2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Henri wrapped an arm around his older brother’s neck and laughed at a joke no one told. He led Marquis out of the house and away from the pack. When they were far enough away not to be heard, he dropped his arm and the pretend laugh.

“What are we going to do?” Henri hissed at his brother.

The time was coming when Amelia would reach her twenty-fifth birthday. On that day, if what they suspected was true, her omega nature would be revealed. Henri could feel the very earth demanding that Amelia be put to death. Every wolf shifter knew that omegas were to be put to death before their first year. It was in their bones, a knowledge they couldn’t deny.

“The pack will know on her naming day. They already suspect, and you know they do. That is why she’s not allowed out of the house or on pack runs. The minute the pack knows she has no wolf, they will cry omega.”

Marquis took in the woods that provided sanctuary for him and his pack. The same woods he walked with his mate as they dreamed of the birth of their first child. Here is where he buried his heart when she died in childbirth. His brother would have him bury his child here, too. The only piece of his mate that he had left.

“Tell me, Henri, if Nicole was an omega, could you kill her?”

“We are not talking about Nicole.”

“No, we are not. If I must kill Amelia, then we will kill Nicole. Then Amelia will have a friend to travel through death’s dark corridors with.”

“Alpha, you can’t mean that.” Henri dropped to his knees, ready to plead for the life of his daughter.

The thought of death was never pleasant. When it was one so close to your heart, the hurt was more acute. How could his brother speak of his daughter’s death when he too had a child he cherished? Mysteries would never cease. He would allow Henri to linger in his fear. Maybe his brother would understand how he felt.

Henri sank to his knees, his hands beating the ground beneath them. “You think I’m cold-blooded and don’t love Amelia? You’re wrong. She’s my niece, I love her greatly.” That love could not drown out the voice of Mother Earth demanding that her blood be spilled to right a wrong. No one knew what the wrong was, only that nothing but a blood sacrifice would satisfy Mother Earth.

“When her omega status is confirmed, the pack will rise and tear her apart with tooth and claw.”

Marquis’ brother was not wrong. He witnessed it once when he was a child. A female baby was born and declared an omega. The pack rose, ravenous as feral beasts. There was no reasoning with them. They kept coming until the newborn was shredded. There was nothing for the distraught mother to do except bury what they left of her child. The father cursed them. In the middle of the night, they left, never to be heard from again. It had taken years for Marquis to be able to look his pack mates in the eyes.

He knew they would do the same to Amelia. How could a civilized and progressive pack turn feral in a matter of minutes? He had not understood it then and couldn’t understand it now.

“One day Henri,” Marquis cautioned, “You may find yourself in the same spot. What will you do?”

Amelia was sitting on her bed. She listened as Nicole walked down the steps leading to the basement. Many of their peers thought she was being punished by being made to live down here. That wasn’t the truth. She had a beautifully done room with an attached bathroom. Her room was amazing. The walls were painted purple with black accents and covered with some of her teen dreams from when she was younger. She should update it, but it didn’t seem to matter now. She used part of the basement as a living room to entertain in. It was warm and cozy where she stayed.

She often wondered as she got older why she couldn’t live in the rooms upstairs, but she heeded her father and her alpha’s command. He knew best.

“Amelia.” Nicole flew into the room. Her black and white hair waved behind her like an invisible wind was carrying it. She jumped on Amelia, and they rolled around on the bed the way they used to when they were younger.

“You’re excited.” Amelia pushed her off, and they both lay on the bed looking at the starry sky that was painted on the ceiling.

“I am. You should be excited, too.” Amelia knew what she was talking about but was playing dumb. She was not excited, more like scared out of her mind.

“Not sure what you’re talking about, cousin.”

“You’re turning twenty-five, and then I’m turning twenty-five less than five months later.”

The fear Amelia was feeling doubled after hearing Nicole speak those words. Her twenty-fifth birthday was coming up. A large part of her didn’t think she was going to live past that day. In all of her dreams, her life stopped that day. Everything just went black.

“I bet the alpha gives you the biggest birthday party ever.” Nicole kept speaking, not noting the fact that Amelia was silent and brooding. “We have to pick out a dress for you to wear.” She jumped up before realizing that Amelia hadn’t moved.

“What’s wrong with you?” she huffed, waiting for Amelia to get excited.

Amelia shrugged before getting up to join Nicole in her closet.

“Come on, you know your dad. The alpha loves you. I don’t understand what’s bringing you down.”

Amelia took her cousin by the arm and pulled her into the living room, where they could sit together on the couch. The two of them had loved to cuddle together since they were pups. It’s a wolf thing, the pack said and thought it was cute. Amelia always thought it was something different, a little stronger.

“I think I can see things, you know this.” The one time she’d gotten the courage to tell her father, he’d waved it away with his hand. He said she was just going through puberty. What she thought she saw was just her imagination. She tried not to pay attention, but too many of the things she saw happened.

“You know, I always believed you.”

“I know. What you don’t know is lately I’ve been dreaming about my naming day. Everything stops, it goes black. As in, there is no tomorrow.”

Nicole’s body thumped against the couch, and she pulled Amelia close. She’d had a dream or two that the same would happen to her, but she pushed them away. She was half-human, which was why she didn’t have a wolf. Nicole shook her head. The problem was Amelia, not her. As much as she wanted to wave her cousin’s concerns away, she’d heard the pack whispering about what would happen on Amelia’s naming day. They seemed to relish the thought that she would be this abomination called an omega. A shiver of dread went down her back. She loved her pack, but they were scaring her.

“What are we going to do?” Amelia thought about it, snuggling down further into the plush couch and her cousin’s warmth. Death seemed the only choice for her. She didn’t want to die. It didn’t seem all that fair to her.

“What can I do?” Nicole gave her a blank look. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go for a walk.”

Her father was careful to keep her away from the pack about the time she turned thirteen. It was apparent at that age that she didn’t have a wolf inside of her like the other children. Nicole didn’t have one either, but it had been a fifty percent chance with her since her mother was human.

There were times Amelia wished she was half human, but it felt disgraceful to her mother. That always made her feel guilt. Her mom died to give her life. She needed to be thankful for everything she had.

“James is watching us,” Nicole hissed. “Just ignore him and keep walking.”

James had been one of her best friends when they went to school together. Then his wolf came out. He believed, the entire pack believed he’d be an alpha. When he emerged as a strong beta, bitterness became his crutch. The friendship he and Amelia had died on the ground of his first change.

He walked faster to catch up with them. “I smell an abomination.” He carefully scented Amelia and Nicole. “If I were you, Nicole, I wouldn’t walk so close to her. Someone might think there were two of you instead of one.”

“I’m surprised you can scent anything with the stubby nose of yours.” Amelia flicked her eyes over him and then turned her head in an obvious dismissal.

“You think you’re so high and mighty because your daddy is the alpha? What will he do when he’s forced to watch the pack tear apart his precious daughter?”

“Why would you even want to be part of something like that?” Nicole asked. She was close to losing her temper.

“Don’t you feel it in your blood? It’s like a fever that won’t let you go. Rend, tear, kill the abomination. Make the world pure again. How do you not feel it, Nicole? You should want to kill Amelia every time the two of you are together. The feeling has been growing stronger for years.” He stopped walking, watching them move along. “The pack will not be denied, Amelia. I’m sorry you couldn’t be beta, like I am.”

“He’s sorry you couldn’t be a beta.” Nicole rolled her eyes. She said her mama taught her how to do that.

“He meant it. I don’t think he wants to kill me. He might be bitter about not being an alpha. But to him, it’s better to be beta than whatever I am.” She could have called herself an abomination or an omega. There wasn’t much to find in the wolf world when it came to that term. She knew that in the human world it meant the end or the last. Alpha and omega. The beginning and the end. What that term had to do with her was something she still didn’t understand.

The most she was able to hear and understand came from eavesdropping when no one knew she was around. Omegas were females who were to receive the goddess Luna’s blessing on their twenty-fifth birthday. That blessing made them abominations that must be killed before she reached down and touched them. None of it made any sense. Why did they want to kill her because her wolf failed to present? The same happened to Nicole, and they were okay with that, although no alpha would mate with a female wolf whose wolf never presented.

Nicole searched for her mate from the time she turned eighteen. She hadn’t found him in the pack. Amelia never searched. She knew no male wolf would talk to her. She’d snuck into the human community, but the boys there shied away from her like she had the mythical cooties.

On Thursday, there was always a community swap outside where people swapped and sold their wares. That’s where they were looking around at the bright clothes for sale. A pair of boots caught Amelia’s eyes. They were black with a sole that looked like she could walk in them all day or go hiking and they would mold to her feet, invigorating her, making the walk or hike better.

She pushed against Nicole and walked over to get a better look at the boots. The woman selling them was much older. Amelia couldn’t remember seeing her around the pack, but she loved the way the woman smiled at her.

“What can I help you with, little wolf?”

Amelia smiled. She couldn’t help it when the woman called her little wolf. No one ever thought to acknowledge that she was a wolf.

“Those black boots caught my attention.” The woman handed them to her. Amelia’s eyes widened as she looked at the black wolves that howled, lining the seams of the boots. They seemed larger than life. Her fingers caressed one wolf, her breath taken away with the detail, but also with the sheer presence of the wolf.

“Try them on, little wolf.”

Amelia knew she hadn’t brought anything to trade, but she couldn’t help but try them on. She expected them to be too hot on her feet since it was the end of summer, but they weren’t. They felt like they were made for her.

“What do you think?”

There weren’t many things in life she wanted, but these boots were one of them. “They are beautiful. They fit like they were made for me.”

“You honor me, little wolf.”

“I have nothing on me to trade for them. If you let me go home and return, I can buy them from you.”

“That offer is fine. Tell me, am I wrong in assuming that you have a birthday coming up?”

“I do.” The minute she brought up Amelia’s birthday, she put together an outfit that would work with the boots.

“Please do me the honor of wearing them for your birthday, and they are yours.”

“I can pay.” She didn’t want to fleece the woman. Not after she treated her so nicely.

“Live, little wolf, and you will give me everything I want.” Amelia’s eyes went wide, and she looked for Nicole to see if she heard the woman’s words.

“Those boots are beautiful,” Nicole said. “Where did you get them from?”

Amelia turned to the woman’s stand, but it was gone. There was nothing there but a patch of grass.

“There was a stand here with an old woman selling boots.” She stumbled, trying to tell Nicole what had happened. Several of the pack watched her with suspicion in their eyes. Nicole pulled her away, giving the pack a ‘there’s nothing to see here’ look.

“I’m telling you, the stand was there,” Amelia hissed when they were away from the pack.

“I believe you. You’re holding boots that you didn’t come with, and no one else was selling footwear. What did she say to you?”

“She told me to live.” They wandered through the woods that surrounded the pack lands. Amelia led them to her mother’s grave, where they sat looking at the tall trees and listening to the birds that stopped and sang for her mother.

Amelia sat enjoying the birds' song when she thought she felt eyes on her. She looked up to catch an outline through the trees; it looked like the wolf who used to care for her as a child. Shaking her head, she blinked, and the female was gone. She shook her head and put it down to missing her mom.

“It always feels like the birds know my mom is there, and they stop to give homage to her.”

“I like to think that the goddess Luna sends them here to let your mom know she has not been forgotten.” Amelia nodded. The goddess Luna wasn’t real. She’d been told that her whole life. Still, there were times when she stood under the moon and could feel it caress and hug her like the goddess was doing what her mother couldn’t. She kept those fanciful thoughts to herself.

She took a deep breath. The woman’s whispered words for her to live were reverberating in her head. She looked at her mom’s grave, and she could almost hear her say, live for me.

How could she replace the blackness of her naming day with life and brightness?