Salvaged Souls (Black Hills Wolves #58)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Salvaged Souls

Copyright  2016 by Deena Remiel

ISBN: 978-1-68361-121-9

Cover art by Fiona Jayde

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

Look for us online at:

www.decadentpublishing.com

Black Hills Wolves Stories

Wolf’s Return

What a Wolf Wants

Black Hills Desperado

Wolf’s Song

Claiming His Mate

When Hell Freezes

Portrait of a Lone Wolf

Alpha in Disguise

A Wolf’s Promise

Reluctant Mate

Diamond Moon

Wolf on a Leash

Tempting the Wolf

Naming His Mate

A Wolf Awakens

The Wolf and the Butterfly

Infiltrating Her Pack

Omega’s Heart

Rebel’s Claw

Claiming the She-Wolf

Worth Fighting For

Dangerous

Uncaged

Promiscuous Wolf

Disquieted Souls

A Cougar Among Wolves

Long Road Home

A Mate’s Healing Touch

Another Chance

Broken Silence

A Wolf’s Contract

A Mate’s Redeeming Touch

A Cougar Among Wolves

Pleasure Me

Craving His Love

Jasmine Moon

Mating Dance

Amber’s Ace

Wedding Moon

Bringing Down Romeo

Winter Solstice Run

Wolf’s Holiday

Winter Magic

Winter Secrets

Winter Solstice Ménage

Wolf in Winter Clothing

Murder in Los Lobos

Scent of Murder

Scent of the Hunt

Scent of His Woman

Scent of Madness

Coming Soon

Secrets of the Hunt

Salvaged Souls

Also by Deena Remiel

Elixxir

Ghost of a Chance

Disquieted Souls

Salvaged Souls

When a new woman comes to Los Lobos, looking for a fresh start and a helping hand, she turns dominant black wolf, Parker’s world upside down. Struck by her beauty and vulnerability, he’s immediately consumed by her voice. One with which he’s all too familiar. The seductive, tremulous voice of his red wolf, his dream lover who he’d give anything to rescue from a torturous life. His mind is slammed by the impossible implications, and he can’t let her out of his sight until he finds out who she really is.

Shiloh has endured endless days and nights as a captured, forced mate of an alpha, chained to a cast iron stove, a vessel for all manner of unspeakable abuses. The only thing keeping her alive? Her black wolf, her mate, who comes every night in her dreams, soothing away the anguish, offering exquisite love and hope that one day an opportunity will come for her to break away. With her mate away on a trip, she just might have that chance.

Shiloh and Parker are two bruised souls, salvaged from the wreckage of their tragic pasts, who find that love might finally set them free.

Dedication

To all the salvaged souls, SURVIVORS, of abuse

Dear Readers,

Welcome, readers! I’ve always been drawn to stories where people, whose spirits and souls have been broken, find a way to heal through their love of one another. It’s so satisfying to watch characters learn to trust again, to believe again, and to let go for the first time so that a forever love may enter their lives. I believe Salvaged Souls is just such a story. I hope you enjoy all the highs and lows of this emotional story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Deena Remiel

www.deenaremiel.com

Salvaged Souls

Black Hills Wolves Book

By

Deena Remiel

Chapter One

How long had the beast been gone? With a tremulous finger, Shiloh traced along the crude etchings on the pine floor as she counted. Ten grooves. Ten blessed days of silence, of peace, of tranquility. Ten glorious days with no one kicking her in the gut, punching her face, or tromping on her as if she were a throw rug because they couldn’t be bothered to step around her.

Enough days had come and gone for fresh wounds to heal while older ones scarred over. Enough time had passed for her skin to become sensitized once again, and she quivered with the agonizing anticipation of being reintroduced to her mate’s brutal treatment when he finally came back.

Shiloh leaned against the wood-burning stove she’d been chained to, watching with morbid fascination as a squadron of flies buzzed like tiny vultures around her empty plate. Considering she’d licked it clean over a dozen times, the buggers would have to look elsewhere for a meal of their own. Her iron collar chafed the tender skin underneath as she lowered her weakened body to the floor.

She dreaded Josiah’s return with every fiber of her being.

Couldn’t he just die from drinking tainted water on the journey to finding his oldest brother, long thought dead? If not, then, maybe on his return he could be killed by some rabid porcupine. She held the same sentiment for his three brothers. Never, in her wildest imaginings, had she thought when she’d run away from her own pack, she’d wind up kidnapped, turned into a battered sex slave, and suffer indescribable indignities as a forced mate to the worst monster who ever lived on earth.

All she’d wanted, all she’d thought of, when she ran off that fateful evening was the freedom she’d gain from her clueless, cantankerous parents. They’d never been pleased with her, thanks to her wily siblings always setting her up to take the blame for their missteps. To stay with her family, her pack, meant a life doomed to repetitive failure and the misguided scrutiny of others. All of which would be well orchestrated by her sisters just to advance their own position and stake in their parents’ favor and the pack.

Running away and being on her own had been a great achievement up until a couple of years ago, when she’d inadvertently passed into poorly marked territory of an unknown pack. Seeking a place to bed down for the night, she’d stumbled upon four large, mangy wolves. They’d never given her a chance to apologize, to run back to where she’d come from, or to find shelter elsewhere. Instead, they’d surrounded her, shifting into a motley crew of men. They’d punched her snout and ribs as they threatened death unless she shifted into her female form. She’d seriously considered death as a better alternative, but cowardice forced her wolf to submit, letting her human take over.

The teeth belonging to the one called Josiah had glistened with drool as he verbally claimed her for his own in front of the other men. With bound feet and hands, she was brought to the saddest excuse for a village she’d ever seen. The few houses still standing had seen better days. An acrid stench of rotting waste assaulted her nasal passages.

From that day on, no one questioned Shiloh as Josiah’s property. The pack was so small, so ill-managed, they didn’t even have a name. They came and went as they pleased. There was no organization or anyone who gave a damn. Josiah, the group-appointed alpha, had one main rule: there are no rules except don’t piss me off.

When he’d introduced her to the pack, he’d let everyone know, in no uncertain terms, she was hands-off. First, he soldered the collar around her neck then pulled up the hem of her shirt for all to bear witness he’d marked her just above her right hip. As a last bit of degradation, he’d paraded her around like a dog. After her initiation into the pack, she became virtually invisible. Nobody in the godforsaken group gave a rat’s ass about her or spoke a single word to her on the few occasions she was allowed outside. Only Josiah. He had many words for her. None of them nice.

She spent her days and nights in her female form, wearing a collar chained to the leg of a wood-burning stove with only enough run to make it to the main rooms on the first floor. She couldn’t even reach the front door to answer it if someone knocked—not that anyone would. They’d just barge right in if they needed Josiah. They’d see her chained up but turn a blind eye. The chain-link collar squeezed her neck. So tight, if she shifted, she’d choke to death. She struggled daily to keep her raging wolf from taking over.

How much longer until the brutes returned? Her stomach growled its personal offense at not having an adequate food supply in the cupboards. Had he meant to come back sooner? Did something happen to spoil his plans? What if he never returned? She touched the collar, her mind returning to repeated daydreams about breaking free and where she’d run to so she could settle down.

Go on. I dare you to try again, she whispered. Her heart lurched as she wrapped bony fingers around the chafing shackle about