Chapter One

Caspian

I never expected to reach the point where it would be an issue. The “issue” at hand was the age at which a solemn vow would come due, or whatever it should be called. But here we were, and there it was. The gigantic elephant in the room.

Perhaps it’s best to go back to the point where the vow took place. Sage and I came of age together, friends where most would not have been. Both alphas, we were, however, predator and prey. While shifters did not habitually harm other shifters unless there was a war between their various groups, Arctic wolves and snowshoe rabbits occupied different parts of the same landscape.

My pack, such as it was, had been deteriorating for a long time before I met Sage as a young teen. The ancient, venerated alpha refused to step down, and despite his good intentions, he no longer had the ability to run things well. Nobody wanted to challenge him, but the younger alphas and betas had begun to misbehave in subtle ways that were rapidly escalating. On the day that I met Sage, I had been swept up in an incident that could have been disastrous for us all.

“How could you, Caspian?” My father dragged me out of the human police station by my ear. “What if you had been hurt and ended up in a hospital? There would have been a lot of questions that nobody wants to have to answer.”

“Father, I didn’t do anything.” I’d been chanting that since the police came into the store manager’s office and hustled me and three other wolf adolescents out to the waiting cars and from there to the station. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“So are you saying that the store manager lied? Or maybe he’s insane and nobody was stealing from the beer cooler?”

“No.” I looked out the window, not wanting to rat on my friends—or maybe they were former friends after their failure to defend me when they knew the truth. “All I am saying is that I did not steal anything.”

“Right. Because you got caught.”

Rage flooded me, my face burning. I had never stolen anything in my life, and yet Father, who had a hatred for humans, was willing to take the word of one over his own son. I struggled to find words while he continued to berate me and threaten all kinds of punishment. The snowy landscape of our northern home flew by, tall dark pines shrouded in the fluffy stuff. I loved this place, but at that moment, I wanted only to be far away from it. There was no point in trying to convince Father that I was innocent. He’d made that point already. So when I got to our cabin on the outskirts of the pack lands, I brushed past my omega dad and stomped up the ladder to the loft where I slept with my brothers. It offered minimal privacy, without even a door to slam, but since I was grounded, outside for a run was not an option.

More punishment would follow when he’d had a chance to discuss it with his mate, but I did not fear that. My omega dad was always the cool head in any situation, and in our home, beatings were not something that took place.

What had me so upset, rather, was his total lack of trust in me. I hadn’t lied to him in years, and even then, they were not about big things. More the fibs of a child stealing a cookie or reading with a flashlight under the covers. My parents had always been about communication and honesty, something I respected and, unlike one of my brothers, strove to emulate. Did he not know that? He had to.

My parents, who were not grounded, spoke in low voices outside the house. Even my shifter hearing could not make out the words with the windows sealed for winter, but the next morning when we piled in the car for my hearing, nobody was talking at all. I had no idea what the penalty might be for the crime I was accused of, but my outrage had been replaced by dread. Could I be jailed?

We were all dressed in our best, not suits because we didn’t have anything like that but clean, pressed flannel shirts and nice jeans with no holes. In the courtroom, the others who had been accused were already seated with their folks. The store manager was also present and some others who I assumed were court staff. As we filed into a scarred wooden bench seat near the front, I heard the door open and close behind us. I glanced to see another shifter back there, someone about my age but smaller, and an adult male at his side.

I wondered what the snowshoe rabbit had been accused of and wished him better luck than I was likely to have. If they hadn’t told the truth yesterday, none of my former friends were likely to do it in court.

“Please stand for Her Honor Judge Andrea Wheasel.”

We all stood then sat, and the clerk read out the charges against us. The judge had us all stand again and asked us for our plea. None of this was how it looked on TV, but in a small town in the middle of nowhere Alaska, maybe things were less formal. Or maybe it was that we were kids with fewer rights than adults.

Each of the others pleaded not guilty.

She fixed her laser gaze on me last, so I took a step forward. “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

“Then I guess we’ll set a date for trial. Clerk, can you check the calendar?”

“Excuse me?” The small voice came from the back where the rabbit sat with, presumably, his parent. “May I approach the bench?”

Despite her serious demeanor up to this point, the judge’s lip twitched. “Young man, I think you’ve been watching a lot of court shows on TV.”

“Guilty, Judge… I mean, I am not guilty of anything, but I would like to make a statement about what happened yesterday? I was there.”

“Come up here, then.” She waved him forward. “This is not the trial, so if you are a witness, you should let the attorneys for these young men know, and also the prosecutor.”

“I understand.” He came to a stop a few feet in front of her desk. “But maybe I can clear things up now and save one of them a trial?”

“This is highly irregular,” the prosecutor protested.

“And this is a small town with a limited budget and a strong interest in justice,” the judge snapped back. “If the defendant’s guardians have no argument, maybe we can hear what this eye witness has to say.”

The other three defendants opened their mouths as if to speak, but their parents all agreed. Sure, the pack was having issues, but for the most part, they were good people, as evidenced by the fact that they did not do anything to make the alpha retire. Or challenge him.

“I was standing by the ice cream freezer, Your Honor,” the rabbit said after giving his name for the court records. “When I saw these three pulling beer out of the cooler. The fourth defendant was selecting a candy bar at the time and nowhere near the beer at all. He tried to explain that to the manager, but he pointed his shotgun at all of them and herded them into his office.”

“And he didn’t detain you?” the judge asked.

“No. I ducked down, and I think he forgot I was there. Then I left. But I felt bad that I didn’t try to explain what I saw at the time, and when I spoke with my father, he agreed that I had to make things right.”

Hell, I’d have ducked down if I’d had a clue what might happen. I didn’t blame him at all. But I was sure grateful that he’d come into court today. Once he spoke, the other families asked the judge for a moment while they spoke with their sons who rapidly changed their pleas and received community service. As for me? I owed a big favor to a snowshoe rabbit shifter named Sage.

The one who became my best friend from that day forward. We were inseparable, and made a vow that if neither of us found our fated by our thirtieth birthdays, we’d mate one another. Two alphas…but deep inside, I knew he was mine. All I had to do was wait until he realized it too.