Release in One Week

I'm giving you a sneak peak into "The Wolf of the Highlands" which should be released within the next week, but here is a teaser.

He searched the soldier and could find no wound. “What is this man doing here?” he shouted. “He has no wound. This space could have been used by a wounded man.” At the sound of his voice, the unconscious soldier opened his eyes. They were the dark evil eyes of the man who had pursued him in Egypt. He drew back as the man sat up on his stretcher.

“Did you miss me Ray?” the man said. An evil grin spread across his face. “I found you again. You must come with me.”

“MacGregor!” Ray called out.

“I got it Ray,” MacGregor’s voice answered.

“MacGregor, MacGregor, MacGregor,” the man mocked. He started to laugh. It was a demonic laugh. “I’ve got you this time, Ray.”

“Who the hell are you!” he yelled at the man. The others in the truck looked at him. A shocked expression was on their faces at the sound of English coming from the great doctor’s mouth. They saw the man rising toward him and one of the other men threw an arm across him to restrain him. The sudden stopping of the truck aided in pushing the man back down onto the stretcher. Ray was able to brace himself against the sudden stop and kept himself upright.

The door of the truck opened and he turned toward it. Alexia was holding the door open. “Come quickly,” she said. He moved as quickly as he was able. The sounds of the struggle behind him told him that he had a little bit of time to make his break. When his feet hit the ground outside the truck he turned to speak to Alexia. “Run,” she said. He started to protest. “Run, damn it, NOW!”

He fell in behind her running across the compound. He heard the sound of the man breaking free in the truck behind them. He surged forward and passed Alexia and then realized that he didn’t know where he was going. “Where?” he gasped, turning to look back at her. The man had leaped from the truck and paused a moment to see where he went, then began his pursuit.

“Just run,” she said. “If you want to leave this place alive, run.”

“But, I can only leave a place when I turn to pursue,” he protested. The words came out broken up by his panting.

“Not in this case,” she said. “Trust me. Do not be concerned about me. Just point your face out there and run.”

He did as she said. He had to trust her. There was no reason to believe that she would lead him astray. He pointed his face toward the bleak, frozen plain and ran as best he could through the snow. It was not easy. His lungs burned and he wanted to stop. He looked back and saw Alexia plunging along behind him. Behind her the evil-eyed man was holding the distance. Ray stumbled and fell in the deep snow and then scrambled to get back up. Alexia was beside him. She reached down and helped him as he rose. With her hand on his arm he was able to right himself again and they plunged ahead together.

His lungs burned more than he could ever imagine. He could not catch his breath, but merely gasped and tried to take in great gulps. He felt Alexia’s hand leave his side and he turned to look over his shoulder. She was no longer there. The man was no longer there. The aid station was no longer there. For miles there was only frozen prairie. He stopped and turned a full circle. He was in the middle of a frozen prairie. He looked down at his clothes and noticed that he was wearing a heavy buffalo coat and his feet were covered in thick, fur covered moccasins. When he looked up again he saw a wolf coming toward him. He paused and waited for the wolf and then he noticed the eyes flashed those of the evil man. It wasn’t his wolf.

“What do I do?” he cried out, hoping that MacGregor was still there.

“Run,” MacGregor answered.

“I can’t outrun a wolf,” he replied.

“You can’t worry about that, just run,” MacGregor answered. “I’ll take care of you.”

Ray turned and ran. His feet were heavy in the snow. His lungs were somehow fresher than they were before and he could breathe better. He pushed himself hard. He had to trust MacGregor. He could hear the wolf behind him. He knew that he would be overtaken soon. He could not look back. He simply had to trust MacGregor and run. The pursuer was gaining on him rapidly. From the corner of his eye he saw movement to his left and he glanced in that direction. It was a wolf and he knew that his time was up. He dodged to his right and the wolf turned with him. He ran as hard as he could, but the wolf kept pace beside him. He felt the wolf calling to him like before, not in an audible voice, but in that strange way which he had know as Hoka. He glanced again and noticed the eyes were different. The wolf was calling for him to dive onto her and wrap his arms around her neck. He dove, just as he felt the lunging body of the pursuing wolf fly past him, turning his shoulder slightly.

Then he was struggling to right himself on the back of his white horse. He found his balance and leaned into the thick neck of the horse and felt the speed of the wind increase around him. He turned to look and saw that the evil wolf was struggling to his feet after the failed lunge. He lunged to pursue them again, but the horse was much too swift and his pursuit soon failed.

The white horse ran across the frozen prairie just like it had before. It seemed that the horse had wings and hardly touched the ground as she ran. It was then that he realized that the wolf and the horse had been Alexia. Even before, when he was Hoka, the wolf and the horse had been Alexia. He struggled with remembering the real wolf on the mountainside, but he could not connect the two. Was she always there? Was she always with him? Had he simply not noticed before? As he struggled with his understanding, the speed increased dramatically, but the wind in his face disappeared.

When he blinked his eyes again, he was looking through the windscreen of a Mirage fighter. He was back in the cockpit of the jet. “Break right!” MacGregor shouted in his headset. He reacted automatically and pulled the stick to the right and mashed down on the chaff button, releasing metal shavings into the air to confuse a radar guided missile. The missile streaked past him and exploded off to his left. David’s training had saved his life, maybe more than just his life. He wasn’t exactly certain what all was at stake in this strange set of experiences. Was it his soul that was at stake? He hated the thought and really had little time to ponder more as he had to focus at extreme speeds with an Egyptian fighter on his six. He hit the afterburner and drove the jet vertical and then pulled it over backward into a dive. The move was meant to put him into a position behind his pursuer and allow him to become offensive, but his pursuer was not there and he was suddenly running across a green hill.

He looked down at the front pair of his four paws and felt his tongue lolling to the side. To his right was his mate running beside him. He did not know why he was running. There was a fear flowing through him and he ran because he was driven by that fear to run. Something was pursuing him and his instinct to survive was strong inside of him. His mate kept perfect pace beside him and they plunged over ravines and up over rocky outcroppings. They disappeared in the thick brush of a forest and paused to sniff the air and listen for their pursuer to give himself away.

After hearing and smelling nothing for some time, they began a noiseless trot through the deep cover of the underbrush. His mate trailed along with him. They found a deep covert and crawled back into it. Their senses were in tune to all means of detecting their pursuer.

He smelled them and stifled the growl which was thick in his throat. His mate was bearing her teeth and fighting back the deep growl as well. He could hear them rattling through the brush. “Those damned wolves are here somewhere,” the voice called out.

“We’ve got to find them,” another answered. “You realize that we’ll be a part of history.”

“How is that?” the first responded.

“We’ll be the ones who killed the last two wolves in Scotland,” the other replied.

“What about the pups?” the first asked.

“I found the pups and took care of that problem,” he answered. “But if we get rid of the old he-wolf and his bitch, we’ll keep them from making more.”

“That’s what you said last time,” said the first. “It seems both wolves and MacGregors keep showing up.”

Brock felt their presence was much closer and he crouched to lunge. His mate was crouched beside him. The moment his eyes caught sight of one of his pursuers, his muscles released and he sprang forward planting both feet in the chest of his pursuer. His teeth sank into his throat and he ripped and tore at the soft flesh there. The body soon went limp and he turned in time to avoid the blow which had been directed at him by the other man. He lunged away from the dead body. He started to turn toward him and caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes. His mate had slipped quietly out of the hiding place and he sensed her calling to him to run. He spun away from the man and lunged through the brush into the thick forest. He was again at the side of his mate and they were running.

What happened next was a dizzying flash from being on a horse, to being in a cockpit, to running across the Western plain of Russia, to running as a wolf in a seemingly endless cycle in rapid succession. They all blended together into one and the instinct to survive, the instinct of the wolf was the only thought and feeling that surged through him. He no longer had control. He could no longer think. He could not fight back. He could only run. Alexia’s voice, MacGregor’s voice, his own voice, all of them flashed through his mind and every time he heard nothing but the command and the urging to run. “The wolf must survive,” he repeated to himself over and over. It had no meaning. It had no rational thought behind it. “The wolf must survive. The wolf must survive. The wolf must survive.” Everything suddenly went black.

“The wolf must survive.” He heard the voice calling from the distance. Where did it come from?

“The wolf will survive,” the soft voice whispered. He knew the voice. It was that of Alexia. He opened his eyes and saw her gazing down at him. Her deep, dark penetrating eyes looked into his soul and he felt peace flowing over him. “You will survive, Ray.”

“Where am I now?” he asked. He had lost complete track of everything. He was unsure of who he was or where he was. Was he a fighter pilot, a wolf, a Sioux, or a Soviet doctor?

“You are in Greece,” she replied. “You are Lykos, a member of the senate in Athens and you are expected to address the senate in the morning.”

Coming soon at www.senserial.com