The routine of going to school was starting to come naturally. Everly got up in the morning, got ready for school, took Toby outside to do his business (since there still was no fence), her dad dropped her off, and she went to her classes. Jack wasn’t nearly as rude as he used to be during history class, but he wasn’t particularly nice either. She ate lunch with Alyson and her friends, went to her afternoon classes, and then caught the bus home where she’d take Toby out, do homework, and cook dinner. After that, she’d do the dishes and maybe watch a movie. It was hard to get an Internet signal and it wasn’t much easier to get any TV channels. Her dad said he’d look into getting a satellite, but Everly wasn’t holding her breath. At night, she’d fall asleep listening to wolves howl and usually dream about her mom—or Jack.
It was weird. There never seemed to be much of a rhyme or reason to who she’d dream about. The dreamSomething was different about Everly.Jack could smell it the moment she walked into the school building. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, but he figured it out pretty quickly when he saw her hanging her backpack in her locker.She had bandages on both of her hands.Over the last few weeks, he’d done his best to stay away from her as completely as possible—except for when he went out to her house in the evenings, the mornings, and sometimes in the middle of the night, just to make sure she was safe. But she didn’t know about any of that. He wasn’t stalking her. He’d just come to the realization that getting her to leave was going to be a lot harder than he’d hoped, so he would need to keep an eye on her to make sure she was safe until he figured out a way to get her to move away.Now, seeing that she was injured, smelling the fresh blood on the surface of her skin in the form of scabs, he needed to know what
It had been a shitty day.Not only had Jack attempted to talk to her at least ten times—especially during history class when she was trying to pay attention and take notes—but she’d messed up her calculus assignment and ended up getting a B. That wouldn’t have been a big deal to a lot of people, but Everly knew that she couldn’t afford to go to college without a scholarship, so she needed good grades.As she was heading out to catch the bus, she felt him running up behind her and wished, just for once, she could run super fast, like a cheetah. Or even an Olympic sprinter. Just for a few minutes.If his intention was to make her late for the bus so he had to give her a ride home, well, that wasn’t going to happen either.“Everly!”“I’m pretty sure I already told you to go to hell,” she said, pushing through the door that went outside to the bus.“Please, just listen to me. It hasn&rs
Slamming the car into park, Jack took deep breaths through his nose, trying to calm himself down so that he could talk to Everly without yelling at her. He had his finger on the locking mechanism, making sure she didn’t get out of his car before he wanted her to.If he’d been even a few seconds later… it would’ve been all over with. He’d hesitated to drop his siblings and Chase off at home before coming back to check on her but thought he’d made himself clear enough to her earlier that day that she wouldn’t do anything stupid.He’d been wrong. So very wrong.She was just sitting next to him, her still-human heart beating in her chest. She was scared, and at the moment, it wasn’t of the monsters in the woods. It was of him.Well, if that’s what it took….“What the actual hell did you think you were doing?” he said, not caring anymore that he sounded like a brute.“What
The nerve of that asshole!What the hell could he possibly be thinking? First, he picked her up and carried her to his car, and then he locked her inside so that she couldn’t get out. When he finally released her, he sat in her driveway like a freaking stalker!Seriously, Jack Grey was messed up in the head!It probably had been him in the woods—somehow. Or maybe he put his friends up to it just to trick her into having to get into his car.God, he needed some serious mental help.Still fuming about Jack’s crazy behavior, Everly went about making dinner. She decided to make meatloaf. It would be the easiest thing to take her aggression out on. She pounded the meat, crackers, herbs, and ketchup together in a bowl until it couldn’t take anymore before putting it in the oven, washing her hands, and setting the timer.Toby seemed concerned. He was watching her like he thought she was crazy, too.Maybe she was. But
“Dad!” Everly’s heart was banging in her chest as she turned to see her dad standing by the attic stairs, the angry look on his face not nearly as frightening as the terror of being snuck up on. “You scared the crap out of me.”“What are you doing up here, Ev?” he asked, coming over to where she was and taking her mom’s camera out of her hands. He put it into the box and closed the lid.“I was just… looking for Mom’s pictures,” she said. “Why aren’t they hanging up anymore?”He didn’t answer her. “I would really appreciate it if you didn’t go through the boxes up here, okay?” It was clear he was still mad, but at least he wasn’t yelling.Everly wasn’t sure she was going to let him be mad about this anyway. He didn’t have any more reason to be mad about her looking in the boxes than she had to be mad at him for not telling he
Three giant wolves stood in the forest surrounding Everly’s home. It was nearly one in the morning, and even though there’d been no sign of danger, they would be there for another two hours, until the next patrol came on duty.Jack shifted his weight on his massive paws, trying to stay on full alert. He’d already been there for about five hours. He’d decided to take a longer shift than the others because it had been his idea. Besides, as much as the others were concerned about Everly, she was of the utmost importance to him.Across the driveway and behind her house, Chase was stationed. Jack wouldn’t be too surprised if his friend hadn’t nodded off. He’d only been out here for a couple of hours. It was nice of him to volunteer.It was nice of everyone to volunteer who had done so. Alyson was in the parklands, about three hundred yards north of the house. She’d been there a long time, too, insisting on taking a double shi
Of all of the days for her German teacher to be absent! Everly sat in her chair, frustrated, as the substitute passed out some worksheets for them to practice common nouns. It would take about five minutes for her to complete this, and then, the teacher said they could work quietly at their seats on something else.Which meant the room would erupt in chatting and laughter in less than ten minutes.Everly’s eyes scanned the room. Was there anyone in here that might be able to translate for her? Was there anyone in here who knew German well enough? She wasn’t sure. But then, she also didn’t know if she wanted anyone to know what her crazy grandmother had shouted about her mother before she was locked up in an asylum.Her eyes landed on Will. He looked tired. For that matter, all of the Greys had looked tired that day. So had the other kids sitting at their table at lunch, except for Fiona. She wondered if something had gone on in their village th
“Jack!”It wasn’t unusual for Will to be shouting at him from across the void, whether they were at school, at home, in the woods, wherever, but there was an urgency in his tone that got Jack’s attention.He’d been on his way to his car. Chase had driven that day, and he’d arranged for his friend to take his brother and sister home so that he could be at the driveway when Everly got off of the bus. Even if he had to drive alongside her, he was making sure she was safe while she walked to her cabin.But there was clearly something wrong. “What?” he called, heading over to meet Will.“Listen, Everly gave me a recording she needs to be translated. She said that it’s something her German grandmother told her dad after her mom disappeared. The fact that her dad remembers it makes me think it might be important.”Jack could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Well, yeah, that does s
Everly carefully made her way down the stairs toward Jack’s living room, holding on tight to the railing. The heels she was wearing were a lot higher than what she was used to, but Alyson insisted she should wear them because they looked perfect with the sapphire blue dress she was wearing. While Everly loved the tight, strapless, sequined dress, she wasn’t sure that the silver heels looked all that great.They’d look a lot worse if she fell down the stairs and broke her neck because of them…. But then, she was a shifter now, so her coordination should be better.That didn’t make her feel any less shaky on the shoes.When she got about three-fourths of the way down, she heard a loud exhale and managed to pull her eyes away from the next step long enough to look at Jack.Her heart skipped a beat, seeing him standing there by the front door with a pink corsage in his hand, wearing a perfectly-fitted suit with a tie that matched her dress. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was slightly a
Pain radiated throughout Jack’s chest and back as he felt himself slowly being dragged back to reality. His thoughts were cloudy as he tried to remember exactly what had happened. The last thing he remembered, he was running through the forest toward the sounds of fighting, looking for Everly.The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground, blood everywhere, trying to breathe through the most unbelievable pain he’d ever experienced in his entire life.“Come on, Jack!” he heard a somewhat familiar voice telling him. “Go ahead and open your eyes, Jack. Let us know that you can hear us.”It was a struggle, but the realization that he didn’t know where Everly was or if she was okay made him will his eyes open. Blinking a few times, Jack looked at the concerned faces around him and tried to piece everything together.He was surrounded by people who looked like they were about to cry, except for Jamie, the healer. She was concerned, but not tearful.He’d seen Everly, though, so he force
Not long ago, watching Jack die wouldn’t have been that big of a deal to Slate. In fact, he probably would’ve just shrugged about it and made some remarks like, “Too bad. He was so young.” But now that he realized that Alyson was his fated mate, Slate felt compelled to find someone to help the guy he’d wanted to tear limb from limb all by himself only a few days ago.Tearing through the woods, he used his mind-link capability to reach out to anyone from his pack to see if they knew where any healers were. Unfortunately, everyone was either too far away to hear him or they were too busy to respond.He darted through a thick wooded area and came around a large pine tree to see a wide meadow full of velvety green grass glowing in the silvery moonlight.And on the other side of it, he saw a familiar wolf loping along, following his nose.It wasn’t one of the healers he was looking for, though.No, it was someone who shouldn&rs
The smile on Everly’s face was there despite the pain at seeing Lexi show up right behind Maura as she was in the process of tormenting her. Maura might’ve thought it was fun prolonging her death, but just like the villain in every James Bond movie, she was about to find out what happened when you didn’t kill your enemy right away.“What’s wrong with your face, Everly?” Maura had asked her, but Everly didn’t get a chance to answer before it was Maura’s face that was suddenly messed up.Lexi hit her from behind with a strong beam of magic. It was so powerful that Everly could actually see it glowing and lighting up the forest. When it hit the cheerleader in the back, Maura’s eyes bulged, and her body stiffened, her back arching as she tried to figure out exactly what was happening and how to make the pain stop.Immediately, the agony that had been coursing through Everly’s body faded as Maura was too dis
Hands would’ve been a great thing to have at the moment, but Everly only had paws. She looked around and saw that her dad had the backpack, so theoretically, she could go shift and get dressed quickly, but her back hurt so bad, she didn’t know if she could get all of that done.Jim was already trying to stop the blood that was flowing like a river out of Jack’s chest and back. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying. “I was just trying to protect you, Everly.”She couldn’t respond to her father, what with him being a human and her being a wolf, but she knew it wasn’t on purpose.That wouldn’t matter if Jack died.Behind her, she heard the sound of rocks and tree branches sliding down the side of the ravine as Alyson and Slate came flying down behind them.“What happened?” Alyson asked, using the mind-link. “We thought we heard—” Her eyes landed on Jack and her countenance
Every inch of Everly’s body ached, but she knew she had to push herself up off of the ground and get out of there.If that wolf were to come back, he would kill her, and she’d fought too hard to die now.Pushing up off of the ground, Everly tried to get her feet beneath her. The ache in her back was blindingly painful. She thought she might pass out from the pain. Could she have injured her spine when she hit that tree trunk upon her descent?She didn’t know, but she had to ignore the pain and move.Everly took a few careful steps, trying to get her bearings. She knew that Jack and her mother were up on top of the hill. But it was so far away from where she was now, she couldn’t even hear them fighting.Climbing back up the steep ravine would be nearly impossible in her current state.Instead, she’d need to find another way to walk to get back to someone who could help her.If only she had her cell phone&
The black wolf Jack was fighting was strong, and though he had spent a lot of time training and sparing with other wolves in his pack… he’d never actually fought anyone with the intent to kill them.But… at the moment, he had no choice. If he didn’t try to kill the wolf that was scratching at him with his long claws, trying to knock Jack backward so that he could sink his long fangs into his neck, then that wolf would finish him off without a second thought, and Jack couldn’t let that happen.Next to him, Slate didn’t seem to have any problem whatsoever going in for a kill shot. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see Slate knock the smaller male he was fighting onto his backside and then chomp down on the sensitive area between his neck and shoulder. Within a few seconds, the wolf stopped moving, and Slate stood up, looking for the next wolf to take on.Jack didn’t have time to survey the area as he needed to pin this
Running through the forest with Jack on one side and her mother on the other, Everly felt a nervous tension building inside of her. Knowing that Jack and her mother had vowed to protect her was one thing, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t end up in a situation where she’d be forced to protect herself.And she was pretty sure she wasn’t capable of that.After all, she wasn’t exactly an athletic human to begin with. Now that she was a wolf, that hadn’t changed. These other shifters had been training for this their whole lives, so they knew exactly what to do while they were fighting. And the werewolves were so vicious, they instinctively knew exactly what to do to make sure that they could handle anyone who was stupid enough to challenge them.But Everly felt just about as vulnerable as her dad. At least he had brought a gun. He was riding on her mother’s back right now, and Everly made a point not to look directly into Jim
“He was at the party?” Everly repeated what Su said. “Slate was at the party where you were turned into a werewolf?”Su’s head bobbed up and down again. “That’s right. He was with the guy that bit me.”“You’re sure it wasn’t him though, right?” Everly asked as she felt Jack tense up beside her.“Oh, yeah. I’m sure it wasn’t him. But still… it’s weird to see someone who knows about all of this. He was with the guy when he was telling me about what happened and telling me that I was in huge trouble and I was going to have to do something.”Everly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Slate had gone through this before. “Slate!” she shouted, and he looked up.His eyes flickered to Everly’s face, and then they went to Su’s, and they widened. Even from across the yard, Everly could read his lips, “Oh, shit.”