-old sass.
Maria: “It’s the same as Zio Carson’s – the one Zio Leon calls ‘his great shame’ when he has his short hair face on.”
Dante: “I hear you decided to mate yourself to my little Rosa while you were in that hellhole, Lunar,”
Dante said, spreading his fingers against the table as he leaned down to get a good look at Ethan.
Dante: “Tell me, did fate whisper her name in your ear the moment you laid eyes on her?”
Ethan glanced at me, but I gave him nothing. If he couldn’t face off against the big bad Storm Dragon then he wasn’t worthy of a place in this family, moon mate or not.
Sin: “You see, I’m a man of many boxes. All of them stored inside me, some full of clowns and others stuffed with knives. But this one here that you’ve broken open just now, that one’s my darkest dealing, wild girl. I only open that one when I’m about to kill, you understand? I will bleed them out for you, cut down each enemy that stands along the path to your Lion. Because I will wage wars and raze hell to see you smile again.”
Rosalie: “I think sometimes you see me like no one else quite does,”
she whispered.
Rosalie: “You see the lesions on my heart, Sin Wilder.”
Sin: “That’s where I love you deepest, Rosa,”
I growled and she leaned into me at last.
Sin: “I’m not going with you Jeromeo,”
I said, frowning in confusion because surely he could see that – surely my love for this beauty beside me shone all around, lighting the space and screaming like a claxon that sang her name in a squawking tone that was impossible to ignore.
Sin: “This wild girl stole my heart when she stole me from that prison. I’m her monster now. All hers.”
Jerome: “You can’t be serious?”
Jerome sneered.
Jerome: “You think you…love her?”
Sin: “Thinking is for top hats and cats with monocles,”
I reminded him.
Sin: “It isn’t my thinker that fell for her – it’s my thumper.”
Sin: “Biter boy doesn’t know whether he wants to kick my ass for touching you or ask to watch while we fuck again. He’s all kinds of torn up over it,”
he whispered loud enough for the pups in the yard to hear.
Sin: “But-”
He tried to get up again but I pressed my hand to his chest and pushed him back down with a low growl.
Rosalie: “Stay,”
I warned. Sin submitted with a raised brow, glancing over at Cain.
Sin: “I think we should all play sub for our girl once we have Roary back. She could tie us up and use us for her pleasure however she likes. Make us into her harem of sex toys. I think she’d enjoy that.”
Rosalie: “I wouldn’t hate it,”
I admitted, giving him a warning look before I straightened and strode from the room.
Hastings: “What’s it saying?”
Rosalie: “She,”
I corrected because an entity as powerful as the moon was obviously female.
Rosalie: “Is warning me about what awaits us in that place.”
I bobbed my chin in the direction of the island even though none of us could see it from here.
Hastings: “And what’s that?”
Hastings asked, tugging his fringe down over his eyes and peering out through it.
Rosalie: “Death,”
I replied with a shrug.
Rosalie: “A foul wind blows from that island, tainting all who breathe it in.”
Cain: “Well isn’t that just reassuring as shit,”
Cain grumbled, folding his arms so his biceps bulged.
Sin: “That’s a scheming face if ever I saw one,”
Sin commented as I moved to the kitchen counter and pulled a pen and notepad towards me.
Ethan: “When isn’t she scheming?”
Ethan retorted and the corner of my lips hitched up a touch.
Sin: “She’s baking a cake in her mind and I want a slice of it, a juicy, cream-filled slice.”
He licked his lips. The guy was obsessed with cake sometimes, I swear.
Rosalie: “Has Jerome pulled through on any intel?”
I asked Sin who shook his head.
Sin: “Nothing. All he said was that he has the full layout of the compound, the entrance points to the island and the movements of around sixty boats which have recently docked at the island – along with a count of how many Fae departed them. It’s as if he didn’t even try.”
I arched a brow, exchanging a look with Ethan who rolled his eyes.
Rosalie: “Any chance you have those figures written down?”
Sin sighed.
Sin: “Your little Wolfy was listening and scribbled a thing or two down,”
he said, reaching across the counter and flipping my notebook open to reveal six full pages of notes and a damn good sketch Ethan had done based off of Jerome’s information.
Rosalie: “And this is…disappointing to you?”
I asked in confusion, scanning the detailed information which included notes on guard rotations that Jerome had managed to track using a satellite he’d hacked, as well as four different proposed points of exit he’d noticed that weren’t watched well enough.
Sin: “Do you see any kill notices on there, kitten? Is there a single green flag beside any of those names with an asterisk stating ‘this-dude-is-a-piece-of-shit-whose-head-would-look-better-off-in-a-cabbage-patch’?”
Rosalie: “There…is not,”
I agreed.
Sin: “And do you know precisely how long it’s been since I killed a deserving motherfucker, wild girl?”
Sin pressed.
Ethan: “Like…eighteen hours. I’m pretty sure you still have Pike’s blood under your fingernails.”
Ethan snorted and Sin sighed dramatically.
Sin: “That barely counted – it was a pity kill for old rod-up-the-ass Vamp out there. I haven’t been let loose in a long time and I have all this pent up murder in me which needs fulfilling.”
Rosalie: “Half of my life has been drenched in pain and suffering,”
I replied bleakly.
Rosalie: “I’m more than used to weathering it by now.”
Sin: “But you deserve more than that, wild girl,”
Sin said, his eyes on us from across the room.
Sin: “We want you to have more.”
Sin: “I’ll follow you into death before I steal you away from your Lion, wild girl,”
he swore.
Sin: “We leave with Roary in tow or we step through The Veil at his side – no more running away.”
Cain: “You’re a force of fucking nature, Rosalie Oscura. I think back on every moment with you and wonder at which point I might have saved myself from the madness of you. But I can’t find one. From the second I brought you into the prison, snarling and smiling with equal finesse, I think you held me captive. So I might as well admit that I’m lost to you at this point. My fate is in your hands. And if that fate requires this oath from me then fine. You can have it. I won’t make you run from him a second time. I’ll be by your side to see this through, come death or dawn.”
Rosalie: “He’ll see us coming. He has The Sight. If we plan anything directly against him then the stars will warn him and-”
Cain: “Who needs the stars when we have the moon on our side?”
Cain demanded, his gaze iron, tone unflinching.
Rosalie: “I waited ten years to make you fall for me, Roary Night,”
I warned him.
Rosalie: “Don’t go thinking there’s anything which might ever make me want you less.”
Roary: “I’m not the man you-”
he began but I cut him off sharply.
Rosalie: “Do you love me less for my scars?”
Rosalie: “You know I don’t,”
he replied in a low growl.
Rosalie: “Then don’t go thinking a pair of fangs will put me off,”
I snapped.
Rosalie: “Besides – you know I like it rough. And I’ve never been averse to a little biting.”
Rosalie: “My cousin Dante has a saying about fools who only guard the obvious entrance point,”
I said, stepping to my right until I was looking at the wall beyond the outer edge of the ward.
Rosalie: “They’re asking to have their back door blown open.”
Rosalie: “Se io sono la luna, allora tu sei la forza che mi sostiene,”
she purred.
Sin: “What does that mean?”
Sin blurted, stepping close and smiling between us.
Rosalie: It means ‘if I am the moon then you are the force that holds me up’,”
Rosalie translated then flicked Sin on the chin.
Sin: “Oo,”
he shivered.
Sin: “Give me some pretty words, honey pie. I want you to call me something hot and filthy in your fancy language.”
Rosalie: “Sei un dolce piccolo idiota,”
she purred and he shivered again as she petted his head then walked away with Cain toward the cabin and I smirked at her words.
It felt like something important was happening but I was two buns short of a baker’s dozen and no one felt like filling my bread basket.
I was free in this place. Free to be the monster I always knew I was. I was raised to fight, to unleash the cruelest parts of my being, and no matter how much I despise Benjamin Acrux for the upbringing he gifted me, I do owe him one thing. In his company, I learned how far I could push myself, I found out how strong I could be, how vicious. And there is something in that which I still crave even if I spent many years trying to crush it away. It’s what I was drawn to in Rosalie, that damn wildness which knows no bounds. She has never changed who she is to fit anyone’s demands, especially not society. I tried to be someone else for so long, that sometimes even now I don’t know exactly who it is I am. I only know that the longer I spend in her company, the more I uncover it.
I got my bearings then sailed off into the night, taking my stowaways with me and singing a ditty at the top of my lungs, making up the words as I went.
Sin: “There once was a mutt who put things up his butt and he liked it more than he would say.”
Ethan: “Shut it,”
Ethan barked, but I just sang louder.
Sin: “He liked things round, grown from the ground, as big as a tree or as small as a flea, and shoved them up, up, up his butt, butt, butt.”
Ethan: “Sin!”
Ethan snapped and Max gave him the side-eye.
Sin: “What?”
I smirked.
Sin: “I never said it was about you, Wolf boy, you must just relate to the lyrics.”
Hastings: “Sorry,”
Hastings gasped.
Hastings: “I…went for drinks and then when I turned back the hunters and prey had returned and that guy over there asked me to erm…do something to him like the pathetic little toad he was. I don’t want to mention the exact phrasing he used, but I lost track of the others while trying to escape him.”
Roary: “And did you?”
Hastings: “Did I what?”
Roary: “Did you punish him with your cock like the pathetic little-”
I jabbed him in the gut with my elbow as poor Hastings turned utterly beetroot, his ears, neck and the small amount of skin we could see around his eyes betraying his embarrassment. He started spluttering, denying it with such vehemence that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him and I took the tray of drinks from his hands before setting it on the bar and patting his arm understandingly.
Rosalie: “Ignore the stronzos,”
I told him, narrowing my eyes at Roary and Cain who were snickering like badly behaved children.
Rosalie: “They turn into asshats when their dicks have been wetted.”
Hastings frowned then blinked in understanding, stumbling back a step as he nodded aggressively and seemed to find himself unable to look at me at all. I sighed heavily, realising I’d only made it worse while Cain and Roary laughed even harder.
I cried out as I fell backwards, Plunger’s weight crashing down on top of me as he was finally wrenched free of the shackles which had held him to the table. But my screams were smothered as he fell on me, his ass slamming down on my face, my nose delving between his oil-slicked cheeks, his balls slapping the back of my throat as they fell between my parted lips. Plunger toppled aside, rolling across the tiled floor with a whoop of triumph, leaving me retching and sobbing in his wake. Horror enveloped me as the reality of what I’d endured spilled through all the dark pieces of my soul, tainting everything they touched and staining them with this memory. I would never be the same again. I’d seen things now. Lived through horrors untold. Smelled the worst life had to offer. Tasted things. I heaved again, vomiting all over the floor then lunging away as Plunger patted me on the head like I was a good dog.
Sin: “That’s how the cookie crumbles, I suppose. You betray and lie, then you get what’s coming in the end. Either that or the bad guy wins, and I don’t let them do that, Jerome. You became bad to the bone, and I put Fae like you in deserving graves. It’s what I’m best at, what the stars made me for, I think. It’s why I’m cracked, because only someone shattered inside could do the things I have to do. But so long as I’m still here walking this earth, I’ll keep putting them in the ground, planting them like daisies. It keeps worse from happening. Kiddies shaking in their beds at night, worrying when the mean man will come home to hurt them. I make sure they don’t come home, and if the world fears me for delivering justice to monsters, so be it.”
Max: “True brothers don’t use each other. They don’t sell each other out.”
Sin: “Even if their brother is death in Fae form?”
I rasped. Max took my hand, drawing me to my feet and cupping my cheek in his hand.
Max: “Even then. I think I’m starting to understand why you do the things you do, Sin. I see why they want you locked up, and I see exactly why you shouldn’t be.”
Sin: “Well, the way I see it, we have a problem,”
Sin said, kicking his boots and socks off before jumping onto my bed and reclining against the pillow.
Rosalie: “Oh?”
I stepped fully into the room, closing the door at my back and locking it for good measure because in this house there was always some nosey stronzo lurking close by.
Sin: “Yeah,”
Sin sighed.
Sin: “We’ve been back from saving the world a full week and each of us boys have only had our pocket sticks rocked two times each.”
Rosalie: “Pocket sticks?”
I questioned and Roary snorted.
Sin: “Not bad for a first rodeo,”
Sin murmured thoughtfully.
Sin: “Let’s give it a ten minute recovery period and then I’ll give you my notes for round two.”
Cain" “I don’t think we can keep calling this home much longer. Bianca has made plenty of unsubtle comments about us getting our own place.”
Roary: “That’s because she’s tired of the pups asking why there’s a ghoul living in Rosa’s room that starts wailing in the night.”
I smirked and Rosalie elbowed me.
Cain: “I’m not one for giving second chances, but it’s on you,”
Cain said from my other side.
Roary: “You gave Rosa plenty of chances,”
I said, cocking an eyebrow at him.
Sin: “That’s different. It’s the dick-whipped rule. Once your dick’s been whipped, all rules are meaningless. Murdering, pillaging, thieving, it’s free game now and the law can’t do anything about it so long as it’s in the name of love,”
Sin chimed in, glancing back from the window by the front door, the curtain pulled aside where he’d been peeking out at our driveway.
Rosalie released a howl that we all echoed, that sound like the song of our family, our love. And I knew, no matter where any of my pack went in this world, if they were ever lost, they could always hear the howl of the Oscura Wolves and find their way back home.
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