We're just a little under a week away from the release of DESTINY DISGRACED by Carrie Ann Ryan - are you ready to read the first chapteR? Read it below!
About DESTINY DISGRACED
The Talon Pack continues with a new twist to the Packs and a revelation no one was prepared for.
Mitchell Brentwood is aware that others think he’s the harsh taskmaster Beta trying to keep his Pack alive, but they only see what he wants them to know. He’d once thought he had his path laid out before him, but when his future was violently ripped away, he vowed he’d never let anyone close again—especially not a young wolf from a traitorous Pack.
Dawn Levin may be younger than the war that destroyed her people, but she knows she must still pay for their sins. She’s ready to find her way in this new world where wolves and humans blend as one, but first, she needs to fight her attraction to the dark wolf that stands in her way.
While the two struggle with their feelings and burning attraction for each other, they can’t ignore the world that shakes beneath their feet. There is a new enemy on the horizon, one with revenge and the unknown on their minds. An adversary that might be closer than they realize.
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Read the first chapter of DESTINY DISGRACED:
Death was but a whisper away, and yet Mitchell Brentwood
couldn’t breathe. With a slow blink, he moved to the side as a fist came at
him, his opponent struggling to keep up with Mitchell’s moves. As the youth was
only a teenager and still learning while Mitchell was the Beta of the Talon
Pack, he didn’t blame the pup for not being fast enough.
He’d just train the kid until he sweated and cursed Mitchell
out and then maybe the teen would be ready for whatever came next.
That was how Packs worked— always ready for the next battle,
the next fight.
An odd thought for a wolf without a war to face.
He’d spent his life preparing for conflict or fighting an
unseen master he’d never thought to find his way out from under, and now here
he was, training young wolves to help them control their beasts, yet… alone.
His cousin Kameron punched his shoulder and frowned at him.
Well, if one could call it a frown considering the man rarely if ever showed
any emotion— no anger, no disappointment, no sadness, and certainly not a
smile. While some called Mitchell a hard-ass bastard, they called Kameron the
cold-ass one.
“What?” Mitchell growled. The punch hadn’t hurt since
Kameron hadn’t put any heat behind it, but he still wasn’t expecting it. And
considering he and his brother, Max, had been raised with the rest of the
cousins as if they were brothers, it was the principle of the thing.
“Your mind is wandering, and you’re not paying attention.”
Kameron’s gaze was on the juveniles in front of them and their training and not
on him, so he flipped his cousin off. “Saw that. I’m pretty sure the kids saw
that, too. Good job, oh fearless leader.”
“Suck me,” Mitchell whispered so low that only Kameron could
hear. Since the trainees in front of them were also wolves, they had
exceptional hearing, so he had to be careful how loud he spoke when he didn’t
want others to listen in.
“No, thanks, cousin. Why don’t you find yourself a woman to
do that? Maybe if you finally get laid, you’ll wipe that perpetual scowl off
your face.”
A familiar ache pulsated deep inside, and it took everything
within him not to let the pain cascading through him show on his face. He’d
spent years perfecting that ability, yet each time it seemed to grow,
increasing in need and dread.
Mitchell lashed out, kicking Kameron on the back of his
knee. And though Mitchell was one of the best fighters in the Pack, he wasn’t the best. That title belonged to their
Enforcer— Kameron. While Mitchell was the Beta of the Talons and in charge of
the day-to-day needs of the Pack, Kameron, as the Enforcer, was in charge of
their defense. It only made sense that his cousin would be a slightly better
fighter— it was genetic. So instead of his foot making contact, Kameron leapt
out of the way so gracefully that he could have been a dancer in another life
instead of a soldier.
Then, they fought.
Well, not really, as they weren’t landing their punches or
kicks, but they’d spent decades learning each other’s moves and weaknesses.
Even though neither of them was the Alpha or the strongest wolf in the Pack,
they still fought like what they were— some of the best.
The younger wolves around them stopped what they were doing
to watch the older wolves fight, and Mitchell didn’t fault them for that. There
was a reason he and his family were the highest in the hierarchy of the Pack,
and they were damn good at what they did to protect their people. After a few
minutes, they were both sweaty, their shirts sticking to their skin. Kameron’s
mouth twitched as if he were smiling. For his non-emotive cousin, that was big.
“Maybe you should think about your dick and get off mine,”
Mitchell said with a sneer.
“Why does everything you’re saying today sound so dirty?”
Kameron asked, wiping his face with the bottom of his shirt. A few sighs
sounded from some of the women in their training group, and Mitchell held back
a snort. There was always someone lusting after Kam, as if they wanted to be
the one to melt his icy exterior.
Not too many panted after Mitchell, and he was just fine
with that. He’d done his best to make his asshole persona permanent for a
reason.
“You’re just a pervert,” Mitchell finally answered as he
rolled his shoulders. “You can’t help it, though, you’re from that line of the Brentwoods.”
Kameron flipped him off and almost smiled again. Two times
in one day, that had to be a record. “Like your line is any better.” He shook
his head and turned to the others, watching them. “Okay, that’s a wrap for the
day. Let’s cool down. Then you guys get to hear what your next assignment is.”
Mitchell nodded. “You guys did good. All of you are learning
to not only use your bodies as tools, but you’re controlling your beasts more
and more.” The same could not be said for some of the older wolves in the Pack.
That was why tomorrow’s training sessions would be with some of the dominants,
who were already on shifts around the den. Even though the Pack wasn’t at war,
that didn’t mean they could slack off in their training.
It had been a year since the final battle with the rogue
human factions that didn’t know if they wanted to control the wolves or wipe
them from existence. The Talons and their allies, the Redwoods, had lost many
and endured countless other horrors that left horrific memories that would
never fade. But in the end, a great sacrifice had saved them all. Mitchell
still wasn’t sure how he felt about the fact that he hadn’t been strong enough
to protect his people. It was the sacrifice of the others— the pain of others, including his brother,
Max— that had won the war. Mitchell had only been there to fight.
But there wasn’t a battle to be fought with claw and fang
now. The humans came out on the good side in the end, and now they were in a
time of peace. A calm where the wolves were no longer stuck within their wards
inside the den, afraid to go out in public for fear that they’d be attacked by
those anxious of what they didn’t know or understand. Now, his people could go
out and do what they’d done for hundreds of years before the Unveiling, before
the wolves were forced out into the open, revealing their secrets.
Almost all of his Packmates had jobs outside the den. Hell,
most of them had lived on the outside before everything crumbled down around
them. When they’d been at war, things were a little tight within the wards, but
they’d made it work because there hadn’t been another option. So, while many of
the wolves had shifts within the den depending on their strengths, they also
had jobs and lives outside the Pack’s domain.
It was how it should have been all along, and his people
were just now getting used to the fact that this was how it would be again.
Only this time, many of them weren’t hiding in plain sight. There wasn’t a
national register for the shifters, as Washington had nixed that idea after the
asshole senator, McMaster, was killed, but there were still some non-government
sanctioned websites out there that had lists of names and information on
shifters. His cousin and Alpha, Gideon, growled daily about the mere existence
of it, but there was nothing they could do about it. In this age of technology,
even humans had all of that information since it was out in the public for
anyone to see. The wolves could only control so much.
So, yes, Mitchell’s people could go out and have jobs like
they had in the past, but now they had to deal with the added pressure of being
a wolf in human’s clothing. At least, that’s what others called them. Mitchell
knew he was more than that. He was both— a wolf and a human, not just one or
the other. That was how all shifters were, and they struggled with that balance
every day. Hence the training sessions for juveniles and young adults like they
just had. Adding hormones to the mix usually just made keeping control of one’s
wolf that much harder.
And yet, with all the talk of peace, Mitchell had a feeling
there was something else coming. He’d spent most of his life either at war or
fighting battles within his own Pack, yet he felt his sense of knowing wasn’t
because he missed the tension and anxiety. He just knew there was no way that
things could suddenly be perfect and harmonious after everything that happened.
Something was going to change their peace, and Mitchell
would be ready for it.
No matter what it took.
“You headed over to Gideon’s?” Kameron asked, rubbing the
back of his neck. “I have to go help one of the soldiers with a problem on the
outer perimeter, but Gideon said he wanted to see us at some point.”
Mitchell nodded. “I planned to stop by.” Plus, it would give
him a chance to see his new niece. Though Gideon and the others weren’t
technically his brothers, making the newest additions to the Brentwoods second
cousins or something like that, everyone had taken to calling Max and Mitchell
uncles anyway.
Max didn’t have a mate, and after the attack that had
scarred his brother in more ways than one, Mitchell wasn’t sure that Max wanted a mate. And as for Mitchell…
well… he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t find his mate. Ever.
There were just some things set in stone, and Mitchell being
alone for the rest of his unnaturally long life was one of them. “Let him and
Brie know I’ll stop by before dinner,” Kameron said before lifting his chin and
heading to wherever he needed to be.
Mitchell sighed and made his way over to Gideon’s since he
didn’t have any other plans for a few hours. He figured he might as well see
what his Alpha needed instead of sitting alone in his house, wondering what the
hell to do. And, damn, he needed to stop sounding so depressing. It had been
easier when he had battles and strategy to plan, or when the den was bursting
at the seams with people. Since it was his job to ensure that every Pack member
had a roof over their heads and was situated enough for their wolves to remain
calm, he had plenty to do when everyone was forced within the den under their
failing wards.
Now, the wards were rebuilt thanks to his cousin Brandon and
his two mates, and people had started moving back into their homes outside the
den. That meant there was less for Mitchell to do. And he hated it.
As he made his way to the front of Gideon’s house, he heard
the giggle of a sweet one-year-old and pushed all those thoughts to the side.
Gideon and Brie’s daughter, Fallon, toddled over to him, though she almost
tripped a few times. He bent down to pick her up, brushing his lips over the
top of her head when he pulled her close. She patted his mouth with her tiny
hands and babbled incoherently. He was pretty sure a few of the things she said
were actually words, but he couldn’t make sense of them.
Only Gideon and Brie could understand their daughter, the
same as how his cousin Ryder and his wife Leah could understand their son,
Bryson Roland. In the past year, there’d been three new Brentwoods born into
the world— well, two Brentwoods and a Jamenson since his cousin Brynn mated a
Redwood wolf named Finn. They’d had their daughter Mackenzie a couple of months
ago, around the same time that Bryson was born. Still, the fact that there was
three more was a whole hell of a lot, considering there hadn’t been an addition
to their family in over a century. They were wolves after all, and lived ages
longer than humans. They could spend lifetimes alone before eventually finding
their mates, and some even waited longer to have children, preferring to spend
time as a mated couple before adding to their family. The fact that the
Brentwoods kept finding their mates in such quick succession would have worried
Mitchell, but it wasn’t as if he would find his
mate. Not with everything he’d been through in the past.
“I see,” Mitchell said solemnly, nodding his head as Fallon
continued her conversation. He thought he heard something about a puppy, but
that could have been any number of people in their wolf form, so he honestly
didn’t know.
“You’re good with her,” Brie, his Alpha’s mate, said with a
small smile. He hated the way she always seemed to see too much of him. She was
a submissive wolf mated to the Alpha of their Pack. And while it might not make
sense to outsiders, it made all the sense in the world to those inside the
wards. She protected the Pack in her own way, her worth and contribution to the
Pack’s needs something none of them even knew they were missing until she
showed up and took care of them.
If he weren’t such a jerk, he might have been nicer to her,
but he needed to keep her at a distance. He needed to keep everyone at arm’s
length.
“She’s easy,” he said with a shrug before handing Fallon
over to her mother. “Gideon said he wanted to talk to me,” he added instead of
saying hello.
Brie ran her hand down Fallon’s back as the little girl
started to doze off. It must have been near her naptime, or the little girl
wouldn’t have started to fall asleep so easily. She was usually a burst of
energy and babbles.
“He had to go meet with Kade, but he told me he texted you.”
She rocked back and forth as Fallon fell fully asleep in her mother’s arms. The
little girl would one day be Alpha— a first for the Talons, and maybe even all
the Packs as Mitchell hadn’t heard of a female Alpha before. It wasn’t that
they weren’t strong or capable because, hell, female dominants were tougher
than most men he knew. No, it was because becoming the Alpha, Heir, Beta,
Enforcer, Omega, or Healer wasn’t something someone could fight for or try to
attain. Those titles were bestowed— he held back a mental cringe at that word—
upon them by the moon goddess. The goddess had made the first wolf, the first
shifter, and also determined the hierarchies needed for a Pack. Mitchell hadn’t
learned until recently that those first goddess-touched were Talons. In fact,
the first wolves who made the Pack were actually reincarnated as the triplets—
Kameron, Walker, and Brandon.
Mitchell still wasn’t sure he quite believed that and, hell,
didn’t know if he wanted to, but it
wasn’t his business, so he chose not to think about it.
“Mitchell?”
He shook himself out of those thoughts and held back a curse
as he pulled out his phone and saw that he had indeed missed a text from
Gideon. “I didn’t feel it vibrate and didn’t have the ringer on since we were
training. Sorry to bother you at naptime.”
Brie just smiled and shook her head. “You’re never a bother.
Do you want to come in for something to drink? I’m headed to the maternal
council meeting in a bit, but I have an hour or so.”
Mitchell was shaking his head before she’d finished her
sentence. He preferred being alone to having Brie so close where she saw too
much of him. And it always hurt him when he remembered exactly who she reminded
him of.
He quickly pushed those thoughts from his brain and did his
best not to rub at the three jagged scars on his chest. He’d been too in his
head today and needed to do something different, or he’d end up drowning
himself in a bottle of tequila later and be of no use to anyone.
“I need to pick up a few things from town. I should get on
that. Do you need anything?” The den was pretty self-sufficient and had enough
land to remain that way for years, but they’d been trying to do more outside
the den walls since the end of the war. Mitchell was only doing his part, he
reminded himself. He wasn’t running away. Not again.
“Can you pick up a bag of coffee beans from that shop down
on First?” she asked with a bright smile. “I know I can get beans in bulk
online or even at another store, but now that I’m allowed caffeine again, I
seemed to have found myself a new craving. If it’s out of your way, though, I
can pick some up later.”
Mitchell nodded even as he went through his memory to see if
he’d ever actually been inside that shop. He knew that Brynn loved that place
and still went there with her mate, but he didn’t venture into coffee shops
much. Too many people, and way too many scents for his wolf nose.
“Just tell me what kind you want and how much, and I’ll pick
them up.” He made a note in his phone when she told him the name then gave her
a nod and walked away.
His wolf had begun prowling inside him, and he wasn’t sure
if it was about Brie or what she represented. Either way, he needed to get far
enough away that he could calm his wolf and forget about the pain that he lived
with every day.
Because the one thing they didn’t talk about when it came to
mating was that if a bond broke, a wolf could still feel it. Mitchell felt the
echo of what had been, the life he’d been promised, with every breath.
But he’d lost all that, and had learned to live like he was
now. His mate was dead.
And wolves like him didn’t get second chances.
Ever.
See the DESTINY DISGRACED trailer!
About Carrie Ann Ryan
Carrie Ann Ryan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary and paranormal romance. Her works include the Montgomery Ink, Redwood Pack, Talon Pack, and Gallagher Brothers series, which have sold over 2.0 million books worldwide. She started writing while in graduate school for her advanced degree in chemistry and hasn’t stopped since. Carrie Ann has written over fifty novels and novellas with more in the works. When she’s not writing about bearded tattooed men or alpha wolves that need to find their mates, she’s reading as much as she can and exploring the world of baking and gourmet cooking.
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