Chapter 5

BLAKE

My father and I were, once again, in a heated argument. He always played the nice, fatherly Santa-type in front of the pack but, behind closed doors, he terrorized my mother and me. I wouldn’t be surprised if his goal in life was to do as much psychological damage to me as possible before his ultimate death. There were days I considered killing him myself. It was common in some packs for an alpha son to kill his father to assume the alpha title, especially when it wasn’t handed over peacefully, but I had yet to be driven to that point. He was still my father, as much as I hated him, and I wasn’t in any rush to assume his title. I had been eager five years ago, ready for the power, but things changed. . .

“I compromised and let you have your fun for four years,” my father raged.

“You think Siberia is fun?”

“I don’t give a shit if it is or isn’t. It is your duty as my heir to assume the title of alpha, and I’m not allowing you to put it off any longer. The pack is becoming weaker as time goes by.”

“For years I was too weak and an embarrassment to you. Suddenly you need me to strengthen the pack?”

“I know I don’t need to remind you about what happened five years ago. More pack members died than in any other battle this pack has ever fought, and it will only be worse next time.” He knew this was my soft spot, but he took the opportunity to push it anyway. I glared at him. He continued, “Whatever you may think of me, I care about this pack. My great-grandfather built this pack out of nothing, and I will do whatever the fuck I need to in order to assure that the lineage continues. End of discussion!”

With that, he stormed out of the room. At least these days he resisted the urge to throw heavy objects at me. He had noticeably aged in the four years I was gone, his wrath and impulses not quite to the level I remembered.

I decided to go for a run. It was hot outside, but I was so worked up that I barely noticed. I walked out of the packhouse, where my family lived, and into the woods. After walking a few yards in, I stripped myself naked, and threw my clothes onto a tree stump. I then shifted into my wolf form. My bones transformed, my skin stretched to accommodate the changeover, fur tingled as it sprouted from my body. The pads of my massive paws fell against the pine needles scattered along the ground. I scratched my razor-sharp claws through the dirt, getting used to the new form I was in, the wind ruffling my fur. I had come to appreciate being in my wolf form—everything was simpler. The animal part of my brain took control and practically the only things that mattered were food, water, and sleep.

I’d first grown fond of this form after I began shifting at the age of twelve. While my father had always been a dick, he really came down hard on me once I was able to turn into a wolf. While my classmates mostly only trained at school, my father would force me to train for countless additional hours every week. I vividly recalled sweltering summers during my middle school years where my father would push me to complete various exercises in brutal heat, hitting me with a tree branch if I was too slow, denying me water, yelling in my face if I didn’t complete tasks to his standards. There were times I’d fall over and throw up, pushed to my limit, only to be rewarded with my father kicking me. “Get the fuck up, Blake! There’s no time to throw up when you’re in battle!” He’d pile weights on top of me, forcing me to do push-ups until I couldn’t lift myself off the ground anymore. “Fucking weak. You’re an embarrassment as an alpha.” The only way I could stop the trauma from overtaking me was to shift and run deep into the woods, far from home. I sometimes wished I could just live as a wolf. But I couldn’t let my father see he got to me.

And there was a sick part of me that couldn’t stand the idea of failure. I couldn’t help but strive to finally please him. This desire for his approval always pulled me back, forcing me to try that much harder, only to endure the abuse all over again. The harder I worked, the more abusive he became, the goalpost always just out of my reach. I was nothing more than a sad puppy that kept getting kicked by his owner, only to come back and eagerly beg for love and praise that would never be offered.

After four years away, the area had changed. My previous favorite spot was now overtaken by humans. What had previously been, clearly, an unpopular hiking trail to visit had gotten trendy with a new resort built nearby. It was now summer and hiking trails in Vermont were littered with humans. I ran deep into the forest to find a new place to go and be by myself.

After running for an hour or so, I found a mountain to climb in an area that didn’t have any hiking trail nearby, so I knew I’d avoid humans. I climbed until I reached the summit. The sun was beginning to set, so I lay down on the rocky peak and looked down upon everything below, admiring the pinks and oranges that painted themselves across the sky. While I was perpetually agitated and in a state of rage within, the peaceful surroundings helped quiet the storm. Once it became dark, I made my way back home, feeling calmer now. I shifted back to my human form and redressed myself before going back into the packhouse.

I found my mom inside, still in her scrubs, having clearly just finished a shift. She was one of the pack doctors and had met my father after finishing her medical residency training and returning to the pack. She hugged me and kissed my forehead as I entered. She was proof that not all mates are created equal and sometimes the Moon Goddess has a sick sense of humor. My mom mostly worked in pediatrics, healing and caring for young pups. She never raised her voice and strived to make my father and me happy however she could. In return, my father berated and cheated on her throughout the entirety of their marriage. While his philandering had calmed down with age, I still had memories burned into me of spying on her crying alone after she discovered his latest transgression.

She was the main reason my father allowed me to go away to college for four years. I had been ready to take the position of alpha after finishing high school. But, after Ria died, I couldn’t do it. My mom convinced my father to allow me to go away for a few years. After months of fighting matches between my father and me, he finally agreed to let me go to the only werewolf university in the world, Grey Wolf University, because he knew I’d be able to keep up with my training there.

He wasn’t wrong about that. Training in Siberia may as well have been synonymous with torture. In the first week I arrived, they required us to begin building tolerance to wolfsbane, werewolves’ kryptonite. We began by ingesting a small vial at first. I wanted to pass out, but they forced us to run five kilometers in our human form, being too weak to shift into our wolf forms anyway, before they let us rest. Over time, we began receiving regular injections and were forced to train while our insides burned. We got used to coughing up blood. It was not uncommon for a student to get up in the middle of class to crouch over the trash can and spit blood from his mouth.

In our first year, they purposely paired us up with fourth-year students during training to break us in and toughen us up. One time, several of my ribs were broken and I had to spend three days in recovery while they healed, my healing abilities weakened by the wolfsbane fed into my system regularly. During our third year, we had to spend a week in the dead of winter surviving in our wolf form, hunting for food and finding shelter in the tundra of Siberia, as if we were actual wolves.

In our fourth year, we visited neighboring packs to be trained in torture. They’d lead us down into their cells where they’d be jailing a perp for who knows what. Sometimes the pack needed information and we were forced to torture the perp until they would be begging for their death and gave up the information that was needed. Sometimes it was just an innocent rogue that had accidentally stepped over a pack’s border, their only crime that of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were then barbarically cut into pieces for no good reason, just so we could become desensitized. I recalled, vividly, chopping limbs from their bodies as they thrashed against the restraints placed on them, crying and begging for death, their eyes terrorized, pleading.

What the professors didn’t know was that my father had already been teaching me the art of torture from the time I turned ten years old. While others vomited or passed out, and later paid for it, I was cold and calculating as if I were a psychopath. They didn’t even have to break me in—I had already come prepared, wielding a sword confidently, chopping through flesh and bone with ease. I had been forced to observe my father use the same techniques they taught for almost a decade. I ended up getting a five in torture, the equivalent of an A in Russia.