When captivity binds them, desire sets them free.
PATH OF THE WOLF, a haunting tale of love, power, and the beast within from Tony-Paul de Vissage, is releasing on September 23rd, and we have an exclusive excerpt!
Preorder this forbidden fantasy romance today!
https://books2read.com/Path-of-the-Wolf
https://books2read.com/Path-of-the-Wolf
Blurb:
In war-torn 15th-century France, the most dangerous creature isn’t the beast, it’s the man who claims to own him.
Isabeau de Montaigne never asked for a husband, much less one like Francois, a self-absorbed artist more devoted to his canvases than to her. She’s grown used to his long absences and strange moods, but he turns her world upside-down when he returns from his latest journey with a strange, fur-covered creature in tow. Francois claims he purchased the “wolf” from a gypsy camp. Certainly he looks and moves like a beast, but he also looks at Isabeau with undeniably human eyes.
Claiming the creature as his new muse, Francois prepares to immortalize him as Saint Jean. As Isabeau grows closer to the captive creature, she begins to see the humanity in him and questions the monstrousness of the men around her. Realizing she’s as much a captive as he is, she finds the release she needed in his arms. It’s then she realizes she must escape Francois’s cruelty or die trying.
A sensual historical fantasy about captivity, desire, and the blurred lines between man and myth. Path of the Wolf challenges what it means to be civilized, and what it takes to reclaim your freedom.
Read an excerpt of Path of the Wolf!
With the key, Isabeau opened the studio and went in, tugging on the rope as the creature hesitated at the threshold. He followed reluctantly. When she unlocked the storeroom and went inside, he stopped in the doorway, pulling back on the rope with a whimper.
That made Isabeau wonder if he’d ever been inside a building before.
Where did François find this creature?
Was he running wild in some wood, like a loup-garou? She had heard tales of abandoned children raised by wolves, but thought them merely fictions. Had he attacked her husband and been beaten into submission? Neither appeared injured in any way, but the creature’s hair was so tangled and matted with dirt, he might have sustained a hidden wound.
How could she tell?
François seemed hale enough.
Just now, the beast didn’t look ferocious. Squatting in the doorway, gazing about, then back at her with those unsettling eyes, he seemed more afraid. Cautiously, he stared at the wall, sniffing the boards.
Does he smell the long-ago scent of the horses once living here?
“Come in.” She tugged on the rope, then thought better of it, for surely that must hurt his neck, perhaps make him resist more, even snap at her. Feeling a surge of shame, she spoke to him as she would to a dog.
“Come. Good boy.”
Is he a dog or a man? She assumed the creature was male. There simply was no feminine aspect about him. How does one talk to a man who thinks he’s a beast?
He loped forward and stopped again, looking up at her, mouth hanging open. If he’d panted and tried to wag a nonexistent tail, she wouldn’t have been surprised.
“There’s the cot. You can sleep on it.” She decided to speak to him as though he understood.
Perhaps he did. Her uncle’s hounds learned commands. It came to her that the creature was probably some poor half-brain turned out by his family and left to fend for himself. It was perhaps fortunate that François came upon him.
She gestured to the cot; a blanket folded neatly at its foot. He looked from her to it, cocking his head to one side.
“Sleep. Here.” To emphasize her meaning, she patted the blanket.
Again, there was that unsettling stare. When he moved, it was so swiftly she startled, staggering backward.
Seizing the blanket in his teeth and dragging it to the floor, he pawed it into a rumpled heap, threw himself upon it, circled three times, and dropped with a grunt. He curled his legs against his chest, body twisting so his chin rested on crossed forearms in a pose so doglike she might’ve laughed if it hadn’t so been bizarre.
“Not that way.”
With both hands, she caught the edge of the blanket, pulling on it with such a heave that she jerked it from under him. With a yelp, he rolled over. Crouching, he cowered, arms over his head.
“Here now, I’m not going to hit you. Oh…” Her voice rose in exasperation. Dropping the blanket onto the cot, she held out her hand.
He dodged, crouching lower.
“Shh, it’s all right.” She touched the tangled hair, feeling its gritty, greasy texture against her palm.
Whimpering, he flinched, arms wrapping tighter.
“There, there, I won’t hurt you.” She made her voice soothing, the way she might talk to a puppy someone had accidentally stepped on. “It’s all right. Shh.”
She continued caressing that filthy hair until the trembling ceased. He lowered his arms, peeping up at her fearfully. Again, she patted the blanket.
“Come now. Up. Here.”
This time, he got onto the cot—actually leaping onto it, making it wobble precariously—tried to circle, lost his balance, and toppled over the side, crashing to the floor.
She was there before he could recover, catching an arm and pulling him upright, though it was more of a half-crouch, back curved in a hunch.
“Are you hurt?”
The oddest expression crossed that dirty, hairy face, what she could see of it.
Is this the first time anyone has asked that question, or shown concern?
Again, she patted the cot. Once more, he climbed back onto it. This time, he straddled it, a leg hanging over each side, watching her.
François had said to chain him.
She looked around, found the chain lying in a corner, and dragged it to the cot. It had a hook-and-clasp at each end.
She saw now that around his neck was a leather collar to which the rope was fastened. He didn’t move as she untied the rope and let it fall. She used one of the hooks to fasten the chain to the collar. Other than a slight grunt, shoulders sagging under the weight, he didn’t make a sound as Isabeau looped the other end around one of the window bars.
Without warning, he dropped onto his side, knees drawn up, head resting upon a bent arm.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
Once again, she questioned speaking to the creature as if he could comprehend, but one talked to pets, even horses and cows, didn’t one? She had chatted often with the bird, and it understood. At least, she thought it did, since it occasionally replied, making noises sounding like words. When it escaped, it had even sounded as though it called, “Goodbye,” while soaring over the trees.
About Tony-Paul De Vissage
Tony-Paul de Vissage is a Southern-American of French Huguenot heritage, whose first movie memory is of being a six-year-old viewing the old Universal horror flick, Dracula’s Daughter, on television. He was subsequently scared sleepless—and that may explain a lifelong interest in vampires.
He is now paying back his very permissive parents by writing about vampires.
TP currently has had twenty-four novels published, twenty-two under the Class Act Books imprint.
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