Amarok by Angela J. Townsend Read Free Book Online

he’d rip the man’s throat out. He would gladly sacrifice his own life for hers. He’d lived long enough, and what kind of a life did he have anyhow? One of abject misery and sorrow. Until the girl had come, he hadn’t fully realized the cost of being a wolf, how he’d never be able to have a family of his own, or the comfort of a woman at his side.
    Amarok watched the girl as she stared into the fire, her eyes filled with pain. More than being kidnapped troubled the girl, something far deeper. She didn’t seem to care any more about her own life than he did for his. He wanted desperately to lean against her knee, and to feel her soothing touch, to reassure her that everything would be all right, even though he had his own doubts, but he had to stay alert and guard her.
    Sleep tormented him like the scent of fresh blood. He longed to lay his muzzle on his paws and allow the food in his belly to lull him to sleep. With a little rest and the fuel in his gut, he’d be strong as steel again. His confidence escalated. No matter what happened, he’d be resilient enough to protect her now.
    Weasel Tail rested near the fire, his head against his pack. At his feet, the girl curled up against a log, shivering in spite of the flames. While they slept, Amarok thought of all the tundra’s hungry predators. He heard the calls of the pack of wolves that lived to the east, and the sneaky footsteps of an arctic fox. When he finally dozed off, his dreams were nightmarish. They kept him half-awake and he was glad. It enabled him to stay alert to any danger lurking nearby.
    The yips and howls of the distant wolf pack increased in the hours just before daybreak. Without so much as snapping a twig or rustling a leaf, they crept like ghosts, peering from behind trees and snow-topped boulders. Amarok felt their piercing gaze, caught an occasional blur of movement, but none of this was of any real concern. What troubled him was the bloody carcass luring in the one beast that terrified him, the one creature who stalked the herds of mankind with an unyielding passion for revenge.
    Suka.
    Even the name sent adrenaline racing through his veins. He’d once been a wanted man—a bush-wise murderer who’d disappeared into the wilderness. Native legend said that in a drunken stupor Suka had stumbled too near the cursed valley, and the shaman had turned him into a monstrous bear. After his transformation, the old native had given the beast to the Ryan family, and in exchange they stalked the land, scouting for victims.
    Suka had flown into a rage when Abe Ryan caged him, and only bars of steel could contain the furious beast. But even with ten-inch chains and iron bars, Abe Ryan couldn’t control the bruin. One dark afternoon Suka broke his chains, killed Abe, and slashed the bear totem from the man’s neck.
    No longer a slave, and elated at finding his totem, Suka had waited for the transformation to begin, to live as a man once again. When it didn’t happen he went mad, killing all that came near him or dared to enter his domain. For there was one thing Suka didn’t understand, one thing Amarok had learned by listening to Abe explain to Weasel Tail. There were two totems carved of mammoth tusk for each transformed person—one hidden on the tainted soil of the cursed land, and one held by the Ryans. Both totems must be held to grant Suka—or any of the shaman’s other victims—freedom. Even with possessing the first totem, finding the second one might prove impossible as it would mean venturing into Milak’s forbidden land, risking disease and enslavement for anyone who tried.
    Furious, Suka had retreated deep into the wilderness with his totem, not knowing about the second one that kept him in bear form. Wherever he traveled he slashed a symbol of four claws into the trees, marking his territory.
    After a hundred years it was carved into the face of the earth across the vast wilderness, miles wide—a warning sign to those who entered