1

Billie

Locked up in Hexen Manor, I was supposed to be working instead of birdwatching. Still, when that cloud of sparrows burst out of the trees beyond the backyard, I couldn’t help my curiosity. Lately, the call of the forest had become irresistible.

With my binoculars hanging from a strap around my neck, I got up from the floor and opened the porch door. Immediately, I was hit by a potent coppery smell that made me nauseous, reminding me of meat and iron; it had to be blood. My feet took me across the yard and into the tree line without even realizing it. The deeper I went into the forest, the stronger the smell became, fusing into a mixture of sour fear stench and animal musk. One smell reminded me of dogs. The other was grassy, fresh… tantalizing.

The air suddenly sparked with vicious growls and bays of hungry predators. I pressed closer to the sound, navigating through the trees in my bare feet until bright sunlight glistened out of the leaves up ahead. Pushing through, I found myself teetering on the edge of a steep slope. In the valley below was the source of the smells—a herd of elk in disarray. Nine wild and savage wolves swarmed around them, their hunt obscured by the canopy.

I’d never been able to watch a hunt before.

A gnarled oak tree clung precariously to the ridge beside me. Desperate to see more, I climbed its splaying limbs, my feet scuffing the bark and knees scraping, snapping small twigs until I was high enough to get a clear view of the valley. Evening sun beat down on my back, the humidity wringing a bead of sweat from my hairline that trickled down my temple. I raised the binoculars to my face and watched the wolves—my packmates. At eighteen-years-old, I didn’t have my wolf yet, but for some reason… the sight of that bloody elk made my stomach coil excitedly.

In flawless synchronization, the wolves wove around one another, deftly avoiding snags in the undergrowth and clearing clumps of tall grass as they closed in on the injured elk. It wheeled and jogged in different directions, yet a wolf was there everywhere it turned. They had it surrounded, but the hunt was far from over.

Two shadows cut through the group with deadly intent, and my adoptive siblings were immediately recognizable: Catrina and Colt Hexen. I didn’t envy their black pelts in the summer heat, but it didn’t seem to affect them; they were focused on the elk, searching for an opening to attack. Colt, a year younger than Catrina and a year older than me, was more reserved than his audacious sister. While Catrina impatiently snapped at the elk’s haunch, he hung back and assessed the situation. The elk jerked away and kept moving, seeming to know that if it stood still for just a second too long, it would lose the battle. My blood sizzled with the craving to join my siblings.

As children of our pack’s Alpha, Colt and Catrina stood out from the other wolves, most of whom were shades of grey and cream. Yet there was another wolf with them that stood out even more. He was an Alpha, but not of our pack.

Three towns bordered the mountainous terrain of Gunnison National Forest in western Colorado: the small and quaint Grandbay, the enigmatic and rural Eastpeak, and the town I grew up in, industrious and sprawling Dalesbloom. The man that adopted me, David Hexen, was the Alpha of a pack of wolf shifters—werewolves, some call us—the largest pack of the three towns. The wolf hunting with my pack was the Alpha of Grandbay and nothing like the tranquil town he came from.

Robed in warm autumn colours, Gavin was striking shades of brown and bronze, brutally muscular, and nearly twice as big as most of my packmates. His fur bristled as he stalked alongside the elk, flashing his teeth at anyone who got too close to him, even Catrina. As her boyfriend and the future Alpha of Dalesbloom, I suspected he was here to help with the hunt. Alpha Gavin was known for being a fierce and cruel hunter, but watching him now, the aggression in his wolf looked almost like it was beyond his control. A lunge at the elk awarded him a death grip on its throat, forcing the elk to a trembling halt. Its front legs collapsed, but as the other wolves drew near to topple the elk, Gavin let go and turned his teeth onto them.

Alarm bells rang in my head. “What are you doing…?” I whispered.

I’d heard about how shifters without the mark of their fated mate could sometimes lose control of their beast, and Gavin wasn’t marked.

The Grandbay Alpha swung his head at the nearest wolf and bit down on their muzzle, eliciting a squeal from my packmate, then shook his head in violent rage. Blood darkened my packmate’s face. The others nipped Gavin’s flanks to stop him, but the chaos only escalated as Catrina jumped in on the fray. A vicious racket of growls and yelps broke out from the valley as the pack self-destructed, allowing the ruddy elk to climb to its feet and amble away. I stared on in shock. The hunt had gone terribly wrong, and I was the silent witness to it all up in my tree.

I’d seen Alpha Gavin before when he visited Hexen Manor. I knew from the way he treated Catrina that he was a callous brute, but it never hit me how truly savage he was until then. The sight sapped all the heat from my body and turned my skin into ice. Was this what I would be exposed to once I finally channeled my wolf? Was I even strong enough to handle that?

Some of the Dalesbloom wolves realized the skirmish cost them the hunt. They broke apart from Gavin and raced after the elk, led by Colt, and managed to prevent it from reaching the trees. I still had hope they could salvage the hunt until Gavin, incensed by Colt’s show of leadership, took off after Colt like a blazing arrow.