Chapter 1: Home

Chapter 1: Home

Freya's POV

The road stretched out, mile after mile, taking me back to the only home I'd ever known. It had been five long years. Five years since I'd left the Blackwood land to pursue my education in the human world.

My fingers tapping on the steering wheel once more, something I do whenever I'm nervous. Those familiar landmarks were there. That battered old gas station where Marcus would take me for candy. The diner, where Catherine taught me to love pancakes. That all but illegible sign that had once announced, "Welcome to Pinehaven" the small town they owned.

Home.

My phone buzzed in the cup holder, and I glanced down to see Evie's name flashing across the screen. I pressed the speakers button.

"Please tell me you're about to arrive!" She said seething with anticipation over the car speakers

"Me too, I've just sat here gazing out at the driveway like a complete physco for hours. Marcus is worried about my sanity I laughed, my chest warmed by the sound of my best friends' voice. Lord, I'd been giving her a lot of misses recently. Video call would work but nothing like the real thing.".

"Twenty minutes out, maybe less if traffic is still open." I said, unable to suppress the smile from my voice. "How's everyone holding up? Any changes?" "Honey, something and nothing."

Evie's tone became mysterious in that way that made it seem like she was trying to hide something but longed to tell someone all about it. "The pack has grown. We have some thirty new members since you left.". There were a few transfers, a few rogues who had requested that they be allowed on board. And Dane …" she said, pausing melodramatically.

"Well, you'll just have to see." My gut performed a peculiar somersault at the sound of his name. Dane. My older brother guardian figure; the one who'd found me lying beside my parent's throats when I'd been five years old. For taking me to safety, chasing after the assassins despite being a boy himself, and taking in a girl he didn't have to. The man who taught me to ride a bike, stood up to my bullies, and hugged me when I cried over being different from all the others, a human among wolves.

"Where is Dane?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

"He's the Alpha now. He took over after Marcus two years ago." Prideful, the kind of pride that pack members experienced towards a good leader. "He's. different, Freya. He is stronger .The pack has never been stronger, and other Alphas actually respects us now rather than seeing us as just another middle level pack."

He was, of course. Even as a teenager, Dane's dominant, protective, and invincible strength already made him a natural fit to occupy leadership roles. At the age of twenty one, second-in-command under his father, and strongest warrior in the pack when I left for school at the age of fifteen. Alpha? He had already achieved his peak. Which meant he was even more powerful, deadlier, more. I said softly, despite the strange butterflies in my belly, "Can't wait to see you all." "Too long." "Too long. I have so much to tell you, and we have to catch up on the five years gossip." Suddenly, she halted. Honestly, it doesn't matter. That will have to wait. Just drive safely, please.

The final part of the road is challenging, particularly if one is not accustomed to it.

I reassured her, "I remember every curve." "Evie, I'll see you soon." "See you soon too, sweetie. Freya, too? Hi from home. I was left alone with my thoughts and the roads, that were more familiar now, after the phone call ended. Tall and dense, the trees grew, their branches curved to a canopy that scattered the late afternoon sun into golden streams dancing across my windshield.".

Now this was pack land. I could feel it in my bones. I had always been able to sense the energy of the land even when I was human. The wolves explained that even if I could not shift, the land had taken me because I had lived here since the age of five. that even though I was not a wolf, the pack ties I had formed as a child were true. Being human never fazed me. Though I could not be one of them, the Blackwoods never made me feel like an outsider or weak compared to them. They had been too protective of me, especially Dane, if anything. The huge iron gates that were supposed to signal the entrance of the Blackwood estate appeared; they were already open and ready to function. My heart started pounding.

And there was the house, and I had a lump in my throat.

It was exactly as I recalled, a massive lodge style house constructed from rock and wood, with floor-to-ceiling windows that reflected the surrounding woods. My front porch where I'd spent countless of those summer evening remained, and I could still see the swing where Catherine read to me, still gently swaying in the corner.

There were small cabins placed around the area, inhabited by pack members who preferred privacy. And cars parked along the circular driveway, and I could see people standing on the porch.

They'd been waiting for me.

My own eyes brimmed with surprised tears as I steered in and cut the engine. In the windshield, I could see Catherine was already racing downstairs, blonde hair blocking sun behind her, and Marcus slower but with a smile just as wide.

I hardly had my seatbelt opened before my door was thrust open.

"Oh, FREYA!" Evie dragged me from the car and into a throttling hug, and suddenly we were sobbing and giggling, five years gone in the past dispelled in an instant.

"I loved you so much," I gasped against her shoulder, holding the fragrance so dear to me, vanilla and the deep, earthy smell that was hers alone.

Never take that long again," she ordered sternly, moving back to look at me with tear brine eyes. "You've changed! You're so. Different now. Look at you in your city clothes and with your styled hair."

I laughed, wiping away my own tears. "City life will do that to you."

I didn't manage to say another word out Catherine pulled me into a tight hug. She smelled of cinnamon and pine. "My sweet girl," she said in a voice laced with emotion. "Welcome home.".

arcus hugged me as well, his massive body wrapping around me, embracing me close and secure as ever before. "The pack has not been the same without you, little one."

Some of the pack members advanced, faces familiar to me, names I'd never forgotten, and some new ones too. They were all warm, friendly, and genuine. This was my family. Not a blood family, but a family by choice, by love, and by bonds we'd created.

These were my folk.

Where's Dane?" I'd snapped it out before I realized I should be quiet, and I longed to retract it the moment at the expression on Catherine's face shifted to something I couldn't read.

e's in his office. Alpha business, unfortunately." Her smile was gentle but insightful in a way that made my skin crawl with sensitivity. "But he knows you're here, sweetheart. He'll come down when he can."

here was something in the manner in which she'd said it that had my heart pounding, resurrected that peculiar flutter in my belly.

hadn't even taken a moment to look at it before Evie snapped my hand with puppy like fervor. "Come on, let's go and pick up your cases. You're in your old room, we didn't touch anything you'd left behind. Well, except that Catherine thoroughly disinfects it obsessively, but other than that it's your adolescence in a time capsule.".

Oh God, I said you tossed out my boy band posters," I grumbled, allowing her to pull me over to the trunk.

Not on your life. They're what make you cute."

We walked over to the trunk together, and I glanced back over at the house, my eyes rising almost reluctantly. On the second floor, in the Alpha's office, as I knew it to be, a curtain shifted.

Someone was watching.

My eyes stay fixed on the window, and though I couldn't see very well, I could feel it.

A pull. A magnetic feeling that made my skin hot and cold at once, that made my heart throb like it never had before, and that made something within me that was buried deep inside of me sit up and take notice.

or a moment, I saw him, a shadow, wide shouldered and gigantic, motionless.

Dane.

The curtains fall back into place where they were supposed to be, but the feeling remained. That strange, vague feeling, as though each molecule in my body had reconfigured itself around that window, around him.

What was that?

Freya? You coming?" Evie yelled, already removing a suitcase from the trunk.

A shivered, gritting a smile as I moved away from the window, from that scuttling touch of fingers that seemed to brush over my skin.

Yeah, sorry, It just... Good to be home."

 Standing behind Evie as she entered the house, laughing at me, asking me a hundred questions about life in the city, school and boys, I couldn't help but think that something had irrevocably altered.

hat my home that I had left a decade earlier wasn't really the same as when I returned.

As I ascended the stairs that I so well knew to my old bedroom, looking over at the shut door at the end of the hallway, the Alpha's office and my heart racing in my chest.

Behind the door is Dane.

And something cautioned me that when I would next lay eyes on him, things would never be the same again.