Chapter 1- Oh, crap

Oh, crap.

This is definitely not the senior year kick-off I had in mind.

Up until now, everything had been going… suspiciously well. Freakishly well, actually. For someone like me—someone who could trip over oxygen molecules and send herself sprawling face-first into her own tray—that counted as a miracle. I’d made it through an entire week without wiping out in the hallways, without spilling coffee down a teacher’s shirt, without knocking over an Alpha’s breakfast plate and getting mauled for it.

And then this happened.

Orange juice. Freaking orange juice.

It ran down Antonia’s ridiculously expensive, limited-edition Hunter’s Moon leather jacket, soaking it until it looked like it had been dragged through a citrus grove after a storm. The liquid clung to the fine stitching, dripping from the collar down to her designer boots. She stood there, perfectly still, her body taut like a bowstring. Her ears—well, the wolf ears that only surfaced when her temper or her instincts got the better of her—almost flickered into view. And her eyes… they were burning, molten gold bleeding through the usual amber, that dangerous shimmer that meant only one thing: rage, and the prelude to a bloodline command.

I stared down at the empty carton in my hand, fingers stiff and clammy. I had no idea how it had slipped from my grip, how it had left my hand at just the wrong moment. I had been holding it. I had been about to drink it. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was sailing across the air and detonating on her head like some kind of cursed citrus grenade.

Almost like… something had pushed me.

The cafeteria went dead silent. Not the usual pause-before-the-laughter silent—no, this was the kind of stillness that settled over the forest before the wolves came out. Over a hundred pairs of eyes stared at us: some wide with human curiosity, others gleaming with that faint predatory light that meant they were already calculating the social fallout, the pack politics, the scent trails this would leave.

Antonia raised her head slowly. Her throat rumbled with a low, guttural growl—the kind you made when you were fighting the urge to shift, when you were balancing on the razor’s edge between civilized behavior and claws-out carnage.

“You little b*tch!” she shrieked, voice cutting through the air like an arctic wind ripping over Silver Lake itself. It rang against the cafeteria walls, sharp and violent enough to make my eardrums ache.

And I—goddess help me—almost laughed.

Seriously, if this had happened to Bernice, I’d be dead. Bernice was the real psycho queen of Silver Lake High, a rabid bee queen in a cheer skirt who once nearly tore a sophomore’s arm off over a disputed hunting ground. Antonia, for all her venom, still had a leash on. Some days.

She took a step forward, shoulders squared, nails curling as her scent spiked—sweet, sharp, dangerous. I saw a faint wisp of heat ripple off her skin. Another step, and she would’ve lunged.

But then two hands wrapped firmly around her waist, yanking her back before she could take another inch.

Colin.

Her boyfriend. The so-called emotional sedative behind the most aggressive cheer captain in the pack. Also my best friend Evelyn’s older brother, the guy I’d known since childhood but had never truly known.

His hazel eyes caught the fluorescent light and flickered silver—Alpha light, that commanding sheen that made lesser wolves pause mid-snarling. The air around him thickened with that quiet, unshakable dominance that only a high-ranking Alpha could exude, and just like that, Antonia froze.

“Hey, Antonia, calm down,” he murmured, voice low, threaded with authority.

“Calm down?! She did this on purpose, Colin! She soaked me!” Antonia jabbed a perfectly manicured finger toward me, her nails catching the light with a predatory glint.

“Language, Miss Smith,” came another voice, sharp and commanding in its own way.

Of course. Principal Fitzgerald.

The man had a sixth sense for drama, especially pack drama, despite being as human as they came. Old fox, some called him—always appearing at the exact moment things were about to go feral.

“I’m quite sure she didn’t mean it,” Colin said evenly, still holding Antonia in place, his fingers pressing lightly against her ribs in that subtle way only pack insiders understood—pressure points that soothed, restrained, dominated.

“I’m going to rip her apart!” Antonia snarled, struggling against him, the gold in her eyes flaring hotter.

And just like that, the cafeteria came alive—not with sound, but with clicks. Phones. Everywhere. Screens glowed as students lifted their devices, recording every angle of my impending execution.

Perfect. By the time lunch ended, this would be all over the Silver Lake pack forums. I hated attention—especiallyattention like this. And especially when I wasn’t even fully awakened yet.

Colin leaned in close to Antonia, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered something too low for me to catch. But I saw the effect. Her body stiffened, a flush crawling up her neck, the sharpness in her scent blurring with something softer, hotter—shame, submission. Classic Alpha suppression.

“Miss Antonia Smith,” Principal Fitzgerald said, stepping closer now, shoes squeaking slightly on the sticky floor, “would you care to explain what happened here?”

“She—Sarah—she dumped her drink all over me! On purpose!”

I rolled my eyes. “Please. If I wanted to drench you, I wouldn’t waste my overpriced orange juice on it. There’s nastier stuff in this cafeteria to throw.”

A ripple of laughter scattered through the tables.

“You little—” she started again, voice rising.

“Miss Smith!” the principal barked, sharp enough to snap even a half-shifted wolf to heel. “Control yourself. This is still school property.”

“Are you in heat or something? You’re extra vicious today,” I shot back before my brain could slam on the brakes.

Oh. Holy hell. Did I just say that out loud?

A wave of stunned silence followed. Eyes widened. Forks paused halfway to mouths. Even Antonia blinked at me, the golden fire in her gaze briefly snuffed out by sheer surprise.

“Enough!” Fitzgerald sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Colin Williams, please escort your girlfriend out of here and get her into something dry. As for you, Miss Sarah Dunn, you will clean up this mess.”

Clean up the mess? Fine. Better than getting detention, or worse—being sent to the nurse’s office for a ‘temperament screening.’

“Sure thing, Chief,” I said, my voice dripping with false sweetness.

The principal gave me one last exasperated glare and stalked off, his scent trailing nothing but stale coffee and overworked bureaucracy.

Antonia paused on her way out, lips curling into a saccharine smile. With a flick of her wrist, she let her tray clatter to the ground. “Oops. Guess you’ll have to take care of that too, huh?”

Her little entourage of cheerleaders stood as one, each dumping their trays with malicious delight, the sound of falling plastic and sloppy leftovers echoing like a drumroll of humiliation. Laughter followed—high-pitched, cruel, a pack chorus under the blood moon.

Colin glanced back at me. His expression was half-apology, half-warning. A silent brace yourself. Then he dragged Antonia out of the cafeteria, her complaints already rising again, a storm brewing for later.

When the bell finally rang, the last of the pack pranced out, skirts barely covering what they should, hips swaying with deliberate mockery.

I stood there in the wreckage, fists clenched, orange juice sticky against my sneakers.

Great.

So much for staying invisible this year.

One thing was certain: my senior year at Silver Lake High was not going to be peaceful. Not for a half-human, half-wolf girl with secrets gnawing at her bones.

Not now. Not with the blood moon coming.