Chapter 1

Karter

“ W hose vehicle is this?” After crunching numbers, paying bills, and realizing for the hundredth time we can’t afford a new roof this year, I walk from the house to the garage to find my father removing the wheels of an older model Chevy with Idaho plates.

“I’m not sure.” Kevin Barrington—widower and father of seven—shrugs.

“Where did it come from?”

“Perry.”

“Why is he giving us cars to work on?” Perry is a bear-shifter and distant cousin. He owns the garage in Broken Falls, but lives midway between here and there with his mate and their three cubs, ranging from ten to almost eighteen years old.

My father throws down the oily rag and grabs a clean one to wipe his brow. “With the growing human population there, he has more work than he can take on. I saw him at the parts store last week in Great Falls. He asked me how business was and if we’d like to take on some additional work. He had his son Peter tow this Chevy this afternoon. The transmission needs to be rebuilt. It should net us two grand once it’s all said and done.”

I arch my brow. That’s a hefty chunk considering we scrape by most months. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

My father shrugs. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up since money is tight.”

I swear, there are days when I feel like the fifty-year-old parent instead of the twenty-six-year-old son. It shouldn’t be like this. Kade should have taken on the Alpha role of our pack—certainly of our family—when our father no longer could. He was eighteen when everything went to hell, older than I was when I had no choice but to step in.

Simply put, I’m too young for this shit.

Clasping his shoulder, I squeeze gently. “We always make it work.”

He sighs. “Yeah, we do.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket again, the triplets blowing up my line for the last hour about tonight’s council meeting.

Our father arches his brow and looks at his watch. “You should be in the woods with everyone else.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m going to grab Kylian and head out. Don’t work too late.”

“I won’t.”

“I’ll send Ky home before midnight.”

My father nods, his gaze cast to the ground, guilt weighing heavily on his shoulders. My baby sister is twenty-two years old and has never shifted. It’s not abnormal for a female’s animal to appear later than a male’s, but to be well into her twenties without shifting is concerning. Whispers throughout the community are that my sister's bear may never come without the guidance of our mother who disappeared on us twelve years ago. I was fourteen when she—despondent after losing her newest cub during birth—wandered off into the woods in her bear form, never to be seen again. A few months later, I shifted for the first time. My twin Kash shifted a month later. Thankfully, Kade was there to help us while our father slipped into his own depression as a human male.

Kylian was only ten—a confusing time for a pre-teen. And the triplets—or terrorists as they’re known within the community—were barely six and don’t really remember our mother.

It was a hard time to lose her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” I don’t know why I’m asking. My father hasn’t shifted in over a decade, his bear leaving us long ago. Still, deep down I hope that one day his animal will reawaken, and what better time than during a full moon where dozens of us gather as a community to worship, hunt, and play?

That’s why I drag Kylian with me every month. I’m hoping her bear will feel the need to emerge and join the celebration. She hates it, of course. Hates being the odd one out even though there are a handful who don’t shift anymore. They either never have, or more to the point, haven’t yet.

Of course the ones who don’t anymore lost their mates long ago, like my father.

And the ones who haven’t yet are considerably younger than Kylian.

“Not this month, son.” Kevin picks up a wrench and waves me off when the office phone rings. “I’ve got it. Go! Tend to your duties as the bear representative and Pack Alpha.”

Pack Alpha. What a weird position to hold in a mixed community like ours. What does it really mean other than I provide some guidance once a month to the few shifters left in Fortune Falls. Again, it shouldn’t be me.

At one time it was my father. Next in line would have been Kade as the oldest and strongest Barrington, but he skirted the responsibility by joining the military. Then he settled in Broken Falls, almost sixty miles from here. Hell, even Kash would be a better choice if he hadn’t deployed with SpecOps Sierra, the Army’s shifter military unit.

I haven’t heard from my twin in over ten months, but the automatic transfer from his paycheck to the family bank account comes in twice a month like clockwork, so I assume he’s alive.

I mean, the Army would have stopped paying if he’d been killed in action—wouldn’t they?

Kade has put out calls, but no one is telling him where our brother is, and if he can’t get a straight answer, I definitely won’t. I refused Colonel Packard when he came through to recruit us, feeling a sense of responsibility to stay behind for my father and younger siblings.

Kash had been itching to move away from home since Kade left, so it only made sense it was him to leave.

“Kylian?” I say as I pull open the old creaky screen door to our two-story farmhouse with its chipped and peeling white paint exterior. The early-November air has a nice chill to it as the sun slips below the horizon, but as bear shifters we run ungodly hot and I am looking forward to the dead ass of winter and a couple feet of snow.

“I’m not going,” she calls from the kitchen.

Here we go again. “Yes, you are.”

“Why?” Her head is down, eyes glued to the college catalog splayed on the kitchen table. Another bill we can’t afford in a city too far away for my comfort. I can’t let her go with so many unknowns looming over our heads.

“You know why,” I say gently and take the seat next to her. “I hate these meetings and I need my sweet sister by my side to counteract the chaos trio.”

She looks up, her features twisted into a frown. And if I’m not mistaken, her eyes are red-rimmed from crying earlier. Again. “You don’t need me. You’re hoping being around all that shifter energy on the full moon will force my bear forward, but let’s face the facts, Karter. It’s never going to happen.”

“It will happen.”

“When?” she barks and jumps to her feet.

I glance up, my eyes filled with infinite patience. She’s been more volatile lately, more agitated, and I’m not sure how to help her through this troubling time. “I don’t know, Ky. We have to have faith that the Fates have a plan for you.”

Kylian rolls her eyes and slips her arms into a plain cardigan she and the cougar twins—Lana and Alyssa—up-cycled with embroidered flowers. It’s one of the many things they sell on their Etsy shop. “Faith schmaith. The Gods hate me.”

I also stand and pull her into my arms despite her protests. “No, they don’t, and neither does anyone in the pack. Unfortunately, some of them are assholes who think it’s fun to pick on others. Ignore them. I do.”

She shakes her head and grumbles under her breath, “I hate it here,” as she pulls out of my arms and stomps out the front door.