Chapter 0001

As I stepped out of the airport, wheeling my suitcase along behind me, I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply, nearly overwhelmed from being home again. After three long years, I was finally allowed to return to the lands of my pack – the place I where I had grown up.

I only wished I was here for a different reason. I might have been allowed back, but only so I could attend the engagement party of the man I had loved for the past six years, to watch him commit himself to someone else while I stood there as ‘family.’

“Holly!” A woman collided into me. I recognized her at once as my friend Annie, and immediately returned her embrace. She was slightly shorter than me, with fluffy red hair and a pair of big glasses with thick lenses that made her eyes seem larger than they really were.

Over the past three years, while I had been off at boarding school, she had been here, so we’d only seen each other via Facetime. It was a relief to finally be able to see her in person again.

For a long moment, we tightly hugged. Then, we pulled away.

“Come on, I know just the place we can go to catch up,” Annie said.

The place Annie had in mind was the most popular pub in the pack. Even now, barely noon, the pub was crowded, though blessedly there were a few empty tables. Annie led me to one in the back, away from most of the other people so that we could talk with some measure of privacy.

“I’m still so mad,” Annie said, as we sat down. “I can’t believe your family could be so heartless! Sending you to study abroad with a pack so far away, and not letting you return for three years…”

“Don’t kid yourself, Annie. This wasn’t a move to improve my education. I was exiled,” I said. With a bitter smile, I added, repeating the words that had been said to me, “My scandal brought shame to the family.”

My scandal drove my family to exile me. They must have felt they had to do what was necessary to protect the reputation of my stepbrother Alex, the future Alpha of the pack. The boy that I was in love with.

Annie scoffed. “That wasn’t your fault. The rumors about you and Alex were entirely baseless. Alex was only ever just protective of you. People twisted everything because…” Her voice trailed.

“You can say it,” I told her, already knowing what she was going to say.

“Our class system is to blame. Ever since your mother remarried into aristocracy, you both have been treated differently. All the accusations, the rumors…” Annie shook her head. “I’ve been beside you. I’ve heard all the vitriol that’s been flung at you. Everyone treats you like an outsider. And Alpha and his family haven’t stood up for you at all.”

I hushed her, not wanting anyone to overhear her badmouth our leader, my stepfather.

Annie wasn’t going to back down though. “You mom didn’t stand up for you either.”

My mother had remarried the pack Alpha when I was 11, bringing me into the Alpha’s family and making me his stepdaughter.

Yet, as my mother was an omega from the commoner class, I was bullied relentlessly by my classmates at the aristocratic school. Annie was my dear friend, and always wanted to defend me, but as she went to a different school, she could only help when we hung out afterschool.

While I was at the schoolhouse, I had been defenseless and isolated. I cried every night from the unkind words that had been chucked my way. The kids were so cruel that they hadn’t even whispered the words behind my back. They had been bold enough to say them straight to my face.

“Low-born trash…”

“Dirty filth…”

“No right to be here…”

Only when Alex accepted me as his stepsister did I finally find some solace. He defended me at school and treated me like a princess. With Alex so protective of me, no one dared to bully me anymore.

Over the years, with Alex treating me so special, I had secretly fallen in love with him.

But then the news of the scandal reached my family’s ears, and I had been exiled.

Looking at me now, Annie’s outraged shifted into concern. “Are you sure you’ve truly forgotten about Alex in these past three years? Won’t it be painful to attend his engagement ceremony?”

In truth, it didn’t matter how I felt, I had to act like a perfect sister and family member. If anything were to go wrong, the consequences I would face this time would be even more serious than temporary exile.

I didn’t want Annie to worry more than she already was. Although, deep down, my feelings for Alex lingered, I had grown up over these past few years. I was 18 now, an adult though not quite of age werewolf-wise, and I was determined to act ‘appropriately.’

With a forced laugh, I told Annie, “I haven’t told you everything I’ve been up to. Since I’m nearly of age now, I’ve learned how to flirt, and I’ve even been in a relationship or two. Soon, I’m sure I’ll find my own lover.”

None of these words were true.

Annie had been my friend long enough that she turned her head to eye me warily. If anyone could see right through me it was.

To Annie, I was ever the same sweet, naïve girl who had always been protected by her big stepbrother. She didn’t realize I was a different person now… or rather, I was trying to be.

“You’re lying,” Annie said. By now, the beers had been flowing, and we were both feeling a buzz.

“What would it take to convince you I’m not?” I asked. Emboldened by the beer, I decided right then and there to prove to Annie that I had truly moved on.

Oh! I had an idea.

Glancing around, I spotted a handsome guy to my right. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a jawline that could cut glass. His dark windswept hair was brushed back, revealing a perfect face that included a pair of intense pale blue eyes.

Without thinking, driven by my buzz, I grabbed the shoulders, stopping him before he could walk by. He looked down at my curiously, but did not push me away – not even as I pushed myself up onto my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his.

While the guy didn’t push me away, he did freeze. For a moment, his lips seemed to soften, as if he might have opened to the kiss.

But then, harshly his lips curled downward into a frown underneath my own. When I pulled away, he seemed surprised and confused, and a little displeased.

Slowly, I realized that this was no stranger. As the alcohol slowly cleared from my mind, recognition set in. I’d known this man for years, though I obviously hadn’t seen him since my exile. He’d changed some, a lot of this muscle was new.

He’d been handsome in his youth, but somehow, in the past three years, he’d gone from teen boy handsome to actually devastating.

He was also one of Alex’s friends, which also made everything worse.

My growing anxiety and embarrassment totally sobered me. Maybe I could find a cave to go hide in for the rest of my life, to get over what I’d just done.

Instead, I said his name, “Nicholas.”