Driven is a novella published in a limited-edition print run by Subterranean Press. It is narrated by Elena Michaels.
Synopsis[]
Cains are known for being big, brutish and not-too-bright. The mutt clan embodies all the supernatural world’s worst stereotypes about Werewolves. But not even the Cains deserve to be hunted down and skinned like animals.
When young Davis Cain comes to the Pack for help, Alpha Elena Michaels can’t refuse him. It isn't about morality or justice. It’s about not letting anyone think they can do this to werewolves and get away with it.
But Elena is also dealing with the Pack’s homegrown monster—Malcolm Danvers, onetime enforcer, full-time psycho. Malcolm is now under Elena’s control, as part of the most difficult decision she’s had to make as leader. But if she has to let Malcolm in, she’s going to make full use of him…and the best person to catch monsters is one who knows exactly how they think.
Plot[]
Prologue: Elena, Clay, and Nick meet with Malcolm in Bulgaria. He wants to negotiate to join the Pack. Elena reluctantly agrees.
Five months later, Davis Cain gets home from a bad date to find his uncle and cousin murdered, skinned, and strung up in wolf form in the forest behind their house.
Main Story: The Pack is having its first Meet with Malcolm in attendance, and Elena is on edge. Malcolm intentionally needles them and criticizes the reforms made to the Pack, such as allowing human daughters like Madison to join. He also meets the twins and is unsettled by how unimpressed - and how like Clay was at that age - they are of him.
Davis calls begging for help. Elena cuts the Meet short and rallies the troops. She orders Malcolm to join them and earn his keep as a fighter for the Pack. Davis doesn't recognize him by name or face, proving Malcolm is irrelevant to the newest generation. They view the bodies and make a plan to track down Davis's living family members, who haven't been answering their phones.
With Vanessa's help, they visit the sorcerer who put a bounty on werewolves some years ago. He didn't set out this bounty, but Vanessa is able to get pings on some of the missing Cains. They go out to Texas and find two more corpses, once again skinned and castrated. They follow the trail to find and injured Theo Cain and his grandson Carter.
Theo and Carter are suspicious but accept the Pack's help. They are taken to a hotel and a supernatural doctor brought in to look after Theo's injuries. Vanessa gets a hit on the bounty hunters and they learn that the bounty was set by a necromancer whose daughter was raped and brutally murdered by Carter, Ford, and Curtis. The hunters are being helped by an Albanian werewolf.
The Pack hunts them down, dealing with irritations by Malcolm the whole way. The hunters locate Carter, Theo, and Davis; Carter and Davis escape while Theo dies of his previous injuries. Elena and Clay locate Curtis, confirm that he really did brutalize the girl, and Clay executes him without waiting for orders. Elena worries that she didn't provide strong enough leadership in that moment, but Clay reassures her.
They meet up with the others, catch the human hunters, and restrain them. They see the rogue werewolf about to attack Davis, and Elena orders Malcolm to attack in wolf form. Once he subdues the other wolf, she gives the order and he rips out the rogue's throat.
The danger is past. Elena tells Malcolm that he clearly wants to be a member of the Pack, to die a noble death fighting mutts instead of hiding from the Pack like a coward. She promises to give him that death by making him her executor on future mutt hunts. After all his needling and testing for weakness, he finally submits to her authority.
Characters[]
The American Pack and Allies[]
- Elena Michaels
- Clayton Danvers
- Malcolm Danvers
- Nick Sorrentino
- Vanessa Callas
- Kate Danvers
- Logan Danvers
- Karl Marsten
- Hope Adams
- Nita Marsten - their
- Marsten baby - a boy, two months old
- Jeremy Danvers
- Jaime Vegas
- Antonio Sorrentino
- Morgan Walsh
- Reese Williams - likes to bake
- Madison James
- Noah Albright
Cain Clan[]
- Davis Cain - college dropout, now living with his uncle and cousin for a year
- Curtis Cain - thirty years old. Cousin to Davis. Murdered and skinned in wolf form. Committed gang rape with his cousins.
- Lonny Cain - Davis's uncle, Curtis's father. Murdered and skinned in wolf form.
- Theo Cain - clan patriarch
- Zachary Cain (deceased)
- Ford Cain - faced off against the Pack years ago. Committed gang rape with his cousins.
- Carter Cain - early twenties, good looking. Committed gang rape with his cousins.
- Nate Cain - lives near Theo in Houston. Early thirties.
- Theo's twelve year old son, killed decades ago by Malcolm
- Bart Cain - lives in El Paso. Got in a car wreck and forgot to come to his family's rescue.
Other Characters[]
- Andrei - member of the Russian Werewolf Pack, ally to Elena
- Roman Novikov - Russian Alpha
- Atalanta - the twins' dog
- Mr. Marsh - porn producer. The half-demon who set the werewolf bounties, and now a contact of Vanessa's
- Ruçi - Albanian werewolf who helped the bounty hunters track Cains
Mentioned[]
- Charlie Gray - Now an official Pack member, in Australia on business
- Josef Marsten - Karl's father, murdered by Malcolm when Karl was fifteen
- Rhys Smith - Vanessa's boss, a mercenary half-demon
- Ramon Santos - the mutt who hooked up with Marsh's wife
- Liam Malloy - Ramon's buddy
- Cindy Marsh - hooked up with Ramon Santos, and later with a producer named Bernie
- Derek Souza - son of Zachary Cain, result of genetic modification experiments by a cabal
- Chloe Saunders - described but unnamed, Derek's girlfriend
Continuity[]
- Malcolm was discovered to be alive in Thirteen
- Nick almost managed to kill Malcolm in Brazen
- He and Vanessa also encountered werewolf bounty hunters a little over "two years and six months ago" in Brazen
- Malcolm got involved with the twins being kidnapped in Forsaken
- Davis was the young mutt who visited Stonehaven in The Puppy Plan
- The Pack killed Zachary Cain around fifteen years ago in Bitten (Book)
- Clay and Elena encountered Ford Cain on their honeymoon in Stalked
- Karl and Hope just had their second child, who Hope was pregnant with in Life After Theft
- The twins had their first Change in Forsaken
- Jeremy last saw Malcolm the day he won Alphahood in Ascension
- Reese's parents died due to his last girlfriend's actions in Chivalrous
- Ramon and Liam blamed some murders on Reese in Frostbitten
- The North American Pack has connections to the Nast and Cortez Cabals through Savannah Levine
- Clay had to deal with Malcolm as a child in Savage and Ascension
- Derek and Chloe's story is the basis of the Darkest Powers Trilogy, which took place 4-5 years ago, before Thirteen.
Trivia[]
- Madison and Reese now handle Elena's old job of scouring the news for possible mutt problems. Nick is now in charge of the dossiers.
- Logan can speak some Bulgarian, and even more Russian. Both twins are learning Japanese. Kate knows Spanish, Russian, and some French.
- Karl knows more languages than Jeremy, including Japanese
- The bounty hunters from Brazen were funded by a wealthy half-demon who was bitter his wife shacked up with a mutt. Vanessa handled him, and two Cabals sent cease-and-desist messages.
- Nick didn't change until he was older than eighteen
- A story about Nick in Aspen on a ski trip five years ago, jumping into a private hot tub to avoid frostbite....
Publication[]
Driven was first published in a limited-edition print runs by Subterranean Press, along with an ebook edition:
- A signed leatherbound hardback edition with wolves on the cover. 1000 copies printed. Includes 6 full color illustrations, including two that are not in the clothbound version.
- A clothbound hardback edition with humans on the cover. 5000+ copies printed. Includes 4 full color illustrations.
- Ebook edition with humans on the cover. Does not include interior illustrations
Image Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ The dog they got in The Puppy Plan is five months old..