Page 1 of Chaos At Second Sight

CHAPTER ONE

YVAINE

“Yvaine.”

A familiar voice seeped into my consciousness.

“Yvaine, my star.”

Light pats on my forehead accompanied that same comforting voice. My eyes tried to blink open, but my lashes were too sticky.

A blurry face hovered above me.

“Grandma?”

I’m back in Scotland. What a lovely dream…

Memories, like lightning across a clear blue sky, sliced through my awakening brain.

This wasn’t a dream. And it wasn’t a dream that had brought me back to my other home. It was a lie.

Remember when I had talked about destiny? About the invisible string connecting us to our soulmate’s heart, pulling us to each other? That wasn’t me being romantic. That was Werewolf Realism 101.

Well, our cosmic string had snapped, and I took my half of it to Scotland.

Seven time zones and two semi-arguments later, Lachlan and I had landed in our birthplace. A large crowd of werepeople—including uncles, grandparents, countless cousins, and even those who didn’t share blood but shared our history, knowing when I first shifted into my wolf and Lachlan got his first kill—waited at the MacKenzie packhouse gate with ear-splitting cheers and boa-constrictor hugs.

I forgot all about the luggage I had dragged from home and soaked in the moment like the heather ale they threw over us upon arrival.

There was something grounding about returning to a childhood home, a quiet reminder that I had lived other lives before this one. The old wooden bed, the hiking boots still scuffed from eleven years ago, the daisy necklace hanging from the full-length mirror—all of it belonged to earlier versions of me. Versions untouched by my current problems. My current grief.

It gave me hope.

It reconnected me with those past selves.

Here, surrounded by my roots, I could find them again.

“Oh, welcome back to the living world, rionnag!” I let myself be hugged, sighing. A slight throb pulsed in the top left corner of my head and in my upper back—I should rename them Rudolph 1 and Rudolph 2.

“Morning. I’m awake.” I cleared my dry throat, blinking at the darkness embracing us. “What time is it?”

“Five o’clock sharp. Come on now, we have a lot to catch up on.” Grandma Riona rose up after a peck on my cheek. 4:30 a.m. was the time my grandparents woke up every single day of the year, whether they slept in their bed or outdoors. Be ready before everyone else is. Even the sun, they would say.

I snuggled deeper into the pillow, breathing in sage.

“Your breakfast and your seanair are waiting for you. The stubborn wolf hasn’t started eating yet.” She yanked the checkered curtains open, and a weak light filtered into the room. Invisible memories hung everywhere I looked, from the hexagonal honeycomb geometry prints and close-up shots of bees on the wall to the old archery bow mounted above the door.

With a full-body stretch, my hands bumping the dreamcatcher hanging above the bed, I climbed out of the nest, rolled down the blankets to air the mattress, fluffed the pillows, and headed for the bathroom. Once cold water washed away the fossils of last night’s tears, I trudged to the dining hall.

“Oh, haló, rionnag.” Grandpa was still the current Alpha and master of a large beehouse that dominated most of the south garden. Retirement, he insisted, was a myth invented by younger wolves to take charge without killing. Every morning, he read the Herald Pàipear, delivered with milk bottles and egg cartons.

“Good morning, Seanair!” I kissed his shaved cheek and slipped into my mom’s seat on his right side, always. Since she left for Montana with Dad, no one else was allowed in it. Except me.

His skin and sharp features reminded me of the Scottish version of a Western movie actor. Those blue eyes examined me over his cup—black tea, no sugar—and mine mirrored his, though we’d inherited different callings: mine in hospitals against disease; his beyond pack borders against rogues growing restless.

More werewolves were leaving packs with their hierarchies and rules, often unable to fill in roles and pay their pack contribution, turning into rogues. None had left the MacKenzies since old Fergus lost his mate—and his mind with her—and went rogue, a sign of a healthy pack.

Grandpa Ian extracted half of the newspaper and handed it over. I grinned as I took it, giving it a quick flick to straighten the pages—their crisp crackle a morning comfort—and scanned the headlines about the Inverness Caledonian Thistle and the Highland Wereball League final. Part of it was in Scottish Gaelic, a language I’d learned as a child that I could read and understand but not speak.