5

My cheeks warmed when I thought about how his hands had felt on my skin. If he were real, would he treat me the same even though I was human? Would he open his arms to me? The fantasy of being somewhere safe, of being accepted, put a small smile on my face as I worked.

Suddenly, a woman burst in from outside, the same one who had been carrying the fabric napkins. She still smelled of cigarette smoke. Her face had gone pale, and her mouth was a trembling line. I didn’t need the elevated senses of a wolf to see how hard she was shaking or to clock the way her eyes darted from face to face until they finally settled on my mom.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asked as the woman approached.

“It’s the Alpha,” she whispered.

I froze, staring openly at the woman.

Mom’s face grew still. She placed her hands on the woman’s shoulders and squeezed until the woman’s wavering gaze focused. “What about him?”

“He…he passed away in his sleep last night,” she said. “He’s dead.”

He’s dead…he’s dead… The words echoed in my mind. In my head, I pictured myself surrounded by wolves who jeered and spat at me the way they’d done when I was younger. I pictured myself cast out of the pack. My mom left to stand on the sidelines and watch while Troy exiled me to the wilds. My stomach roiled, and the world seemed to spin. Those two words spelled my doom.

2

BRYN

I gripped the table’s edge and steeled myself against the onslaught of emotion. Nobody was paying attention to me anyway. As word spread, concerned murmuring filled the dining hall. It was too much too soon. Without a word to my mother, I exited out the same door the woman had come through for some cool, fresh air.

By this time, the sun had begun to crest over the horizon, filling the sky with gold and casting the clouds in amethyst and sapphire. Below the stunning sunrise, emerald leaves and dark blue tree trunks extended for miles in front of me. I normally would have taken a moment to enjoy the magnificent sight, but I couldn’t focus on that now. Outside of the shade provided by the mess hall, the pack was abuzz with chatter and movement.

Wolves zipped from building to building with the Alpha’s name on their lips. I pressed my back to the building, slid down to a crouch, and held my head in my hands. I took a few deep breaths, inhaling cool air and exhaling steam as I collected myself.

Gregor’s dead, but this doesn’t have to be the end, I counseled myself. Troy isn’t Alpha yet. But it was cold comfort—he would be Alpha soon. After an Alpha died, the pack would enter a five-day mourning period. Every day of this period included a celebration, and a challenge ceremony would take place on the last night.

The right to be Alpha was passed down genetically from father to son, but during the challenge ceremony, any wolf who wanted to try for the position would enter a fight to the death with the Alpha’s son. If the Alpha had no sons, the beta would host the challenge and claim the mantle if he was undefeated or unchallenged. Nowadays, challenges were usually hosted as a formality. They were generally treated as another opportunity for everyone to take a break from work and remember the deceased Alpha. Or at least, that was what Mom said—this would be my first time experiencing such a celebration.

I counted the days before the challenge ceremony, and my blood went cold. My twentieth birthday was the day after the ceremony.

The twentieth birthday for a shifter was a pretty big deal. Twenty was considered the age when wolves were old enough to mate and form a permanent bond with another shifter, and from what I had learned and read about in school, female shifters bonded with the male shifter who took her virginity. So, female shifters were restricted to only ever having one mate.

I’ve spent my whole life looking forward to my twentieth birthday, only for it to be ruined by Troy becoming Alpha. What’s worse is that I know he’ll do everything in his power to make me even more miserable. As this thought came to me, a void began to open in my chest.

I had always hoped that by my twentieth birthday, I would have found acceptance, friends, or happiness—anything to cut down on the pain of being the black sheep of the Kings’ pack. I’d thought that my cynical side would have crushed that hope, but it had remained until now. So, there was no way I could suppress the darkness that filled my chest as I considered my upcoming birthday. After all, what shifter would want to be with a weak human?

To be honest, I had no intention of finding a mate, but I’d remained a virgin just in case my theory proved wrong. Holding on to my virginity hadn’t been difficult; Troy had essentially mandated that everyone our age treat me like shit. So, I not only had no potential mates but also had no female friends. The girls my age were too focused on pleasing Troy just in case he, or one of his high-ranking friends, would choose them as a mate. I had seen girls swarm around Troy like bees to honey. Thinking about it left me shivering with disgust. Or with cold. It was possible the chill had started to seep through my outer layers.

I straightened from my crouch. Though I was far from okay, the fresh air had calmed me enough that I felt I could continue serving breakfast. I wiped my sweaty palms over my pants and returned to the dining hall. On my way to the kitchen, my shoulder bumped into another female shifter.

I took a healthy step back and looked up to find Trish’s ice-blue eyes glaring down at me. I took another step back and glanced at the two women standing at Trish’s side—Tara, a brunette, and Tanya, whose dirty blonde hair was cut short around her chin. The three were always together, and, like Troy, they thrived on my misery. They were often present for Troy’s bullying, egging him on to do worse, to hurt me more.