To Tame a Wild Heartby Gwen Mitchell
Publication date: June 21st, 2017
Genres: New Adult, Romance,
Urban Fantasy
Audrey Taylor has carved a living out of society’s fringes using her supernatural abilities and street smarts. Freedom—sleeping beneath the open skies and under the radar—is all she’s ever needed. But when an ancient council of witches discovers her powers, Audrey must submit to their training or be stripped of her gifts and her memory. Audrey knows better than to trust anyone, and she’s never worked well with others, so it’s just her luck to be assigned a withdrawn and irritable falconer as her mentor. Even more disturbing is her desire to tear through his brooding façade and bare the man beneath when she should be focused on escape.
Corvin Wright values the solace of his duties and only finds peace among the birds entrusted to his keeping. But the council no longer sees a use for his unique gifts, and his sanctuary is in danger unless he can earn his place by babysitting a fledgling witch. The task becomes daunting when his apprentice turns out to be wilder and more broken than any creature he’s ever cared for. Her fiery spirit and dangerous beauty challenge every ideal of the life he’s built. As Audrey wrestles with her captivity and the bonds of responsibility laid upon her, Corvin must find a way to tame her wild heart before she breaks his.
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Excerpt:
As she
crested a hill she’d been charging up, there was another howl much closer.
“Damn it.”
She wiped the sweat from her eyes. She couldn’t see much, just the watercolor
outlines of trees in every direction, except for a patch of open sky dead
ahead. Audrey doubled her climbing pace as the terrain got rockier and sparser.
Wild things scuttled away, startled by her sudden appearance, but the forest
was surprisingly quiet otherwise.
She gave a
mental tug on her powers, just to make sure she was ready if she happened to
run into a bear or a cougar or something. That would be just her luck. The
rocks she was scaling grew larger, and the paths between them steeper. She
could no longer see anything below but treetops swaying in the wind, which was
also gusting stronger the higher she climbed.
What if you
can’t find a way down?
She was
beginning to feel like a cat getting chased up a tree. She concentrated on a
ledge fifteen feet up, gathered her magic, and faded there. From the top
looking down, the jump gave her vertigo. She swallowed back a wave of nausea.
Another
howl, too muffled by the forest below to judge distance or direction. Hopefully
the mountain climbing would slow them down. After all, wolves weren’t built for
mountain terrain. They couldn’t leap tall boulders with a single thought the
way she could.
As she
neared the summit, the path straightened, and she could run outright. Her legs
finally started to burn. She pulled the straps of her bag tight and ran full
tilt, leaping over anything darker than the bone grey dirt. She was moonlight
and wind, and though her heart was pounding fiercely and her breath was sawing
in and out, she felt like she could run like that forever.
Then she
heard it—not a howl, but the huffing of breath and the thumping of giant paws
closing in.
Much closer
than she’d thought. Without turning to look, Audrey cut left into smoother
terrain so she could sprint faster. She wanted to go west, but she’d get down
the mountain to the south and work her way around if it meant losing the tail.
She
faltered and nearly slipped down a giant crevasse, but her powers kicked in
instinctually, and she found herself faded safely to the other side. Though she
didn’t sense their presence, she scanned the sky for Hohlwen. She felt far too
exposed.
A howl
sounded from right over her shoulder; several more echoed on all sides. They’d
already surrounded her?
No.
This was
her only shot to save Lilly and herself. The Synod would never let her go free
after this! If the wolves didn’t tear her apart first. Fire ate at the bottom
of her lungs, and blood pounded in her ears. She didn’t dare look back, but she
cast an energy blast over her shoulder.
There was a
yelp, and then a tree shuddered and creaked, but the chorus of huffing and
growls only got louder. She could nearly feel the wolf’s breath on her neck.
She tossed
a few more blasts in random directions and heard another crash in the trees.
She juked right just as one of the massive beasts lunged at where ankles had
been. She blasted him right in the face, and he tumbled back down the hill with
a pained whimper.
Audrey
started fading, first to one side, then the other in a zig-zag pattern. As fast
as she could think, she flitted up the mountainside. Sweat poured into her eyes
whenever she paused to catch her breath and rain energy blasts behind her, but
the combination of adrenaline and the nearly full moon kept her magical battery
at a seemingly endless charge.
Still, they
stayed right on her heels.
She faded
another twenty feet just as a wolf broke through the trees and came up beside
her. He was massive—five feet at the shoulder, solid muscle and thick black
fur. His white fangs gleamed, and the unnatural glow in his eyes flashed as he
narrowed the gap between them with long, graceful strides.
He gave a
long, low howl. Others answered from behind, sounding farther away.
The leader
of the pack dodged a shower of energy blasts. One caught him in the shoulder,
and he fell out of her peripheral vision.
She turned
up the juice and ran so hard she felt like she was flying. Ahead, there was a
break in the already sparse trees. Without thinking, she closed her eyes and
pictured herself there. She materialized in the clearing…only to find herself
in midair, falling.
Author Bio:Gwen lives a life of romance and adventure with her very own hero in Seattle. She's a nature lover, science geek, and kitchen witch, with a nose for well-aged tequila and a pin-up fashion obsession. When not hiking to hidden waterfalls, taking in a burlesque show, or otherwise cavorting through the Emerald City, Gwen can be found in her favorite cozy chair brewing tales of magic, murder, and romance.
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