Prologue

Have you ever been afraid? People are afraid of many things, sometimes just the idea of fear itself is enough to make you afraid. What was I afraid of? Nothing, at first. Then the fear came hurtling across the landscape towards me and it sucked me right in. I was afraid of only one thing. Me.

I was never afraid of the dark, even as a little child, because I was blessed, later I called it my curse, but I when I was still young and innocent, I was blessed. My mother loved me beyond what is normal and my father was always there, right beside me.

They loved each other completely, I looked at them and I wanted that for myself. I was raised in the clowder knowing my place in this world. I was the future Alpha and hopefully I’d be an Enforcer too, my father was my hero, the strongest man I knew.

We had a large extended family but I was never spoiled. They taught me right from wrong and they taught me respect, but they also taught me never to back down, to stand against the world if I had to. Finley and Damon had gone through their fair share of standing against the world and there weren’t many secrets in our household.

Both my mother and uncle Archer were famous authors. My dad took time off and he’d travel with her on her book tours just like Aunt Kat and Uncle Archer did and I’d be left under the watchful eye of Connor. He was a hoot really and he treated me like an equal.

I was best friends with Mac, Kat and Archer’s son that was born a few months after I made my appearance and we were very alike. We excelled in sports and academics but we weren’t flashy and we weren’t show-offs.

We went to a regular human high school in Newport and we kept mainly to ourselves. We exuded an aura of being different because I had my father’s Alpha blood and Mac had a lesser Alpha aura that came from Kat’s bloodline and together we drew attention.

We disliked the spotlight though and Connor’s son, Jett, soon followed in our footsteps. He was a year younger than us but the three of us stuck together at school and tried to fit in, but we never really did. During our first year of high school we were cornered by Travis Scott, he was popular, made it known that he was rich and he would soon rule the school.

He wanted to be friends, we didn’t. We were exiled and grouped into the bad boy clique and honestly we preferred it. People stayed out of our way and the rumours started soon after that, we were fighters, gang members and trouble makers.

We were none of those things but people left us alone and we rarely got into scraps at school. We held a general disdain for the population of that school and tried to ignore them as much as possible, but no matter what decisions you make, life turns to laugh at your plans and then force you to do what it wants you to do.

By the time we were sixteen we had a reputation. People scattered when we walked down the halls and nobody even dared to glance at us. We were labelled bullies but the truth was that we sorted out the bullies, the rich kids who thought they were untouchable, the ones that thought they could hide behind mommy and daddy’s checkbooks.

It was against the preps, the likes of Travis Scott and his cronies, the biggest bullies in school. They held parties and soon we heard the gossip mill that started. Girls were being kept quiet, things were happening at those parties, police reports would disappear and sometimes girls would transfer, not all of them though. Either you kept your mouth shut or you became an exile. Nobody wanted to be an exile.

Plenty of people kept their mouths shut and remained friends with them, because that’s how it worked here. You were either in or out, we were out, we preferred to be out but all those other idiots, they needed to be in somewhere and our circle were closed to all outsiders.

We were family, we were fierce, we trusted no one but family and we always closed ranks and we always had each other’s backs, no matter what. Sometimes we went to class and sometimes we didn’t, we always passed though and nobody ever called our parents. I think the teachers were a little afraid of us.

Did we abuse that? Of course we did, we’re teenage boys that can shift into jaguars, what do you think? Of course we got into trouble too, but never to the extent that it warranted the authorities, not that anybody would believe us. We came to school with bloody knuckles, black eyes or split lips because we fought each other, daily, not because we were in a gang.

If there was a gang then it was me, Mac and Jett. We still didn’t do anything to dissuade anyone of that notion and Damon had only laughed when I told him that one day. I guess he understood my reasons, he was a bad ass himself, the lead Enforcer and Alpha for over thirty years and he was still going strong.

My mother on the other hand, she was just plain weird. No lies there and sometimes just to piss my father off she’d wake the whole clowder house by vacuuming the patio at three am. She came home one day sporting a tattoo on her wrist and my father went apeshit. She just glared at him pointing to his arms and I had started to laugh.

His marks weren’t really tattoos though, they were his death tallies but they still looked like tattoos to humans and that gave me an even worse reputation at school the one time Damon did show up and opened my classroom door. I think the teacher was either peeing her pants or nearing an orgasm from the way she looked at him.

My life would soon change though and I’d be haunted by nightmares for years to come. I welcomed them, in fact I wanted them. That was my penance to myself. I closed myself off to the world, to my father, to the clowder and even to my only friend.

I hated myself and forgiveness would probably never come. I truly was in exile now, just my own exile. The clowder didn’t reject me, the Elders and even the Council wanted me, but I left anyway. I knew Damian didn’t understand because at this point I hadn’t spoken to him in six years. He was worried, he had reason enough to be worried.

In times of war we all have enemies and we all have allies, nobody fights alone, yet here I stand, all alone. Being alone was my choice though, it had to be. I couldn’t become what Fate had planned for me, I couldn’t become whatever had already settled in my soul. I couldn’t be the darkness, I didn’t want to be darkness, but here I was, alone in the darkness.

Sometimes I was afraid that I liked the darkness too much.