Roguish. Reckless. Unreliable.
Raff Pineda has a certain reputation among the Animari. He’s the one to call if there’s a party starting, not the man to rely on when all hell breaks loose. Though he’s nominally the leader of the Pine Ridge pack, he defers to his second on the tough calls. Raff prefers to live fast and hard and keep his heart hidden, but a certain Eldritch princess won’t fall for his usual tricks, and their contract political marriage may be anything but convenient.
Ambitious. Elegant. Isolated.
Princess Thalia Talfayen may not have been raised by a witch in a tower, but she’s spent the last few decades locked up for a failed insurrection. Plotting and scheming come naturally to her; personal connections do not. Since she’s come this far in her unstoppable quest to claim the silver throne, she won’t hesitate to do whatever it takes to unite her people, even if that means giving herself to the big bad wolf…
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
The Story So Far
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Author’s Note
THE WOLF LORD
Ann Aguirre
For Suleikha Snyder
Who writes beautiful books
And still finds time to read mine.
Copyright Information
THE WOLF LORD
Copyright © 2018 by Ann Aguirre
EPUB Edition
Edited by Victoria West
Cover art by Kanaxa
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form whatsoever, without written permission from the author except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews or articles.
Acknowledgments
I wish I could download books directly from my brain, but alas, making words takes time. Thanks so much for waiting eagerly to receive Raff and Thalia’s story.
First, thanks to Karen Alderman, Fedora Chen, and Pamela Webb-Elliot for sticking with me through so many books. I also appreciate Rachel Caine, Bree Bridges, Melissa Blue, Kate Elliott, Suleikha Snyder, and Charlotte Stein for offering moral support, kindness, and humor during one devil of a year. Thank you to all my readers and anyone who’s enthusiastically recommended these books to others, such as Patrick Weekes.
Kanaxa also merits special mention as the artist who packages my books so beautifully, even when the ask seems impossible. My editor, Victoria West, needs a thank-you, as well, since she polishes my prose so well. Thanks to Lillie for the fantastic proofreading. I couldn’t do this without the whole team.
Finally, thanks to my family, who are only a little jealous that I have a special office mini-fridge stocked with juice boxes, string cheese, and pudding. My son, Alek, helped me a lot in working out the plot for this book; he’s a fantastic listener and he always comes up with great solutions. The action scenes often contain his ideas!
Please enjoy this story and look forward to the rest. We’re halfway there; thanks for sticking with me. If you’re wondering whether there will be more books—more couples—after the planned six-book series ends, that depends on you, dear reader. Keep talking about these stories and let it be so!
The Story So Far…
In The Leopard King, Latent shifter Pru Bristow went after the pride leader, Dominic Asher, who had holed up at the seer’s retreat after the death of his wife, also Pru’s best friend. With the conclave approaching, Ash Valley couldn’t afford to let Dom’s second, Slay, run the show. It was rocky going, and they were attacked by Eldritch assassins. In the furious fight that followed, Pru finally shifted and saved Dom’s life.
In time, she convinced Dom to come back to Ash Valley because the fate of the pride rested on completing the conclave and renewing the Pax Protocols (a peace treaty between supernatural communities). Her success didn’t come without a cost, however. She agreed to become Dom’s mate and lead the pride alongside him.
Their return startled a lot of people, Slay most of all, because he’d always thought that Pru would wait for him forever. Since he didn’t want her when she couldn’t shift, she didn’t want him once she could, and Pru devoted herself to working with Dom to make the conclave go smoothly.
That wasn’t in the cards. Though the attendants all arrived safely, the Pine Ridge wolf pack and the Burnt Amber bear clan hated Lord Talfayen of the Eldritch, and nobody knew what to make of Prince Alastor of the Golgoth. Everything that could go wrong, did, including the murder of an Eldritch envoy. Talks broke down, culminating in treachery, but the Eldritch Lord’s plot went awry, as the bombs he’d set detonated too soon, catching his own people in the trap. King Tycho of the Golgoth attacked thereafter and it was all Ash Valley could do to hold.
Meanwhile, Dom and Pru tried to keep things together while falling in love. They did battle with their enemies and each other, before eventually admitting their true feelings. Slay vanished mysteriously and the leading couple finally had a wedding party, once Ash Valley was safe. Soon after, the visiting dignitaries departed, and the Numina prepared for war.
In The Demon Prince, Dr. Sheyla Halek reluctantly agreed to take charge of Prince Alastor Vega and work on synthesizing the medicine he needed for his rare illness. Since she preferred research to treating actual patients anyway, she didn’t hate the idea, but she was quite annoyed to be saddled with someone she considered an enemy. For his part, Prince Alastor liked the prickly doctor at once and spent a good deal of his time trying to charm her.
They left Ash Valley together—with her ostensibly in the role of company medic—and became closer through an arduous journey to Tycho’s likely next target: the unprotected city of
