Chapter One
The forest is too quiet.
I pause in the act of raising my axe above the splitting block, sensing the shift in the breeze and the sudden silence that has fallen over the clearing beside the cabin.
A shudder threatens to shake me, but I suppress it.
The worst thing I can do is reveal that I’ve sensed the approach of the three men from within the trees.
Swinging the axe toward the block, I slice neatly through the chunk of firewood resting on top of it. Continuing to act as if nothing’s wrong, I leave the blade wedged in the block and throw the cut pieces into the nearby wheelbarrow, each chunk hitting with a soft thud. I plant my gloved hands on my hips and take a deep breath to calm myself before I turn back to my task.
My senses expand while I go through the motions of choosing another piece of wood to split.
One of the men is from my pack—his musky scent is as familiar to me as my father’s. But the other two men are unknown to me.
New scents.
They reek of ugly intentions.
All three prowl toward me, keeping within the shadows of the forest, their movements stealthy. About a hundred paces away, they spread out from each other, forming an arc, no doubt so it will be easier to catch me if I try to run.
They will assume that I can’t sense them, that I will be easy prey, and that I’m not strong enough to fight back.
Unfortunately for me, my father made the rules clear to me from the moment I was old enough to understand them.
I must never reveal the extent of my abilities.
I must act as if I am not strong.
I will never fight back.
Because if I show my pack how strong I really am… If they ever see me shift into my wolf form… I will become a threat to them. Not just to them, but to every alpha within the Highlands and Lowlands of Oregon.
That’s when they’ll stop at nothing to kill me.
If I want to stay alive, I’ll take whatever crap they throw at me—no matter how many broken bones I suffer or how much they grind my heart into the dirt with their taunts and insults.
I was born different. Unequal. Nobody knows why, but despite having wolf shifter parents, my soul is human, not wolf. That makes me a freak among shifters, a source of scorn, but if they saw my wolf… I’d be dead.
Pretending to take my time positioning another piece of wood on the block, I quickly consider every object around me that I can use to defend myself. Chunks of wood. Axe. Even the wheelbarrow itself. I can make use of the clear ground around the cabin to move around. Running inside is not an option—a door won’t keep these men away.
Already, I sense the power radiating from their wolves. Their animals appear in my senses like colors. Around the typical gray that indicates a wolf shifter, each of them blazes gold, which tells me they’re all alphas in training. I sense the shape of their human forms—all tall and broad-shouldered with muscular arms and thighs and lean waists.
The two men whose scents I don’t recognize must be here for the Conclave. It’s an annual meeting when the alphas of the Highland and Lowland packs set aside their differences and gather to discuss matters of mutual importance. Every alpha—past, present, and those in training—is required to attend. It’s my pack’s turn to host the Conclave this year, which is the only reason my father isn’t here right now.
If he were here, these assholes wouldn’t dare approach the cabin. Dad might be an outcast now, but he was once the alpha of our Highland pack and has a formidable reputation.
I’m gratified to sense that all three men pause to catch their breath as they climb the last fifty feet to the edge of the clearing around the cabin. The slope sharpens before it plateaus, making it a grueling task to reach my location. I know this, because I’ve run up it many times.
Dad may have made the rules of my life clear, but that didn’t stop him from ensuring I grew up physically fit and strong. Training me like other shifters was out of the question, so instead, he hung a boxing bag in the cabin’s back room and taught me every boxing combination he knows. Outside the cabin where other pack members might see me, I split wood, lug water, and run the deserted tracks up and down the mountain. Those same deserted patches of forest are my hunting ground, where I’ve honed my senses over the years.
The cabin where I live with my father is separated from my pack’s main village, which is hidden from humans within the Cascade Range situated east of Portland, Oregon.
The vast Cascade Range is the home of five packs, which we collectively call the Highland packs. The remaining two packs are located in Portland City itself, collectively known as the Lowland packs. There’s enough space separating the territories of the Highland packs that we rarely have conflict. The two Lowland packs control territory in the city on opposite sides of the Willamette River. Even with the river separating their territory, they are constantly at each other’s throats.
Planting my feet, I allow the axe to fall, splitting another piece of firewood in half, sending a crack echoing across the clearing. Leaving the axe in the block, I grip the smaller of the broken pieces in my hand before I turn to the approaching men, feigning surprise at their appearance.
The piece of wood is solid in my hand. I may not be allowed to use my wolf to fight back, but if they threaten me, I won’t hesitate to protect myself with all of my human strength and every weapon available to me.
The three men appear at the edge of the clearing simultaneously. They’re naked from the waist up, wearing low-slung jeans and boots. Their torsos glisten with sweat in the late afternoon sunlight. Tattoos sprawl across their arms and chests, but the designs are mere outlines—sketches of the full tattoos they’ll be given once they become alphas.
The two men standing in the center and to my far right are strangers to me. They smell distinctly similar—brothers, perhaps. I quickly gauge their ages—maybe early twenties like me.
The guy in the middle is the tallest and possibly the oldest. His sandy blond hair is long enough to reach halfway down his neck but is slicked back from his face. His brown eyes are the color of hickory and his gaze rakes up and down my form, narrowing rapidly as he appraises me.
The slightly shorter guy to the far right has darker blond hair and similar brown eyes. His nose is dusted with fine freckles that might look cute except that his lips are turned down in distaste as his gaze drags over me. For a second, a golden blaze breaks through his gray aura, but it’s far weaker than the first man’s aura. If they’re brothers, then he’s second-in-line.
The third man—the one standing to my far left—is too well known to me. Dawson Nash is the son of my pack’s alpha and one of my constant tormentors. When we were younger, he started in on me with shoves and taunts that quickly became fractured bones and deep bruises as we grew older and he grew stronger.
His brown hair is cut close at the sides, shaved right to his scalp in places that form sweeping lines across the left side, while the top is longer, a wildly scruffy contrast.
We both inherited our mother’s startlingly blue eyes.
Every pack has its share of bullies, but I struggle to imagine anyone worse than my half-brother.
My mother abandoned me and my father when I was born and became the new alpha’s mate. She has had no part in my life, only tried to see me once, and to my knowledge has never attempted to stop Dawson from hurting me.