I walked to my room and screamed when I was tackled to the ground. I started laughing as Cassie got off me. “Why the heck didn’t you tell me you were coming?” She punched my shoulder as I stood.
“I didn’t know until this morning.” I hugged her to my side. “I missed you.” “I missed you too.” She pulled back and tossed me a small box. “Happy birthday.” I laughed again. “With everything that has happened, I had pretty much forgotten that it’s my birthday today.” “The big eighteen. Have you shifted yet?” Cassie jumped up and down with excitement. I just shook my head. “I don’t shift. You know that.” My face fell. I heard chuffing inside of my head. “I think you are just blocking it. You have a wolf. We all feel her.” She bumped her hip into mine. “I can feel she wants out.” My wolf chuffed in agreement. Cassie is smarter than you. My wolf’s voice ricochetted in my mind and I just smiled. There are things I cannot tell you, even now, but eventually, if we are lucky, you will find out your answers. I rolled my eyes. Yet another non answer from Nix, my wolf. She snorted back to me and then receded into the back of my mind. “Nix still not answering you?” “She is, but it’s more of her non answers.” I grabbed my bag and opened it up. “You will never guess what happened today.” Cassie flopped on my bed. “Tell me everything.” I opened my mouth to tell her I lived before and my father’s voice sounded in my mind. Baby girl, I know you might want to tell Cassie what happened with your first life, and I understand the need, but don’t tell anyone yet. You can’t seal their tongue and our heritage is dangerous. Okay, dad. I won’t. I love you. Then his voice was gone and I had to reorganize my thoughts. “Tell me.” Cassie threw a pillow at me and I shook my head. “I think the alpha’s son is my mate, and so does Shannon. She lost her ever loving mind, and was stealing my clothes so that he would pay attention to her.” I shook my head in disgust. “She was trying to steal your mate?” Cassie’s eyes flashed. “She can have him. I don’t want or need her sloppy seconds. Even if she hadn’t already fucked him, which I am sure she has, I wouldn’t have wanted him. He is mean and vindictive. And just…small.” “Like small, small?” Cassie held her finger and thumb close together and shot her eyes to the apex of my thighs and I bent over laughing, tears springing to my eyes as she joined in. “I have no idea.” I wiped my eyes after I calmed down. “Nor do I want to. I just mean even as an alpha, he gives off small man energy? I don’t even know how to explain it exactly. Just that even when he is pushing his alpha aura, I feel nothing, not even a little bit, not even a fraction of what my dad does.” I sat down on my bed. “And you don’t want to be with a mate that is weaker than you?” “No, it’s not that.” I shook my head. I wasn’t explaining it right. “I know that if given an excuse, he would betray me. His devotion would be weak, just like his aura.” “Ah. Now I understand.” Cassie rolled on to her back and huffed. “That would be the absolute worst thing. I don’t know how your dad is dealing with the pain.” She shot her eyes to me and grimaced. “Did everyone here know the truth?” Cassie shook her head. “No, but once you guys left, and the Alpha never stayed with the she-wolf. With any she-wolf, we figured something was wrong, and then the wolf was born and we could all smell the girl’s mate on the pup, and we knew they lied. We just don’t know why.” Cassie rolled over. “Do you know?” I nodded. “My dad told me the truth today when I told him I wanted to reject my mate.” “Well, this is just depressing. Let’s go out and do something?” Cassie sat up and I just shook my head. “C’mon.” “I have training in the morning and my dad said it was going to be brutal.” “So you can’t go out today? Bull. Get up. We are going shopping and then I will parade you in front of everyone to make them jealous that my best friend is the Alpha’s daughter.” I perked up. “Has anyone been giving you issues here?” Cassie shook her head, but I could see someone had. “Cass?” She huffed and then nodded a little. “Just a few she-wolves that think their shit doesn’t stink and have a higher rank.” Amanda and her little posse, I could only assume. “Do they give you a lot of trouble?” “Only a little.” She just grabbed my arm and pulled me to the door. “Enough of them, I don’t care. I just missed you, and I want to parade around with my best friend.” “Deal.” I couldn’t say no to her when I knew she was being bullied. Cassie was weaker than me, but then again, everyone was. But she was sweet and had been by my side since birth. Her mom and my mom used to be best friends. “But you need to point out who is bullying you.” “No way. I can handle it.” “I know you can, but you shouldn’t have to.” I could feel Nix coming closer to the surface. My anger was already rising. “You aren’t here enough.” Her whisper had me pulling her to a stop. “I don’t mean to make you feel bad, but you aren’t here enough to start something with them for me. Because it will only get worse once you leave again.” She looked back at me with sad eyes. “So, can we just drop it?” I nodded my head but swore to myself that I would figure out this situation. “Let’s go have some fun. Parade me all you want. I’m here all summer.” I smiled and pushed the Amanda bullshit to the back of my mind. I would handle her as soon as I could.When we got to the mall, we walked into the clothing store. “I need a new dress.” Cassie pulled me to the back and started to go through the racks. “Why do you need one of these dresses?” I pulled a dress off the rack and held it to my body. The form fitting dress flared out at the bottom. It was a beautiful mermaid formal dress, but white wasn’t my color. “Your homecoming ball.” Cassie grabbed a short pink number that would look horrible with her skin tone. “Put that down and what do you mean homecoming ball?” Cassie froze and then slow turned back to me.“Don’t tell your dad I told you.” She rushed back to me and grabbed my hands. “Frick, I knew I was going to mess this up. You are my best friend and I knew I would mess this up.”“Calm down.” I laughed. “I would never tell my dad you messed up.” I wrapped my hands around her shoulders and shook. “Cassie, calm down and just tell me.”She smiled and nodded. “I was supposed to take you dress shopping for a surprise home coming party
“So, do we walk to talk about it?” I looked over at Cassie, but she was staring straight ahead. “Cas?”“Can we pretend like it never happened?” Her voice was small when I pulled her over to the side of the mall and leaned in. “Talk to me.”“What do you want me to say?” She threw up her hands. “It’s miserable being this weak. Every she wolf with more power out of the ranking demands we do their work, or their chores, or if we get nice stuff, they take it.” Cas looked at me and I could feel her pain. "We have no alpha female that protects us here. The beta and gamma try, but they have their own duties.” Cas wiped her face. “We have learned to deal with it, and when it really gets bad, then you dad gets involved.”“Cas…”“You aren’t here, and neither is your mom. If you get too involved, then we just suffer when you leave.” She looked at me and then shook herself. “C’mon, let’s go pick out jewelry for your dress. Which one are you going to wear?”“Don't worry about it. You are going to
“There are my two favourite girls.” My dad walked into my room as we just got back.“Hi Daddy.” I walk over and hugged him and bowed her head. “Hi Alpha Devlin.”“None of that Cassie, when it’s just us, I’ve told you just to call me Dev.” Cas blushed and nodded. “Can I speak with my daughter alone for a minute?”“Of course, Alpha.” Cas looked at me with a tiny bit of panic in her eyes as she turned away. I tried to reassure her, but I couldn’t do much. She knew exactly what this conversation was about. I followed my father to his office and sat down with Ronnie and him. “Talk.”“What is going on in this pack, Dad?”“What do you mean?”“Why are unranked she-wolves lording their power over the weaker wolves?” I looked over at Ronnie and he looked away. “You obviously know what I am talking about. The beta and gamma female here are doing what, exactly?”“Hey!” Ronnie looked at me. “That isn’t fair.”“I’m not saying it’s fair.” I looked back at my father. “You are letting your pack crumb
I walked back to my bedroom with everything just whirling in my brain. The she-wolves were staging a coup. My father was looking the other way to lure back my mother. Now there was a she-wolf that was doing something fishy. Knowing witchcraft is real, maybe there is something is going on with that.I walked back into my room to see Cas in tears. “What happened?” I rushed over to the bed.“Nothing. I just don’t want you to leave.” I wiped her face and laughed.“Why are you already worried about the end of summer when I just got here?” I collapsed next to her on the bed and I listened to her sniffles.“I know, it’s stupid.” But I could scent the slight tinge of fear in the room, and I knew something was said. “Who came here while I was gone?” I watched her tense, but she relaxed.“No one.” She looked away and the fear disappeared. Like she got control of her emotions.“Talk to me. I can’t help unless I know.” I whispered to her as I wrapped my fingers through hers.“You can’t help, any
The room was full of wolves and my scent glands were going haywire. Gathering so many wolves in one place always did this to me. My nose was sensitive, and I had to take a few deep breaths to calm myself. “You girls ready?” I looked up at my father and nodded. “Can we enter without you guys?” I asked my father.“Why?”I smiled over at Cas, who was on Ronnie’s arm. “I…”“You are planning something with the she-wolves, aren’t you?”“Yup.” I smiled up at him and slipped my arm out of his. “If you hear a large fight, show up. But I swear, dad, if you fawn over another she-wolf in front of me, I will hit you.”My dad laughed at me. “I promise I won’t and if by the smallest chance I do, you have full access to punch me in my face.” He smiled down at me and I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Thanks daddy.”“You’re welcome, my girl.” I pulled my arm from his and held my hand out for Cassie. “Let’s go.”“Are you sure Amy?”“Yes, yes I am.” I smiled down at her and she shook her he
“Baby?” My dad shook his head and his eyes cleared. Then he rubbed his jaw. “You had to?”I nodded and cut my eyes to Aurora. “Something is going on.” I looked down at the woman cuddled in my father’s arms and I wrapped my hand around her arm and wrenched her away, tossing her to the ground. “Get away from him.” Nix came to the forefront and flashed my eyes. Her screech hurt my ears as she landed, but I turned back to my father and Ronnie. I cut my eyes to Cas, and she walked over when I nodded. “Alpha Devlin, Beta Ronnie.” She smiled at them and stood behind me. “What is going on?”“This she-wolf is driving the charge behind the unranked, wielding their power on the weaker wolves, Alpha.” The beta female, Tina, walked over and smiled at me. “How dare you!” Aurora stood and tried to touch my dad again, and I growled. “Don’t touch him.”“Who are you to demand anything from me?” Aurora tried to grab for him again.“She’s my daughter, and the only alpha female in this pack.” My fathe
The knocking on the door woke me up and I groaned. I wasn’t ready to wake up; I snuggled deeper into my bed and ignored the knock when it sounded again. Ugh. “What?” I called out and my father’s chuckle from my door had me cracking an eye. “Let a little too loose last night, did you?”“You know I did.” I tossed my pillow and buried myself back under the comforter. But my dad just tossed the pillow back to me. “Time to wake up.”“I don’t want to.” I groaned and grabbed my phone and realized it was five in the freaking morning. “Dad…” But his laughed interrupted my groan.“Sorry darling, but training starts now.” He walked over and ripped the blanket off of me and I screamed. The cold air jolted me more awake, and I wanted to whine more, but my father was already walking out. “If you’re not downstairs in five minutes, I’m dumping water on you.” I groaned and kicked a little before I got up. I know it’s stupid, and I needed to be better than my last lifetime, but I really wanted to st
My father skidded to a halt at the edge of a small clearing with a stump in the center. I slid off Loki’s back and he trotted off to shift. He walked back to me and gestured to the center. “Go sit.” I nodded and walked into the clearing. The tree’s shadows were still deep, as the sun has just breached the tree tops. I shivered, not from the cooler temperature since wolves burn hot, but from the feeling of woods. It felt like something was here. Something was waiting for this moment. I turned to face my dad, and he was still at the edge of the clearing. “Why are you still back there?”“This isn’t for me, it’s for you. I have already done my time in this place.”“Your time? What are you talking about?”“This is a sacred place. The clearing here holds our family’s power, and it’s warded against it.”“Against it? Dad, what are you talking about?”“Just listen. Sit down on the stump.” I sank to the top of the stump and then looked back to my father. “Take your shoes and socks off, then p