Wolf Shield: Guardians of Chaos, #1

By C.D. Gorri

Tossed into a fight between supernaturals, the human woman is about to get got unless he steps in.

 

Hudson Stormwolfe is a Wolf Shifter and a Guardian of Chaos. Fergie McAndrews is a typical normal with an atypical obsession for shoes. Tossed into a fight between supernaturals, the human woman is about to get got unless he steps in.

Her voice, her scent, her smile, all call to his inner Wolf. Ready or not, this Guardian has found his fated mate. But can he save the fiery redhead from harm and convince her that she belongs to him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.D. Gorri
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201904876

Book preview

Wolf Shield

Wolf Shield

Guardians of Chaos 1

C.D. Gorri

C.D. Gorri

Wolf Shield

Guardians of Chaos Book 1

by C.D. Gorri

Edited by BookNookNuts

Copyright 2020, 2022 C.D. Gorri, NJ

To all the freethinkers and the people not afraid to get messy, keep on creating, the world needs you.

Xoxo,

C.D.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, places, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either part of the author’s imagination and/or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights are reserved. No part of this book is to be reproduced, scanned, downloaded, printed, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of any materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Guardians of Chaos Pledge

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

P.S

Beware… Here Be Dragons!

Have you met the Barvale Clan Bears?

Other Titles by C.D. Gorri

Excerpt from Purrfectly Mated

Excerpt from Bound by Air

Excerpt from Shifter Mountain by C.D. Gorri

Excerpt from Fangs For Nothin’ by C.D. Gorri

About the Author

Description

She’s a normal caught in a supernatural war, and he’s the only man who can save her.

Hudson Stormwolfe is a Guardian of Chaos. His order is tasked with keeping magic free to ensure the flourishment of supernaturals through innovative thought and creativity without fear of persecution.

But there are those who wish to put a cap on freedom. A group called the Loyalists have sworn themselves enemies of the Guardians and all they stand for. They want the power to control all magic.

Fergie McAndrews is a typical normal with an atypical obsession for shoes. Her no nonsense attitude has gotten her in trouble with previous employers, but she is determined to make this new job work. She even goes so far as to put in overtime.

But what was with the creepy green goons who wanted to take a bite out of the pleasantly plump female? Tossed into a fight between supernaturals, the human woman is about to get got until he steps in.

Storm can’t help but be drawn to the curvy female. Her voice, her scent, her smile all call to his inner Wolf. Ready or not, this Guardian has found his fated mate, but can he save the fiery redhead from harm and convince her she belongs to him?

Storm will do anything to claim his mate, even promise to keep her in the ridiculously expensive shoes she favors.

Guardians of Chaos Pledge

I am the watcher in the storm.

I am the iron shield.

I protect against those who seek to control the wild nature of magic.

I am the guardian of chaos.

To thrive, we must be free.

From chaos comes creation.

Prologue

W hy are we traipsing through the fucking swamp to meet your so-called contact, Fur? Hudson Stormwolfe, or Storm as he was known, growled at his friend and fellow Guardian, a goddamn coffee shop wouldn’t do?

The Horse Shifter snorted as Storm stepped in a hole cursing quietly as a trickle of slimy sludge slipped inside his once clean steel-toed boots.

Oh, you are going to scrape these clean, he shot at Furio.

Dude, just watch your step, Furio retorted making a show of how easily his long legs ate up the muddy landscape.

Fuck him, snarled Storm’s Wolf. Trudging through the muck was not his animal’s idea of a good time. Give him a dense, clean forest any day. Storm only agreed to accompany Furio because Kingston told him to go.

Their leader could be a hard ass at times, but no one fucked with the Dragon Shifter just lately. Not because they were afraid, but for other reasons. Losing one’s mate could really fuck a guy up inside. Besides, Storm had liked Neela, may she rest in peace for eternity.

Damn the Loyalists. Those bastards were nothing more than terrorists and fanatics attacking supernatural creatures and hoarding magic for their own nefarious purposes. They wanted to control and siphon out the one thing every supernatural needed to live with their leaders as the gatekeepers. That thing was of course magic itself.

Loyalists believed that common folk had no business accessing magic. They wanted to keep it for the elite, the wealthy, and basically anyone who did what they said. They were nothing more than pirates and madmen as far as Storm was concerned.

They had been around for nearly as long as the Guardians of Chaos. Storm was proud to call himself a Guardian. He was more than able and willing to do his part to ensure freedom for all supernatural-kind.

Even after all this time, those bastards still failed to gain the momentum necessary to achieve their goals. Their terroristic acts were the stuff of nightmares. Especially this latest attack on the Guardians’ leader. The heinous crime was without precedent.

It still left a bad taste in Storm’s mouth. He gritted his teeth as his mind still tried to take in the fact she was gone. Neela Baldric, the beloved mate of their once fearless leader, was brutally attacked while on her way to the supermarket.

The gentlewoman was a rare and precious creature and was mated to his superior, Kingston Baldric, for many years. She’d only just succumbed to her wounds a few months ago, leaving all of them bereft of her company, but none so much as Kingston.

We all miss her, bro, Furio said, and Storm realized he’d been projecting.

Fuck. He hated it when he did that. Though truthfully, it wouldn’t have mattered. Furio felt her loss as well. Everyone in Kingston’s group of Guardians felt the loss keenly.

These kinds of terroristic acts were the new tool the Loyalists used to persuade mainstream paranormal society to their way of thinking. Blackmail, bribery, murder, mayhem, all elements of destruction that this so-called law-abiding organization stooped to in order to fulfill their aims.

Not on his watch, Storm vowed to himself. It was his job and that of all the Guardians to stop those bastards and ensure freedom for their kind.

Sorry, Storm muttered, still, we had to meet in a fucking swamp, Furio?

What swamp, bro? We’re in Secaucus, Furio opened his arms wide and gestured to the thick, musty smelling wetland they were currently stalking through.

It was just a little past ten o’clock at night, but summer in the Garden State meant hot and sticky. Especially in that small portion of undeveloped marshlands. Storm growled when his foot sank yet again, ankle-deep, into another muddy hole.

Goddamn it, he grimaced, and slapped his friend in the back of the head. Then he counted to three like he’d been told to do by another of their own, Egros, a male Witch who thought the Wolf Shifter would have better control if he could simply manage his anger.

Yeah. Right. The hell with counting. He was going to kick Furio’s ass when they were done here.

Half the fucking state is a swamp, Storm growled, shaking the muck off his foot, I thought you were born here?

"I was. Born and bred in Hoboken, cumpy."

What?

Nothin’ man, just some local slang from when I was a kid. Anyway, you’re shittin’ me right, New Jersey isn’t a swamp, snorted the Stallion Shifter.

Storm rolled his eyes and blew out a breath. What was he going to do with this guy? Thirty years as a Guardian, and Furio was still a rookie to Storm, who’d spoke his vows over a hundred years ago this past April.

As a Wolf Shifter, he had a longer than average life expectancy, which had only increased when he’d pledged his allegiance to serve all the supernatural creatures living on this planet as a Guardian. He’d fought too many battles to count, but the work was meaningful. Protecting freedom always was.

It had been the same for his grandfather, who’d raised him just outside the boundaries of the Pack where his father still ruled as Alpha. His older brother was the heir which usually meant younger brothers were ousted or had to challenge for positions in the Pack. Rather than stay and fight for his dominance in the place of his birth, he’d left.

Storm respected tradition, but he had had a higher calling to serve. The Guardians of Chaos were an elite order of supernaturals. The higher ups did not want it said they were showing favoritism to any specific Pack, Clan, Coven or what have you, so they composed each unit of a mix of supes. It took years to build the kind of team Storm was a part of.

Furio might be considered new, but he was still one of them. So fine, maybe Storm wouldn’t kick his ass outright, but he could best him in training. That would satisfy both his Wolf and human sides.

Did you hear Kingston has a meeting with the Assembly next week to discuss Neela’s passing? Furio spoke in a low voice, but with his supernaturally enhanced senses, Storm heard him just fine.

I did. The Assembly, are all former Guardians, they will understand Kingston’s loss and will likely support his call to mount a hunt for the Loyalist who’d ordered the hit, Storm responded.

We’re not Enforcers, Storm. Their job is to police the paranormal peoples of the earth, not ours. Guardians of Chaos don’t promote actual chaos, right? asked Furio, and he was right to a point.

Look, we are called Guardians of Chaos, because from chaos, aka freedom, comes creativity. If we lose that, we perish. A Guardian is the ultimate protector of free thought, and therefore, the champion of creation itself. Neela was a cherished female and Kingston’s to protect and to avenge. We might not understand what it is like to be mated, Furio, but he has rights and this did happen because of our war, Storm responded.

All for magic? Neela was killed so the Loyalists could control magic? How would that even happen?

No, she was killed to break us. Without our leader, the Loyalists hope to win whatever scheme they are hatching and believe me, they are always plotting something. Whoever controls magic, controls us all, he grunted.

The way Storm understood it, magic was a finite thing, like ore, it was distributed organically, used, and recycled by each supernatural group as needed. The ancient ones, gods, goddesses, or what have you created magic out of chaos for each paranormal species to grow and take shape.

What would they do, if they had it all? Furio asked.

What’s with all the fucking questions? growled Storm.

It was not for any one of them to control the others’ usage of this gift. It went against their very nature as magical creatures.

Storm understood this. It was why he’d never looked back after leaving the Black Moon Pack to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. With his father still ruling and his brother as heir, his life there would have been difficult to say the least.

He was too dominant. More so than his old man, yet the tradition dictated that the second son could not be Alpha.

Leaving was his only option, and his grandfather had ensured that he had all the knowledge he needed before his time came. Storm had joined the crusade against those who sought to rule over the entire supernatural world before he was old enough to vote. He knew his duty was no longer to Pack, but to his band of Guardians.

Which was why he was wading through the last thick patch of swampland left undeveloped in Secaucus, New Jersey, home of the best outlet shopping this side of the Hudson River for which he was named, at the behest of one of his own.

Fucking Furio.

"Sorry, cump, talking helps pass the time. Anyway, my CI prefers to be away from prying eyes, you know he’s part Goblin, and more than a little skittish."

Yeah, well, what news does he have, anyway?

He thinks he found the Loyalists’ new headquarters. It was too good a tip to pass up. He’s supposed to have the GPS coordinates for me tonight.

Shit. That is important. But he couldn’t have texted them?

Nah, Furio shook his head, causing his long hair, which was bound in a leather thong to sway side to side, mimicking that of his shifted form.

He stopped to touch one of the long overgrown cattails they’d passed, and Storm stilled in his tracks, wondering if he heard something. Like a woman breathing or humming or something. But how could that be? They were in the middle of nowhere. Furio dropped the cattail and turned toward the soft, and admittedly pleasant, vocals.

Hey, you hear that? Furio asked.

Storm raised his hand to quiet the other man. His Wolf was at full attention. A warm breeze blew in their direction, and he breathed it in deep siphoning through the various layers, hoping to identify whatever made that sound.

Along with the heavy scent of the dense and decaying vegetation, came another, lighter, much more pleasant fragrance. It sifted through Storm’s highly acute olfactory system, teasing and tempting his senses. Whatever it was, Storm wanted more.

His Wolf’s ears worked to zero in on the source of both the sounds and the tantalizing fragrance that seemed too soft, too fine for the misty marshlands of Secaucus, New Jersey.

It’s like brown sugar and marzipan, he murmured as the sweet fragrance danced across his senses, like something out of a dream.

What? laughed Furio, but he ignored the Stallion.

He knew better than to go traipsing off after a phantom scent, but there was something about it. Something all too tempting and familiar. Storm’s Wolf perked up. He