Chapter One AMERICAN WEREWOLVES: HOUNDS OF THE BASKERVILLES Thorne I’ve spent centuries searching for a way to rid myself of the Darkness’s clutch. I thought I’d found it when I met Amelia Reed, a sprite who is immune to the blackness that drags me down. But I was wrong. So wrong. Amelia is not my salvation. She’s my downfall. I’ve loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her, but I suppose that was inevitable. I can’t be near a sprite without feeling a pull toward her. It’s one of the Fey’s many gifts, or curses, depending on how you look at it. And in Amelia’s case, it’s definitely a curse. She is a prize that every creature in the realm will fight to possess. But she will never be his. Not if I have anything to say about it. Thorne The whole place reeked of rot and decay. The walls were blackened with soot, and the rooms were filled with cobwebs and dead bugs. Shadows clouded every corner, skulking like monsters in the dark. Because they were monsters. Shadow wolves. They’d found me. I’d spent the past two months hiding in this place, hoping to evade their detection. I’d chosen the old, abandoned house because it was far away from the cities and towns, nestled deep in the mountains where no one would think to look for me. But the shadow wolves had found me anyway. I eyed the door at the other end of the room and tried to remember where I’d hidden my sword before fleeing through it. Just past that door was the only window on this floor, and beyond that was a long drop to the ground below. If I could get out that window, maybe I could scale down the side of the house and disappear into the night. Maybe I could find a new place to hide, a new place to run. A new place to die. I shook my head, trying to clear away the miasma of hopelessness. No. I couldn’t think like that. I had to keep going until I couldn’t anymore. That was my only option. A low growl drew my attention back to the doorway, and I saw two yellow eyes staring at me from around the corner. Another growl, deeper and more menacing this time. The wolves were getting closer. I looked around the room once more, desperate for anything that could help me escape this place. My gaze landed on a workbench in the corner, and I hurried over to it, scanning the surface for anything that might be of use. There was an old knife, rusty and dull from years of disuse. A few nails and screws lay scattered across the surface of the workbench, along with a couple of tools that were too big to be of any use as weapons. But then my gaze landed on something else, something that made my heart race with hope. There, tucked away in a corner of the workbench, was a small iron box. I reached out for it, hoping against hope that it was what I thought it was, that it hadn’t been tampered with or destroyed by time. My fingers closed around the box’s cool metal surface, and I pulled it toward me. The latch clicked open easily, and I lifted the lid just as a massive black wolf lunged at me from across the room. Amelia I am alone. I am the last one left.

Mar 8

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Chapter One

AMERICAN WEREWOLVES: HOUNDS OF THE BASKERVILLES

Thorne

I’ve spent centuries searching for a way to rid myself of the Darkness’s clutch. I thought I’d found it when I met Amelia Reed, a sprite who is immune to the blackness that drags me down. But I was wrong. So wrong.

Amelia is not my salvation. She’s my downfall.

I’ve loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her, but I suppose that was inevitable. I can’t be near a sprite without feeling a pull toward her. It’s one of the Fey’s many gifts, or curses, depending on how you look at it.

And in Amelia’s case, it’s definitely a curse.

She is a prize that every creature in the realm will fight to possess. But she will never be his. Not if I have anything to say about it.

Thorne

The whole place reeked of rot and decay. The walls were blackened with soot, and the rooms were filled with cobwebs and dead bugs. Shadows clouded every corner, skulking like monsters in the dark.

Because they were monsters.

Shadow wolves. They’d found me.

I’d spent the past two months hiding in this place, hoping to evade their detection. I’d chosen the old, abandoned house because it was far away from the cities and towns, nestled deep in the mountains where no one would think to look for me. But the shadow wolves had found me anyway.

I eyed the door at the other end of the room and tried to remember where I’d hidden my sword before fleeing through it. Just past that door was the only window on this floor, and beyond that was a long drop to the ground below. If I could get out that window, maybe I could scale down the side of the house and disappear into the night. Maybe I could find a new place to hide, a new place to run.

A new place to die.

I shook my head, trying to clear away the miasma of hopelessness. No. I couldn’t think like that. I had to keep going until I couldn’t anymore. That was my only option.

A low growl drew my attention back to the doorway, and I saw two yellow eyes staring at me from around the corner. Another growl, deeper and more menacing this time.

The wolves were getting closer.

I looked around the room once more, desperate for anything that could help me escape this place. My gaze landed on a workbench in the corner, and I hurried over to it, scanning the surface for anything that might be of use.

There was an old knife, rusty and dull from years of disuse. A few nails and screws lay scattered across the surface of the workbench, along with a couple of tools that were too big to be of any use as weapons.

But then my gaze landed on something else, something that made my heart race with hope. There, tucked away in a corner of the workbench, was a small iron box.

I reached out for it, hoping against hope that it was what I thought it was, that it hadn’t been tampered with or destroyed by time. My fingers closed around the box’s cool metal surface, and I pulled it toward me.

The latch clicked open easily, and I lifted the lid just as a massive black wolf lunged at me from across the room.

Amelia

I am alone.

I am the last one left.

All my life, I’d felt as if I were the only one of my kind, the only one who saw the world the way I did. But now I knew it was true. I was the last remaining sprite in this entire realm.

But even as the knowledge settled like a stone in my chest, I refused to believe the words of the woman who’d spoken them. The woman who was not a woman at all, but a monster.

I am a monster.

I am your only hope.

The memory of her words made me shudder, and I forced myself to take a deep breath—to push all thoughts of her away.

But it was no use. My mind was crowded with memories of the past few days, memories that kept playing over and over again in my mind. The images were a jumbled mess: the strange, shadowy woman who claimed to have known me; the pain of my changing body; Thorne, his eyes black with desire, his hands on my body.

His hands on my body, my hands on his body, our bodies moving together in that dark, cold place, so far from the world I’d once known.

I hadn’t meant to go to him. I hadn’t meant to let things go so far. But after the attack, I hadn’t been thinking straight. I’d needed him, needed his touch, needed… something. And in that moment, he had needed me, too.

Amelia?

My head snapped up at the sound of my name. A second later, a figure stepped out of the trees and into the clearing where I stood, a figure that was both familiar and strange.

Thorne Blackwood. The man who had upended my life just a few days ago.

The man who had taken everything from me.

Thorne