The Opal Wolf: A Freedom Valley Novel: Book One Read online

  THE OPAL WOLF

  A FREEDOM VALLEY NOVEL

  SAMARA SAWARD

  Copyright © 2022 Samara Saward

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Cover designed by: GetCovers

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  CHAPTERONE

  CHAPTERTWO

  CHAPTERTHREE

  CHAPTERFOUR

  CHAPTERFIVE

  CHAPTERSIX

  CHAPTERSEVEN

  CHAPTEREIGHT

  CHAPTERNINE

  CHAPTERTEN

  CHAPTERELEVEN

  CHAPTERTWELVE

  CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

  CHAPTERFOURTEEN

  CHAPTERFIFTEEN

  CHAPTERSIXTEEN

  CHAPTERSEVENTEEN

  CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

  CHAPTERNINETEEN

  CHAPTERTWENTY

  CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTERTHIRTY

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTERFORTY

  CHAPTERFORTY-ONE

  CHAPTERFORTY-TWO

  CHAPTERFORTY-THREE

  CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTERFORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTERFORTY-SIX

  SPECIALTHANKS

  For Harrison, Taylor, and Lacey.

  May you always have the strength

  to follow your dreams.

  CHAPTERONE

  I jerk upright; my heart beating hard in my chest, racing a million miles an hour. What has pulled me from my sleep? I don’t recall any nightmares and I don’t think there was a noise that woke me. But something feels wrong.

  I glance around my bedroom. Everything is as it should be. My white, wooden bed sits in the middle of the room, cream-colored drapes flow in the breeze from the open window to my right, a wooden chest sits off to the side, my bath robe hangs from the handle of a dresser in front of me, and the door to the room sits slightly ajar to my left. The lilac painted walls reveal the same shadows they always have.

  Nothing is out of place, but something has woken me. Scared me awake if my still racing heart is anything to go by.

  Noises drift up from downstairs; a bump against the hall table makes keys rattle in their bowl. A foot lands too heavily on the floor. A sharp intake of breath. It sounds like someone is moving through the house. Someone that should not be here.

  I yank the comforter over my head and hug my knees to my chest, breathing hard. Sweat beads on my forehead as I try to decide what to do. Should I stay and hide? Do I climb from my second-story window and seek help? Or do I scream to alert my parents of the evening intruders?

  I stay curled up under the comforter long enough for my heart to stop racing and my breathing to even out. Perhaps I imagined the noises from the first floor; I must have woken from a nightma — “Stay alert and stay quiet. Let’s get this done and get out of here.”

  No, it was definitely not a nightmare that woke me. Someone is in the house.

  Who is it? Why are they here and what do they want? If anyone has need of my family, they call in during the day. No one ever comes to the house after dark; especially not while everyone is sleeping.

  I push the comforter off my body, going slow so I don’t make a sound, and slip my feet to the hardwood floor. Creeping along the wall to the door, I pause and listen, my heartbeat racing once again. The silence is broken by my mother screaming.

  Her screams are so loud my ears are ringing. Just as I slap my hands over my ears, her screams die down to a wet sounding gurgle, which is replaced by the sound of men yelling.

  “Mom,” I say in a choked sob as I burst through my bedroom door.

  In my panic, I can think of nothing but getting to my mother and helping her. Fear and pain stained her screams. And that wet gurgle…

  Hold on, Mom. I’m coming.

  I race along the second-story landing to the top of the stairs. My socks cause me to slide along the floorboards as I turn left and start descending. I know I am making too much noise, but I need to help Mother. I hope the thuds from my hurried footsteps are drowned out by all the yelling downstairs.

  I almost miss a step and have to catch myself on the handrail with a shaking hand. I stop and take a deep breath; I can’t help Mom if I’m battered and broken from falling down the stairs. The yelling has stopped, I hope they didn’t hear me. With slow, measured steps, I restart my descent to the first floor.

  “Where is she?” a man asks, his voice raspy and thick with rage. It sends a shiver down my spine; goosebumps pebble my skin.

  “You will never… get away with this… Marcus. You will never be accepted… as the true leader… of this pack.”

  My father’s words are muffled, his voice thick, like something is pressing against his throat and he can’t push the words out with ease.

  The first man sighs. “You’ll tell me where she is Landon, or I will make her life miserable. Tell me where she is, and I’ll show her mercy. I could mate with her when she comes of age. Our pups would be quite remarkable.”

  “You will… not… touch her…”

  Father struggles to draw breath between his words. Someone’s choking him! I struggle to keep my own breathing under control; my chest tightens with dread.

  I freeze and slap my hand to my mouth when I hear the thump of a punch, followed by a sickening squelch that sounds eerily like flesh being struck by a knife and pulled back out. The sound reminds me of hunting with Father.

  I take a moment to slow my breathing and continue down the stairs. When I reach the last step, I crouch low, looking around to take stock of my surroundings.

  Ahead, the mahogany front door is wide open, revealing a starless night sky over our front lawn and rose garden. No one patrols the lawn or guards the front door; escaping would be easy.

  To my left, is an archway that leads to the kitchen and family lounge. Again, no guards; but no way to escape. I turn right, toward the master suite, and second lounge. I startle when I see a middle-aged woman standing in the shadows of my father’s study, just beyond the half-open door.

  She has ebony, shoulder length hair with a strip of pure white an inch thick down the left side. I take in her shift dress, a burned-orange color that reminds me of a summer sunset. She’s watching me through glowing amber eyes that are framed by crow’s feet.

  When our eyes meet, she beckons me with one hand, then raises a finger to her lips. Why should I go to a stranger? I shake my head. No. She mouths the words ‘let me help you’.

  Who is this woman? Should I trust her? This could be a trick by the men attacking my mother and father.

  I look toward the master suite, sighs of pain drift from the open bedroom door
. I have heard no sounds from my mother since she screamed. Is she okay? Should I try to help Mother and Father, or go with this woman I have never met? Could I get to safety and find help for my parents? I could make a dash for the open front door, race to find help.

  Marcus’s raspy voice breaks through my internal dilemma. “Your wife’s dead, Landon. Eleanor Thorne is dead. You’ll soon be following her. Now tell me where Liliana is.”

  Tears well in my eyes and my shoulders shake in a silent mourning for my mother. I don’t want Marcus to realize I am here; I need to keep quiet. I press my hand against my mouth, trying to hold back the heartache.

  My father replies, “I’ll die before… I tell you… where she is… Marcus.”

  My heart clenches. Father is protecting me. He wants me to be safe.

  Whoever this woman is, I’ll take my chances with her over the man who murdered my mother. She can help me alert people to what is happening here and get help for my parents. It’s the smart choice, and what my parents would want. I creep across the hall on silent feet, listening to the thumps and grunts down the hall. I only make it two steps before I freeze at the next words I hear.

  “I could have made this a swift death, but you try my patience. After tonight, I can mate with anyone I choose. I don’t need your daughter.” His voice changes from malicious to commanding when he adds, “Search the house. Find the girl and bring her to me. Our friend Landon here is going to watch as I slit the throat of his daughter.”

  That’s when my father screams, “RUN, LILIANA!”

  Heart pounding and out of options, I take off, with as much speed as I can muster, toward the woman beckoning me. She leads me through the wood-paneled study to the desk by the open fireplace, where she shoves the leather high-back chair out of the way and reaches under the desk. I look around the room in surprise when I hear a grating sound, like rocks grinding against one another. The sound is loud and echoes through the house for a moment before it stops. The moment of silence that follows is deafening.

  “In the study!” yells a voice from the kitchen.

  This voice is unfamiliar; it must be whoever Marcus sent to search the house. The sunset stranger shoves me toward the hollow space under my father’s desk. I whimper in pain as my knees crash hard to the floor, sending bolts of pain through my legs and lower back.

  Where there should be hardwood floorboards under the desk, there is a hole just big enough for a person to fit through. The grating sound must have been the floor opening to reveal the hole in the ground. It goes to such a depth that I can’t see where it ends. I look at the strange woman, about to ask what was happening and where this tunnel leads, but hear running footsteps that are closing in on us.

  The men are coming, and they’re coming fast. My questions can wait until after I reach safety. I need to hurry. How can I help my parents if I am captured? Crawling under the desk, I slide myself into the hole and hang from the edge for a moment before I let go with both hands and drop. I hold my breath as I freefall. Fear suppresses a scream that my body desperately wants to push out.

  Seconds later, I hit the rocky ground with a force that causes me to stumble. I hit my head on the wall opposite hard enough for white spots to creep across my vision, and collapse to my knees. I blink furiously, trying to clear my sight. I touch a hand to my forehead and feel something wet and sticky. Blood. I must have hit the wall harder than I thought.

  The strange woman in the burned-orange dress lands next to me with an ‘oomph’. “We must hurry, child,” she says, as she pushes herself to standing.

  “But who are you? What’s happening? We need to get help. We need to save my parents,” I whisper in a harsh voice.

  My vision still hasn’t cleared, and the world is spinning. The stranger bends to reach an arm behind my shoulders and another under my knees and lifts me. She hurries down the tunnel. Where it leads, I do not know.

  We can’t leave. I have to help my father! Red creeps across my vision, blurring the woman’s face. I focus on the only detail that I can—her glowing amber eyes.

  She looks me in the eye, pity written all over her face. “I’m Callista. There is no helping Landon and Eleanor now. I must get you to safety, Liliana.”

  The last thought I have before blackness claims me is of Callista, the Sunset Stranger… She’s saving me.

  CHAPTERTWO

  I wake shaking and gasping for breath, sheets tangled around my waist, my face wet and my gums aching. I have been crying in my sleep again. I don’t know why my gums would ache, though; I must have been clenching my jaw while I slept.

  I take a few moments to calm down enough to realize that I’m safe. No one has been chasing me. There is no strange woman in a burned-orange shift carrying me through a tunnel, and there are no glowing amber eyes watching me.

  “Eyes don’t glow, Lilly,” I say to myself.

  It’s become my life’s motto. Every time I have this nightmare, I need to remind myself that eyes do not glow. Shine? Yeah, maybe. Twinkle? Sure. Glow as if a flashlight shines through them? No, absolutely not.

  That’s the thing about my nightmares, though. They suck me in so deep that I don’t realize I’m dreaming. They’re realistic—playing on fears, insecurities, or memories—and I wake up disoriented, not knowing which way is up; not knowing if I’ve woken to reality or if the dream was reality.

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve had the same nightmare. As I grew older, the nightmare became more frequent. Now at twenty, almost twenty-one, I suffer through my nighttime horror film weekly, as if my subconscious is demanding I take notice. Like it’s trying to tell me something.

  Normally, dreams vary. You could have the same dream several times throughout your life, but it’s always different in some way. Let’s go with the cliché standing-in-front-of-a-crowd-naked dream.

  The location could be in the school gymnasium, or the quad, or the cafeteria. Or it could even take place in the streets of a bustling city, or at your workplace in front of your colleagues. That’s the type of variety I’m talking about — location.

  Or it could be circumstance. You overslept, or someone stole your clothes from the locker room. Or maybe there is no explanation.

  People, weather, or time are also fitting examples of dream variation. Perhaps you’re naked in front of your family, or the guy you’re crushing on. It could be raining or sunny. Maybe there’s snow and you’re about to have icicles dangling from your nipples. It could take place at midday, nighttime, or you could be naked with the rising sun.

  My point is, when we have a recurring dream, there are variations. But the nightmare that has plagued my nights for my whole life, has never changed. I always jerk awake, go downstairs, hear the violence and the threats, and drop into the tunnel with the Sunset Stranger.

  With a dream like this, one would assume it came from a memory. It plays out that way, rather than a frightening event my subconscious created. But the strange thing is, I don’t know the people from my dream. I don’t recognize the location or the rooms in the house. I have never heard the names Landon, Eleanor, Marcus, or Liliana. And my parents are not dead.

  Nightmares feast on your fears and insecurities. If this nightmare is not bred from either of those, nor is it a memory, then how did it come to in my head?

  “Get it together, Lilly,” I mumble, exasperated with myself.

  Letting out an angry sigh, I climb out of bed and look around my dorm room. My heart rate slows as I take comfort in the familiar surroundings. It’s a small room, and I was lucky enough to get a room to myself when I moved from my parent’s house in the suburbs.

  The room has the layout of a typical dorm room: wooden furniture, beige walls, and blue drapes. It is a mirror image of itself, with my bed, nightstand, and desk on the side closest to the door, the unused furniture on the window side. Along the opposite wall, a sink separates two closets and sets of drawers.

  I look at the photos, of memories long since passed, that are tacked to the
wall above my bed. Photos with friends are intermixed with photos of me and my parents.

  My favorite picture grabs my attention–I’m with my parents on the steps in front of the Sydney Opera House. The three of us appear happy and carefree, with our hair blowing in the wind. My breathing returns to normal, and adrenaline fades as memories of our trip to Australia replace those of my recurring nightmare. I consider that trip as the last of my happy memories before life took a turn for the strange.

  Three days after our return from Australia, on the day of my sixteenth birthday, I was walking home from school. I came across a single vehicle accident. The SUV had flipped onto its side, and a woman was trapped underneath. I could see her legs through the smashed sunroof. The blue metal of the roof was cutting into her stomach. I needed to get her free somehow, and instead of calling 911 like a normal person would, I placed my hands against the roof and pushed. To my utter amazement and disbelief, I lifted the car off the unconscious woman. I wasted my efforts. The woman died on impact.

  What a way to remember your sweet sixteenth, huh? I spent the following weeks researching hysterical strength—our body’s fight-or-flight response to life-or-death situations. It’s the only logical reason I would have such strength.

  Since that day, strange things have been happening to me. Sometimes I catch myself staring at something that I shouldn’t be able to see because of the distance. Or I hear conversations as clear as day from people outside my dorm building, or on the other side of the quad from where I sit. Sometimes I think I can smell things that aren’t there. The worst one is my moods. They’re unpredictable; anger being the most prevalent. When I should feel a slight annoyance, now I feel a burning rage.

  That incredible strength has never returned, but sometimes when I carry boxes of books through the bookstore I work at, they feel lighter than they should.

  I’ve wasted too much time trying to research these strange happenings and have learned to live with them now. There is no point dwelling on things I can’t change or explain.