CHAPTER 1

Prologue

What do you do when you are a human in a wolf pack and your best friend is the next Alpha?

You keep up. That's what. Or you try to keep up as much as a human body will let you.

Neah and Caleb have been joined at the hip since the day they were born. Literally. Their mothers were best friends in college. The kind of best friends who did everything together, graduated together, and even went into labor on the same day in the same hospital. Neah came first by eleven minutes, a fact she never lets Caleb forget.

Their moms built a studio together after college. Self defense classes and wellness programs for women, both human and werewolf. It was small at first, just a rented space above a laundromat, but it grew into something real. Something that mattered to both of them. Neah's mom ran the day to day operations while Diane stepped back after she met Marcus and became the Luna of the Iron Valley Pack.

Being a Luna takes time. It takes everything, actually. But Diane never let go of the studio or her best friend. They talked every day. Their kids grew up together. Neah spent summers at the pack, running through the woods with Caleb like she belonged there, even though she wasn't a wolf and everyone knew it.

Then the accident happened.

Neah was fifteen when a truck ran a red light and hit her parents' car on the driver's side. Her dad died on impact. Her mom held on for six hours before her body gave up. Neah was in the back seat. She walked away with a broken arm, a concussion, and a hole in her chest that hasn't closed since.

No one in her family wanted her. Not her dad's brother who lived two states away. Not her mom's sister who said she couldn't handle a teenager. Not even her grandmother, who sent a card but never picked up the phone.

Diane didn't wait for anyone to ask. She showed up at the hospital, signed the papers, and brought Neah home to the pack. No questions. No conditions. Just a woman keeping a promise she made to her best friend a long time ago.

That was three years ago.

Neah is eighteen now. She has spent the last three years learning what it means to live in a world she only used to visit during summer breaks. The Iron Valley Pack is large and well respected among the allied packs. Alpha Marcus runs things with a steady hand and Diane holds the pack together with warmth and a backbone made of steel. Caleb is their only son and the future Alpha, set to begin his official transition this year.

Neah has learned the pack ways. She knows the hierarchy, the customs, the values that hold a pack together. She trains with the warriors every day, even though her human body doesn't heal like theirs, doesn't move as fast, and definitely doesn't come with the option of turning into a massive wolf. But she shows up. Every single day. She fights harder than most of the wolves because she has to. Because no one expects her to keep up and she refuses to prove them right.

She is good too. Better than good. She can track wolves who have been tracking their whole lives. She can hide from noses that can smell a rabbit from a mile away. She hits hard and moves fast and when she gets knocked down she stands back up before anyone can offer a hand. The trainers call her a natural. The mean girls call her other things.

Caleb is her rock. Her brother in every way that matters except blood. They can feel each other's moods without speaking. They finish each other's sentences. They have never gone a full day without talking since the day Neah moved in. Some people in the pack swore they were mates, but when they both turned eighteen and nothing clicked, that theory died fast. Neither of them was disappointed. The thought of it actually made them both gag.

Neah has a plan for her life. She always has. She is going to finish high school, go to college, study business, and come back to take over the studio her mom helped build. It is the one piece of her parents she still has and she will not let it go. Diane kept it running for her. The manager is teaching her the business side. She works there a few days a week, training women in self defense the same way her mom taught her.

Everything is mapped out. Caleb will start his Alpha training. Neah will go to college and start her human life. They will stay close, just like their moms did. She will always have the pack in her heart, but she knows she is not a wolf. She will not be anyone's mate. She cannot be inducted into the pack because the elders believe the bond could kill a human. So her place here has always had an expiration date, even if no one wants to say it out loud.

Most of the pack thinks she will get the college thing out of her system and come back for good. Some of them are probably right. She loves it here more than she will ever admit. But she also knows that love doesn't mean you belong somewhere. And belonging is the one thing she has never been sure of since the night her parents didn't come home.

Neah has her plan. Her friends. Her training. Her studio. Her goals. Senior year is starting and she just has to get through it. One more year of mean girls and pack politics and pretending the nightmares don't wake her up screaming every night. One more year of leaning on Caleb and the guys and Diane and Marcus. One more year and then she is free to build something that is truly hers.

That is the plan anyway.

Until something happens that she never saw coming and forces her to make choices she never wanted to make. Choices about loyalty, about love, about a bond she didn't ask for with a man she can't stand.

And the worst part? She can't even run from it. Because this time, the thing chasing her is something she might actually want.