Bent, Not Broken, page 1
BENT, NOT BROKEN
THE HYBRID OF HIGH MOON - 4
RICK GUALTIERI
COPYRIGHT © 2022 RICK GUALTIERI
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of authors’ rights is greatly appreciated.
All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.
Cover by www.damonza.com
Published by Freewill Press
Visit the author at:
www.rickgualtieri.com
* * *
Listen to Rick on the Authors & Dragons Podcast:
www.authorsanddragons.com
Thank you to my awesome crew of beta readers – Jeramie, Paul, Tom, Zackery, Chris, Trevor, and Eric – for helping me polish this book.
An extra special shoutout of thanks to Anthony, for hammering me with tons of questions about this story – some of which forced me to walk away from my PC until I could come back with a satisfactory answer that was better than, “MAGIC!”
CONTENTS
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue
Bonus Chapter
Author’s Note
About the Author
PROLOGUE
BEFORE
“We shouldn’t have done that.”
Lissa McGillis, future Queen of the Monarchs, looked up from the floor of the forest clearing at the blood moon high above – seeming to stare down at her accusingly like the baleful eye of an angry goddess.
Her clothing lay in tatters around her, forming a bed upon the soft grass in which she and the wolf had just finished...
Don’t think about it.
The glade was still alit with power from her interrupted ritual, the energies of this place more potent than she’d ever dared imagine.
How on Earth did this happen?
“You may have a point there,” the man next to her said. He was naked, too – the remains of his jeans, torn apart as he’d transformed, interspersed with the shredded remnants of her ceremonial robe. “That was definitely ... something.”
Yes, it was. She quickly pushed that thought away, though, the afterglow of their union starting to fade, albeit not as quickly as she would’ve preferred.
It was insane. Just minutes before it happened, they’d been trying to kill each other. Him, a young alpha wannabe from the Morganberg mutt pack, and she, daughter of the Draíodóir matriarch – destined to one day succeed her mother as their coven’s leader.
She’d scried this place of power, this sacred glade that lay deep within the pack’s territory. Though she knew it was risky, she’d decided to seek it out on this special night when the blood moon hung high in the sky. Though there were thin spots within Crescentwood – the Draíodóir stronghold two towns to the west, past the neutral buffer of High Moon – they were nothing like this glade.
Here, one could practically feel the divine presence of Queen Brigid, her people’s patron.
As she’d conducted the ritual, though, hoping to strike an accord with an outsider from a higher plane, he had shown up instead.
Under other circumstances, she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill him. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tangled with members of the Morganberg pack before. For some reason, however, she’d given him time to speak instead of outright attacking him. Maybe it was the glade’s power or the headiness of the lunar event, but she’d allowed him to goad her, mocking her with a sarcastic wit that was sophomoric at best.
Either way it had worked, raising her ire and causing her to be sloppy once the battle was inevitably joined.
From there, things had taken an unexpected turn. The fight had seesawed between the two combatants, fanning the fire in both their bellies until a slight miscalculation on her part found her pinned beneath the beast – both of them winded from the effort. She’d expected to be torn apart, refusing to look away as he stared down at her – willing to accept an honorable death as one worthy of her lineage should.
Except he hadn’t killed her. Instead, he’d held her gaze for several long seconds until finally changing back to his human form. From that point onward their struggle became one of an entirely different nature.
The strangest part was, she hadn’t fought it at all. Hell, she’d been an active participant, eagerly taking all he had to give and more.
Face it, Lissa. You just fucked a werewolf and liked it.
“So ... can I at least get your name, Princess?”
“Huh, what?”
He turned to look at her, making her acutely aware of how naked she was. “Your name. You Draíodóir do have those right? Or do you call each other made-up wizard names like Magic Wanda or maybe Sparkle Tits?”
“Sparkle Tits?” Her eyes narrowed and she found herself considering there might still be time to finish their battle.
“You can call me Curt by the way, if that matters.”
“It doesn’t,” she snapped. “And can you please look over there instead of at me?”
“Why?”
“Just ... because!”
He grinned, that same annoying easygoing smirk he’d used while goading her. “I see. Someone is embarrassed.”
“I am not.”
“Oh, yes you are, Princess Sparkle...”
“It’s Lissa! There. Happy now?”
He nodded. “That’s a pretty name.”
“Thank you,” she replied, looking away and hoping he didn’t notice the blush rising to her cheeks.
“And I suppose you’re okay looking, too ... for a witch.”
“What?!” She turned back toward him, heat rising to her face.
“Lighten up. My God, you are high strung.”
“I am not.”
“If you were any more high strung I could plop you over my lap and play a song on your ass.”
“Try it and see what happens.”
He chuckled. “I rest my case.”
She let out a long sigh before rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Oh Goddess, what have I done?”
“If you want a recap...”
“I don’t!”
“Hey, look on the bright side. At least we didn’t do it doggy style.”
Her eyes flashed with power causing him to flinch, albeit only slightly. “You are ... infuriating!”
“I hear it’s one of my better qualities.”
“Trust me, it’s not.” Lissa pushed herself to her feet, trying to cover her body with her hands before finally giving up. She spotted a piece of her robe, picked it up, and began to concentrate, clearing her frazzled mind and willing the power deep within her to the surface. “Mar a bha thu!”
The mutt eyed her suspiciously, no doubt thinking this was some sort of attack. However, a moment later, the remnants of fabric lying on the ground rose into the air and converged on the piece she held, fusing itself back together. The end result wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was good enough.
“Holy shit,” he cried as she dressed herself. “You can actually do that?”
She allowed herself a small bit of pride at the remark, much easier now that she was covered again. “It’s actually a pretty basic spell. It makes rudimentary repairs to objects that were recently damaged.”
“Didn’t look all that basic to me.”
“It actually is. I mean, usually it wouldn’t be able to fix anything more complex than a broken bookshelf.” She looked down at her robe, noting a few holes remaining. “But I guess it has a bit more juice in this place. Odd that I even thought to try it, but it just kind of popped into my head.”
“Huh. That’s interesting.”
“Like I said, it’s no big deal. It’s not like it can repair a junked car.” She fixed him with a stare. “Or a broken neck.”
“I choose to ignore that last comment. Anyway, I was more remarking on you getting the idea from out of nowhere. This glade, they say it does that to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to expl ain. Ideas, thoughts, they tend to pop into your head in this spot. Nelly claims she can hear it whispering to her.”
“Who’s Nelly?”
He ignored her question, though. “Most of my friends don’t even know about this place. Hell, I’ve only been out here a couple of times myself.”
That caught her attention. “Then why tonight?”
He stood up, looking down at the tattered remains of his jeans. “Hey, I don’t suppose that spell can fix my pants.”
“Answer my question or you can walk home naked.”
He folded his arms across his muscled chest. “Do you really think that would bother me?”
She tried her damnedest to meet his eyes, her face growing redder by the second. “I ... I’ve seen better.”
“Oh really? And how many have you seen?”
She sputtered for a moment, a mix of embarrassment and anger warring within her. This wolf had a way of knowing which of her buttons to push that almost bordered on the uncanny. It was infuriating, but at the same time she couldn’t deny it was a bit of a turn on, too. She was used to being unflappable in the face of adversity, to having the upper hand in not only power but the psychology of warfare as well.
Something about Curt was different, though, albeit that could have been attributed to him standing there naked, his body still glistening with sweat from their...
Oh, I give up!
It was the first time she could remember admitting defeat since being a small child, at least inside her own consciousness. It was also the first time she’d ever considered a member of the Morganberg pack by their name and not as merely some dumb beast.
Either way, she called forth her power again, mending his jeans as best she could, which, considering their prior ripped state, wasn’t all that different from how they’d first appeared.
“Much appreciated, Princess.” He hopped into them, finally covering himself up. “Oh, don’t look so disappointed. I can always take them off again if you...”
“No! I ... uh ... mean ... my question.”
“Oh, yeah. You wanted to know why I came out here.” The smirk dropped off his face and he appeared to grow thoughtful, a look she hadn’t seen on many mutts before. “I’m not entirely sure. Call it instinct or maybe intuition. I wasn’t even planning on being in the hollows tonight. Hell, I was supposed to be at the shop helping my brother pull an engine block, but then I got this feeling in my head like I needed to be here.”
This place, did it call to him like it called to me?
Lissa wasn’t sure what, if anything, that meant. It could have simply been a stupid coincidence for all she knew. But on a night with a blood moon hanging in the sky, a night when the walls between worlds were said to be at their thinnest? Somehow she didn’t think so.
But if it wasn’t coincidence then why had they both been drawn here ... other than for some sweaty, intense sex that is?
She wasn’t sure of anything right then. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She knew one thing. Despite her posturing, she felt no real desire to harm this man before her, enemy of her people or not.
All the fight had gone out of her. Although, she did have the vague feeling that if she were to stay there much longer the temptation for a repeat performance might become too great to resist.
Once was forgivable, easy to write off as an unforeseen side effect of their battle, but twice? That would be nothing more than base desire – between two races who weren’t meant to feel such things for one another.
“I ... should go.”
He nodded. “Yeah, we probably both should.”
“And we’ll never speak of this to anyone. I’m serious.” She’d meant it to come out as a threat, but it sounded more like a plea to her ears.
“Relax, Princess ... Lissa. Trust me. Much as I don’t regret what happened here, well, let’s just say my dad can’t know about it.”
“Wait, you don’t regret this?”
That smirk returned to his face. “Hell no. In fact, if I didn’t think you’d leave me hanging, I’d go for a high five.”
She let out a sigh and turned away. Men!
“Hey, do you ... um ... need a ride?”
“A ride?”
“Yeah. My truck’s parked not too far from here. It’s a straight shot from Crossed Pine Road through High Moon to the Crescentwood town line. I could drop you off there. It’d be a lot safer than skulking through the woods.”
She should have said no, told him she didn’t need his help, but for some reason she hesitated. “What about the guardian?”
“He won’t care if we’re just passing through. And if he does stop us, we can always say, I dunno, that we’re on a diplomatic mission or something.”
Amazingly, she found herself considering it, not looking forward to the long walk home. Sure, she could’ve used her magic to port herself back, but that would almost certainly not go unnoticed. The last thing she wanted to do was explain her absence this night, especially to her mother. “You’d do that for me?”
“I offered, didn’t I?”
“No tricks?”
She expected a smartass answer, but instead he turned serious. “I swear on Valdemar’s sacred blood, you will make it back to Crescentwood safely.” He paused before adding, “That’s not something we say lightly by the way.”
She nodded, flattered. Though she didn’t know the ways of the mutt’s heretic god, she understood enough to know he was important to them. “Fine. Then I accept.”
“You do?”
“Don’t act all surprised. It’s not like I was looking forward to the walk back.”
He nodded then gestured toward the southern end of the clearing. “This way then. Your chariot awaits, milady. Just ignore all the fast food wrappers on the front seat. Haven’t had a chance to throw them out.”
She let out another sigh but didn’t comment as she picked up her things.
“It’s not all that late,” he said once she was finished. “We could grab some takeout, maybe rent a copy of The Princess Bride if you’re still interested.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Hey, I’m just saying.”
Lissa stopped at the edge of the clearing, sparing one last look up at the blood moon. She smiled despite vaguely regretting not finishing her ritual, unaware that destiny had already reached out and graced her with its touch.
1
PRESENT DAY
“Time check.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? Do you see a watch on my wrist ... or any way to put one there for that matter?”
“Nobody likes a negative Nancy,” I replied.
“Well, we had at least two and a half hours when we left, but somebody had to go and get lost on the way, even though it’s only a few miles.”
“I didn’t realize the back roads out here were such rat mazes.”
“You should’ve brought your phone, like I said.”
“Can’t. Mom might be tracking me.”
“Seriously, Bent?” Riva replied, as we continued to sneak across an unkempt field overrun with dead brush. Well, okay, I was sneaking. There was no reason for her to since she was currently a ghost. “You really think she’s checking on you twenty-four seven?”
“Probably ... maybe.”
Okay, fine, she might’ve had a point. Even so, last time I’d talked to Mom she’d read me the riot act. My little detour to Providence County, Ohio had not gone unnoticed. The sorcerer in charge of the coven there had been somewhat less than receptive upon our arrival, much less so when I requested to be shown their holy glen, as they called it – a spot where the walls between worlds were thinner than normal.
