Chapter 2

Melody shouldered her backpack and stepped from her bedroom, in the home she shared with her parents, Finn and Viola. Her father was second-in-command of their wolf pack, and her mother was always busy doing one thing or another in the pack. As she left her suite on the second floor, she stopped at the hall closet and grabbed the box containing her favorite card game.

Her steps were soft as she made her way down to the first floor, down the hall, and into the kitchen where her mom stood at the stove and stirred a large pot.

The kitchen was filled with the scents of her day-long cooking adventure to find the World’s Best Spaghetti Sauce .

This was attempt four.

“Attempt five,” her mom corrected her with a smile.

“Oh, right. I forgot about the one with the cherry tomatoes.” Melody made a face.

“Uh, yep, that wasn’t my finest hour. But this one is the one. I’m sure of it.”

“You said that last time,” her dad said as he walked into the kitchen.

“So sue me for being optimistic.”

Melody smiled and also grimaced a little as she turned away from her parents’ embrace at the stove. They were so sweet together and very much in love.

But a girl didn’t need to see everything.

She also wanted that for herself: the kind of storybook romance that defied everything that came against it.

But it wasn’t to be.

The male who was her other half, the one meant to be hers forever, had disappeared without a trace and never contacted her.

It burned still, seven years later, to know he was out there somewhere .

“So you’re off to Ellie’s?” her father asked.

She turned back to her parents. Her mom held out a slice of fresh bread topped with her latest sauce masterpiece. As she took it, she said, “Yep. We’re going to binge-watch movies and her mom’s making chicken wings. I think Ellie made cookies. Or maybe cupcakes.”

“She does love sweets,” her mom said with a smile. “Tell them both we said hi.”

“Be careful, kiddo,” her dad said.

“Will do. See you guys tomorrow.”

She kissed her mom on the cheek and left the house, bouncing down the steps and hitting the sidewalk.

Northbelle was a quiet mountain town that was entirely made up of their wolf pack. She glanced up as she walked, watching the sun start to dip behind the mountains. It was really beautiful here and she loved it, even if she was doomed to be without a mate forever.

Well, she had a mate, damn it, but he didn’t want her.

Just like every other male who knew the truth about her: she couldn’t shift.

It was monstrously unfair that both her parents could shift and no one in their entire family line had ever been unable to shift until Melody came along. But here she was, a wolf in her head but not in her body.

So she shouldn’t have been surprised that her childhood sweetheart, the only male who’d ever held her heart, had decided she wasn’t worth mating. That’s how it had gone ever since he’d taken off seven years ago and left her alone. No one would take a chance on mating her because they thought she was defective, and maybe she was.

If only she was free to date a human. Maybe she could fall in love and have kids and maybe they’d be able to shift.

But there was no way that Alpha Grimes would allow a human to come into the pack. He barely tolerated her as it was.

With a sigh, she took her eyes off the sky and focused on the path as she wound her way through the pack’s territory. She passed by the alphas’ home, where Alpha Daniel Grimes and his mate Aggie lived along with their son, Dario, who was a little older than Melody and had been a chief tormentor when she was younger.

Not that Jasper ever let anyone really bother her. He’d been her biggest defender. Until he wasn’t.

A few minutes later, her bestie’s house came into view. The cozy two-bedroom cottage had pretty pink flowers in hanging baskets on the porch and a cheery red door.

Always unlocked, she didn’t knock as she walked in and called out, “I smell chicken wings!”

“You know it!” Ellie yelled from the kitchen. “Come on back, babe.”

Even though she’d seen them just hours earlier, she still greeted them both with a quick hug. Chantal said, “I made lemon pepper, honey barbecue, and buffalo. And now I’m going to bed.”

“The sun hasn’t even set yet, Mom,” Ellie said.

“I already ate and besides, you know I like to scroll for a while before I go to sleep. You two enjoy yourselves.”

They said goodnight and then stared at the buffet Chantal had set for them: wings, chips, soda, and a plate with cupcakes and cookies.

“I’m starving,” Melody said.

“Me too!”

After their plates were filled, they headed into the family room where a sectional sofa was piled with pillows and blankets.

“Here’s all the movies I saved,” Ellie said. She scrolled the list and stopped on one.

“Nuh-uh, no romance movies, not even rom-coms.”

“Come on ,” Ellie said.

“I don’t want anything mushy,” she said.

Ellie rolled her eyes and then smiled. “All right. How about this one? It’s supposed to be funny, about a guy who’s having really bad luck.”

“Perfect.”

When the movie started, they set their plates on the coffee table and pulled it close to the couch.

“You know that you could just move on, right? You could find someone to mate with you, maybe ask Alpha Grimes to arrange a mating.”

“No way he’d do that,” she said. “And no guy wants to mate with me anyway.”

“Someone will,” Ellie said. “I think we’ll run into our soulmates at some point.”

“How on earth would that happen? We hardly ever leave town. Besides, I already have a soulmate.”

“If he was really your soulmate, he wouldn’t have split like he did.”

“Well, I still think he’s my soulmate, even if he’s a bastard.”

“He is a bastard. And I’m sorry that he left. Maybe you’ll get a new soulmate at some point, though. Maybe because he’s such a dick, you can get a new one, who won’t care if you can’t shift.”

“That’s a nice idea.”

But she didn’t think it would happen.

Her soulmate was out there somewhere, holding half of her heart.

By the time the second movie’s credits rolled, Melody and Ellie were ready for round two of snacking, starting with large bowls of microwave popcorn.

Standing in the dark kitchen, Melody stared at the microwave as the bag turned in a circle and started to pop while Ellie refilled their drinks.

“I think we should go with a rom-com,” Ellie said. “Just to cleanse the pallet.”

“Ugh, you’re relentless. Fine, you win.”

“I’ve got just the right one in mind.”

Melody frowned and looked out the window over the sink. “Did you hear that?”

“What? You trying to talk me out of a great movie?”

“No, you nut. It sounded like someone screamed.”

The microwave dinged as the popcorn finished, and in the silence that followed, Melody heard a faint sound again.

“Huh,” Ellie said. “That’s weird. I wonder what it is.”

Melody leaned over the sink and stared out into the darkness. She didn’t see anything for a long moment and was about to turn away when she saw two males wearing black dragging people from the house next door.

“Oh shit!” she said as she ducked to the side in case they looked her way. As she peeked carefully around the corner of the window, she recognized one of the high-ranked males and his mate, who were getting carried away into the darkness.

“What the hell is going on?” Ellie whispered.

“I don’t know.”

Melody went into the family room and called her mom. The phone went to voicemail immediately so she tried her dad.

“I think…I need to go home,” she said.

“Hold on a second,” Ellie said, grabbing her arm. “You can’t go out there! Let me get my mom.”

Ellie ran into her mom’s room and came out with her a few moments later, her mom tying a robe around her waist and yawning. They told her what they’d witnessed, and she walked to the back door and stared out into the darkness.

Melody was going to have a total panic attack.

What if her parents were hurt?

Chantal turned from the back door after turning the lock. “Listen, if someone is taking over the pack, they’re only going to bother the high-ranked males. We’re not in danger. I’m way too low-ranked for anyone to give a crap about.”

“But my dad is high-ranked. And they took Jeremy and his mate Alice from the house across the path,” Melody said. “What if they took my mom too?”

Chantal put her hand on Melody’s shoulder. “Listen, there isn’t anything you can do right now. There’s no one for us to call. All we can do is wait for morning and then we’ll figure things out, okay? I know you want to help, but you could get hurt walking out there right now. Do you understand?”

Melody stared at Chantal, debating pushing her aside to get to the door. “I don’t like it.”

“I’m sure you don’t, but trust me on this. In a coup, if that’s what happened, they just take out the alpha. As long as the high-ranked males toe the line, everything will be fine.”

Melody wasn’t sure what her dad would do.

“What makes you think it’s a coup?” Ellie asked.

“They took Jeremy—he’s ranked fifth. They probably took Alice to keep him in line. Grimes took over the pack by coup, but he just killed the alpha and the rest of the males fell in line behind him.”

“You talk about killing like it’s not a big thing,” Melody said.

“It’s a brutal business being a shifter sometimes,” she said with a shrug.

Chantal ushered them back into the family room and suggested Ellie turn on the movie to take their minds off whatever was going on. She assured them that they’d be told what happened when it was appropriate.

“I’m sure everything’s okay with your parents,” Ellie whispered.

Melody wanted to trust that, but something in her gut told her that wasn’t the case.