CHAPTER 1

IVY'S POV

After spending another 8 hours in the car with my mother today I was so glad when we finally reached the small town of Oak Grove in Louisiana. Our final destination. The place where we were finally going to set up shop and hopefully stay here indefinitely. I hated that we had to move but I was glad to be away from our last pack. They were full of nothing but nasty assholes who picked on me at school because I was the bastard child from a teenage mother. 

My mother was only 18 and unmated when she had me and I've never met my father. My last pack would refer to my mother as a slut because she never gave up the name of the father so they assumed that she didn't know which man was my father. But I trusted my mother with everything I had and she didn't want to talk about it. She never wanted to talk to me about it. So I accepted that answer and assumed that it was probably really painful for her. 

She wasn't kicked out of her last pack like they usually do to unmated girls that get pregnant, but she was shunned. But despite that she still managed to finish school, got to college and medical school and she is not a Doctor and already had a position at the hospital of our new pack that we are joining.

I am 17 years old now and my mother is only 35 years old but she is brilliant as far as I'm concerned. And I even help out at the hospital at times and assist with medical procedures. Easy medical procedures, of course. I don't go into the operating room with her or anything like that. 

I looked up at our two story house that we were going to be living in and I couldn't believe it when I saw it. 

"Are you sure we have the right address?" I asked. 

"The Alpha assured me on the phone that we would be given one of the best houses in town since I am the only doctor that they have." My mother, Stella, said. 

"Come again." I say. 

"They've been looking for a pack doctor for a while apparently. The nurses have been doing procedures that are above their heads and apparently they haven't been going too well. So, I think they're going to accept us into this town with open arms." Mom says putting her arm around my shoulder. 

"Well, it definitely looks like it here." I say looking back up at the house. I open the back door of the car and I pull out a couple of suitcases and I take them inside. 

Not only was the house beautiful but it was fully furnished with the best furniture and appliances and I walked around in amazement. I put the bags down in the living room and walked through the whole house. 

"Mom. This place has a library." I sang out from the back of the house and she came out the back to look. 

"Wall to wall shelves. I'm sure you'll fill them up pretty quickly." Mom says. 

"I've already got a couple of boxes in the U-Haul that will start to fill these shelves." I say. 

"Absolutely. Come on, let's start bringing everything in." She says. 

So we went outside and opened the U-Haul trailer and started grabbing boxes of our things and taking them inside and putting them in the proper rooms and I noticed a couple of neighbors peering out their windows looking at us. But I didn't pay much attention to them.

When everything was inside I finally found my room with a large queen size bed in it and a walk in robe and an ensuite bathroom. The room was massive. 

Our last house was basically a four room shack on the edge of town. Showing exactly how much they didn't like us being there. But this house is unbelievable. I was more than amazed at everything that I saw here. And my mother's bedroom was twice the size with two spare bedrooms. 

"We don't have any friends or family. So why the hell do we need two spare bedrooms?" I asked. 

"I don't know. You might make friends here and have sleepovers." Mom says. 

"How about we wait until I actually start school before we think about anything like that." I suggest going back to my room. 

I started unpacking my laptop and printer and sensitive equipment on my desk and connecting everything up. Then I took one of my suitcases to the walk in robe and I turned the light on. The wardrobe looked almost as big as my whole bedroom at my last house. 

I started unpacking that first suitcase when I looked around and thought that all of this was way too good to be true. I knew that there needed to be a catch here somewhere. Something was going to happen here. I just knew it. No one ever treated us this well. 

"Wow. You're really getting this place sorted out." Mom says walking into the room. 

"Yeah. I just want to get settled in." I say.

"Alright. I just got a call and I need to go and meet the Alpha." She says.

"Alright. Do I need to come?" I asked. 

"No. Just me. You stay here and unpack your stuff. This room will probably be done by the time I get back." She says. 

"I doubt it. I'll see you later." I say. And she heads out the door. 

I finish unpacking that one suitcase and then tuck it away on the top shelf of the wardrobe and then I go into my room and I open another box. I find a photo album in it and I start looking through the photos. 

The whole lot of them are of me and mom. Because we had no one else in our lives. It was just us. There were a couple of photos with men in there. Usually human men that my mother would date from the human towns near our packs. She got serious with a couple of them and I really liked them, but they never lasted. They couldn't last. Not without her telling them what we were. So it was mostly us. But I was hoping that it would all change here. 

I was desperately hoping that my mother would find her mate here. That's the only thing missing from her life. And I had a good feeling about this place. Maybe it's possible here. I was hoping to the moon goddess that it was going to happen for her. She has worked her ass off her whole life, she deserved to be happy. 

At 7pm I went to the kitchen and realized that we hadn't gone grocery shopping yet so I found the number to get pizza and they delivered it just before mom got home. 

"Oh good. You got dinner." She says. 

"Yeah. We need to go grocery shopping. I can do it tomorrow if you like. I don't start school until Monday." I say.

"That would be great. Thank you." She says. 

"No worries. I don't mind. How did it go with the Alpha?" I asked as she sat down at the table. 

"It was alright. He just needed the paperwork. All of our paperwork and birth certificates and everything." She says. 

"Alright. What was he like? Anything like the other one?" I asked. 

"No. This one is young. Only about 25." She says. 

"Well, you're only 35. That's not too much of an age gap." I say winking at her. 

"Yeah. Because I've always been the cougar type." She scoffs.

"Yeah. I guess so. Aren't you lucky to have such a young beautiful daughter?" I asked, mocking her. And she laughed. 

"Aren't I supposed to say that about you having a young and beautiful mother?" She asked. 

"Oh yeah. I thought there was something wrong with that saying." I said. 

"Are you excited for school on Monday?" She asked. 

"I don't know. It's just school. I haven't had the best experiences at school." I say. 

"I know. But this one will be different. I know. The Alpha was so different from our last one." She says.

"Yeah. He's 20 years younger." I say. 

"Exactly. He says that you will be going to school with his younger brothers. Their twins. So look out for them. Apparently they will be looking out for you." She says.

"Oh great." I say rolling my eyes. 

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"They are the Alpha's brothers. Which means every girl in school is probably going to want them. They are going to hate me if the brothers start showing me a lot of attention." I say. 

"I didn't think of that. The Alpha just offered it to me. I didn't think to say no." She says. 

"It's fine. You can't say no to the Alpha. Especially not on the first day that we get here. I'll work it out. Don't worry about me." I say.

"Are you sure that you're okay with that?" She asked.

"Positive. I can take care of myself." I say. 

"I know. You've been doing it for years." She says.