Chapter 2 - Nova

Draining the last of my day-old cold coffee, I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel of my old, barely running Honda. The line of vehicles in front of me had been stalled for twenty minutes, and my car was starting to make a choking, wheezing sound like an old lady who has been smoking a pack a day for the past century.

Sighing as she gave one last gasp, then shuddered alarmingly before dying, I closed my eyes and prayed for the millionth time since setting off from Missouri. When I was fired from my waitressing job, I went to my mom’s new pack only to be turned away. That really hurt. I didn’t even get to see her before I was told to turn my car around and leave.

For the first twelve years of my life, it had only been my mom and me. She had been seventeen when she had me. Mom had fallen hard for her best friend’s older brother. The problem was he already had a mate. But neither my mom nor dad respected mate bonds, and when she ended up pregnant, he kicked her out of the pack. Yep, my dad was a pack alpha.

Thankfully, he didn’t classify her as a rogue wolf, only as a lone wolf, so we weren’t hunted or anything. Mom tried to enter other packs, but was always turned away. I never understood why when I was younger. Later, I found out my dad had sent a notice to every pack about my mom. 

When I was twelve, her luck changed, and she met Beta Blaine. He lost his mate about six months before he walked into the bar Mom was working at. After a few too many drinks, he confided that he needed a mother for his seven young pups. Mom saw an opportunity to better her life. 

They marked each other that night in the back of his SUV while I sat less than fifty feet away, huddled underneath my coat with the rain pouring down on me. After they were done, Beta Blaine looked at me and told Mom he had enough mouths to feed, and she needed to get rid of me.

I expected Mom to reject him right there. For twelve years she had been telling me it was us against the world. She packed my things into a trash bag and then deposited me at the gates of the Silver Moon Pack. The guards had been horrified when they saw me. I was soaking wet, teeth chattering from the cold, and in desperate need of a bath.

One of the warriors put me in the back of his pickup truck - he didn’t even let me ride in the warm cab - and took me to Alpha Rye. My heart sank when I saw the disgusted look on his face as he slowly circled me. His mate, Luna Madeline, sat perfectly still with her nose wrinkled and her lips pursed.

After I was cleaned up and taken in by one of the omegas from the kitchen, my father took me to the hospital for a DNA test. He already knew the truth. He knew Nora, my mom, had been pregnant when he kicked her out of the pack.

Luna Madeline wasn’t mean to me at first. She was indifferent. That might have been worse than her declaring war on my scrawny ass. Her sons, Charles and Larry, followed her lead and ignored me. For the next year, I had food to eat, clean clothes, and a warm bed. I thought maybe I would be okay. I even had a room on the alpha floor that Luna Madeline helped me decorate.

When my thirteenth birthday came and went with no sign of my wolf, I heard the whispers and saw the side eyes. My mom’s former best friend, technically my aunt, whispered loudly to Luna Madeline that my mom’s wolf had been extremely weak, so it was no wonder I didn’t seem to have one.

By the time my fourteenth birthday arrived, the whispers had turned venomous. Pack members called me cursed because my mom had slept with a mated male. Then the bullying started: tripping me, shoving me into walls, and once I was knocked down a flight of stairs. The bullying scared me, but my dad just shrugged and told me to toughen up.

Then, when I was fifteen, Freyja arrived. She was also my dad’s daughter. I wondered how many other pups he had out there, since mate bonds obviously meant nothing to him.

Freyja was perfect. She was the same age as me, with strawberry blonde hair, an athletic build, and blue eyes. She also had a wolf. The day she arrived, Luna Madeline wrapped a blanket around her and hugged her close.

“You poor thing. You must be terrified.”

I arrived at twelve years old, soaking wet during a December rain, and was handed off to an omega. Freyja arrived on a mild April evening and was wrapped in a soft blanket and treated like royalty. The kicker, though, was when Luna Madeline gave Freyja my bedroom and sent me to the first floor to sleep with the kitchen help. 

That was when my dad started treating me like an omega. My food had to be earned, and even then it was limited. Omegas couldn’t fill their plates with food. If I was caught with more food than was allowed, I felt the sting of Dad’s belt. I only had five changes of clothes and exactly one set of bedsheets and one blanket. 

The comparisons between Freyja and me started immediately. Freyja was athletic; I was dumpy. Freyja had a wolf; I did not. Freyja was poised and beautiful; I was clumsy and plain. 

But Freyja wasn’t the princess they all painted her to be. She was a bully at school, and other girls feared her. She mostly left me alone until I had to tutor Scott Dupont. She had her eye on him, and she saw me as competition.

I laughed so damn hard at that. I was not competing for Scott Dupont. He was an arrogant, egotistical asshole. I was focused on earning enough money to have a small emergency fund. Ever since my mom left me here, I have felt this need to be prepared for the worst.

My clothes stayed in an old suitcase that Luna Madeline had thrown out, and my money was hidden. If I were told to leave, all I had to do was grab that suitcase and the small tin box hidden beneath the floorboard in the closet. I knew it was coming. I knew my dad was going to throw me out of the pack.

A party was held on my sixteenth birthday. The party wasn’t for me, though. In fact, I wasn’t even invited. The party was to celebrate Freyja passing her driving test. She had turned sixteen eleven days before me, and there had already been a huge birthday party for her. I wasn’t invited to that one, either.

The day after I turned sixteen, my dad handed me an envelope and a set of keys.

“You are old enough to make it on your own. The car should get you to a human city. I don’t want you ever coming back here again.”

I stared at the envelope in my hand and then the keys. I didn’t beg to be allowed to stay. I didn’t thank him for being generous enough to give me a car. I just turned and walked to my room. Grabbing my suitcase and the small tin, I walked out of the packhouse without looking back.

The car had been in worse shape than the Honda I was now driving. The envelope had held my original birth certificate, school records, and three hundred dollars in cash. I sat in a small diner off the highway and stared at that envelope while wondering what I was supposed to do. 

That had been six years ago. Six years of barely scraping by. Six years of sleeping in my car when money was tight - which was more often than not. Six years of always being hungry and never being certain of where my next meal would come from.

Blanche Hatcher of the Blue Stone Pack had been my penpal in school, and when I was kicked out of my pack, we kept emailing and calling each other. I hadn’t seen my mom in ten years. So when Blanche encouraged me to try to see her, I seriously thought about it.

"Maybe she has been looking for you, Nova. Maybe she can help you get a safe place to stay."

I took her advice and drove to the Lake Stone Pack. When I gave my name and asked to see Nora Fletcher, I was turned away so quickly my head spun. I spied Beta Blaine through the gates; he looked older, but still looked like a cocky ass.

I slept in my car for the next week as I looked for work in the unfamiliar human town near that pack. I messaged Blanche and told her what happened. She has become my only friend, even though we have never met. When I am having a bad day, one text from Blanche and everything seems brighter.

“Come to the Blue Stone Pack, Nova. Nobody will give a damn whether or not you have a wolf. 

Alpha Griffin and Luna Sonni are awesome.” Blanche’s suggestion stayed with me another week as I worked as a maid at a small motel.

Eyeing my Honda, I wondered if it would get me from the Midwest to the East Coast. I had serious doubts, but I had nothing to lose. Counting my money, I closed my eyes and prayed I had enough to get there.

Now, here I sat in a car that was as worn out and broken as I was, my stomach grumbling, and my spirit close to being completely shattered. I knew Blanche was working, so I sent her a text.

Long line at the gates. My car is being dramatic. What do I tell them when I get to the gates?

My phone rang, and I shook my head. I guess I could have called her.

“Will your car start? Do you need me to come get you?”

“Hello to you, too, Blanche. I don’t know if it will start. We have been at a standstill now for about thirty minutes, so I haven’t tried to restart it.”

“Well, if you need me to come get you, let me know. When you make it to the guards, tell them you are coming to SmokeShield Cyber for an appointment with me.”

“Thanks, Blanche. I really owe you big time.”

It took another twenty minutes before the gates opened and let four vehicles in. I said a prayer and held my breath as I turned the key to restart my car. It sputtered, blew out a cloud of black smoke from the tailpipe, and then made a horrible grinding sound before it turned over. Breathing out a quick thank you to the powers that be, I put the car in drive.

At the gates, I stared at the warriors. They were rather huge. The warriors in the Silver Moon Pack had not looked like this. If they had, I might have spent some time around the training fields.