CHAPTER ONE

My sick mother had described the herbs she needed to me perfectly well. Their spines were supposed to be hairy, their leaves small, silvery, and smooth to the touch. It was a common plant around these parts, popular for healing most types of wolf illnesses including silver wounds, but I'd had trouble finding it these past few days.

A herb so common it could be found at any doorstep, and yet I had to steal to get it. We were so poor that the healing herbs had avoided our barren compound.

When my mother had fallen sick, I'd gone from house to house, begging anyone who would open their gates to let me into the compound and pick a few of those healing herbs. Most of them had taken a look at my ragged dress and slammed their gates in my face. The others had asked me to pay some money in exchange for the herbs. 

Even now I could see their taunting faces as they asked for money, ingrained in my head like a burning tattoo. I was the local church rat, everyone knew that. My mother and I could barely feed ourselves, let alone pay money for some herbs.

Right now I was squatting in front of a garden fence. There was a hole in the wooden structure, and my hand was buried in it up to my elbow. As usual, the owner of the garden had refused to give me the herbs, and I'd resorted to stealing them. 

My face was flushed in concentration, my fingers groping as I looked for the specific plant. I was about to give up and withdraw until my fingers brushed against the hairy spine of the healing herb. Frantically I grabbed the plant and tugged, feeling the plant detach itself from the soil.

"Yes!" I smiled to myself, enjoying my victory, then I tried to pull my hand out of the hole.

It was stuck.

I wriggled my wrist this way and that, holding on to the healing plants. No luck.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" I swore under my breath and tried again. My fingers slipped and the herbs almost fell from my grasp, but I held on to it as though a life depended on it. Technically, it did.

I was sweating profusely now, beads of fear gathering in my chest. The owner of the garden would soon come out, and I would be caught red-handed. I couldn't afford to be caught stealing. The punishment for stealing in our pack was a few weeks in the alpha's dungeons. I could survive that, but what about my mother? She would die before I was released from the dungeons.

She wouldn't survive without me.

I knocked my wrist violently against the fence in a last effort to free myself. Pain shot up my hand, and it took me a moment to realize that I'd broken my wrist. I would have morphed into my wolf form and wriggled my way free, but I was a few months shy of turning eighteen and getting my wolf.

Was this how I would die? Stuck in a fence until the authorities found me?

I gave up and leaned against the fence, my broken wrist throbbing and swelling, further reducing my chances of pulling it out of the hole. I held on tightly to the healing herbs, caught under the glare of the sun above and the hopelessness of my existence.

"Aaargh!" I yelled and struggled against the wooden structure again, tears flowing freely from my cheeks. Why was the universe this wicked to me? I was this close to saving my mother's life, and somehow this had happened instead.

"Please, Goddess." I prayed under my breath, tasting the saltiness of my tears. "Please, save me."

Immediately the prayer slipped from my lips, I heard the galloping of horses behind me. I raised my head from the fence and looked around. Eagerness sparked within me, a half-hearted hope that someone with a shred of goodness in his heart would find me and get me out of there.

"Hey!" A voice called out. "What are you doing there?"

"Help!" I yelled. "I'm stuck!"

The galloping slowed to a stop and the bushes around me rustled. Then a horse's head poked out of the forest and walked forward, followed by three others. I looked up at the horseman that came forward, and all the hope shriveled up and died in my chest.

It was the alpha himself. Alpha Noah.

Goddess, I'd just secured my death.

I groaned and slumped back against the fence in defeat. Alpha Noah stared down at me with a mixture of curiosity and fierceness in his eyes. Dark hair fell down his shoulders in beautiful waves. A pair of smoldering grey eyes stared into mine. A thin, forbidding line of a mouth stretched under an impressive, regal nose, and a dark stubble littered his chin.

He was quite attractive up close. If you liked the dark, brooding prince sort, that is.

I'd never seen him this close up before. I seldom saw him, except on rare occasions when he walked through the pack town with his guards.

My eyes caught him and I pulled my gaze away. I couldn't bear to look up at those eyes. I wasn't worthy enough.

"What are you doing stuck in a fence?" He asked me. 

"Taking some herbs," I muttered under my breath.

Alpha Noah cocked an impressive eyebrow. "I didn't catch that."

"I was...taking some herbs," I repeated. "For my sick mother."

I watched as his eyes smoldered with anger. "So you were stealing."

I fell silent, focusing instead on my hurting wrist. "Do you know the punishment for stealing?" He asked me.

I opened my mouth to answer him, but he'd turned away from me and was speaking to his guards. "Free her from that fence. She's going with us to face trial for stealing. And use force if you must."

Trial?!

"Please..." I begged. "I was only taking some healing herbs for my mother...have mercy!" 

Alpha Noah however, stared forward resolutely, ignoring my pleas. His guards broke the fence around me, releasing my broken wrist. Immediately it was free of its constraints, it began to swell crazily. I winced as the guards grabbed my other hand and pulled me up. 

"Move!" Alpha Noah ordered, and I obeyed. My broken hand was still holding on to the healing herbs. I ignored the dull, throbbing ache in my wrist, thinking instead of what would happen to my sick mother if I was thrown into the dungeons. 

She would die, and I would be left alone in this cruel world. 

And without thinking more, I turned and hit the guard who was closely following me across the face. Then I took off running into the forest.