The Alpha and the Girl With No Wolf

Ava’s POV

Wolves howl in the distance as if calling to something inside me… something that refuses to answer.

I curl my fingers into loose fists in my pockets and look up at the sky from beneath my hoodie.

“Get going, Ava. It’s going to start soon and you don’t want to be late.”

I turn to glance at my guardian out the corner of my eye. What’s the point? I want to ask but I hold it in, seeing the frown on his face. None of the other pack kids like me, but I’m just someone he was saddled with. He doesn’t actually care about my situation, so there’s no point in looking to him for sympathy.

After all, he’s likely disappointed in me, too. At seventeen, I’m the only one in my age group in Crescent Hollow who still hasn’t shifted.

For my guardian, as an unmated male in his thirties, he had better things to do than babysit a teenage girl who couldn’t even shift when she was supposed to. Me being his responsibility meant he was dragged into my mess when the pack looked at me with judgement.

He starts down the drive way, then pauses and glances back at me. “I’m going to be out all night so don’t even think of returning early. The kitchens will be open all night, so go sleep there if you have to.”

Thanks for nothing, I think, full of sarcasm, and sigh to myself.

I watch his back as he walks away, then start down the path to the left of the drive way, heading into the woods. To be honest, I don’t blame him. When the pack brought me in ten years ago, the alpha placed me under his care without asking for his opinion, and for a young male, having a foster child wasn’t ideal when looking for a mate.

Still, I can’t help but feel some resentment. I just can’t voice it. It’s not as though I asked to be in this situation, either, but I’m already living on the pack’s charity with nothing to show for myself, so the least I can do is try to make as little of a nuisance of myself as possible.

As I get closer to the training grounds, the occasional growls and howls grow louder, and my footsteps grow slower. I try to avoid the rest of the pack as much as possible, but the Gathering is a monthly event for the juvenile members of the pack to connect and socialize on the night before a full moon. It’s meant to prepare the young wolves for when they’ll be running with the pack once they become adults. Long ago, pack runs used to be a Hunt, but we’re long past needing to hunt for our own survival.

For me, though, tonight is another reminder that I don’t belong. That I’m just here because someone forced me to be.

Most juveniles within the pack shift within their early teen years. For the really strong bloodlines, they could shift as early as eleven years old. Seventeen is beyond being a late bloomer, so when my birthday passed and still nothing, my standing within the pack hit rock bottom. I was already unpopular for being an orphan brought in from outside and having no ties within the pack, but it got worse after that.

My feet drag with reluctance as I near the clearing. The field is rimmed with pines older than the pack itself. Laughter echoes through the trees, but rather than sounding inviting, it fills me with dread.

There’s an art to blending in when your presence alone upsets the atmosphere of a group, and I’ve learned to master it. My steps are as light as I can make them as I stick to the edges of the clearing, away from my pack mates who are frolicking in the center. But they’re all wolves; it’s impossible for me to completely hide from their presence.

I know they’ve taken notice of me when a hush falls among the group, and then the murmurs start – low, sharp, cutting.

“Look, it’s the hollow girl.”

“She actually dared to come.”

“She still hasn’t shifted?”

“What kind of wolf doesn’t shift by seventeen?”

“Maybe she’s not one of us at all.”

I want nothing more than to turn around and go home, but then I’ll have to sleep on the porch until morning. And if my guardian finds out I didn’t attend the Gathering, I could be punished.

So I grit my teeth and keep walking, pretending I don’t care. That their words don’t land like stones in my chest. That the heat crawling up my neck is from the sun, not shame.

But I can’t help but care.

Despite the dread filling my stomach, the scene looks like something out of a storybook. The late evening sunlight pours in through the gaps in the trees, giving the clearing an ethereal glow that glints against the soft fur of shifted wolves.

And as usual, I can only watch with envy from the edge.

“Hey, Kane!” someone yells.

My heart sinks. I know who it is before I even turn around. Rina, the de-facto leader among the girls for being the first to shift, and the strongest. She was the only female among the juveniles who had been picked by the alpha to run with the rest of the pack, and boys fought over her attention regularly. But she was always flanked by her entourage of she-wolves, all strong and perfect, but just a little worse than her.

Rina stalks toward me, hips swaying like she owns the earth beneath her, and I can’t help but stare in envy. Her she-wolf friends fall in behind her like a pack within the pack – polished and confident.

It would be better to ignore her. Getting involved with her group would mean nothing but trouble for me. Wolves respect strength, but I know I can’t stand up to any of them; silence is my only armor.

So I answer her with silence, and Rina’s lips curl into a sneer.

“Even if you’re a failure of a wolf, that’s no excuse to act like a coward. Have some pride as a member of Crescent Hollow Pack.”

My insides still. Pride. How could I not have any? But pride isn’t worth anything in a wolf pack if you can’t back it up with force.

“Maybe she’s not even a wolf,” a girl snarks from Rina’s side with a snicker. “Maybe we’ve been babysitting a human this whole time.”

Rina smirks. “I heard from my dad that the adults are starting to suspect it, too. Humans don’t belong to the pack, so if she still doesn’t shift by eighteen…”

I hold my breath as Rina drags out her words. She and her friends can tell that I’m bothered and they’re clearly enjoying it.

“She’s going to be expelled from the pack.”