2. Mai

When I came to, Jase was standing over me, his phone in his hand.

"No! You promised," I growled at him. I would have leaped up and snatched his phone away, but my body was not cooperating right now.

He looked at me, his face full of indecision.

"Please, Jase." I softened my tone. "I can't deal with all their bullshit. I just want to recover and move on."

Jase sighed. "I'm going to tell Sof, but I won't let the big guys know."

"Deal."

Jase disappeared out of my eyeline and came back with painkillers, water, and a blanket that smelled of Jem. I took the pills and lay down with the blanket.

"You're a good kid, you know that?"

Jase snorted. "Mai, I'm really not a kid anymore."

"You'll always be a kid to me and Sofia," I mumbled, as sleep called to me.

"Feel better, Mai. I'll be back tomorrow to check on you."

I drifted off to sleep, the painkillers making my thoughts muzzy. I thought of this flat and how happy I'd been here while my parents were alive. I'd believed nothing could ever touch me here. I thought of Jem and how much he changed when he left school and was working his way up the ranks. How he'd devoted all his time to making it to Alpha and had left me in Hayley's care.

Hayley, who had lost her parents, too. They died just after she was born, as part of the last war with the Bridgetown Pack. She was raised by an aunt, who was overjoyed to get a new kid that she could make the servant of the family. Jem realized Hayley was his fated mate in Grade Ten, right after our parents died, and he took her out of her aunt's place as soon as they got together.

At first, she'd been nice to me, the kid sister who was suddenly an orphan. But she soon tired of that. She saw me as a rival for Jem's love and quickly found ways to put a wedge between us. Hayley was unyieldingly determined and ambitious, driven by her absolute need to be both an Alpha, so that no one would ever tell her what to do again, and the center of Jem's attention. She wanted to be in charge, with all the benefits that would bring. No more bowing down to anyone or having others expect her to cook, or clean, or iron, or do the washing.

Soon, Hayley barely tolerated my presence. She was obsessed with Jem, and if he was in the room, Hayley had to have his whole attention. If it wandered, she would do things to bring it back. She would start an argument or start kissing his neck. That one worked a lot in the early days, but after a couple of years, the arguments got better traction.

Ryan had always made me feel better when Hayley and Jem were off in their own room, fucking their brains out or off fighting again. Ryan was Jem's best friend. They were tight, had been since kindergarten when Ryan broke Andrew Webb's nose for stealing Jem's lunch. Ryan Shaw, whose mom was dead, killed by Oliver at the same time he got our parents killed, and whose dad never gave a fuck about him or his three younger brothers. Ryan became their de facto parent when he was fifteen. He stole food for them, worked odd jobs, mostly illegal ones, after school and on weekends, just to keep the heating on in their flat. Jem had tried to help as much as he could, and the Shaw brothers pretty much lived in our tiny flat with us.

My mind slipped in and out of sleep. The past and present blurring. For a few moments, I thought Oliver was still my Alpha and my parents would walk through the door at any second.

Oliver. He'd been a nightmare of an Alpha and had been responsible for our parents' deaths. He sold faulty guns to a werewolf Pack down south, thinking it didn't matter, that they were too far away to retaliate. He thought wrong. The southern Pack attacked us one afternoon. They sneaked into our territory and hit us where we were weakest; the farthest point in town from the Alpha compound where all the enforcers were. They killed anyone they came across. My parents. Ryan's mom. Oliver's mate, Romy, had been dropping off food at the local food bank. She heard the screams and came to protect her Pack. She took down ten of the attackers before they killed her, too. Oliver lost it, killed the attackers, hunting down any who escaped. It didn't mean shit to me. I'd lost both my parents because of some stupid, fucked up decision Oliver made to make himself more cash. I hated him with my entire soul.

Oliver had always been harsh, but after Romy died, he was a different Alpha. Not all Alphas keep governing after the death of their mate. Some do, though, and continue to protect and strengthen their Pack. Not Oliver. He became unstable. Unpredictable. He was brutal, mean, and liked to see people suffer. We all learned pretty quickly to stay out of his way, but he let his enforcers do what they liked. Jem and Ryan knew this wasn't how life was supposed to be. They spent their nights plotting to take over the Pack. But you could only challenge for a Pack if you were an Alpha couple.

Jem and Hayley were serious contenders to be the Alpha pair. Jem challenged and won the Beta position, and I think Oliver thought that would temper Jem's ambitions for a while, but it only made them stronger. The Pack was in a bad way. It was all I'd ever known, but even I knew that. Oliver had everyone cowering and afraid. If Oliver didn't like the way you looked at him or the way you spoke or the way you ate, or even the way you walked, he would give a nod, and his enforcers would beat the shit out of you. Oliver would watch, laughing as his crew crushed bones and sliced skin. The whole Pack was scared. Then Oliver started making deals with the drug lords in the neighboring county. He wanted in and used our Pack to transport the merchandise and sell it to the humans who lived in our town.

School got worse and worse. It was never good to begin with, but Sofia and I stuck together, and the bullying was low-level—tripping us in the corridors, sticking notes on our backs. After Jem became the Beta, though, school became unbearable. We all knew the fight was coming. Families couldn't come out openly in support of Jem—it was too dangerous—but all those who supported Oliver knew I was Jem's little sister and was an easy target. The Madden family, in particular, hated us. Jem had defeated Lionel Madden to become the Beta of the Pack. His son, Brock, was in my year at school.

A week after Jem won the Beta spot, Brock Madden and Tracy Hua held me down in the canteen and made everyone walk past and empty their unfinished lunches on top of me. Some plates were still steaming with whatever they had been eating; some were cold and slimy. Their food piled up on top of me like dirt. There were spilled chicken wings, beans and rice, fries, cartons of orange juice, and tuna sandwiches. The human teachers knew their place and bugged it out of there as soon as Brock grabbed me. Sofia was going ballistic, trying to get to me. I could see Brock's friends, Ben and Roscoe, holding Sofia back, and I'd just hoped she wasn't hurt. After everyone was done, they all stood and watched, some groups whispering and giggling, some silent with pitying eyes. Brock laughed, his voice bouncing off the walls in the canteen.

"Now everybody knows what I know, Mai. You're our trashcan. Your family is dirt. You have no fucking right to even think you can be Alphas. This…" He gestured to me. My clothes were soaked and stained yellow and brown. The smell of spaghetti, brown gravy and mayonnaise, wilted lettuce and orange peels, meat scraps and soda filled my nostrils and made me choke. "This is all you'll ever be, Mai."

I scraped what I could off myself and walked out, ignoring Brock's voice that followed me, shouting that I'd better know my fucking place from then on. I didn't tell Jem. He was working so hard trying to stay one step ahead of Oliver, and most nights, he didn't come home. When he did, he and Hayley wanted privacy to do the things that mates do. So, they'd take off, and the Shaws would turn up to keep an eye on me. We had to be careful with Oliver and his enforcers just looking for an excuse to take any one of us out. Anything to weaken Jem. So, we'd cook, order food, play games. Ryan would listen to me talk about my classes, or my favorite TV shows, or what I was reading. He called me his chatterbox. I didn't care. I'd talk about anything just to hear him reply.

Ryan, beautiful Ryan. Six foot two, dark hair, perfect jaw, muscles sculpted from hours of training with the enforcers, honing his body into a fighting machine, and smoldering eyes that stared right into my soul. His eyes were like the ocean, deep blue and full of life, and always moving. He constantly scanned the environment around him, searching for threats, but when he looked at me and smiled, it was a smile so stunning and bright that it almost hurt to look at it.

I'd known Ryan all my life, and I'd always known he was the one for me. For werewolves, sometimes you just know who your mate is. Sure, we can sleep around, even seriously date others, but we're always searching for the one who fits. I didn't need to search; I'd known at my parents' funeral when Ryan draped his coat around me to stop me shivering, gave me a daisy he'd picked, and stayed by my side the entire day. The coat smelled of Ryan, and his warmth and scent followed me everywhere. It kept me grounded and made me think that I could get through the day. I never did give that coat back. He never asked for it, and I'd kept it in my closet. When I was alone, I would put it on. Mostly when I had a crap day at school. I'd wrap myself in that coat, lie on my bed, and just breathe in the scent of him.

I hovered just on the edge of sleep now, thinking that I could almost smell his scent, like he'd sat on this couch a couple of months ago. It was tantalizing, just out of reach, and yet just smelling it, I felt safer than I had in weeks.