Unleashed
Authors: Nancy Holder
ALSO BY NANCY HOLDER &
DEBBIE VIGUIÉ
T
HE
W
ICKED SERIES
Witch & Curse
Legacy & Spellbound
Resurrection
T
HE
C
RUSADE SERIES
Crusade
Damned
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié
Jacket photograph © 2011 by Michelle Monique Photography
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Holder, Nancy.
Unleashed / Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Wolf springs chronicles)
Summary: Orphaned Kat McBride, nearly seventeen, must leave California to live with her grandfather in small-town Arkansas, where she is drawn into a paranormal world of feuding werewolf clans.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98346-7
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.
4. Werewolves—Fiction. 5. Moving, Household—Fiction. 6. Orphans—Fiction.
7. Grandfathers—Fiction. 8. Arkansas—Fiction.] I. Viguié, Debbie. II. Title.
PZ7.H70326Unl 2011
[Fic]—dc23 20011023301
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
To our readers, bloggers, reviewers, librarians, and booksellers—
thanks so much for running with us
.
—
Nancy
To my beloved wolf-hybrid, Wolfie—I miss you every day and I
hope you’re playing your heart out in puppy heaven
.
—
Debbie
Contents
Things that love night
Love not such nights as these …
—K
ING
L
EAR
, 3.2.42–43
1
I
can fly
.
Katelyn Claire McBride was the girl on the flying trapeze. Her sun-streaked blond hair streamed behind her as she soared above the crowd on the Mexican cloud swing. Thick stage makeup concealed her freckles, scarlet smudging her mouth, which she had always thought was too cupid-cutesy. Smoky ash-gray kohl ringed her light blue eyes. The soaring melody of “Alegría” moved through her like blood. Music gave her life. Movement gave her a soul.
She had made it. After years of sweat, blisters, pulled muscles, and sprains, she was finally performing in the Cirque du Soleil. Far below, in the massive audience, her mother looked on with her dad, their fingers entwined. Their faces shone with pride and maybe just a few hundred watts of suppressed parental fear.
Like all performers, Katelyn was a chameleon. Away from the spotlight, she was a tanned California girl who preferred Indian-print camisoles, jeweled flip-flops, and big sunglasses decorated with flowers. But now she looked like a dramatic flamenco dancer … and much older than sixteen. She wore a black beaded leotard trimmed with stiff silver lace. A black lace choker encircled her neck, and in the center, a large red stone carved to look like a rose nestled in silver filigree.
The Mexican cloud swing was Katelyn’s specialty, and she pumped her legs back and forth as she sat in the V created by the two long pieces of white braided cotton fibers. A kind of crazy mania worked its way through her as she breathed deeply, preparing herself for her last trick—her death-defying escape from gravity.
I’m the only one here who can fly!
She swung higher, then grabbed the rope dangling from the complicated overhead rigging and, with practiced circular motions of her foot, looped it around her right ankle. The familiar texture of the cotton rubbed against the toughened skin. She looked delicate, but like all dancers and gymnasts, she was made of muscle.
Cool air expanded her lungs as she leaped, arching like a swimmer and grabbing the V as it went taut. Gracefully she held the pose as applause washed over her. Scarlet rose petals showered her from overhead, high in the rigging, and at the crescendo, she defiantly let go. Thrusting back her arms, she raised her chin, ignoring the forbidden camera flashes. Fearless. Of course she was.
Yet gasps changed to screams as she plummeted down, down, headfirst, air rushing past. In that split second, her joy flashed into panic.
The net’s gone!
The ground rushed up and she flailed wildly.
I’m going to die!
Then the floor split open. From the deep, jagged fissure, flames shot up, straight at her. The heat slapped her face as she kept falling, straight into hell—
“Katie, Katie, oh, my God, wake up!” her mother shouted into her ear.
Katelyn’s eyes flew open and just as quickly squeezed shut. Coughing, she opened them again. Half-smothered in smoke, she was lying on the sofa in the TV room, and her right arm was slung over her mom’s wiry shoulder. The Art Deco floor lamp behind the sofa tumbled light over the rolling layers of smoke. The feet of the sofa rattled like a machine gun against the hardwood floor; the plaster ceiling was breaking off in chunks. Her mom was wearing her old Japanese bathrobe—nothing else.
“Earthquake,” Katelyn slurred. Her gymnastics coach had given her something to take for the swelling and pain after she had twisted her ankle in practice, and it had knocked her out.
“
Alors, vite
!” Her mom was losing it, screaming at her in French to hurry. She yanked on Katelyn’s arm, then draped her across her back like a firefighter and began to straighten her legs. Katelyn slid off, grabbing her mother’s wrist, trying to fan the smoke away as she doubled over, coughing.
Clinging to each other, the two staggered through the acrid haze. Katelyn knew she was holding her mother back. She was slow—still not entirely awake because of the painkiller—and incredibly dizzy. She stepped on something hot, searing her instep, one of the few places on her feet not protected by calluses. The room shook and swayed. The lamp fell over, throwing light against the portraits of her mother, the famed ballerina Giselle Chevalier, as they jittered against the cracking walls and crashed to the floor.