Out of the Ashes Read online

  Out of the Ashes

  By Ari McKay

  Asheville Arcana

  In their differences, they’ll find strength—and love.

  Alpha werewolf Eli Hammond returns from a fishing trip to discover a nasty surprise—five members of his pack murdered and the rest missing. He needs help locating and rescuing his pack mates, but the supernatural council in Asheville, North Carolina, turns him away.

  Except for one man.

  As they work together, Eli is stunned—and not especially thrilled—to discover half-elf Arden Gilmarin is his destined mate. But as Arden and his friends struggle to help Eli in his quest, Eli surrenders to the demands of his body—and his heart. They’ll need to bond together, because the forces opposing them are stronger and more sinister than anyone predicted. The evil has its sights set on Arden, and if Eli wants to save his mate and the people he is entrusted with protecting, he’s in for the fight of his life.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  By Ari McKay

  Coming September 2017

  Don’t Miss Dreamspun Desires!

  Visit Dreamspinner Press

  Copyright

  “Green sister, there is a darkness on this forest, isn’t there?” he asked her gently. She nodded warily, and he smiled to reassure her. “I’m looking for it so that I and my friends can remove it. Can you point me in the direction of its source?”

  “South,” she told him, pointing in the direction they’d been heading. “Not far. Too close, for it makes my roots shrivel.”

  “It does?” Arden didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t let his trepidation show. “Is it coming from where the werewolves live?”

  “Close by there,” she replied. “They are gone, but the shadow remains.”

  “Gone?” That was a surprise. “When?”

  “Three suns ago.” She shivered, and the leaves of the oak rustled. “They walked beneath my branches on two legs, and where they brushed against me, it felt cold. So cold.”

  Arden stroked the trunk of the tree soothingly. “I’m sorry for your distress. You’re certain they’re all gone, though?”

  “Yes. There has been nothing moving in the forest. Even the birds and the other small creatures shun the area. We who cannot leave our trees are afraid it might worsen.”

  “I’ll do everything I can,” Arden promised. “Thank you, green sister.”

  The dryad faded back into her tree, and Arden frowned in concern as he looked at Eli. “I’m not sure what we’re going to find at that settlement, but it might be even worse than we thought. Do you want me to go on alone from here?”

  Eli studied Arden’s face intently before responding. “No, but I’ll trust your judgment.”

  Chapter One

  “EVENING, Arden. You want the usual?”

  Arden Gilmarin nodded at Gus, who both owned and tended bar at the Rainbow Room, Asheville’s favorite watering hole among the gay supernatural community. No matter how tired or stressed he was, the atmosphere in the bar helped Arden relax and unwind. The alcohol didn’t hurt either, of course, but Arden had wondered on more than one occasion if Gus paid someone in the local coven to keep a soothing charm on the place, since he’d never known of any fights in or around the bar, not even between factions of the community who didn’t always get along under the best of circumstances.

  Gus drew up a pint of a deep golden ale and passed it across the polished wood of the bar. “This one’s called ‘Waking the Dead,’” he said, then nodded toward the rear of the big, brightly colored room. “Your partner in crime is already here, in case you were wondering.”

  “Thanks, Gus.” Arden picked up the frosty glass and took a small sip, then smiled in pleasure as the rich, yeasty brew tickled over his palate. “This one’s a keeper, I think,” he said. He and his best friend, Whimsy Hickes, had a tradition of meeting at the bar on Wednesday nights to indulge in a pint or two—or more—of whatever local brew Gus had on tap. Asheville had a number of breweries, both magical and nonmagical, so there was always something new to try.

  He glanced around the bar, nodding to the regular patrons he knew. But he didn’t really want to get bogged down in socializing, so he took himself off to the rear booth where he and Whimsy usually sat. They liked to people watch, so they usually claimed a seat that commanded the best view of the room.

  He could see Whimsy had already settled in, and he smiled as he slid into the opposite seat. “Hey, Whims. How’s things? Blown up any cauldrons so far this week?”

  “Very funny,” Whimsy said, his dark eyes crinkling in amusement as he tossed his waist-length black hair back over his shoulder. It was glossy and sleek, and Arden knew from experience that it felt as soft as it looked. Whimsy had inherited his Cherokee mother’s dark hair, eyes, and skin, but his unusual name and magical ability came from his father. “How was the meeting? Or maybe the better question is, how many of those are you going to need?” he asked, pointing to Arden’s glass.

  Arden huffed, but his annoyance had nothing at all to do with Whimsy. “A few, probably. The meeting was even worse than usual,” he replied. As both a business owner in Asheville and a half-elf, Arden had been corralled into taking part in the informal “council” that oversaw the interactions between the various factions of the supernatural community. They were respected, even if their authority was limited. There were times when he wanted to flounce off in disgust at some of the inanity, but he felt compelled to stay as a voice of reason among the often fractious membership. “I simply can’t believe how there can be so much squabbling over things that matter so little.”

  “The battles are never so heated as when the stakes are low,” Whimsy said, offering Arden a sympathetic smile.

  Arden rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately true. Would you believe that someone introduced a motion to adopt a leash law for familiars? Can you see us trying to tell the mages and witches they can’t take their toad or rat for a walk without a leash?”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” Whimsy said. “Percy wouldn’t have put up with it.” His last familiar, a gorgeous black cat, had died over a year ago, and he hadn’t gotten another yet because he still missed Percy too much.

  Arden smiled apologetically, reaching across the table to hold Whimsy’s hand. “It definitely would have offended his dignity. But it gets worse, if you can believe it. There was also a motion to install waste bags in public parks in the supernatural neighborhoods for werewolves. The person who brought that up said it was the responsibility of people to pick up after themselves, no matter what form they’re in.”

  Whimsy almost choked on his beer at that. After a brief bout of coughing, he stared at Arden incredulously. “How—? What—? They don’t have opposable thumbs in that form! What are they supposed to do, leave a little flag and come back in the morning?”

  Shrugging, Arden sipped from his glass. “Logic doesn’t exactly figure in these kinds of discussions,” he said. “When you get situations where the witches are yelling at the shape-shifters, or the Human Equality League starts in on their diatribe about ‘incentivizing resettlement of supernaturals into normal communities in order to promote understanding,’ it just all breaks down into chaos.” He sighed. “As if that weren’t enough, we’re reconvening next week to he
ar from ‘expert witnesses’ on the subject. I didn’t even know there were witnesses for poop.”

  “I don’t see how you do it.” Whimsy shook his head. “I sure couldn’t.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know how I can do it either,” Arden replied. He frowned down at his mug of beer, tracing patterns in the condensation. “But someone has to, right? I mean, we do all have to get along somehow, and from time to time issues that are actually important get brought up. Like when we had to deal with that rogue vampire who was frightening humans, or helping put together the support system for orphan shape-shifters. The problem is that when there aren’t real problems to deal with, the stupidity level goes up.” He paused, smiling wryly. “Sometimes it makes me wish we had a real problem to deal with, like a demon or something, just so that people would work together instead of at cross-purposes.”

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Whimsy said, wagging his forefinger at Arden. “You know words have power.”

  “You sound like my father.” Arden raised a hand and made a warding gesture against the evil eye, a gesture picked up from his wizard sire. Not that he was any kind of a mage himself, but the habits of three centuries were hard to break. “But you’re right. I don’t really want a demon to show up. I just wish we weren’t wasting time on idiocy instead of doing things that really mattered.” He worried his lower lip between his teeth as he considered. “Maybe I should resign. I could spend the time planning another resort. Or at least having sex.”

  Whimsy studied him closely. “Is it the aftermath of a tedious meeting getting you down, or is something else going on? Divination isn’t my thing, but I’m getting a vibe.”

  “A vibe? From me?” Arden shook his head. “You know me, Whims. I’m the life of the party, right? It’s probably just the meeting getting to me. Or the lack of big, buff supernaturals to lust over in the last couple of weeks. Even Julian is off on one of his periodic antisocial jags.”

  Julian Schaden was a vampire, and he and Arden had been “friends with benefits” for over a century before the term had been invented. After meeting Whimsy several years before, the three of them had become an informal ménage. There was no jealousy involved, since it was all just fun between friends, and no one minded if two of them hooked up without the third. It was safe and easy, and it meant that Arden usually didn’t have to go looking for other partners if he felt lonely or horny. Still, he did like looking at newcomers, at least.

  Whimsy sat up straight and flexed his bicep with a playful smile, but he wasn’t that much taller than Arden, and while he was well-toned, his build was lean, not buff. He was also no more of a top than Arden.

  “Maybe Julian will emerge from his funk soon,” he said. “Or maybe someone from Tharn’s pack will come to town.”

  “Maybe,” Arden said, then shrugged again. “I’m not going to worry about it. Tonight is for us to drink and bemoan our dreary lives and dream of a brighter future, right?”

  “Right!” Whimsy lifted his beer glass and held it out to Arden for a toast. “To good beer, buff men, and no meetings anytime soon.”

  “Now that’s something I can drink to,” Arden replied. He lifted his glass and clinked it against Whimsy’s, telling himself to relax and enjoy the night. The Asheville supernatural community would take care of itself, just as it always had, and Arden would be right there with it, just as he had always been. This was his home, and every supernatural in the area was a part of an extended family. Like any family, they had their squabbles and their petty grievances, but when push came to shove, they always stuck together. It was, after all, the only way for all of them to survive.

  Chapter Two

  ELI Hammond stood just inside the meeting room of the Asheville paranormal council, listening while Tharn, the local werewolf pack alpha, argued to get Eli put on the meeting agenda. The room was cozy despite the October chill outside. The building they were in looked like a decrepit abandoned house, and the windows were boarded-up and blacked-out. But inside, the electricity and central heating were on, and the meeting room was furnished with an antique pine table surrounded by plenty of comfortable chairs, some of which were occupied by members of the council, most of whom looked bored already.

  “The agenda is already set.” The secretary of the council, an older wizard with a white beard and glasses, held up a piece of paper.

  Tharn snatched it out of the wizard’s hand and ripped it in half. “Then put him under new business,” he growled, and the wizard’s face grew pale.

  “This is highly unorthodox. I’ll have to check Robert’s Rules of Order….”

  Tharn glanced back at Eli and gave a little nod, but Eli wasn’t convinced anything would happen tonight, and he hadn’t come all the way from Georgia to be stonewalled by bureaucracy. Eli drew himself up straight and stared down at the wizard from his six-foot-four-inch advantage.

  “My pack was attacked. Some are dead. The rest are missing. How’s that for unorthodox?”

  Several of the council members gasped, and he had everyone’s wide-eyed attention now.

  “You gonna put him on the agenda now, Odell?” Tharn asked, folding his arms across his chest and staring at the wizard as well.

  A handsome young elf with huge green eyes and shoulder-length brown hair held up his hand. “I haven’t sponsored a new item in months. I’ll make him my business if you’re going to be anal about it, Odell,” he said, his voice holding a tinge of anger. He turned his gaze on Eli, and Eli could read both sympathy and concern in his expression. He seemed to study Eli with unexpected intensity. “I am very sorry for your loss. Please, won’t you take a seat and tell us what happened?”

  Eli nodded his thanks to the elf and took a seat at the table. Tharn sat down next to him, and while it was sometimes awkward for two alphas to be in close quarters, Eli found Tharn’s presence comforting right now. Tharn was older than Eli by a couple of centuries, and his craggy face was set in what seemed to be a permanent scowl, but his strength helped Eli feel more grounded. It helped, too, that according to Eli’s pack chronicle, Tharn was a distant cousin, and Eli felt more comfortable asking for help from kin, no matter how many times removed.

  “Under the circumstances, I believe we should dispense with the formal agenda and hear what our guest has to say.” An older woman with a no-nonsense demeanor quelled Odell with a withering look and a flash of fangs when he appeared about to object. “Please go ahead.”

  Eli glanced around the table and saw somber faces. Considering their collective numbers were small enough—no matter what type of supernatural being they were—any loss was a cause for sympathy and mourning. Likely everyone at that table was thinking about their own people and how easily it could be them.

  “I’m Eli Hammond,” he said. “My pack lives outside Clayton, Georgia. I went off on a trip by myself, and when I got back, there’d been a fight, and some of my pack were dead. The rest were gone. The scents of werewolves from another local pack were all over our settlement.”

  The elf spoke up again and leaned forward across the table. “I assume you tracked the other pack? Did they leave the area?”

  Memories of the day he’d returned home to find his settlement empty and some of the buildings charred by fire rose up in Eli’s mind. The scent of wood smoke and crisp autumn air tainted with the metallic tang of blood. Mangled bodies lying on blood-soaked leaves. Eli had dropped to his knees and howled out his shock, anger, and grief.

  Fueled by rage, he had transformed and used his keener wolf senses to pick up the scent of the attackers. He discovered it was a familiar one: werewolf. The two local packs had met often enough that he recognized individual scents as well, and he could still follow the scent trail long enough to confirm it led back to the other pack’s territory.

  By that time, he’d cleared his head enough to realize he shouldn’t barge into their territory alone. They had attacked his pack and killed five people—including a couple of his best fighters—so killing a lone target would
be easy. Maybe they were even lying in wait, counting on him to seek revenge. As much as he wanted to assure himself that the rest of his pack was still alive, he couldn’t risk going after them alone.

  He’d returned home to bury the dead. Mortal law enforcement agencies didn’t realize there were supernaturals in their midst, so calling on them, expecting them to treat this like a normal murder case, would only rack up more deaths. Instead, he went to Asheville, which not only had the biggest concentration of supernaturals in the Southeast, but it was also home to a pack with whom he could claim distant kinship. If he was going to find reinforcements to help him rescue his pack mates, it would be there.

  “Yeah, I tracked them,” he said, his voice low and rough. “But only so far. Didn’t want to sign my own death warrant.”

  The elf nodded. “So you need help rescuing the survivors of your pack and getting justice,” he said, seeming to understand the situation. He glanced around the table. “I believe our response to this should be obvious to everyone here. Am I correct?”

  “Unprovoked aggression is worrisome,” the older woman said, frowning slightly.

  Odell scratched at his chin beneath his beard. “It is, it is. Very worrisome. But we can’t afford to be hasty in our judgment.”

  The elf raised a brow. “Hasty? I would think senseless slaughter and kidnapping calls for an extremely hasty reaction!”

  Another elf glanced at the younger one. This one was older, and he had actual streaks of silver in his golden hair. “Now, Arden, you are still young enough to want to rush into things….”

  Arden turned to the older elf, scowling, and began to speak in the elven tongue, but it was obvious enough by his tone that he was angry. Other members of the council began arguing among themselves, debating the merits of getting involved. Odell seemed to be adamant that the situation was far outside their jurisdiction, while someone else claimed that if they were thinking of killing the killers, it made them no better than the murderers. Arden turned his attention away from the older elf and began to argue with a witch until Odell smacked his hand down sharply on the table, which caused everyone to stop talking and turn to him in surprise.