Havoc

By Mary Lindsey

For the first time in his life, Rain Ryland belongs. He’s found a home with the wolf shifters of New Wurzburg and is no-holds-barred in love with Friederike Burkhart, their soon-to-be alpha. But the ascension to power is never easy for a new alpha, and challengers will come from an unlikely source—and bring into jeopardy not just Freddie’s position as alpha but her blooming relationship with Rain.

Rain has never shied away from a challenge—or a fight. And he’s ready to fight like hell for the woman he loves. But then a vision shows him that the biggest challenge of all to Freddie isn’t to her alpha status but against her life...and he’s the one who delivers the killing blow.

The Haven series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Haven
Book #2 Havoc

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Apr 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781640634176

Book preview

For Shawna Stringer

Prologue

Blood, as dark as the sins of her ancestors, ran in rivulets down the blade of the machete clutched tightly in the girl’s hands. With wary, birdlike movements, she stepped over a decapitated body and turned a defensive circle in the middle of the junkyard, her long skirt tangling in the knee-high weeds.

He’d been surprised to find her fighting alone, and even more surprised that she’d defeated both of the reanimated corpses by herself. She was stronger than she looked, which was not a surprise. If there was anything he’d learned over the course of the last nine years, it was that nothing was as it appeared.

As if sensing his presence, she looked over the top of the rusted-out hull of an abandoned refrigerator and squinted up the hill in his direction. Reflexively, he flinched and lowered his binoculars. Even if she could see this far, he was obscured by the heavily tinted windows of the rental car. He’d been told she didn’t have the gift of foresight, so there was no way she could know what was happening or why.

He lifted the binoculars again.

Narrow shoulders rose and fell with her rapid breaths as she lowered the tip of the weapon to the dirt. With a black, lacy sleeve, she wiped at the blood splattered across her face. He wondered if her peculiar, anachronistic clothing was an intentional homage to those who had come before her, or if it was instinctual—a need buried deep in her DNA that reached into the past for a bond with the older, stronger magic.

Something to her right pulled her attention from his black car on the hill, and she spun to face it.

Round two, he whispered as another corpse crashed through the fence at the far end of the field. The girl’s people called these creatures revenants—the dead animated by residual magic still present in the body after burial. The magic weakened over time, so for his purpose, the fresher the better. This one had been a woman and recently interred. It would be aggressive.

With arms that looked too frail to wield the heavy blade, the girl lifted the machete. She didn’t rush the revenant but instead remained planted solidly in place, weapon raised, waiting for it to come for her.

He turned the dial on the top of the binoculars to tighten the focus and smiled as the girl’s eyes widened with horror and recognition as the revenant neared.

Ah, family reunions are so poignant. His heart rate escalated, and he licked dry lips.

The girl took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes as the revenant, wearing a tattered beige dress covered in filth and gore, staggered toward her, its grisly, rotting arms outstretched.

It troubled him that the girl hadn’t asked someone for help. It had been three days since the first revenant rose. He’d expected her to have multiple witches from her coven and half of the werewolf pack whipped into a murderous frenzy by now. But it appeared she was going it alone and hiding the attacks from others, which wouldn’t do at all.

A civil war required several essential components: a threat to financial stability, a sense of imperiled group identity, a disparity between groups’ rights, and an overt act of aggression from one side toward the other to incite chaos.

He lowered the binoculars and leaned back against the leather seat as the girl cleanly lopped off the head of her dear, recently departed Aunt Gertrude.

With a disappointed sigh, he slid the binoculars into their case and snapped it closed.

Below, in the junkyard, the girl pulled the decapitated body through the long grass, then stuffed it into the old refrigerator hull. After pitching the head in, too, she slammed the door and leaned back against it, catching her breath.

He’d underestimated her. It wasn’t his fault, he assured himself. His plan had only been as good as the information given him, which in this case was clearly inadequate. He’d been told she was weak. He’d also been told she was close to the younger members of both the pack and the coven.

Why didn’t you tell them? he wondered out loud as she wiped the blade of her machete on the grass and headed toward the gate at the far end of the dilapidated fence surrounding the field.

Since she had chosen to go this alone, he was clearly in need of a different strategy, which, of course, he had.

The machete disappeared into the folds of her skirt as she strode out of the junkyard, most likely to return to her home nestled safely among humans.

With a grimace, he texted the number he’d hoped to never use again. As the proverbial they always said, desperate times called for desperate measures, and at this point, he was desperate. He’d been given explicit instructions. In order for the plan to work, a trial, conviction, and execution were essential. Nothing would wreak havoc like a good, old-fashioned witch burning.

Chapter One

Damn, she’s hot, Rain thought as Freddie prowled toward him between the rows of cherry-red Formica-topped dining tables. She was wearing her usual torn jeans and faded band T-shirt—The Grateful Dead this time. Her fluid movements made his heart kick up a couple of notches. Flipping her long, brown hair over her shoulder, she slid into the booth seat opposite him. He inhaled deeply through his nose, taking in the familiar, salty smell of grass and Freddie he’d grown to crave. Even after almost five months together, she pushed his needle into the red zone every time he saw her.

She ran her fingers through her tangled hair, and let out a sigh. Merrick’s acting weird.

No surprise there. Weird was relative in New Wurzburg. On the surface, it looked like a tiny, peaceful, friendly town in the Texas Hill Country. But underneath that calm, welcoming facade, there existed a deadly magical world, right under its human residents’ noses.

Freddie’s cousin, Merrick, was a wolf shifter called a Watcher; so were Rain and Freddie. Watchers protected the local coven of witches, known as Weavers, when they wove spells. Weavers could literally weave magic into fabric and other materials with thread. Some Weavers had freakish talents like seeing the future and the ability to make people do or feel things.

Before Rain had come to New Wurzburg, he’d never believed in magic. He’d also never believed in the existence of supernatural beings. Now he was one, which still blew his mind.

Rain reached to yank a paper napkin out of the dispenser on the table, and, as usual, a hunk of them came out instead of only one. The napkin crinkled when he reached across the table and wiped a dirt smudge from her face. Their eyes locked for a moment, and she leaned into his touch. Dropping the napkin, he gently brushed his thumb over her bottom lip, reveling in the way she sighed and how her expression softened at his touch. He loved this side of Freddie that she kept hidden under her hard exterior. Because she was the Watcher pack’s Alpha—well, at least she would be, after her official installment on the solstice next week—she had to present a fierce, unbreakable image, hiding the soft, caring side only he got to see. He pulled a twig out of the ends of her hair. Obviously, she’d shifted into her wolf skin recently, which puzzled him. Maybe it had to do with her cousin.

How’s Merrick acting weird? he asked.

He’s sneaking out and not telling anyone where he’s going, she said.

Merrick was seventeen and had a thing for a Weaver girl named Petra. Sneaking out didn’t seem weird to Rain at all. He’s been doing that for a while, he said, taking a sip of Coke.

The waitress, a middle-aged woman wearing a scratched plastic name tag that said Mildred, stopped at their booth and asked, What’ll it be, Friederike?

A cheeseburger—

Yeah, I know, Mildred interrupted. Cooked rare with curly fries and a chocolate shake. She pushed her large, smudged glasses up on her nose with her pinky finger and stared at Rain. You want chicken tacos with jalapeños and extra tomatoes. Without waiting for a response, she wandered off to the only other occupied table in the place to drop off a check.

Why does she even bother to ask? Freddie grumbled, wedging their menus into the metal rack at the far end of the booth.

Rain’s Aunt Ruby had told him that Mildred had worked in the Lone Star Diner since Ruby was a little girl, which meant since the place had opened decades ago. Things never change around here, Aunt Ruby had said. Only that wasn’t entirely true. Some things were changing fast around here. Things that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Things humans thought only existed in horror movies or nightmares.

Things like him and Freddie.

I think Merrick’s up to something. Freddie ran her finger over a chip in the Formica on the edge of the table.

Trying to get laid? Rain suggested. It was clear Petra and Merrick had something going on, but they kept it on the down-low, so no telling how serious it was. For all Rain knew, it could just be a friendship. Petra was the Sealer for the Weaver coven. She sealed the magic into the bodies of dead Weavers and Watchers before burial so that the dead person’s power would seep slowly back into the finite pool of magic and not give everyone in the coven a jolt.

Merrick was from the Watcher pack, which meant dating Petra was taboo. Spell weaver and wolf shifter pairings were no-goes—not that taboos were ironclad. There were accounts of Weavers and Watchers hooking up stretching back centuries—though none of those he’d heard of had ended well—in fact, they’d ended terribly.

I followed him this morning. He didn’t meet up with Petra. He—

Food’ll be out soon, Mildred said, plunking a chocolate shake in front of Freddie.

She waited to continue until the waitress was out of earshot, driving Rain to the edge when she pulled the cherry on top of the whipped cream off its stem with her teeth. A low, involuntary rumble rose from his throat, but he stifled it immediately, glancing up to make sure no humans had noticed the inhuman sound. Mildred was the only one close enough to have heard, and she was obliviously ambling away from their booth. He exhaled in relief.

The world of Weavers and Watchers was New Wurzburg’s best-kept secret, which was impressive, considering the way secrets became public knowledge in small towns. When Rain had moved here five months ago, every single person, human or not, knew who he was before the first twenty-four hours had passed. Maybe the secrecy was possible because revealing to humans that the witches and werewolves were real and living among them carried a strict death sentence. Maybe it was also because humans tended to find logical explanations for things that defied logic, which, to Rain, seemed like a massive evolutionary flaw.

Once Mildred was far enough away, Freddie continued, Merrick didn’t meet up with Petra. He just hid in the bushes outside the funeral home, watching.

Petra’s family owned the Reinhardt Funeral Home and lived on the premises, something Rain found beyond creepy. He took a swallow of Coke. Maybe they were going to meet up, but she couldn’t sneak out or something. Her parents are assholes.

Maybe. She took a sip of her shake and stared absently out the window.

After a moment, Freddie’s brow furrowed, and then her eyes widened. Rain followed her stare out the window to the opposite side of the street, where four people were hanging out in the shade under the drugstore awning. Not that four people talking was a big deal, but Rain didn’t know any of them, which was a big deal in a town this size. Everyone knew who everyone else was. Even if they didn’t know what everyone else was.

There was an older man, maybe in his fifties, wearing khaki pants and a checkered shirt; a tall, skinny teen with her arms crossed over her chest like she was pissed off; a woman in a green dress, facing away, who had light-brown hair pulled back in a clip; and a tall guy with blond hair about Rain’s age. Texas Hill Country winery tourists, maybe? Early summer was high season.

The muscles in Freddie’s arms flexed, and her fingers dug into the side of the table. She sat straighter and narrowed her eyes as she studied the people across the street. The hackles on Rain’s neck rose in a prickly wave at her intensity. He’d only been a Watcher for a few months, but his instincts, which had been good as a human, were extraordinary since his change.

Rain was the only member of the New Wurzburg pack not born a Watcher. Instead, he had been transformed, thanks to an old Weaver named Helga Goff, who’d given him a belt woven with a spell that changed him into a wolf shifter after he’d been bitten by one. It was super-old magic, and evidently how the Weavers had created the original Watchers centuries ago in Germany. Converting a human to a Watcher wasn’t done much anymore except in extreme circumstances. In Freddie’s pack, there were more young males than females, but most of them were related to Freddie. She was supposed to declare a prospective mate on her ascension to Alpha, so an exception had been made in Rain’s case, even though it was dangerous and converted humans almost always died during the process. He’d been lucky.

A low growl rumbled from Freddie’s throat. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, took a picture of the people through the window, and texted someone. Then, she growled again as if she couldn’t contain the sound.

Yeah, something was way, way wrong. She perceived danger, which caused Rain’s wolf to rise just enough to amplify his senses of smell and hearing. In the kitchen, a pan slammed onto a counter, and whatever disinfectant had been used on the tables stung his nose. The couple at the other end of the restaurant were reading newspapers, and the sound of their breathing and papers rustling was as loud as if they were right next to him. Freddie had been born a shifter, so her senses were even stronger. As a converted human, Rain would never match her. And honestly, that was probably a good thing; he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the sensory overload.

What’s wrong? he asked, hating that he still knew so little of this new, magical world.

She squinted as she focused on the people across the street. Others. She spit the word out like it tasted bad. Our kind.

Her phone dinged. Eyes narrowed, she read the response, then shoved the phone back in her pocket while staring out the window at the strangers. The boys don’t know who they are.

The boys were her three cousins, Thomas, Kurt, and Merrick—also natural-born shifters, who’d recently graduated from high school, like Rain and Freddie.

Eyes still glued on the group across the street, Freddie added, I sent a pic of them to Uncle Ulrich, too. Maybe he’ll know who they are.

At that moment, the woman in the green dress glanced over her shoulder at the diner. A weird sensation of recognition pinged Rain’s brain, causing a chill to trickle down his spine, but he knew he’d never seen her before.

Freddie’s posture changed entirely, her shoulders rolling forward, her chin jutting out. He knew this position well, and it caused his heart to leap into his throat. He glanced around and let out a breath when he discovered no one inside the diner was watching them.

Stop, Rain whispered. You can’t shift here.

"I’m trying not to, she shot back through gritted teeth. Something’s wrong."

Do you want my charm? he asked, pulling the chain with a little glass bubble out of his shirt collar.

"Yeah. And I need to get out of here. Now."

In a matter of seconds, Rain slid his charm around her neck and pressed it to her bare skin under the collar of her shirt. He then pitched enough cash to cover their bill onto the middle of the table and helped her out of the booth.

Not the front door, she said. I can’t.

Can’t what? This wasn’t the time for talking. Her ears had begun to migrate to the top of her head—it would be imperceptible if he hadn’t memorized every inch of her—and she most certainly had some hair sprouting on her back, since that was the first phase of the shift. He had to get her out of here before things got out of hand.

Scanning the little diner, it appeared the only way out was the front door, but he knew there had to be a door at the back to load in supplies. He led her behind the counter and through a set of metal swinging doors. One cook, a guy with a beer belly wearing a ball cap and earbuds, was at the grill.

Sorry. She’s feeling sick, and our car is parked out back, Rain said, ushering her through the kitchen toward a door at the far end, hoping to hell the cook didn’t stop them.

The guy grunted and flipped a burger—probably Freddie’s—and then turned his back to them.

Once outside, Rain squinted in the afternoon sun, relieved the alley behind the diner was empty. Freddie panted, eyes closed, as she concentrated to maintain her human form.

What can I do? he asked.

She groaned and doubled over. Stopping a shift was painful. Call Grant. Tell him I need a new charm.

Grant was a Weaver their age who had just stepped into his father’s shoes as the coven member in charge of pack oversight. Among his family’s tasks was regulating the ratio of lavender to wolfsbane in the charms worn by Watchers that kept them from shifting accidentally. Wolfsbane repressed the wolf. Lavender softened wolfsbane’s harshness. The right combination worn close to the body helped keep the wolf comfortably suppressed under normal situations. Clearly, this situation wasn’t normal.

Rain shuffled nervously from foot to foot, never taking his eyes off of Freddie as his phone continued to ring in his ear. When the call rolled to Grant’s voicemail, he hung up and texted. Freddie groaned again, and he felt his own wolf stretch inside, unencumbered by the wolfsbane he usually wore around his neck.

The shift raged like fire right under the surface of his skin, traveling inward to heat his bones. He wouldn’t give in to the pull. Freddie needed him. He had to stay strong.

After a moment, she took a deep breath through her nose, still doubled over. Her shaking had stopped, and her ears had returned to normal. She’d done it. And with that, his own wolf melted into the background like magic. Well, it was magic.

It struck him at that point how attuned to her he was, and she to him. It had been like that from the moment he’d met her, and it had grown stronger with time. It seemed like years ago, rather than months. None of the other members of the pack called to his wolf like Friederike Burkhart did. None of them made him feel like he’d chugged a dozen Red Bulls when he saw them.

Petra, the Weaver who Merrick had been hanging out with, had told Rain that he and Freddie were fated to be together and nothing he could do would change that. The fact his wolf reacted so strongly to her was further evidence the witch was right. And Rain was totally cool with that. Since meeting Freddie, his life was better. He was better. In his time living on the streets in Houston, he’d never imagined having a home and people who loved him; yet here he was, living with his doting Aunt Ruby and paired up with the most amazing girl he’d ever met.

His muscles relaxed a bit as Freddie spit out the glass and fragments of lavender and wolfsbane on the parking lot pavement along with a little bit of blood. The chemicals had absorbed through the blood vessels in her mouth already, and they had clearly worked. She was going to be okay, and the humans none the wiser.

Damn, she said, straightening and twisting from side to side to relieve the cramps that came with transformation. Sorry about that.

His phone dinged, and, hesitant to take his eyes off her for long, he glanced down at the message and then back at her. Grant says to meet him at the hardware store. He’ll replace my charm and give you a stronger one.

Freddie pulled her phone from her back pocket and dialed with shaky hands. Hey, Uncle Ulrich. Did you get my photo?

She paced in a small circle in the parking lot behind the diner with her phone to her ear. The smells of the dumpster in the little alley running to the side street were so overwhelming to Rain’s sensitive shifter nose, he had to breathe through his mouth in order to not puke.

Freddie stopped pacing and went statue still, phone tight to her ear. Rain could hear Ulrich’s voice but couldn’t make out the words, even with his heightened hearing.

Yeah, okay, I promise, Freddie said, eyes closed tight while she listened. "I said okay. Her voice was harsh, and her entire body trembled. Just do it, okay? Do it quick."

Without a goodbye, she disconnected the call.

Do what? Rain asked.

Get those people out of my town. Uncle Ulrich said he’d get Chief Richter to round them up as soon as possible.

When he’d first met Freddie, she’d hidden things from him. She’d lied and covered up everything, including what she was. Since his transformation into a Watcher, he’d never known her to withhold the truth from him, and he knew she wouldn’t now. Their relationship was based on trust, something he’d never had before meeting Freddie. What did you promise him?

"To not kill them—her."

Rain’s stomach rolled over at the bitterness in her tone. The scent of aggression mixed with something else coming off her skin—fear, maybe? Who exactly did you promise not to kill? he asked, half dreading the