Night of the Wolf: A Daring and Delicious Shapeshifter Romance

By Terry Spear

Looking for an action-packed quickie?

USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear brings her trademark action, romance, and wolf pack dynamics in this thrilling Heart of the Wolf novella!

• A heroine on a mission to retrieve her life savings
• A hero bent on protecting her from danger
• And enough action, mystery, and romance to keep readers enthralled

Red wolf Serena Wilder is on a mission to find the gray wolf who stole her life savings and take back what's hers. She has to start at her family's old pack home, where it's rumored there's a hidden safe in the basement. She knows it's a long shot, but it's her only hope to support herself while she hunts for the culprit. She expected there to be some setbacks, but she wasn't prepared for a new pack of wolves to be in her way.

Tanner Greystroke and his brothers now live on the property, and they're surprised to see Serena. Their pack leader's mate is none other than Serena's sister, who all this time thought Serena was dead. Knowing that things can't get much worse for Serena, Tanner offers to help her get back everything that belongs to her—the house, the money, all of it. But that plan will only work if he can keep her safe and they can see this through to the end…

Everyone loves Terry Spear's wolf shifter romances!

"Riveting and entertaining…makes one want to devour all of the rest of Terry Spear's books."—Fresh Fiction for Wolf Fever

"Wolfishly delicious…an exciting, action-packed paranormal romance that kept me enthralled."—Romance Junkies for A Howl for a Highlander

"Terry Spear weaves paranormal, suspense, and romance together in one nonstop rollercoaster of passion and adventure."—Love Romance Passion for Destiny of the Wolf

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sourcebooks
• Release date: Mar 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781728246703

Terry Spear

USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear has written over a hundred paranormal and medieval Highland romances. One of her bestselling titles, Heart of the Wolf was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. She is an award-winning author with 2 Paranormal Excellence Awards for Romantic Literature. A retired officer of the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry also creates award-winning teddy bears that have found homes all over the world, helps out with her grandchildren, and enjoys her two Havanese dogs. She lives in Spring, Texas.

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Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright © 2018 by Terry Spear

Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks

Cover design by Stephanie Gafron/Sourcebooks

Cover images © KDdesignphoto/Shutterstock, Jim Cumming/Getty Images, Brian Caissie/Getty Images

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

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Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Epilogue

Excerpt from The Wolf Wore Plaid

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Prologue

1840

Colorado Rockies

The weather was so dry—too dry. Though the red wolf pack lived in stone or log cabin homes near the river, Serena Wilder’s father had warned that anything—a campfire, an electrical storm—could set off a wildfire and destroy their lives.

Today was that day, the fire catching hold so fast that no one had time to locate each other. She’d been gathering thimbleberries for a pie, but tossed her basket aside, the berries spilling out onto the dry pine needles as the winds carried the flames through the dry brush. The pine needles and leaves discarded at the base of the trees added fuel to the already out-of-control fire.

Serena was alone. Her twin sister, Bella, was gathering kindling somewhere else; her cousins, uncle and aunt, and her parents, were all doing chores. The men had been hunting for food. Her mother and cousins? She didn’t know. As a six-year-old girl, she couldn’t run as fast as a wolf to escape the fury behind her, so she stripped and shifted into her wolf pup form and ran toward the river. The smoke was so thick, she could barely breathe, and the flames danced from tree to tree high above her, the wind carrying the crackling sound like a warning: Run little wolf, or you’ll get burned.

But the smoke could kill her first.

The last few feet to the river, she leapt as far as her small legs could, landing in the wet reeds. Finding a beaver’s den, she buried herself in the sodden wood. She howled for her family, but didn’t hear any sign of them, just the river splashing over her hiding place. She prayed the flames wouldn’t catch hold on the wet wood, but as hot as it was, she feared it could. The wind blew and fire snapped and popped as it burned everything in its path.

Crying wolf’s tears, she felt a lump the size of her home lodged in her throat. She prayed her family had found refuge somewhere safe.

The fires raged, the ground too hot to cross, small fires still eating away at larger trees. Her clothes and her basket she’d woven were gone, burned up along with everything else. Rains came after that, putting out the fires, and once they’d stopped, she left the river and made her way to her stone house as a wolf. The roof and everything that had been inside, the furniture her father and uncle had made, was nothing but soggy, charred remains.

She discovered her mother, still fully dressed, lying beneath a rock ledge, protected from the fire a short distance from the house. But Serena couldn’t wake her. She sat and howled for the loss of her mother, for her family. Slept there beside her, until Serena knew she had to eat and drink and find a way to survive. She never found anyone else—Bella, her father, or the rest of her family—but one day she heard a wagon coming, and, hating to do it, she shifted into her human form. Covered in soot, teary-eyed, and naked, she stood on the wagon trail, hoping someone would take care of her until she could fend for herself.

Chapter 1

Present Day

Omaha, Nebraska

Serena Wilder packed up her belongings at the library where she had worked for four years. This was her last day because she and two other women were no longer needed on staff. Between funding cuts and the newly-installed automations—automatic book check-ins and self-checkouts—she knew she had to find another job, but she hadn’t had any success. She packed away her remaining wolf postcards—not of any wolves she knew, but just the generic kind her friends had given her, because they knew how much she loved wolves, though not the reason why—that she had tacked to the board above her desk.

Her other two laid-off coworkers—strictly human—had already left. Serena had always worked around books, from being a teacher in the early days, to working in the first libraries. She loved books. But she’d had to move so many times over the years, and she was always starting over. How could she not? Once she hit her late teens, she had aged so slowly. People would wonder.

Now she’d applied for unemployment compensation, but she had a waiting week before she could be paid for subsequent weeks. After that, the amount of her highest quarterly earnings would be divided by thirteen and then again by two. So her compensation would be half of what she was already earning and wouldn’t be enough to support her.

Serena was worried about paying her share of the house she was renting with a male gray wolf, Harold Gaston, but he’d assured her she’d get back on her feet and could pay him later. As a telephone line repairman, he made more money than she did. They’d met at a local diner, the first shifter she’d met in all her years of moving about. They didn’t feel anything for each other in the way wolves who wanted to mate would. Her momma had often shared the story of how she had met Serena’s dad. How they’d fallen in love from the beginning. And how she and her sister would have the same wolfish interest in another wolf when they were older—just like that. When she met Harold, she didn’t feel any of the romantic feelings she thought she should have; nothing about him made her heartbeat quicken.

Serena was an avid romance reader, but she’d never been madly in love or even intrigued by a human, either, though her mother and father would have frowned at her even considering such a thing, if they’d still lived. Wolves mated with wolves for life. Not with humans, though she’d had a few human lovers over the years.

With their sensitive shifter hearing, she found sharing a house with another wolf sure beat living in a noisy apartment complex. And she liked being able to talk to Harold about wolf shifter things that she couldn’t with anyone else.

She had the rest of her day planned—go home, run, shower, and hit the road to apply for yet another round of jobs. Anything would do for now.

When she got home, she was surprised to find Harold standing inside, his sandy hair tousled, his small, black eyes studying her. She thought he’d had to work. He smiled at her, but he shoved his hands in his pockets. He seemed tense, troubled. I had some business to attend to, so I took the day off. How are you doing?

I’ve left the library for good. She set her bag of wolf cards on the dining room table. I’m going for a run. Wanna go with me? It would make her feel better to run off some of the frustration she was feeling.

No, I’ve really got to take care of some business.

He didn’t say what his business was, but then again, they were just roommates; he had a right to privacy.

Then she realized why she had been so surprised to see him home, besides the fact that he was supposed to be working. No brand-new red pickup truck was parked out front.

Having trouble again with your truck?

Yeah, pain in the ass. Total lemon.

Is that the business you have to take care of?

It is.

Did you want me to drive you then? I need to apply for some more jobs, but I’d be happy to help you out.

No, I’ve got a friend coming by to take me to the dealership shortly.

But it was all a lie. He was all a lie. Maybe not the truck being a lemon part, but everything else…

* * *

When Serena returned home from running, she saw her car was gone. She panicked. Had someone stolen it? She raced through the house, looking for Harold, calling out to him. He was gone. So was her wallet and her car keys from where she’d left them on the dresser.

It