Riding on Whispers (the Wolfegang series Book 3)
Read Riding on Whispers (the Wolfegang series Book 3) Online
Authors: Jillian Ashe
RIDING ON WHISPERS
THE WOLFEGANG SERIES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright
©
2014 by Jillian Ashe
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, locations, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the imagination or are used fictitiously.Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This series is dedicated to my brother, Brandon.
One of my best friends.
This book is dedicated to my parents - for always supporting me. You never once said a girl can’t write science fiction. You showed me what it means to be a strong woman, and all the different ways a woman can be strong.
And for my kick-ass readers
Without you, all of this is meaningless.
Captain Wolfe watched Katerina on the holovid in his jail cell. She was racing his car in
his
place. His hands clenched around the bars as he watched her narrowly avoid another car’s debris. The metal creaked under the strain, and he quickly relaxed his hands.
He’d been so stupid. Getting arrested was a rookie move. Sure, they would’ve lost their money, but Kat taking his place was the last thing he’d anticipated.
Wolfe watched her nimbly maneuver his car. He wasn’t sure why she was so interesting to him, but he could clearly see how she cloaked herself in secrets. There was something about Katerina now that wasn’t there the first time he met her: a darkness and pain that was never far away. He saw it in her eyes and the way she always smiled politely.
When Wolfe helped Katerina escape the prison, he was sickened when he saw her. The things she said, the way the drugs had affected her mind, and the way the officers had hurt her disturbed him.
He ran his hand roughly through his hair as he remembered the way her broken ribs pushed at her skin. They’d done that to her – beaten her. Why?
Because of him.
Wolfe sat on the dirty, grimy mattress in his cell and rubbed his face. The poor girl was innocent. Katerina paid for his carelessness. That’s why he’d offered her a job. If she was nearby, he could protect her. It was the least he could do after what had happened to her.
He glanced at the holovid, the projected image stuttered and the display winked in and out. Jail didn’t care about the quality of a holovid’s holographic projection. The robotic cameras followed his Honda from above. Stuck in that cell, the last thing he could do was protect her. Wolfe was finding it harder and harder to keep her safe when she went out and purposefully put herself in danger. He was angry that she’d taken his place in the race. She could die, and there was nothing he could do to stop her. Not when he was locked up in jail. He’d failed to protect her.
Again.
He needed to get his priorities straight; otherwise, he’d end up making the same mistakes, and hurting her. Wolfe couldn’t wrench his eyes from the holovid, watching and waiting to see if she’d survive. He’d make it up to her. If he helped Katerina find her brother, maybe she would trust him.
Wolfe wasn’t sure why, but he wanted her to.
My name is Katerina Anderson, and everything I once knew has changed. There’d been no way to stop what had happened. I used to be normal. I used to live in the 21st Century, but now – none of that was true anymore.
The year is 2512, and I spent the last five hundred years asleep, frozen in suspended animation.
If I could take everything back and live out the last six months of my life with my friends, family, and loved ones while the cancer ate away at my body… only a week ago, I would’ve done it without hesitation.
Now… was different. I wasn’t so sure anymore. I lived on a spaceship, the
Wolfegang
. I actually lived on it. I’d made a friend I couldn’t imagine my life without. Ricky was helping me adjust. He was helping me survive.
Then there was the captain of the ship. He’d taken me in and given me a home. Wolfe was just as vitally important to me as Ricky was, though I hadn’t quite figured out why yet. I wanted to assume it was because his was the first face I’d seen after escaping from prison. The horrors I’d witnessed, the torture, the drug-induced insanity… Captain Chase Wolfe had helped get me away from all that. He gave me a home and a promise to find my twin brother.
Sometimes, that promise seemed like the only thing that held me together. It seemed like without it, my walls would crash down around me, and I would drown in my grief and pain.
Celeste… she hated me from the start, though I still don’t know why. Then I won the race that almost blew me to bits, and I think I finally cracked her prickly exterior. She almost gave me a compliment.
“Not bad,” she’d said. “For a human.”
From a gorgeous alien with a superiority complex, that was a huge step. It was definitely progress, if nothing else and I took it gladly.
I’d slid across that finish line in first place, and then lost control of the vehicle. My car slammed into the wall, and I scrambled to get out.
The car exploded seconds later, along with the crowd.
Most of them had lost a lot of credits because of me. They’d bet on the other guy, the one I’d beaten.
People poured from the stands onto the track. I really didn’t think they wanted to congratulate me. They were screaming. Some wanted to know who I was. They reached out to touch me, their newfound god. Some cursed my borrowed name.
I’d taken Wolfe’s name when I took his place. We had no time to file any of that obnoxious paperwork when the captain was incarcerated for twenty-four hours.
Ricky’s first concern at the moment was getting us out of harm’s way. His grip on my arm as he pulled me through the roiling crowd to an exit was unbreakable. He pushed through the people to the streets outside. Celeste held them back as well as she could, and Ricky hailed a taxi, shoving me in when it pulled up. Celeste got in after me. Then he slammed the door shut after us.