Chapter 1

Chapter 1

~ Alyssa ~

The Moon Goddess must have a cruel sense of humour, because she gave me a brilliant mind, two dead parents, and no wolf.

Every other graduate in Terracotta Valley High School had shifted by now. They had all turned eighteen and felt their wolves rise under their skin like a second heartbeat, and they had run through the pine forests above Venus City while their packs howled them home. I turned eighteen in March. I sat by my bedroom window under the full moon that night while Grandma slept in the next room, and I waited for the ache in my bones that everyone talked about. It never came. No voice in my head, no fire in my blood, nothing. Just me, Alyssa Flemming, the wolfless scholarship girl with a graduation speech to give.

"And now," Principal Regie's voice rang through the Great Hall, warm and proud, "please welcome our student body president, Alyssa Flemming."

A few people clapped. Many more booed. Somebody near the back let out a howl, and half the hall burst into laughter, because a howl aimed at a girl who couldn't answer it was the oldest joke at Terracotta Valley.

I stood up anyway and hugged my speech book against my chest until the corners dug into my ribs.

Terracotta Valley was not a school. It was a hunting ground with a uniform. The children of the old Alpha bloodlines sat at the top of it, golden and untouchable. Beneath them were the Beta families, sharp and loyal and hungry to be noticed. Then came the new packs, the ones whose parents had bought their territory with fresh money and were desperate to prove they belonged among wolves whose names were carved into the city's oldest stones.

And then there was me. No pack. No wolf. No money. An orphan who lived with her grandmother in a two-room house at the edge of Venus City, where the bus stopped running after eight.

I got in on my brains. I won the scholarship in sophomore year and I kept it every term after, because books made sense to me in a way people never did. 

Academically smart, check. Socially smart, fail, every single time. Nobody was more shocked than me when the staff named me student body president, and nobody hated it more. I could solve an equation in my sleep, but standing in front of a crowd made my hands shake and my throat close up like a fist.

To reach the stage, I had to walk past the front row.

I tried not to look. I always tried not to look. But my eyes found him anyway, the way they had found him every day for three long years.

Ditrian Regulus was sprawled in his chair like the hall belonged to him, which, considering his father owned half the city, it practically did. He was the heir of the Regulus Pack and the Regulus Group, broad-shouldered and sharp-jawed, with dark hair pushed carelessly off his forehead and grey eyes that flashed gold whenever his wolf was close to the surface. Beside him sat Delilah Quinn, his girlfriend, the daughter of a Beta family so proud of its rank that she wore it like perfume. On his other side was Austin Carter, his best friend and future Beta, grinning at me with the lazy cruelty of someone who had never once been told no.

The three of them had made my senior year a misery. Ditrian most of all, because he did it so effortlessly, and because I was stupid enough to dream about him every night anyway.

I was two steps from the stage stairs when something caught the hem of my gown.

I felt the fabric pull tight, then I was falling. My knees hit the floor, then my palms, then my chin, and my speech book flew out of my hands and slid across the wood with its pages flapping open like a wounded bird.

The hall exploded with laughter.

"Oh no," Delilah said sweetly behind me, lifting the pointed toe of her heel off my hem. "Was that your dress? I thought it was a rug."

My face burned so hot I thought it would catch fire. I pushed myself up onto my hands and lifted my head, and the first thing I saw was Ditrian, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching me with that slow, maddening smirk.

"Get up, Bunny," he said.

Bunny. He had called me that since the first week of sophomore year, when he crept up behind me at my locker and I jumped so high that my books went flying, like a startled rabbit. To a school full of wolves, a rabbit was something you chased for fun, and he made sure everyone knew it. The whole front row snickered. 

He definitely didn't deserve my love. So why did my stupid heart beat for him this way?

"Alyssa."

A hand appeared in front of my face. I looked up into a pair of calm blue eyes, and the knot in my chest loosened a little.

Xavier Parker. The heir of the Parker Pack, as wealthy and well-born as any of them, and somehow the only person in this entire school who had ever treated me like I was worth the space I stood in. He pulled me to my feet as gently as if I weighed nothing, then bent and picked up my speech book, smoothing the crumpled pages before he pressed it back into my hands.

"You've got this, Lys," he said quietly. "Don't let them have it."

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Enough!" Principal Reggie's voice cracked across the hall with the weight of a dominant wolf behind it, and every snicker died instantly. Even Ditrian sat back. "Miss Flemming earned that podium. You will give her the respect it deserves."

I climbed the stairs on trembling legs, opened my book, and read.

I didn't stutter. I was proud of that much. But my voice shook from the first word to the last, and I knew every wolf in that room could hear my heart galloping in my chest. I talked about hard work and new beginnings and the doors that waited for us beyond Terracotta Valley, and the whole time I kept my eyes glued to the page so I wouldn't have to see Ditrian watching me.

When I finally closed the book, the hall erupted. Not for me. For the end of it. Caps flew into the air. Students rushed together to hug and scream and take pictures, and the staff began filing out through the side doors, leaving the graduates to their celebrations.

I was gathering my things at the podium when a hard shove slammed into my shoulder.

I stumbled off the edge of the stage and landed badly on one ankle, catching myself on the front row of chairs.

"Move, President," Austin laughed. "The real show's starting."

Ditrian strolled up the steps behind him and took the microphone without even glancing at me. His grey eyes swept across the hall, and I swear the whole room leaned toward him.

"Terracotta Valley," he said, his voice deep and lazy, "the moon is full tonight. Who's ready to run?"

The hall roared. Delilah launched herself at him, grabbed his face with both hands, and kissed him so hard that the students around the stage groaned and shouted at them to get a room.

I turned away before I could see any more and limped toward the exit.

Xavier caught up with me at the doors. "Hey. Are you alright?."

"I'm fine," I lied, smiling. "I've survived worse."

He didn't look convinced, but he let it go. "You're coming tonight, right? The Moon Run at the Regulus lake lodge."

I laughed out loud. "Xavier, it's a Moon Run. Everyone shifts and runs the forest until moonset. What exactly am I supposed to do? Stand by the lake and hold their clothes?"

"Half the party never leaves the lodge," he said. "There's music, food, the whole thing. And I don't want to go alone." His voice softened. "You're my best friend, Lys. We said we'd stick together until the very end, remember? Tonight is the end."

I looked at him, at the hope in his face, and I couldn't say no. I never could with Xavier.

There was no harm in going. Not really. Xavier would be there, and I would stand beside him, and for one night I would pretend I belonged.

"Fine," I sighed. "One hour."

His grin lit up his whole face. "One hour. I'll be waiting for you."