Chapter 1

 1

Mabel's pov 

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, and I hadn't even done anything yet.

I stood barefoot in the clearing behind our house, the cold ground biting into my skin, my whole body strung tight the way it always got in this exact spot at this exact hour, like some part of me already knew what was coming and dreaded it before I'd even lifted my hand. 

The trees around me stood black and silent against a sky just beginning to lighten, and the only sound was my own breathing, too fast, too shallow, the kind of breathing that comes right before you do something you're afraid will fail again.

“Oh moon goddess” I called out, almost breaking down.

It was five days until Mate Recognition Season began at Mooncrest Academy, five days until I stood in a courtyard full of strangers and found out in front of all of them whether I was worth claiming. Five days, and I still hadn't managed the one thing every other wolf my age had already done years ago without trying half as hard as I had.

That was why I was out here… again.

I looked down at the small knife in my hand, turning it once in the grey light, and felt the familiar mix of dread and stubborn hope twist together in my chest. My back was pressed against the same crooked pine I'd used since I was thirteen, bark rough and cold through my shirt, and I stared at that blade like it might finally give me a different answer than it had the last hundred times I'd stood exactly here.

Nineteen years old and still wolfless. I turned the thought over in my head the way you press a bruise just to feel it again, just to make sure it still hurts. Every wolf I'd ever known had met their shift by now, some of them as young as thirteen, that first shock of fur and instinct arriving like a birthright nobody had to earn. 

I was still waiting, I had been waiting so long that the waiting itself had become who I was, the girl without a wolf, the name that followed me through every hallway at every school I'd ever attended.

If it hadn't happened by now, some cruel and frightened part of me whispered, why would today be any different.

I pressed the blade against my palm anyway, because hope is a stubborn thing even when it has no evidence behind it. Not deep enough to need stitches, just enough to sting, just enough to try to wake something up. My grandmother used to say pain was the oldest key there was, that some wolves needed a jolt to remember they were sleeping inside a human body instead of guarding it.

And so I cut myself. Blood welled up along the line, bright and stupid looking against my skin, and I waited and waited.

I closed my eyes and reached for whatever was supposed to be curled beneath my ribs, whatever ancient thing every other wolf my age had already met in dreams and mirrors and moonlight. I reached and reached until my arm shook, until my breath came in short, useless little gasps, until the cold air burned in my lungs.

“Come on,” I whispered.

Still, there was nothing; no shift, no warmth spreading under my skin, no answering growl in the back of my mind. It was just me, standing alone in the trees with a bleeding hand, my heart still hammering from a fear that had nothing left to be afraid of now because the worst had already happened again.

I heaved a heavy breath, agony swallowing me whole.

“Why me?” I hissed.

What was wrong with me? Every werewolf shifted before eighteen, some at sixteen or seventeen.

But I am nineteen and still wolfless. How convenient!

I wrapped my palm with a while piece of cloth and walked back toward the house before the sun came all the way up, so no one would ask why I'd been out there again.

My father was already at the table when I came inside, which was unusual enough that I noticed it before I noticed anything else.

He sat with his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee he wasn't drinking, staring at the wood grain like it owed him something.

"You're up early," I said, sliding into the chair across from him and tucking my injured hand into my lap where he wouldn't see it.

"Couldn't sleep." His voice was flat in a way that didn't match his eyes. His eyes were doing something else entirely, something closer to fear, though I would never have called it that out loud. Not to his face.

"Bad dreams?"

"Something like that." He snickered.

I reached for the bread on the table and buttered it slowly, giving him space to talk if he wanted to, the way I always did. My father was not a man you pushed. You waited, and sometimes, if you were patient enough, he gave you a piece of whatever was sitting behind his ribs.

“You did it again.” He suddenly spoke, his gaze now on me.

I bit my lower lip hard and paused what I was doing. I knew he had seen me trying to wolf out, I shut my eyes and let out a painful sigh.

“You weren’t supposed to see.” I quickly defended.

“You’ll hurt yourself Mabel.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

I laughed bitterly.

“No, it doesn’t. Everyone else has a wolf. Everyone else belongs somewhere.” I paused, “I had to try… I need to belong, I need my wolf.”

“You don’t need a wolf to survive.”

I almost scoffed.

“Easy for you to say. You are not the wolfless one here, you don't get bullied at school for being wolfless or anything.” I almost lashed out. I was definitely losing it already.

He looked at me for a long time, wearing an expression I couldn't quite understand. Then, he let out a sigh and reached for my hands. His expression grew even pale when he saw the tied cut on my palm.

“Mabel, sweetheart.” He called softly, “I understand what you are going through, but you have to understand that you are more important than any wolf, whatsoever.” He paused and looked directly into my eyes, “I promised your mom that I would take good care of you, and I don't see how I'd do that if I don't stop you from hurting yourself all the time.”

“Dad I—”

“Your wolf is late, but it is definitely coming. Please stop hurting yourself.”

I bathed my lashes as I stared at him. He had spent half of his life, taking care of me since my mother died while giving birth to me. He was the only parent I had, the only one I could talk to and turn to. I let out another painful breath, it isn't my intention to put him through the stress of worrying about me.

“I hear you papa”, I quickly stood up and went to embrace him.

“My little queen.” He snickered again, “Go finish up now, you do not want to be late on your first day of resumption.”

I disengaged from the hug and went back to my seat. It dawned on me, Mooncrest starts today, and I knew i wasn't ready.

"Mabel." He called my name like it was heavier than usual. "When you get to Mooncrest, I need you to promise me some things."

"Okay." I adjusted on my seat as curiosity washed me.

"Stay away from the archives. All of them, not just the restricted section. I don't care what a professor tells you, I don't care what extra credit is on offer. Just stay out."

I laughed, mostly because it seemed like the thing to do. "Dad, I'm the last person anyone's going to invite into the archives. I can't even shift. Nobody's handing me research privileges."

He didn't laugh back. "I mean it."

"Okay." I softened. "I promise."

"And the Blackwood twins." His jaw tightened around the name like it cost him something to say it. "Whatever circle they run in, whatever parties, whatever anything, you keep your distance."

That one landed strange in my chest, mostly because it was such an easy promise to make. Xavier and Xander Blackwood were the kind of names that existed on a different plane than mine, sons of the Alpha line, the sort of boys who didn't know girls like me existed except as scenery.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," I said. "I doubt they know my name."

"Good. Keep it that way." He finally looked up at me, and there was something in his face I hadn't seen before, something that made me feel nine years old again instead of nineteen. 

“Why are you telling me all these?” I tried to clear my curiosity.

“Because I love you.” He responded.

I smiled, “That didn't answer my question though.”

He smiled back and nibbled on his toast.We didn't talk much after that.

He drove me to the transport station himself instead of letting me take the early bus like every other year, and the whole ride his hands stayed too tight on the wheel, his knuckles pale against his dark skin. When we got there he didn't get out right away. He just sat there a moment, staring straight ahead through the windshield like he was gathering something up inside himself.

Then he reached over and gripped my wrist. It was a little hard that I gasped a little and looked at him, startled, because my father had never once in my life hurt me, not even by accident.

"Promise me you'll stay invisible," he said.

Okay…this was weird.

"Dad, you're hurting my wrist."

He loosened his grip immediately, guilt flashing across his face, but he didn't let go entirely. "I didn't mean to” he paused, “Promise me, Mabel."

"I promise dad." I said it because I would have said anything to make that look leave his eyes. "I'll stay invisible. I'll be careful. I'll stay out of the archives and away from rich boys who don't know I exist. Okay?"

He nodded slowly, like the words were a kind of medicine he needed to hear more than once to believe. Then he let go, and I climbed out with my one battered suitcase and waved at him while he drove off. 

The ride to Mooncrest took most of the day, I watched the woods slide by the window and thought about my father's hands shaking around a mug of coffee he never drank.

I thought about the word invisible, and how strange it was that he'd asked for that specifically, as if he already knew something I didn't. As if invisibility was the only thing standing between me and whatever he was afraid of. I sighed, he had always been this protective of me, but today was more… stern.

Somewhere past the halfway point, as the transport crossed some invisible line into what the signs called Mooncrest territory, I felt it.

A faint unmistakable pulse, a flicker of heat under my skin like something had briefly opened its eyes and then closed them again. I sat up straight, pressing my palm flat against my chest, waiting for it to happen again the way I'd waited in those woods a thousand mornings before this one.

Though it didn't come back, but it had been there. For the first time in years, something inside me had moved.