Chapter 1: Billie

Chapter 1: Billie

Locked up in Hexen Manor, I was supposed to be working instead of birdwatching. Still, when that cloud of sparrows burst out of the trees beyond the backyard, I couldn’t help my curiosity. Lately, the call of the forest had become irresistible.

With my binoculars hanging from a strap around my neck, I got up from the floor and opened the porch door. Immediately, I was hit by a potent coppery smell that made me nauseous, reminding me of meat and iron; it had to be blood. My feet took me across the yard and into the tree line without even realizing it. The deeper I went into the forest, the stronger the smell became, fusing into a mixture of sour fear stench and animal musk. One smell reminded me of dogs. The other was grassy, fresh… tantalizing.

The air suddenly sparked with vicious growls and bays of hungry predators. I pressed closer to the sound, navigating through the trees in my bare feet until bright sunlight glistened out of the leaves up ahead. Pushing through, I found myself teetering on the edge of a steep slope. In the valley below was the source of the smells—a herd of elk in disarray. Nine wild and savage wolves swarmed around them, their hunt obscured by the canopy.

I’d never been able to watch a hunt before.

A gnarled oak tree clung precariously to the ridge beside me. Desperate to see more, I climbed its splaying limbs, my feet scuffing the bark and knees scraping, snapping small twigs until I was high enough to get a clear view of the valley. Evening sun beat down on my back, the humidity wringing a bead of sweat from my hairline that trickled down my temple. I raised the binoculars to my face and watched the wolves—my packmates. At eighteen-years-old, I didn’t have my wolf yet, but for some reason… the sight of that bloody elk made my stomach coil excitedly.

In flawless synchronization, the wolves wove around one another, deftly avoiding snags in the undergrowth and clearing clumps of tall grass as they closed in on the injured elk. It wheeled and jogged in different directions, yet a wolf was there everywhere it turned. They had it surrounded, but the hunt was far from over.

Two shadows cut through the group with deadly intent as I immediately recognized my adoptive siblings: Catrina and Colt Hexen. I didn’t envy their black pelts in the summer heat, but it didn’t seem to affect them. They were focused on the elk, searching for an opening to attack. Colt, a year younger than Catrina and a year older than me, was more reserved than his audacious sister. While Catrina impatiently snapped at the elk’s haunch, he hung back and assessed the situation. The elk jerked away and kept moving, seeming to know that if it stood still for just a second too long, it would lose the battle. My blood sizzled with the craving to join my siblings.

As children of our pack’s Alpha, black-furred Colt and Catrina stood out from the other wolves, most of whom were shades of grey and cream. Yet there was another wolf with them that stood out even more. He was an Alpha, but not of our pack.

Three towns bordered the mountainous terrain of Gunnison National Forest in western Colorado: the small and quaint Grandbay, the enigmatic and rural Eastpeak, and the town I grew up in, industrious and sprawling Dalesbloom. The man that adopted me, David Hexen, was the Alpha of a pack of wolf shifters—werewolves, some call us—the largest pack of the three towns. The wolf hunting with my pack was the Alpha of Grandbay and nothing like the tranquil town he came from.

Robed in warm autumn colours, Gavin was striking shades of brown and bronze, brutally muscular, and twice as big as most of my packmates. His fur bristled as he stalked alongside the elk, flashing his teeth at anyone who got too close to him, even Catrina. As Catrina’s boyfriend and the future Alpha of Dalesbloom, I suspected he was here to help with the hunt. Alpha Gavin was known for being a fierce and cruel hunter, but watching him now, the aggression in his wolf looked almost like it was beyond his control. A lunge at the elk awarded him a death grip on its throat, forcing the elk to a trembling halt. Its front legs collapsed, but as the other wolves drew near to topple the elk, Gavin let go and turned his teeth onto them.

Alarm bells rang in my head. “What are you doing…?” I whispered.

I’d heard about how shifters without the mark of their fated mate could sometimes lose control of their beast, and Gavin wasn’t marked.

The Grandbay Alpha swung his head at the nearest wolf and bit down on their muzzle, eliciting a squeal from my packmate, then shook his head in violent rage. Blood darkened my packmate’s face. The others nipped Gavin’s flanks to stop him, but the chaos only escalated as Catrina jumped into the fray. A vicious racket of growls and yelps broke out from the valley as the pack self-destructed, allowing the ruddy elk to climb to its feet and amble away. I stared on in shock. The hunt had gone terribly wrong, and I was the silent witness to it all up in my tree.

I’d seen Alpha Gavin before when he visited Hexen Manor. I knew from the way he treated Catrina that he was a callous brute, but it never hit me how truly savage he was until then. The sight sapped all the heat from my body. Was this what I would be exposed to once I finally channeled my wolf? Or worse… was that something I might become?

Some of the Dalesbloom wolves realized the skirmish cost them the hunt. They broke apart from Gavin and raced after the elk, led by Colt, and managed to prevent it from reaching the trees. I still had hope they could salvage the hunt until Gavin, incensed by Colt’s show of leadership, took off after Colt like a blazing arrow.

No! My heart raced as my brother became the target of Gavin’s wrath. Despair mounted inside me with each stride Gavin gained on Colt. If Catrina allowed him to hurt my brother, I would never forgive them. I could barely watch. Even from afar, I wanted to keep Colt safe. I couldn’t stomach being so helpless, seeing Gavin get closer and closer, his teeth bared—

Gravel crunching on the driveway up to Hexen Manor ripped me out of the scene. I gasped, dropping my binoculars and twisting around to see a black truck pulling up to the house. That was Alpha David’s truck. He was home two hours earlier than he said he’d be. If he caught me out here, I’d be dead meat.

With adrenaline still pumping in my veins, I stood up on the branch and inched my way closer to the trunk that the branch split from, then stuck my leg down, searching for the gall in the tree bark I had used as a foothold. Bark scratched my skin as I hastily climbed back down, dizzy with unease. This was the most daring I’d been in a long time, and I had a sickening sensation that I was going to seriously pay for it.

When my feet hit the ground, I brushed bits of bark off my denim shorts and grey t-shirt. My hair bobbed wildly over my shoulders as I sprinted back to the manor, across the manicured backyard and up to the porch. Grass trimmings clung to my feet, further testifying to my betrayal of responsibilities that evening, and my binoculars bounced against my chest, feeling heavier than they should. When I slid the glass door open, my heart plunged into my stomach as I realized I was too late.

Across the dinette and the grand parlor, past the half-wall adorned in familial knickknacks that divided the parlor from the foyer, David had already stepped in through the front door and was pulling off his suit jacket. The sound of the porch door opening drew his attention to me, standing there red-handed in a cold sweat. His grizzled face wrinkled up in annoyance as he dropped his jacket on the floor.

Knowing I was done for, I closed the door behind me and took a couple steps into the dinette. David’s thundering footsteps intensified my nerves and made me hang my head. Clenching my fists, I waited for his anger—a different kind of wrath than Gavin’s. Not hot and unpredictable, but slow and familiar and shame-inducing, the kind that ate away at my heart. I didn’t know which wrath I’d prefer, but at the moment, I almost wished I could be feeling teeth on my skin rather than the sting of Alpha David’s words.

“Billie,” he growled when he was halfway across the parlor, “why were you just outside?”

My throat closed up. Words became difficult to grasp as I tried to rationalize why I had so blatantly broken his rules. When I spoke, I didn’t mean to sound so indignant, but it burned through my voice all the same. “I just wanted to watch—”

“You wanted to watch what?” He grabbed the strap around my neck. “Don’t tell me you went outside just to watch the birds, Billie.”

“The hunt,” I muttered.

“The hunt?” David paused, but I didn’t know where his gaze had gone since mine was still averted. He roughly pulled the strap over my head, tousling my hair as he took the binoculars off of me. “Where did you even get these?”

I didn’t want to tell him that Colt had given them to me, or else he’d punish Colt, too.

My silence only meant I’d have to answer for the binoculars later. Instead, he set the binoculars on the white table beside me, then lifted my chin with his knuckle and clutched my jaw. I barely peeked up at him. I hated disappointing him, and I could see that I had in his furrowed eyebrows, his dark blue eyes.

“How am I supposed to protect you if you sneak out of the house when I’m not here?” he said lowly.

I fought to keep my voice respectful. “I didn’t think it would be that dangerous.”

“Of course it’s dangerous. Even in our own territory, some monsters could hurt you, or worse—they could kill you, Billie. You wouldn’t be able to hear them sneaking up on you. You wouldn’t be able to smell them. Not while you’re still without your wolf.”

“But our pack never lets the bears or mountain lions get so deep into the territory!”

“Don’t be stupid. You know I’m talking about more than bears and mountain lions.”

My lips pressed tight. I did know what he was talking about—the same monsters that could kill me were the ones responsible for my parents’ disappearance. There were more than just wolf shifters out there in the world, far worse kinds of shifters than us, capable of far worse things.

David’s grip on my jaw eased. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said.

“I know.”

“Then why do you fucking disobey me?” It tightened again. “Until your Moondream arrives and you can channel your wolf, you’re helpless out there. Even around your packmates. They’ll push you, they’ll test you just to see what you’re made of, and I know you can’t handle it. That’s why you need to stay in the house when I’m gone,” David reiterated.

My lips pursed unhappily. “I just wanted to see…”

“Then you should have asked me.”

But I knew if I asked, he would have said no. He would have come up with some kind of excuse: watching the hunt would give me ideas, the scent of blood could attract other shifters, or more likely than any of those, he would have been too busy to dedicate an hour out of his busy schedule to watch over me. I frowned and nodded.

David leaned in. “It baffles me how you can be so foolish, Billie Jesper. You’re old enough to know better. Don’t disobey me again.”

The cutting edge to his words made me hunch my shoulders. That was always how his anger manifested, vacillating between care and scorn. Even though I behaved myself, every misstep was treated like the worst mistake I could ever make, as if David assumed the slightest leniency would get me killed. I couldn’t resist going outside after Colt gave me the binoculars, but I had only tricked myself into thinking I could get away with it.

David’s hand lingered on my jaw. I avoided his eyes when his thumb grazed my bottom lip, the touch discomforting. I didn’t like when he got so close to me, and he’d been doing it more often. Touching me, grabbing me. But then he suddenly turned away, running his hand through his greying hair and beard before grabbing the binoculars off the table. “You’re not getting these back,” said David. “You’re grounded. I don’t want you down here when the others come back from the hunt.”

The vision of Gavin gaining on Colt flashed in my mind.

I wanted to confess my worries about the aggression I’d seen from Gavin, but that would only fuel David’s simmering anger. It would make David think I was too soft to participate in hunts and remind David how much of a burden I was without my wolf, so I kept my mouth shut and scuttled down the corridor connected to the parlor.

David sighed and grabbed my binoculars, taking them to his office.

After washing my feet in the bathroom, I lingered, hesitant to leave in case I crossed my adoptive father again. I took my time brushing my hair and tying it back, picking plaintively at the light brown strands that framed my narrow face. I hated how the girl staring back in the mirror looked so pathetic. Gangly arms, a thin and feeble body. There was no way a wolf was hiding in this body of mine, but every now and then, I swore I felt it. Wildness that made me want to dive into the forest. Hunger for something more. It frustrated me that even after eighteen years, I couldn’t be like the rest of my packmates enough that I wanted to shatter that mirror. How long would I have to stay locked up in Hexen Manor before David let me go?

Walking back into the parlor, I spied David’s jacket still on the floor. Leaving it would only give him another reason to scold me later, so I picked it up. After fixing it nicely on a hanger and dusting it off, I meant to return it to David’s walk-in in the bedroom on the second floor before the sound of the porch door sliding open startled me out of my skin.

I jumped and spun around, wide-eyed at the nine hunters from earlier—now human—clustered around the door. Alpha Gavin was at the head of them with the slain elk’s neck on his shoulder.

Blood was smeared across his forehead, sweat glistening on the hard musculature of his bare shoulders, his jeans stained. Dark hair teemed across his broad chest, brown locks slick against his brow. His eyes were the colour of ominous murk—and pinned on me. My heart raced, adrenaline once more rising as I watched Gavin’s unpredictable anger come to life before me… and I was directly in the crosshairs.