Prologue
The first time I shifted,I was eleven. I still remember the matching looks of shock on my parents’ faces. Where my mother’s gaze had remained wide, my father’s had crinkled with a smile. He’d crouched with his arms wide open to corral me. Disoriented and unsteady, catching me had been a swift affair. Dad had pinned me against his chest until my wolf quieted, until I morphed back into a naked child made of flesh and tears instead of fur and claws. And then he’d wrapped me up in a fleece blanket, whispering, “It’s okay, Ness. Everything will beokay.”
He waswrong.
After that day, nothing had ever beenokay.
What are you thinking about, babe?Liam’s voice resonated inside my skull, making me jump. I could morph into a furry beast, yet communication without sound was stillbewildering.
I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to hearing my Alpha speak to me through the pack’s mindlink.
MyAlpha. . .
With blood pledges, Liam had been sworn in mere minutes ago as the Boulder Pack’s new Alpha. His dream had come true. And mine along with it, because I’d gotten to swear my allegiance to him. I was now part of the pack who’d shunned me because of my gender. Take that, HeathKolane.
How Heath had birthed a son as fair and good as Liam was almost as mystifying as an Alpha’s ability to speak intominds.
Smiling up at Liam, I threaded my fingers through the soft, black swoop of hair that fell into his reddish-brown eyes and pushed it off his forehead. “Nothing. Nothing’s on my mind, besides how proud I am ofyou.”
Tonight was his night. I wouldn’t spoil it with my glumthoughts.
His gaze hunted my expression. Although Alphas could speak into minds, they couldn’t read what crowded them. “Ten more minutes, and we’ll headout.”
I looked around the large stone-walled room of Headquarters where the pledging ceremony had taken place. Outside, the world was going to sleep. Inside, the party was just beginning. The animated chatter and the tinny scent of blood drying on the pledges’ wrists made my headspin.
“We can stay longer, Liam. I’m not in any rush.” It wasn’t as though I had anywhere to go . . . anyone tosee.
No, that wasn’t completely true. I’d made a friend in Colorado: Sarah Matz. She was a deejay on Thursdays and Saturdays at a place called The Den, and a Pine wolf the rest of the time. Technically, she should’ve been my enemy—the Boulders and the Pines despised each other—but since we’d met at her brother’s engagement party, she’d been nothing but friendly. Actually, Sarah was only pleasantafterher first cup of coffee. Before that, she was a majorgrouch.
Still, her personality beat the fake pertness of the Boulder wolves’ girlfriends who all seemed to resent me because I possessed something they didn’t—the werewolf gene—and because I’d defied Liam Kolane, the boy reared to becomeAlpha.
As I watched Liam talk animatedly with the pack, my stomach throbbed. Hunger, I supposed—I’d had a sandwich, but that was hours ago. Unless the throbbing was emanating from my nervousness. Liam had asked me to go home with him once the evening concluded. I’d never gone home with a manbefore.
I pressed my palm against my abdomen that was hardening by the second and walked toward one of the walls where drinks, cold cuts, and energy bars had been laid out on a long wooden table. I fished out a peanut butter bar from a glass salad bowl and was about to peel off the wrapper when headlights flashed over the window, blinding me in theprocess.
My first thoughts were that my traitorous cousin, Everest, had come to right the wrongs he’d caused by blackmailing me into believing I’d killed Liam’sfather.
But then the driver gotout.
The energy bar slid from my fingers and toppled back into thebowl.
I could almost feel the earth shake as his boots hit theground.
After pledging himself to Liam, August Watt had stalked out of Headquarters. And yet, here he was again, minutes later. I hoped he’d returned to apologize for his odd behavior, but his rough stride and narrowed eyes told me that was most definitely not hisintent.
1
As August approached Headquarters,my entire body tightened. I felt as though someone were winding me up and up, like one of those tiny ballerinas in jewelry boxes. Crossing my arms, I watched him approach and, like those ballerinas, I whirled as he rounded the square building toward the heavy door. Had he returned to apologize for acting so distant toward me earlier or had he forgottensomething?
I willed it to be the former. I willedhimto walk toward me and say he was sorry, because I’d done nothing to deserve his aloofness. August had always been one of my favorite people in Colorado. And I wanted it to stay that way, in spite of the miles of land and ocean that would soon separate us when he returned to activeduty.
The second he stepped inside, his green gaze pummeled into mine, before roving over the room toward the white-haired elder bent over my gaunt-faceduncle.
Liam intercepted August as he made his way toward Frank. Something must’ve been said through the mind link because August’s expression becamethunderous.
He brushed past Liam. “I need a word withFrank.”
Liam squared his shoulders, eyes flaring with annoyance. At least I wasn’t the only recipient of August’smoodiness.
