Page 1 of The Last True Hero
Prologue
Wastelands, 2139
THE FIRST TIME Adam McClainput the gun in his mouth, he couldn't pull the trigger.
He'd found a nice, lonely spot out in the Wastelands, far enough away from his sister that she wouldn't find his body, and one with a beautiful view over the Great Divide, which split the continent in half.
Thou shalt not suffer a warg to live.
That was the first law he'd ever learned at the knee of his stern bounty hunter father. Adam had followed in his footsteps, hunting the wargs and shadow-cats that lurked in the gloom of the wastelands. He'd seen the massacres firsthand, blood sprayed across timber floors as he walked slowly through a homestead, and broken bodies scattered and torn as he searched room after room, looking for the perpetrator.
One particular memory sprang to mind.
"I didn't mean it,"the man whispered, his hands covered in blood and his eyes filled with utter horror at what he'd found when the sun finally rose and he returned to himself. "I didn't want to hurt them."
But the warg inside him made him do it, and Adam lifted the gun and shot him. He'd always considered it mercy.
It was only now that he recognized the irony.
Heknewwhat he was facing. The barely knitted wounds across his abdomen still ached, but he could feel the maliciousness that worked its way within him. Two nights ago a warg buried its claws in his gut and tore his future away from him, and now it was he who had to deliver mercy to himself.
And he couldn't do it.
Adam took the coward's way out. He pulled the gun out of his mouth and dropped it to the ground, gasping hard. Night was slowly falling and with it came the heat in his blood, the moon's curse. He could feel it whispering through his veins as the monster within fought to free itself. The partner he'd once ridden with, Luc Wade, would be staring at the same sky, feeling the same rush of blood through his veins that Adam felt as the moon became a glint on the horizon.
And it was because of Adam that Luc shared the same fate.
As muscle ripped and bones tore themselves in half and re-formed, he screamed his rage and shame into the empty night. It was the first time he'd shifted and the agony of it was blinding. Soon there was nothing more than a monster remaining, and the man that Adam was lay buried deep inside the brutish beast's heart.
When the sun rose in the morning, he found himself a man again, naked and panting on the blistering sands of the desert floor with blood on his hands and the taste of it in his mouth. The sight of the deer—or what remained of it—made him vomit. It was a long walk back to where he'd been, his feet healing even as the harsh rocky floor tore them apart.
Adam put the gun in his mouth again. This time he knew the bone-deep truth of what he'd become. His hands shook. His sister, Eden, flashed into his mind. Eden, who would be wondering where he was...
“Promise me, you'll watch over her, boy,”his father's voice whispered in his mind, from a long time ago when his father had ridden out that last time.
Adam always kept his promises, even if he'd had to stab his best friend in the back to do so. His hands were shaking so hard when he pulled the gun out of his mouth the second time that he actually crushed the hand piece. Without him there to protect her, Eden would be forced to find her feet in this harsh world.
He didn't know what to do.
A wink of pewter caught his eye from the bag he'd brought with him. Adam stared at it for a long time, knowing he didn't deserve it. The medallion was a promise. A dream of another life. He'd taken it from Bartholomew Cane, the warg who'd changed him into... this. Cane wore one himself, as did his partner, Johnny Colton. Though Adam wanted both their heads, he wanted what the medallion represented more.
A way to keep the beast at bay. A way to hide what he was in a crowd of humans. A means to pretend that nothing had changed, that he was still the man he'd always been. He'd worn it last night and managed to escape the change.
Until now.
Luc Wade had promised them all vengeance. That was the only thing that kept his once-partner sane after what had happened between them. But Adam had something else to live for.
Atonement.
So he dressed himself in the spare clothes he'd brought with him—perhaps he'd known he couldn't really do it—and then he started back toward the beaten-up old motorcycle that had brought him here.
Eden would be wondering where he was, and Adam had promises to keep.
