Crescent Vendetta

By Desiree Scott

Wolf-shifter Vanessa Burns has survived a life of brutality and neglect. Being kidnapped, drugged, and forced into an underground fighting right is just the beginning of one man's sick and twisted obsession.

Travis Kameron, the Alpha of the Crescent Ice Pack, suffering a similar fate; wakes up to find that his life is about to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kingston Publishing Company
• Release date: Mar 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645334330

Book preview

Chapter 1

Travis Kameron wasn’t used to feeling disorientated. He had mastered his control years ago, since becoming Alpha, but none of that training helped the feelings of confusion and fear that consumed him when he awoke in his wolf form on the concrete floor of a cage.

His legs shook as he struggled to stand. He barely felt himself fall, but when his head hit the cold concrete, a flash of pain shot down his spine.

He groaned, the sound rough and harsh in the silence of the room.

Flinching in pain, the room spun as he tried to open his eyes. Travis attempted to stand again, collapsing before he even made it onto his large paws. Another groan fought to break free as his parched throat tightened. Thinking was beyond his capabilities as he struggled to focus on his surroundings. His vision, usually enhanced by his wolf, was out of focus as he looked around at the enclosure surrounding him. It wasn’t much bigger than he was. The bars in front of him blurred the harder he tried to concentrate.

Everything was in a fog, his memory blank.

His limbs felt heavy as he lay panting on the hard ground.

Thankfully, it was cold; at least the chill soothed the weary ache from whatever the hell had happened. Again, he tried to take in the details of the silent room and worked to piece everything together. It looked like the inside of a warehouse of some kind.

Dozens of stacked, empty cages lined the bare walls of the large, rectangular area. A door was at the end of the narrow space between the set of crates. He noticed a few small windows high up near the ceiling. Black paint covered the glass, concealing everything inside but still allowing in a sliver of light from outside.

From the edge of his vision, Travis saw something move in the far corner about six cages from him and closer to the metal door in the middle. A low whine drifted toward him, and he stilled, zooming in on the occupant inside. He shook his head to clear his vision, which didn’t help and only made him dizzy. Slowly, he glanced around and saw they were the only ones within the cages.

Travis wondered if he had been drugged. It would explain his dulled senses and inability to stand up straight, but normal drugs wouldn’t affect a shifter. Their bodies just didn’t react in the same way a human’s would. So, whatever the combination of chemicals he was given, they were specially tailored for a shifter since they affected and incapacitated both sides of his dual nature.

Closing his eyes, he wished for the room to stop spinning as he battled to bring his human form to mind. He felt the pull as his muscles contracted, tightened, and bowed in the middle. His bones struggled to remold as the shift attempted to take over, but something stopped it. There was some type of a magnetic hold on his ability to shift, which kept his bones twisted into that of a wolf. Drugs had to be the only explanation.

Travis let the anger build, realizing that he, the Alpha of the Crescent Ice Pack, had been drugged. His rage boiled over as he struggled to stand again to no avail.

He hadn’t felt helpless in years, and a shiver of terror shot down his spine.

Vowing that those behind the crime would die, Travis collapsed back on his side and refocused his effort on pushing whatever they had drugged him with out of his system. Looking over at the still form in the other cage, he couldn’t even tell whether it was someone from his pack or not, and that terrified him, too.

Had they been ambushed?

The sound of his growl filled the silence, and the other form stirred slightly.

Whoever it was, they were alive.

Travis couldn’t think as his mind remained jumbled. He lay on the cold stone and took deep breaths; the musky scent of sweat, dirt, and blood filled his dulled senses. His stomach growled, and he wondered when he had last eaten. A small amount of light seeped in from the crack at the bottom of the door.

As he willed his wolf to heal faster, his memory returned in flickers and flashes as if a movie played in slow motion with foreign captions, confusing him further. Travis recalled the night, the full moon, the chase, and the metallic taste of blood that filled his mouth from his hunt

Thinking back, Travis remembered hunting with his pack, the cool air of the Oregon Mountains light and chilly with a bite in the air.

Images filtered in and out—the blur of the trees, the deer and rabbits running and escaping through the woods. The chase always got his blood pumping, the adrenaline rushing through him. Fleeting scents flashed through, but they were just quick impressions and dim possibilities of what had happened.

The smells…

He focused on the imprinted memories further and examined them as the cold from the concrete seeped into his fur, a welcoming chill against the hot flashes he was experiencing.

What had he smelled?

Travis remembered the aroma of something foreign. Another animal? No… It had been a shifter; they had a unique smell that both animals and humans lacked.

Had another pack ambushed him? Had he been the only one? Or were there more members of his pack somewhere in a cage?

There was only one pack he could think of that was hostile toward his in the past, but nothing had been brewing between the two of them for years. In fact, a tenuous truce had been in effect since the other pack’s last alpha had been killed during a coup led by his own son.

Thinking back, Travis remembered the feeling of being watched when he had stopped near a creek to drink and catch a breath.

Then…nothing…

A movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention again, which pulled him back from the fuzzy memories. His gaze shifted, narrowing as he watched as the other wolf struggled to gain its own feet.

Travis almost told him not to bother, that they had been drugged, but instead, he just observed the struggle.

The wolf stilled for a moment feeling Travis’s gaze but then resumed their attempt at standing, a normally simple feat that no doubt felt as if concrete blocks were attached to their legs.

Stunned, he observed as the petite wolf stood up, wavering only slightly on its feet. Leaning against the bars for balance, their chest moved vigorously with each breath inhaled until the small head lifted, and their gazes met, the eyes a dark blazing green.

The wolf was a female—white with a small build but with what looked like black or brown markings throughout her fur.

Growling, Travis’s wolf battled against the drug-induced bindings to give him back his abilities, but those shackles were set in stone, his system useless for the moment. As long as the drugs coursed through him, he couldn’t shift back to his human form. He tried to communicate with her through a telepathic link instead of continuing to fight his drugged state.

Can you hear me? he asked.

The other wolf tensed, and her eyes flashed a darker shade of green in the dim light, but she remained silent. He tried again.

I’ll take that as a yes. Do you know where we are?

Her glare remained solid as she refused to speak. Still leaning against the bars of her own cage, the rapid pace of her breathing had slowed down.

As an Alpha, most wolves bowed to his commands, their head tilted down and to the side, exposing their throat in submission. Well, with this one, it seemed she’d never received the damn memo on proper status protocol.

Wavering on his feet, the cage almost seemed to tilt as he lifted himself up to his full height, trying for a show of dominance. She must have been here longer than him to have gained a tolerance to the drugs for her to be able to stand first.

He started to say something else, but a sound coming from the metal door caused both to freeze, their eyes shooting over in the direction of the scraping. Almost as one, they lay back down and put their heads on the ground. Well, more like Travis crashed ungracefully back down to the hard floor. With little balance and his shifter essence out of whack, a loud thump came from his cage, and he lost his breath for a minute as he lay on his side, trying to slow his breathing.

Eyelids lowered to slits, Travis watched the door. He didn’t think he would have the strength to fight if he needed to. It wasn’t something he would bet on in his current condition, but at that moment, he didn’t have much choice.

Waiting for the moment to strike, his muscles tensed. He could feel a small dose of energy seeping back, the nerves in his legs tingling, but it wouldn’t be enough.

Come on. Come on… he chanted in his head.

Finally, the sound of voices drifted toward him, coming from the other side of the door.

What about these two? You think the drugs have worn off yet?

I don’t know. You guys go take a look while I dispose of this heavy bastard.

Yeah, I thought he would have lasted longer. A chuckle followed as heavy footsteps came toward them, then a jingle of keys. A creak came from the hinges of the metal door as it opened, letting in a larger stream of light from the hallway and the shadows of two men.

Travis closed his eyes and focused on keeping his body still and his breathing even. He didn’t have time to worry about the female. Those assholes weren’t getting another needle in him.

Waiting, his nose twitched as the footsteps came closer and seemed to stop next to where his head lay on the ground. Smelling the unwashed human on the other side of the cage made him want to gag.

He breathed in short breaths through his nose, almost choking with the urge to throw up as time blurred from seconds into minutes. The disgusting smell of onions and rotting food reached him as the second man moved closer, which only made it worse. At that moment, he was glad for his currently empty stomach and dulled sense of smell.

Finally, after what felt like forever, he heard the footsteps retreat as the men moved away, but Travis kept his eyes closed, his breathing even. Their repulsive scents still lingered around him, but it wasn’t as bad, and his stomach settled.

He heard the door creak open again and then slam shut, a loud click signaling the locks.

Taking a deep breath in, Travis opened his eyes and met the mesmerizing stare of the other wolf shifter. Her eyes held a cold, harsh glitter of rage that mirrored his own, and she still hadn’t spoken through their telepathic link, though he knew she could. What the hell was going on?

***

Vanessa Burns watched as the large brown wolf opened his blue eyes for the second time and met her gaze. He stood up again and swayed, using the metal bars for balance but thankfully didn’t try to communicate with her again.

Still weak from the drugs, it was a struggle to think, to move. Her wolf fought to push them through her system, but it wasn’t quick enough.

It was never quick enough.

Vanessa knew what awaited them once the assholes returned. Her arrogant companion had no idea. He wasn’t the first they had put in the cage in her area, and he wouldn’t be the last.

She had watched when they had dragged him inside the room, tossing him in the cage. Before leaving, they had shot her again with another dart, the sedative, and she had awoken to the other wolf trying to move. Used to the drug combinations, it hadn’t taken her long to get up on her feet and pretend she wasn’t hurting even though her last fight had been especially brutal. The wounds were healing at a slower rate, and her increased tolerance to the drugs meant they felt more painful.

It had been a brutal week with three fights. She usually only had to fight twice a week. She didn’t know how much longer she could survive. They were bringing in stronger shifters, and it was getting to be more of a challenge to survive and win.

Vanessa didn’t know how long it had been since her capture—months at least. It was difficult to track time since she was often sedated. She wondered if her pack was even looking for her anymore. She didn’t think so, not given her standing in the pack structure. They wouldn’t care one way or another. At this point, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for them to assume she had either run away or was dead. Most of them were no doubt glad she was gone.

She thought of her condition, her unborn baby or Pup as she’d nicknamed it, and struggled to control the urge that followed. She hadn’t really cried in years—not even with everything she’d been through here during her time in captivity, and she wouldn’t start now. To show any type of emotion in this hellhole was to invite death for them both. She couldn’t believe she had managed to conceal her condition. She figured that the drugs must have had something to do with it. What she refused to think about was what those same drugs could be doing to her unborn child.

Vanessa wondered if the drugs could have masked the scent of the hormone changes. The concoctions their captors came up with must have because wolves had an acute sense of smell and could easily tell when a female was pregnant, so it was the only conclusion she could make.

From her time here, she knew they had several different drug cocktails, which they used for different purposes. From what Vanessa could tell, there seemed to be four different drugs: a serum to prevent shifters from shifting into their human forms, a long-lasting sedative and painkiller that knocked them out after each fight, a fast-acting but short-lasting sedative, and then the last drug that reversed the drowsy effects of the others so they could fight well enough to put on a show.

Wondering if she would ever get to see her child alive, Vanessa knew her chances of surviving the upcoming battles were growing slimmer with every new injury she sustained. She was growing weaker, and the thought caused her eyes to burn.

Blinking furiously, she cleared her vision as she imagined her brother’s voice in her head whispering, Don’t concentrate on that, little sis. Live... Fight...

Being the sister of the Outlander Pack’s Alpha, Vanessa knew if there was one person still looking for her, it would be her brother, Aiden. He was the only one she could count on, and he wouldn’t rest until he found her. That was the only thing that had kept her going, kept her fighting. Her father, had he not been dead, wouldn’t have cared what happened to her, but her brother did.

Thank God Aiden had taught her to fight when she was a young teenager. He had insisted on training her after some of the pack’s more unscrupulous members tried to take advantage of her and her situation. Their father would always laugh and say boys will be boys, which had pissed Aiden off. Instead of killing them like he wanted, Aiden had instead taught her how to defend herself. It had paid off more than a handful of times, as was the case now.

Vanessa wondered if her brother would want anything to do with her once he discovered her pregnancy or the details surrounding it, and the thought depressed her further. Pacing the tiny cage she had called home for far too long, exhaustion pulled at her.

Her legs threatened to buckle beneath her, sending her to the concrete floor stained with her own blood. She forced herself to move back and forth, strengthening the muscles. She knew if she stopped, if her mind and thoughts flourished with memories of the past, it would topple her.

The fear would win.

She felt the male wolf watching her but ignored him as she paced, the drug haze wearing off.

A little bit longer. Just a little bit longer...

Who are you? he asked.

The deep growl came through, and she sighed at his persistence. She shot him a quick glare as she debated on whether to answer or not.

Vanessa knew one thing amidst their jumbled mess of a situation. He wouldn’t stop asking until she answered. He was an Alpha. Had to be. They had shot him with the same drugs, and in just a few hours afterward, he was standing. Even she hadn’t been able to do that. She had put up a hell of a fight during her capture, and her body had been weak and bloody as a result.

She wanted to curse.

Great. A fucking alpha.

Sure enough, she heard his deep voice filter through the connection that seemed to be getting stronger, his question repeated.

Who are you?

Growling, she paused in her pacing and shot another glare his way, finally answering, albeit unwillingly.

Vanessa. Now save your strength. You’re going to need it.

Name’s Travis. Why? What is this place?

Before she could respond, she heard the locks disengage, and her muscles tensed as the door opened. It wasn’t time yet, which meant…

One of her main guards, a tall man