2

2

Aspen

I chewed my bottom lip, trying to find a parking spot for our old truck in the lot of Duke’s Bar. The building was the only place big enough to host pack events besides the prison, but the lot was already almost full. It wasn’t the urgency in Alpha Derek’s tone that had me worried. It was that he never bothered to call all the lower ranking wolves to meetings and I usually avoided all pack functions like the plague. My position in the prison kept me from having to interact with a lot of my pack on a day-to-day basis.

And I really didn’t like this pack.

I finally found a spot near the sagebrush in the field across the street from the bar.

“Leave it. I can walk.” My papa growled as I moved to get his wheelchair out of the bed of the pickup truck. I didn’t bother to argue.

But I did frown when he straightened his shoulders as much as he could muster, leaning on the cane to support the weight of a missing leg. I knew it pained him. I could hear his wolf howling and itching some nights at the phantom limb.

It wasn’t the first time I wished the mountain lion that got him was a shifter so I could find it and punch it in the face.

Papa gritted his teeth, showing no sign of weakness, as he slowly entered the den of wolves. Because here in Nuva Pack–like basically any other pack–weakness was what got someone killed.

I raised my chin and followed him inside the dimly lit bar, fists clenched at my sides as I watched to make sure no one tried to attack my papa.

The overpowering musk of dominant wolves on edge riled my own wolf’s hackles. Fur pinpricked my skin as I held my wolf back. She wanted to shift, to protect my papa from the wandering eyes that glanced his way. The brown fur sprouting on his leathered, sunbeaten forearms told me he felt the same.

“Over there.” I motioned to a chair in the back of the room where the lower ranking wolves clustered. None of us in Nuva were what would be considered rich, but there was a clear distinction between the inner circle of Alpha Derek’s ranks and everyone else.

They got more leg room on chairs in front of the bar and took up most of the space. While we stuck close to the walls and hung out in the shadows with mostly standing room. The bigger brutes, some as big as my papa, laughed with their families in the center of the dance floor.

But I knew them.

Their crude humor was a mask, hiding the fact that they wished they could rise up and challenge for Alpha of the pack. Maybe if they weren’t such cowards, they’d try. No one had openly challenged for Alpha since my father contested Derek when I was still a blind pup. They say my mother, a she-wolf from the big city, didn’t want to stay as a lower ranking shifter. So my father tried to change his rank, shooting for the stars even though Alpha positions were traditionally passed down within a family. He lost to Derek, and my mother ran away disgraced, leaving me alone with my papa and a stigma attached to our family name.

We’re not supposed to want power. That was the lesson my father’s legacy taught the pack and since his death, everyone heeded the cautionary tale.

I wasn’t like my father.

I was like my papa who knew how to survive, keeping my head down when I had to and choosing my fights carefully. I stayed away from the pack, especially when they got like this. Though it had taken me a few years to figure that out.

I supposed I could thank Derek for that lesson.

My wolf was pacing in my mind between the barrier that separated us from human and beast. I still had to keep a tight leash on her, but it was easier now since I wasn’t a teenager anymore.

There was too much posturing from the gathered shifters. The voices and laughter were too loud from the higher-ranking wolves who beat their fists against their chest much like they smacked batons against their legs as officers in the prison.

Derek, warden of Holton Penitentiary and Alpha of our pack, sat like a judge in front of the room by the jukebox with his boots propped up on the table. His dirty blond hair was shaved short at the sides and braided on the top. The bigger males hovered around him, trying to win favor or exploit a weakness, and he gave them none.

To his right sat his only son Trenton.

Trenton had the same color hair as his father, but he wore it cropped at all the same length. Like his father, he stared out over the group with a stone face, seeing everything and saying nothing. Because that was Trenton. He was like that all through high school. I guess they call them the strong and silent type.

Silent.

Yep, he was good at that.

My wolf huffed her disapproval as I looked away, following my papa to the only empty chair. I hoped he’d take it and not make a big deal about standing the whole time. I closed my eyes and sent up a silent prayer to the Goddess that this meeting would go fast.

One month, three days, three hours until…

“Gross. It reeks like skunk,” Stefanie’s shrill voice had my eyes flying open. She sniffed my papa like he was covered in trash and shoved him back, making him stumble and almost lose his footing as he leaned on the cane.

Instinctually, I bared my fangs. The groupie bitch didn’t belong here in the back, not when her daddy, Beta Clark, sat up front. And neither did Trixie and Leah who hung on Stefanie’s sides like a flock of vultures ready to peck at her kill.

“It’s not skunk, it’s beaver,” I bit out through clenched teeth. The minute the words left my mouth, I realized how stupid they sounded.

Stef’s eyes narrowed and my papa continued walking, oblivious to the shit I stepped in.

We can take her. My wolf bowed up as Stef and her friends crowded in on me.

I was too old for this.

Muscle memory had me crouching, ready to fight back despite knowing it was a stupid idea.

“Whatever. It still smells like prey,” Stef finally said, a few beats too late to be considered quick-witted. Which was kind of sad considering she had some of the highest grades in our graduating class. And it wasn’t because of her daddy’s influence. There really was a brain up there… somewhere.

Like the predators they were, all the shifters in the room slowly turned our way. I could feel the collective adrenaline rising as they itched for a fight.

I should have lowered my eyes, bared my neck, showed a submissive side. That’s what they kept telling me to do.

Ha. My wolf chortled as I cracked my knuckles, eager to get a few hits in while the three of them cornered me like they did almost every week since we were in kindergarten.

Did I mention I wanted out of this pack?

“Everyone quiet down and find a seat,” Alpha Derek issued a command we had to obey.

I should’ve been grateful for the quick save, but the look in Stef’s eyes promised retribution. She turned with Trixie and Leah on her heels, marching back to her dad, and blew a kiss to Trenton across the room. The delay meant she’d have more time to put that brain of hers to use.

So… I was screwed.

Cursing my wolf silently, I hurried to the back of the bar and crouched down by my papa. He leaned on his cane, about to stand and offer me the seat. I put my hand on his knee.

“I’m trying to hide,” I mind-linked him, winking and hoping he would play along. He stayed seated without an argument. His leg must have been hurting him bad.

Sighing, I slid back against the wall.

There was no hiding in this small town. Everyone knew everyone. We all worked at the prison except for a few outliers like my papa. Every shifter my age went to school with me. We all went on pack runs at the Alpha’s command and suffered through mating season together. The older shifters all hoped their children’s wolves would settle down and pick a mate to live with in this shitty town and breed the next generation of pups.

I had to get out of here before I cracked and did something stupid. Or before I got paired with one of these jerks.

I didn’t want the white picket fence or to move up the ranks. I wasn’t my mother, planning to use a male to better my position in the pack. I wanted anonymity in the giant world outside our territory. I wanted to get my papa somewhere safe where he could heal and never work for these assholes again. I wanted freedom. Escape.

One month, three days, three hours…

The clock on the wall above the jukebox ticked slowly as Alpha Derek made his opening remarks, acknowledging the shifters around him and ignoring those of us in the back.

Until his eyes shifted, ever so slightly.

“As you know, mating season is coming and with that the new spring. I’m proud to inform you all that the producers of Mating Season have sent us an invitation to the show. Trenton will be a contestant in this year’s Alpha Games and hopefully come home with a Luna bride to lead the future of our pack.”

Boisterous cheers sounded around the room. I threw up a little in my mouth. That stupid show was a joke to most shifters. Only Alphas and their sons got the invitations, dragging along a potential Luna candidate or two like some barbaric slave trade.

The humans ate it up though. It was one of the many changes that had taken place as shifters integrated into human society over the past few decades.

I glanced over at Stefanie as she squealed. She stood from her seat, clutching Trixie and Leah by their hands.

Hello… Maybe this was my lucky night.

If Derek sent Stef and one of her groupies with Trenton to the show, then I might be able to live out my last few weeks in this pack in peace.

I crossed my fingers, sending up a silent plea to the Moon Goddess that things would go my way.

Alpha Derek looked around the room, daring someone to challenge him. “I’ve decided to send Stefanie and Aspen as our Luna representatives.”

Stomp the brakes.

What did he just say?

I blinked fast as if that would clear my ears. There’s no way I heard that right.

“Alpha?” Trenton broke his brooding silence.

“Did he say…”

Shifters were not a quiet group. Their voices rang out in confusion. I could still barely hear them over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

I pulled my knees to my chest, trying to push myself into the wall behind me and disappear. My wolf was deadly quiet, waiting for a fight. But it wasn’t like I could take on the Alpha.

This had to be some sort of joke.

Derek misspoke.

He hated me.

Chairs squeaked across the chipped hardwood floors as they scooted back and all eyes turned to me.

I was going to be sick.

“Alpha Derek, all due respect, but Trixie or Leah would be a better choice,” Stefanie was saying.

For the first time in my life, I agreed with her.

I nodded, raising my eyes, and met Trenton’s gaze from across the room. There was a twitch of his lips. A snarl waiting to escape.

“I’ve made my decision,” Alpha Derek stated, silencing the commotion. “Aspen come here.”

I despised Alpha commands.

My feet moved under me and I was standing before I could fight against the compulsion. My papa looked up with knowing sympathy in his eyes.

“We’ll figure it out,” he spoke through our link.

My tongue was thick in my mouth and I swallowed past it, inching my way to the front of the room. This was a bad dream. Like the ones you have where you show up naked in class.

Any minute now, laughter would ring out and Derek would call the joke.

Any… Minute… Now…

No one is laughing, my wolf remarked dryly.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Somehow, I made it to the front of the room. The walls were closing in and my heart was beating hard enough to escape my chest. I didn’t understand why this was happening.

Our pack wasn’t large like the other territories. We didn’t have much to offer. Just a barren landscape below some foothills and a prison no one wanted for Goddess’s sake. How did Trenton get an invitation? And why did Derek pick me?

I didn’t even want to be in this pack, let alone represent it on national TV.

Alpha Derek was still speaking, something about “Great opportunities and compensation.”

I risked a glance over my shoulder, seeing the angry twitch on Trenton’s face and feeling the daggers Stefanie was glaring into my back. The nightmare didn’t end when I closed my eyes.

Clapping sounded instead of laughter as the pack cheered for Nuva’s first candidates in the 7th annual Mating Season.