Summer

By Sierra Dean

The thrilling conclusion to the Dog Days series!

Cooper Reynolds has been missing for months.

The whole town of Poisonfoot, Texas believes he has run away, proving they were right not to trust him. They believe he left like his brother and father before him: another good-for-nothing Reynolds man leaving the small town in his dust. No one is looking for him.

No one but Lou Whittaker.

Lou knows Cooper was taken, she just doesn’t know where he is or how to get him back. With the help of budding witch, Max, and an unlikely ally in her former enemy Archer Wyatt, Lou is determined to find Cooper and bring him back in one piece.

But time is running out. Summer is upon them, and if they don’t find Cooper before his 18th birthday, they’ll be bringing home a wild animal instead of their beloved friend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sierra Dean
• Release date: Jun 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781939291066

Sierra Dean

Sierra Dean is the kind of adult who forgot she was supposed to grow up. She spends most of her days making up stories, and most of her evenings watching baseball or playing video games. She lives in Winnipeg, Canada with two temperamental cats and one sweet tempered dog. When not building new worlds, she can be found making cupcakes and checking Twitter.

Book preview

Chapter One

The darkness was so thick it had weight.

If Cooper didn’t know better, he might think it was a living entity, a predator bent on swallowing him whole. The blackness pressed in, making his pulse throb in his ears and his heartbeat kick up a few notches.

The natural fight-or-flight part of him screamed for him to run.

But his logical brain knew what was happening, and running wasn’t going to help him one bit.

Running might make them happier. It would give them something new to write down in their notebooks.

Instead Cooper stood in one place and gently sniffed the air. He couldn’t really make out any discernable scents worthy of note, but they lived for when he did stuff like that. Acting like an animal might be the only thing keeping him alive these days.

The irony of his fake-out was that if they waited a couple more months, they’d get to trade in the human version of him for an animal, permanently.

Then what?

Would he be of any interest to them once he was a quadruped? Or would they run out of experiments to run when he couldn’t answer a litany of yes-or-no questions afterwards?

Since Cooper had no idea how much of his mind he’d retain once the curse took him and turned him into a coyote, he doubted he’d be able to give the fine folks hiding out there in the dark anything useful to go on.

Maybe then they’d finally let him go.

But more likely than not, he suspected they’d put him down.

After all, who needs another wild dog in a state seemingly overwhelmed by them these days?

He sighed, wondering how far he should push the act. Wondering how much of it really was an act. The truth was, the longer he was here, the less he had to pretend the animal was coming out. His senses were getting sharper, and he was beginning to have thoughts that were not entirely Cooper-like. He didn’t know how much of this he ought to share with his captors. Preferably none of it, but he also got the feeling if they saw results, he might continue to be useful to them.

Cooper closed his eyes.

This was a test, and his sight wasn’t going to help him in the thick black. He’d need to rely on other natural instincts, because he had no doubt something was in the darkness with him, and the men and women observing from somewhere else were keen to know what he would do.

He’d do what he had been doing for months.

He’d survive.

Crouching low to the ground, he pressed his palm flat to the rough surface beneath him. Concrete. Okay, so he wasn’t in a wooded area, and from what he’d been able to hash out by smelling the air, he wasn’t near water.

Water and woodlands were the most distinct smells. Garbage usually meant he was somewhere near a populated area, and those were the worst tests. Cooper always felt like he was one breath shy of freedom, and if he only passed their test, they might let him go.

They never did.

This time the air didn’t smell like anything interesting. He could be anywhere.

Sometimes that was the only test. They’d let him out and leave him alone for an hour, then he’d be collected again, and they’d ask him a million questions about where he thought he’d been.

Other times the tests were more sinister. He’d be attacked by something or wake up covered in something. Usually they tested him when it was dark, but other times he was released during daylight hours.

He’d been through dozens of these tests, and in all that time he’d learned next to nothing about why he was enduring them. But he’d done the math. They knew what he was and what he would become, and they wanted to know how many of the animal skills he’d have could translate into his human form.

They wanted to make more people like him, without the unpleasant side effect of being stuck in the furry form.

Back in Poisonfoot, an FBI agent had told him as much. Agent Romero had gone so far as to promise Cooper there might be a cure. He could, in theory, be saved from his fate.

And Cooper had wanted so badly to believe him, he’d considered going with him willingly.

But science couldn’t undo a curse.

And it turned out the FBI had no interest whatsoever in lifting the curse.

They’d seen to it one of the few people who might be able to undo the curse’s magic had been taken right alongside him. Marnie Jackson was the decendant of the man who’d killed the son of a witch. The same witch who had cursed Cooper’s family for being unable to solve the crime. Which meant Cooper been forced to spend month after month with Marnie as the only remnant from his former life.

She was even less thrilled with the arrangement than he was.

Imagine the prom queen being trapped in a lifeboat with the class freak for months at sea, and that was the general feeling between the two of them. They put up with each other because the only other option was unbearable loneliness.

Cooper sometimes thought being alone might be preferable for both of them.

He missed his family. He missed the normalcy of a life where no one cared what he did or if he was alive. If he could go back to that, he would never again complain about being a social pariah. Turned out being the center of attention was much, much worse.

Especially when it involved strangers taking samples of his blood every other day.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what they were doing with all of it, so he’d stopped asking after the first week.

Cooper would have given them all his blood without question if it meant he could see Lou. He would have killed for five minutes with her, to tell her how he felt and how much she’d given him in their months together.

She had provided something he never thought he deserved: hope. Hope of a future. Hope of freedom.

And even though that was all gone now, he wanted her to know it had mattered. She might not have saved him, but she’d tried.

Sometimes trying was enough.

The concrete under his fingers trembled lightly. Something was coming and coming fast.

All right, he muttered. Let’s see what you’ve got.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

And they were aiming to find out how strong Cooper really was.

Chapter Two

Concentrate.

Lou cracked open one eyelid and frowned in Max Dawson’s direction. If you tell me to concentrate one more time, I’m going to put a curse on you.

Next to Max, Mia Reynolds smirked and tried to suppress a laugh.

Max scoffed. "If you could put a curse on me, I wouldn’t have to tell you to concentrate. Now focus."

Lou grumbled and closed her eyes again, shifting uncomfortably on the ground. What was it about magic that meant it had to be done outdoors?

Oh, yes. It had nothing to do with the magic and everything to do with busybody parents.

Ignoring the sticks poking her in her bare legs, she took a deep breath in through her nostrils and tried to clear her mind. Max was right, she’d been working at this for months, and as far as her witch skills went, she might as well be a Muggle.

A mosquito bit her neck, and she slapped it, the loud sound drawing a warning throat-clear from Max.

This is ridiculous. Lou sighed loudly. This won’t work. We’ve tried it a dozen different times, and it hasn’t ever worked.

Mia pulled her hand from Max’s and gave Lou an imploring look. We can’t stop trying. I know it seems stupid—

"Hey," Max grumbled.

"Come on, guys, Lou said. We’re sitting in a circle and chanting some bullshit Latin we don’t even know if we’re pronouncing right. We might as well have a Ouija board."

That would only work if he was… Max stopped short of saying it, but the implication was obvious.

Lou frowned. Cooper isn’t dead.

I didn’t say he was.

He’s not dead, and we’re going to find him, okay? She got up and brushed the dirt off her legs. But not like this.

You said you wanted me to help you with your magic, but this is the best I can do. I’m not like you, Lou. You’re a natural. I’m just doing the fake-it-’til-you-make-it version.

A natural.

Fat lot of good it did her, being born a witch. She had no idea what her powers were and no practice with controlling them. The one time she’d really tested her magical chops had been by accident, and she’d managed to blow up the Poisonfoot library.

Not a real motivator to practice on her own.

If panic and terror were what made her magic work, she couldn’t exactly force herself to feel like that on a regular basis. She was going to need to come up with a better way to tap into her power. One that didn’t involve her being scared out of her wits.

Which meant she was going to have to keep practicing.

Mia and Max were still sitting on the ground, staring up at her, as if they were waiting to see if she’d make a run for it or rejoin them. While running had sounded like a great plan more than once over the past months, Lou knew it wasn’t a real option.

The problems she had weren’t the kind she could escape by leaving town.

With a huff she plopped back down, dirt and twigs digging into her skin. She tried to focus on the discomfort, let each poke and prod feed an internal flame, one that might let her do what she was capable of.

Finding Cooper was her sole purpose, and to find him, she needed to be stronger. She needed to be better and more powerful than she’d ever been before. He was counting on her, and all she’d done for the past four months was fail him.

Failure stopped now.

She sucked in a breath and let out a heavy sigh before offering her hands to Mia and Max. With the circle complete, she expected to feel some kind of jolt of energy, something that might tell her the magic was here when it hadn’t been all those times before.

Nothing.

Scrunching her eyes closed tighter, she focused hard, calling out with every fiber of her being with enough desperation it might give her a nosebleed if she tried for too long.

If you’re hoping to make yourself pass out, you’re doing a great job. But if you’re trying to do spellwork, you’ll never make it happen that way.

Lou’s eyes shot open, and she was on her feet in a flash, spinning in place to face the owner of the intruding voice.

Archer, she growled.

Max and Mia made angry noises of dismay, but Lou was the first one standing. Without realizing what she was doing, she stood in front of them in a defensive pose, like she was planning to fight Archer if it came to that.

While punching him in the face would be intensely satisfying, she also knew he probably wasn’t here to do them any harm.

Archer wasn’t the Wyatt brother they needed to worry about. If Christopher had been the one to emerge from the woods, she would have told Mia and Max to run like hell.

Which was funny, because Christopher had never physically hurt her. But all the same, after a few encounters with him, she had zero interest in letting the elder Wyatt get anywhere near her or her friends again.

Whenever she was alone with him, he had a way of making her feel like she was not entirely herself. The Wyatts each possessed a strange and unique set of skills. Archer could wipe memories away with the touch of his hand, and Christopher could convince you of just about anything simply by suggesting it. He could talk a happy man into jumping off a bridge with the right turn of phrase.

Needless to say Lou wasn’t fond of being near either one of them.

Too bad Archer was her best hope of unlocking her magic, and they both knew it.

"Did you follow me?" Lou snapped.

Yes.

They each fell quiet. She hadn’t expected him to admit it, so she wasn’t entirely sure what to say next, since she couldn’t call him a liar.

In the months following Cooper’s disappearance, Archer had constantly tried to offer his help to Lou, and every time she’d refused him. He couldn’t be trusted, thanks to his family. They were invested in making sure the curse turned Cooper into a coyote on his eighteenth birthday, which was now only two months away.

It made no sense for Archer to offer to help save the other boy.

He and Cooper weren’t friends. If anything, they were the textbook definition of enemies since Archer had made Cooper’s life a living hell. He’d kept him an outcast and used his powers to try to steal Lou, something she’d never forgive him for.

He’d completely erased all memories of Cooper from her head, including the feelings that had blossomed between them. As far as Lou was concerned, it was the ultimate personal violation. To steal her memories and feelings from her. It was disgusting, and it didn’t matter what the excuse was, she wanted to hit him every time they were within five feet of each other.

I’m here to—

If you tell me you’re here to help, I’ll figure out a spell that will turn you inside out.

To borrow a line from your pal, there—if you could do that, I wouldn’t need to offer you my help.

Behind her, Max was remarkably quiet, and Lou got the feeling he might actually be considering whether or not Archer had a point. After all, Archer had been the one with her when the library exploded. He’d been the catalyst. The only person who understood Lou’s powers better than Archer was Granny Elle, and the old woman was actively avoiding helping her.

Don’t listen to him, Mia seethed. He’s a liar, from a family of liars, and he’ll screw you in a heartbeat.

Archer’s lips quirked into the slightest smile, and it faded before Lou had a chance to say anything snarky. The self-assured expression went back to one of serious intensity.

I don’t agree with what my family has done.

Lou rolled her eyes. This song and dance was getting old. You need new material, Archer. I’ve heard this a thousand times. I didn’t believe you the first time, and I still don’t believe you now.

They stared at each other. There’d been a time when Lou had been taken in by his charm

Reviews for Summer

[blodeuedd_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I have been trying to write this review for an hour now, and I am struggling. See, there was this cliffie of doom. Oh those evil cliffies! I was all noooo! And then the book ended. So yes, evil cliffie alert for sure.

Poor Lou and Cooper. What a f:ed up town! Everyone hates Cooper, and I am all f u guys! Why the hate!? Poor Cooper :/ Not to mention that in a few months he will turn into a coyote and never be human again. Poor Cooper, that is all I gave to say.

And Lou, poor Lou too! Stuck in the middle of a curse. There has to be the witches, the watchers and the poor cursed ones. I would just say screw you all and go. But then she loves Cooper and she is trying to save him. Trying to find out more about the curse, all while avoiding those darn watchers.

Right, the baddies, arghh Archer, hate him, arghh Christoper, his brother, I hate him more.

And then the end come. After having rushed around (Lou) and Cooper becoming sadder the end came with a bang, and now I need more at once.

I do like this YA series :)