[BOOK ONE] When hunter-gatherer Adele Shepherd comes across an injured werewolf in the woods, it's up to her to take him in and save his life: in a remote town dedicated to killing the creatures, she's the only one left who wants to help no matter t...
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THE COLD AIR was completely still. Tall, thick pine trees blocked the freezing wind from disturbing the forest floor, shrouding the shrubbery from all but the most persistent rays that pierced through the canopy like a lifeline from heaven. Hardly a sound could be heard but for the occasional snap of a twig beneath a scampering squirrel, the melodic hymn of a rare snow bunting that chirped in the bare branches of a deciduous tree.
Nature dominated the forest that belonged to the deer, bucks and does roaming in droves. For a long time, they had lingered on the edge of extinction when they were hunted as fast as they could breed by the wolves that stalked the depths of the woods, ravaged by the packs that preyed on their flesh. The forest was left to nature, hardly an ounce of interference from the people of Buck Pines until tragedy struck and crisis followed uproar.
What was common knowledge now was a horrific revelation almost a hundred years ago: the wolves weren't all that they seemed.
Not all of them, anyway. Amongst the wolves, lurking in murky groves, were the werewolves.
When a pair of deer hunters disappeared in 1921, their bodies later found mutilated and their hearts torn from their chests, it took no time for the werewolves to be villainised, characterised as savage murderers. Those who didn't flee the town at the mention of the beasts banded together to form an elite hunting group: the Honour Guard. Their sole target was to slaughter the werewolves under the guise of protecting the people, orchestrating brutal hunts.
There were casualties along the way. The wolves suffered, caught in the crossfire at the intersection of suspicion and impulse. Lives were lost, sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter in the name of honour.
Now in its fourth reiteration, the Honour Guard was as ruthless as ever, harping back to the organisation's first few years. Creighton Keir, great-grandson of the guard's founder, ruled with an iron fist, a callous leader who wanted nothing but to eradicate the species his ancestors had maligned. He took no mercy; he took no prisoners.
