BLAKE
My father and I were, once again, in a heated argument. He always played the nice, fatherly Santa-type in front of the pack but, behind closed doors, he terrorized my mother and me. I wouldn’t be surprised if his goal in life was to do as much psychological damage to me as possible before his ultimate death. There were days I considered killing him myself. It was common in some packs for an alpha son to kill his father to assume the alpha title, especially when it wasn’t handed over peacefully, but I had yet to be driven to that point. He was still my father, as much as I hated him, and I wasn’t in any rush to assume his title. I had been eager five years ago, ready for the power, but things changed. . .
“I compromised and let you have your fun for four years,” my father raged.
“You think Siberia is fun?”
“I don’t give a shit if it is or isn’t. It is your duty as my heir to assume the title of alpha, and I’m not allowing you to put it off any longer. The pack is becoming weaker as time goes by.”
“For years I was too weak and an embarrassment to you. Suddenly you need me to strengthen the pack?”
“I know I don’t need to remind you about what happened five years ago. More pack members died than in any other battle this pack has ever fought, and it will only be worse next time.” He knew this was my soft spot, but he took the opportunity to push it anyway. I glared at him. He continued, “Whatever you may think of me, I care about this pack. My great-grandfather built this pack out of nothing, and I will do whatever the fuck I need to in order to assure that the lineage continues. End of discussion!”
With that, he stormed out of the room. At least these days he resisted the urge to throw heavy objects at me. He had noticeably aged in the four years I was gone, his wrath and impulses not quite to the level I remembered.
I decided to go for a run. It was hot outside, but I was so worked up that I barely noticed. I walked out of the packhouse, where my family lived, and into the woods. After walking a few yards in, I stripped myself naked, and threw my clothes onto a tree stump. I then shifted into my wolf form. My bones transformed, my skin stretched to accommodate the changeover, fur tingled as it sprouted from my body. The pads of my massive paws fell against the pine needles scattered along the ground. I scratched my razor-sharp claws through the dirt, getting used to the new form I was in, the wind ruffling my fur. I had come to appreciate being in my wolf form—everything was simpler. The animal part of my brain took control and practically the only things that mattered were food, water, and sleep.
I’d first grown fond of this form after I began shifting at the age of twelve. While my father had always been a dick, he really came down hard on me once I was able to turn into a wolf. While my classmates mostly only trained at school, my father would force me to train for countless additional hours every week. I vividly recalled sweltering summers during my middle school years where my father would push me to complete various exercises in brutal heat, hitting me with a tree branch if I was too slow, denying me water, yelling in my face if I didn’t complete tasks to his standards. There were times I’d fall over and throw up, pushed to my limit, only to be rewarded with my father kicking me. “Get the fuck up, Blake! There’s no time to throw up when you’re in battle!” He’d pile weights on top of me, forcing me to do push-ups until I couldn’t lift myself off the ground anymore. “Fucking weak. You’re an embarrassment as an alpha.” The only way I could stop the trauma from overtaking me was to shift and run deep into the woods, far from home. I sometimes wished I could just live as a wolf. But I couldn’t let my father see he got to me.
And there was a sick part of me that couldn’t stand the idea of failure. I couldn’t help but strive to finally please him. This desire for his approval always pulled me back, forcing me to try that much harder, only to endure the abuse all over again. The harder I worked, the more abusive he became, the goalpost always just out of my reach. I was nothing more than a sad puppy that kept getting kicked by his owner, only to come back and eagerly beg for love and praise that would never be offered.
After four years away, the area had changed. My previous favorite spot was now overtaken by humans. What had previously been, clearly, an unpopular hiking trail to visit had gotten trendy with a new resort built nearby. It was now summer and hiking trails in Vermont were littered with humans. I ran deep into the forest to find a new place to go and be by myself.
After running for an hour or so, I found a mountain to climb in an area that didn’t have any hiking trail nearby, so I knew I’d avoid humans. I climbed until I reached the summit. The sun was beginning to set, so I lay down on the rocky peak and looked down upon everything below, admiring the pinks and oranges that painted themselves across the sky. While I was perpetually agitated and in a state of rage within, the peaceful surroundings helped quiet the storm. Once it became dark, I made my way back home, feeling calmer now. I shifted back to my human form and redressed myself before going back into the packhouse.
I found my mom inside, still in her scrubs, having clearly just finished a shift. She was one of the pack doctors and had met my father after finishing her medical residency training and returning to the pack. She hugged me and kissed my forehead as I entered. She was proof that not all mates are created equal and sometimes the Moon Goddess has a sick sense of humor. My mom mostly worked in pediatrics, healing and caring for young pups. She never raised her voice and strived to make my father and me happy however she could. In return, my father berated and cheated on her throughout the entirety of their marriage. While his philandering had calmed down with age, I still had memories burned into me of spying on her crying alone after she discovered his latest transgression.
She was the main reason my father allowed me to go away to college for four years. I had been ready to take the position of alpha after finishing high school. But, after Ria died, I couldn’t do it. My mom convinced my father to allow me to go away for a few years. After months of fighting matches between my father and me, he finally agreed to let me go to the only werewolf university in the world, Grey Wolf University, because he knew I’d be able to keep up with my training there.
He wasn’t wrong about that. Training in Siberia may as well have been synonymous with torture. In the first week I arrived, they required us to begin building tolerance to wolfsbane, werewolves’ kryptonite. We began by ingesting a small vial at first. I wanted to pass out, but they forced us to run five kilometers in our human form, being too weak to shift into our wolf forms anyway, before they let us rest. Over time, we began receiving regular injections and were forced to train while our insides burned. We got used to coughing up blood. It was not uncommon for a student to get up in the middle of class to crouch over the trash can and spit blood from his mouth.
In our first year, they purposely paired us up with fourth-year students during training to break us in and toughen us up. One time, several of my ribs were broken and I had to spend three days in recovery while they healed, my healing abilities weakened by the wolfsbane fed into my system regularly. During our third year, we had to spend a week in the dead of winter surviving in our wolf form, hunting for food and finding shelter in the tundra of Siberia, as if we were actual wolves.
In our fourth year, we visited neighboring packs to be trained in torture. They’d lead us down into their cells where they’d be jailing a perp for who knows what. Sometimes the pack needed information and we were forced to torture the perp until they would be begging for their death and gave up the information that was needed. Sometimes it was just an innocent rogue that had accidentally stepped over a pack’s border, their only crime that of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were then barbarically cut into pieces for no good reason, just so we could become desensitized. I recalled, vividly, chopping limbs from their bodies as they thrashed against the restraints placed on them, crying and begging for death, their eyes terrorized, pleading.
What the professors didn’t know was that my father had already been teaching me the art of torture from the time I turned ten years old. While others vomited or passed out, and later paid for it, I was cold and calculating as if I were a psychopath. They didn’t even have to break me in—I had already come prepared, wielding a sword confidently, chopping through flesh and bone with ease. I had been forced to observe my father use the same techniques they taught for almost a decade. I ended up getting a five in torture, the equivalent of an A in Russia.
JASMINE In early July, my parents and I were sitting together at the Monday-morning service. It was a small crowd that day—only the totally devout along with the alpha and beta families. I was having trouble concentrating during the meditations and kept sneaking looks at Blake while everyone else’s eyes were closed. Suddenly, Blake opened his eyes and looked up at me, catching me staring. He gave me a quick wink and then closed his eyes again. Was I developing a crush on Blake? How basic, having a crush on both the alpha and the beta. Could I be any more of a cliché? After the service, I excused myself to go to the bathroom while my parents mingled with the congregation, as usual. It seemed like they came here more for the gossip than the actual service. When exiting the bathroom, I almost crashed into Blake, eliciting a gasp from me. “We meet again!” he exclaimed, smiling widely. “Hi, Blake,” I replied, not knowing what else to say, smiling back at him. He did have a really nice
JASMINE He led me down a different path this time. It took about another hour to get down to the bottom. He was not wrong. The sun was beating down on us. By the time I reached the water, I was ready to jump in. He started peeling off his clothes until he was only wearing his boxer briefs, his muscular body on full display. My breath hitched as I tried hard not to stare while the sun reflected off his broad shoulders and bare torso. Damn, he was so jacked and sexy. Before I could lose myself in my gawking, he sprinted to the water on his bared, muscular legs and jumped in. “The water feels great! Come on in! I know you want to!” I had an internal argument with myself. It was ridiculously hot, and, logically, underwear wasn’t much different than a bathing suit. Thank Goddess I had chosen dark-colored underwear this morning. The devil over my shoulder won this time. I gestured for him to turn around. He rolled his eyes but still did it. Once his back was to me, I stripped down out of
LUCY It was well into summer and hot as hell. We didn’t have central AC in our house, so we relied on window air-conditioning units. It also didn’t help that our gas oven was old and baked the entire kitchen every time I went to use it. Today I was making cookies to put in a care package for Luke—something I had done weekly for two years. I chose today to bake because it was my day off but was now regretting my choice as I unstuck the front of my shirt from my wet body. We were in the midst of a heatwave, and I felt as if I had just showered, sweat dripping down my face and back. I, with all my brothers, still lived at home. There were seven of us living in a small, old four-bedroom house. My parents had five kids that they had to support on just my dad’s modest warrior salary. That’s why everything we had was old and in need of updating. Our windows were drafty, and many of the tiles in the bathroom and kitchen were cracked and in need of repair. I was the middle child and the odd
*** One and a half years earlier *** LUCY I planned an elaborate trip to visit Luke for my eighteenth birthday. Three months earlier, my friend Emma had turned eighteen and realized that my brother Kyle was her mate after months of grossing me out with their constant hooking up. While my brother and friend becoming mates was initially shocking, it made me feel hopeful about my own relationship and that it could happen for me too. In the same way that Emma and Kyle were attracted to each other long prior to knowing they were mates, I was sure it was the same for Luke and me. In honor of the occasion, Luke booked a luxurious hotel room in Quebec City for the weekend. He made a reservation for a fancy dinner at a steak restaurant at eight o’clock, so we would be dining just as dusk hit on my birthday on April 23. I planned to lose my virginity and allow him to mark me that night, after we knew for sure that we were mates. The act of marking each other by sinking our canines into each o
JASMINE About a week after Blake and I went hiking, I was working with Lucy. I had opened that morning. And I was working a shorter shift than normal. It was just after nine and the rush had slowed. I was looking forward to leaving in an hour when my replacement, a new hire named Reena, would be taking my place. Lucy was on her cell phone and put it down next to mine as a customer entered. She quickly took his order, and I ran to go make it. After I handed him his drink, I looked to see the screen of my cell phone flash. I was about to reach for it, but something caught Lucy’s eye and she grabbed for it first. “Ooooh! Who’s this ‘Blake Sexy AF’? Is that Alpha Blake?” Her eyes darted up at me. Shit, I forgot to change his name in my phone. “And here I was thinking you’re a lost cause!” “What do you mean by that?” “I mean, you’re such a prude. I don’t mean any offense by that, but damn, I guess I had you all wrong! Blake Sexy AF! And here he is texting you and I had no idea you ever
JASMINE He drove to and parked in the same area as last time, immediately exiting the car and coming around to my side. Upon opening my door for me, he held his hand out to help me down. He grabbed his backpack from the back seat and led me to the base of the mountain so we could hike to the top. Once we got to the summit, he spread the blanket out for us to sit down and pulled out some sandwiches. “I put a little more effort into lunch today.” He grinned and handed me a ham and cheese sandwich and a water bottle. We sat in silence, eating our sandwiches, looking over the landscape of trees below, a carpet of green forest, with openings for bodies of water. I spotted the pond where we had gone swimming below, the sun reflecting off it, giving it a glass-like appearance. The view was spectacular, and I could see why Blake liked coming here. “Do you bring all your girls here?” I asked, suddenly wondering if I was just one of the many girls he was hanging out with, especially after his
JASMINE A week went by, and I hadn’t heard from Blake since the last time we went hiking. Lucy had called me that night begging me to tell her all the details, but I just told her that we hiked and talked. She obviously didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t ready to start spilling all the details of what had happened yet. The whole thing felt like a dream, and I didn’t know how to make sense of it. We were at work, and during a lull, she leaned over to me. “How’s Blake Sexy AF doing?” “I haven’t talked to him.” “I don’t believe you.” “I’m not lying. I haven’t heard from him since last time.” “Why don’t you text him and ask him to hang out?” “Because I don’t want to.” In reality, I did want to, but I was too ashamed to actually do it, and ashamed of myself for wanting to. I didn’t want to seem eager and was still determined to not allow things to advance any further than they had. “You’re definitely lying about that. I don’t think there’s a warm-blooded woman on this earth that wouldn
BLAKE It was now late July, and I was, once again, with my father and Beta Alfred in the packhouse office. We had spent the morning going over the pack budget with the pack accountant and office manager. My father was still mostly handling the casino along with the casino managers, which was where most of the funding for the pack came from. However, I would soon oversee the distribution of the funds that flowed down from the casino to different areas of the pack such as road repair, snow removal, security, school, temple, and housing subsidies. After lunch, my father, Beta Alfred, and I sat together in the office at the packhouse, situated around the desk on a conference call with Luke and Alpha Antoine from the Lune Nordique Pack. These phone calls were becoming a weekly occurrence. We were all concerned about Alpha Édouard, who led the Bois Sombre Pack in Quebec. He was a crazy motherfucker and was known for being sadistic and unhinged. He made my father look like a straight-up sa