Chapter 1: Leaving Home
Fay Walker was standing next to the bonfire, admiring the members of the Bloodclaw Pack. Some were dancing to the piercing sound of punk music that blared through the speakers. Others were making out in hidden corners.
But Fay was alone. Shrouded by the darkness of the night, with only the orange glow of the flames giving her position away.
The entire pack hated her, but on some level, she saw them as family. She was born and raised in the pack, after all.
Her heightened senses prickled deep within her. The thought that trouble was brewing had her on her toes. The urgency she felt forced her to move out of the way.
Luckily, she managed to do it before the rock that flew in her direction could hit her. But, unfortunately, she couldn’t dodge the second one, which hit her drink.
She spun around, trying her best to keep control of the drink that was threatening to slip through her fingers. Fay stumbled and took a step forward to regain her balance, which caused her to bump into Vanessa, the Alpha’s daughter.
The crimson liquid in her glass spilled all over Vanessa’s crisp white dress, effectively ruining it. Vanessa’s plump pink lips parted as she sucked in a sharp breath. Her golden gaze turned murderous.
Before Fay could even think of apologizing for her clumsiness, Vanessa slapped her across the face. Fay stumbled back, clutching her stinging cheek, as she stared up at the pale-haired beauty in front of her.
The crowd of partygoers fell silent as they watched the scuffle. As the group surrounded them, Fay felt the sudden shift in the air around her. It went from being carefree to dripping with tension.
“I’m so sorry,” Fay mumbled. “I was just acting on instincts… I didn’t know you were behind me.”
Vanessa and her groupies burst out laughing.
“What instincts?” Vanessa mocked. “You don’t even have a wolf!”
Fey knew they were just trying to rile her up, but their words really hit home. She was constantly reminded of the fact that she was a wolfless werewolf. Yet every time it happened, she felt worse than the last.
Each time she thought about it, her heart broke a little more. It felt like she was a human without a soul. Like her existence was meaningless.
“You’re the only one our age who still doesn’t have a wolf,” Riley, one of Vanessa’s groupies, said out as she pushed Fey back.
Fay’s chin quivered as she tried to hold back her tears.
“It’s a curse!” someone called out from the crowd.
Laughter echoed through the surrounding woods. It was as if the trees were mocking her as well. They made her feel smaller than ever before and her body echoed her emotions.
Her shoulders bent forward. Her head hung low and once again she blamed herself for being a burden on the Walker family.
“Yeah! That’s what you get for killing your own mother!” Vanessa said, backing up the crowd. “Cursed by Moon Goddess!”
“You should listen to her. She knows what she’s talking about,” Luke, Vanessa’s brother, the heir of the Bloodclaw Pack, said as he stepped forward. “The largest pack in the world doesn’t need its reputation tainted by a wolfless wolf.”
Luke ran his fingers through his ash blond hair. A predatory look crept over his pale brown eyes as they met Fay’s. And in that moment, she was more frightened than ever before.
“It was an accident,” Fay whispered, but her voice was barely audible.
Her eyes were clouded by tears, so it took her a moment to realize that the entire pack was watching the interaction. No one stepped forward to defend her, because none of them cared.
The only people who cared, her parents, were nowhere to be found. They were pulled away from their discussion earlier, and she hadn’t seen them since. It left Fay feeling utterly helpless.
“It was disrespectful!” Luke snapped. “You, of all people, should know what the punishment for disrespecting the Alpha’s children is. You’ve experienced it firsthand.”
Fay’s fists clenched at her sides as she bit back a cutting retort.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Vanessa said smugly. “You wouldn’t stand up for yourself if you could.”
Vanessa was right. Fay wasn’t the type who would fight back, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t upset by the whole situation.
Her jaw tightened with her rage, but once again she kept quiet.
“If you still don’t have your wolf when you turn eighteen, you should be banished from the pack,” Luke continued, earning a bout of cheers from the onlookers. “I’ll force you to turn rogue.”
“No one will accept a wolfless werewolf into their pack,” Vanessa scoffed.
Fay kept quiet. The two of them had bullied her for as long as she could remember, and she knew it was the best way to deal with them. They would get bored eventually.
“I’m sure your parents will be happy to get rid of you,” Luke said, crossing his arms. “You’re such a disappointment to them.”
As Vanessa stalked up to her, she instinctively took a couple of steps back. Fay hadn’t realized just how close she actually was to the fire until she felt the heat behind her.
She bit her cheek, wishing she had her wolf. If she did, they wouldn’t have bullied her so badly.
Vanessa used all her strength to push Fay back, causing her to stumble. Fay’s arms flailed as she tried to keep her balance, but the heat behind her intensified and she knew she was about to fall into the flames.
Fay closed her eyes as she braced for impact, but a strong arm wrapped around her waist. She looked up to see that her father, Finch, had saved her a second before she could get burned.
“What makes you think I’m disappointed in my daughter?” Finch asked through gritted teeth, making it clear that he’d heard everything.
Finch pulled Fay behind him. In his defiance, he squared his shoulders, meeting Luke’s gaze head on. It was a challenge that couldn’t be refused, not even by the future Alpha. If Luke gave in now, the pack would see him as a weakling and they would never give him the respect he deserved.
Finch had never acted so irrationally before, but it proved to Fay that he really did care about her, even though the others might not have seen it that way. Their words meant nothing after she saw her father’s actions.
“Being the daughter of the Alpha doesn’t mean you have the right to kill pack members over petty squabbles,” Finch said as he turned his attention to Vanessa. “You’re just another spoiled brat who has no respect for members of your own pack!”
From his harsh tone and raised voice, Fay could tell that her father was livid. He had reached the point of no return, which could only spell trouble for their family. He knew they would get punished for this, but Finch didn’t seem to care.
When Fay looked past her father’s broad frame, she saw Vanessa whimpering as tears streamed down her fair cheeks.
“It’s all her fault!” Vanessa said, glaring at Finch. “If she was normal, none of this would’ve happened!”
Fay couldn’t believe that Vanessa was trying to play the victim in this. Everyone saw what happened, but like always, none of them would go against her.
“My daughter could’ve died because of you! Do you think pushing someone into a fire is a game?” Finch reprimanded.
Vanessa opened her mouth to speak, but Luke placed a firm hand on her shoulder. Being the over protective big brother, he stepped in between the two of them.
Fay was still in a state of shock when she looked up at her father. She thought she would never see him again and wanted to remember the proud man he was.
The silver streaks of his hair were disheveled. His shoulders moved rapidly with the force of his breathing and his darkened olive skin turned white each time he balled his fists.
She’d never seen Finch this furious before, and she was ashamed of herself for bringing him to this point.
“Back off, Walker! This isn’t your fight,” Luke said in an attempt to assert his dominance over Finch.
“No,” Finch sneered, “I’ve watched you ridicule my daughter for far too long. That ends now.”
Luke’s lips curled into a cruel smile, and he leaped forward in attack. Fay let out a strangled cry as she reached for her father, but it was too late. As Luke got close, Finch threw out his arms and pushed the future Alpha back.
The force sent Luke plummeting to the ground. A wave of shocked gasps echoed through the crowd of onlookers, and Fay knew that her father had just sealed his own fate.
“He attacked the Alpha’s son!” one of the onlookers shouted as he pointed a finger at Finch.
Fay gasped at the accusation. “No, that’s not what happened!” she protested, but no one paid any attention to her.
“Take him to the Alpha! He deserves to be punished for his actions!” another onlooker called out.
From her position, Fay could see her father’s body tensing up. His fists clenched and released in a blatant display of his anger, which could only mean one thing. Her father was preparing to strike.
“Finch!” Melanie, Fay’s mother, reprimanded as she threw a bucket of iced water at him.
With the shock he received from the cold water, Finch’s wolf was subdued. When he looked over at his daughter, Fay could see the realization in his eyes. He knew he’d pushed things too far.
With a few disappointed grunts, the crowd started dispersing, leaving only the Walkers and Whitman’s in the clearing.
“I’m so sorry, Luke,” Melanie said, offering the boy a sincere smile. “I’ll bring them to Alpha Jared for punishment.”
That was a clever trick, Fay thought to herself. Melanie’s actions convinced Luke that she came through for him. It allowed him to trust her enough to take Finch to Alpha Jared.
Once Luke nodded, Melanie grabbed them by their wrists and pulled them away from the bonfire. As they disappeared from sight, she released her grip. The party picked up their pace, heading toward the border.
The family reached the treeline and slipped into the forest unnoticed.
“What’s happening?” Fay asked, still in a state of confusion.
“We’re leaving this horrid pack so we can start a new life somewhere else.” Melanie said as she glanced at Fay.
“Why?” Fay asked as a frown etched into her forehead.
“It’s not safe for you to stay with the pack anymore,” Finch said, giving Fay a warm smile. “When I got pulled away from our conversation earlier, it had something to do with your security in Bloodclaw territory.”
Before Fay could question her father’s words, both her parents took their wolf forms. Finch stepped up to his daughter and motioned for her to get on his back.
With one final look at the place that Fay knew as home, she slipped onto her father’s back. She knew they were doing this to mask their scents, which could only mean that they would never be coming back.
It was a hard fact to accept, but Fay knew they had no other choice, especially not after what Finch did to Luke. Fay wanted nothing more than to protect her family, so she grabbed tightly onto her father’s fur.
Her parents sprinted to the border, and they only stopped when Bloodclaw was nothing more than a distant memory. When they shifted back to their human forms, they wrapped their arms around their daughter.
“I know it’s sad to leave the only place you’ve ever known,” Melanie said as she tightened her grip. “But this is a new beginning, and I’m sure it will be much better than our past.”
Finch let out a heavy sigh. As they turned away from the border, he led his daughter to what would become their new home.
“Where are we going to live now?” Fay asked, somewhat scared of what the future had in store for them.
“We contacted the Moonfang Pack a couple of days ago. They’ll take us in,” Melanie said as she playfully bumped into Fay. “Rumor has it that they have the scariest Alphas in the world.”
Fay hoped she was joking about that, but she wouldn’t object either way. They didn’t have any other options, and Fay was just happy that they had some place to call home. If the Alpha was scary, she would just avoid him.
Her parents each took one of her hands. As a family, they stepped out of neutral territory and into the land of the Moonfang Pack.
A few minutes into their walk, Fay picked up on something. A sudden sense of unease surrounded her, letting her know that something wasn’t right.
She looked around but was stopped dead in her tracks when her father held his arm out in front of her. His eyes narrowed to slits as he trained his ears in on some sound Fay couldn’t hear.
“Finch!” Melanie said in a loud whisper. “What is it?”
Fear rose up in Fay’s chest as her anxiety grew and next thing she knew they were surrounded by werewolves in their wolf forms. She tightened her grip on her parents, not knowing what else to do.
But something caught her eye. A magnificent black wolf whose shiny coat matched the darkness of the night sky. Fay had never seen a black wolf before, but she had heard stories of them. They were legends told by older pack members when they gathered around the campfire.
She allowed herself to take in his breathtaking frame. From his gigantic body all the way to his large paws. He was much larger than the rest of them, which could only mean that he was the Alpha, and he seemed to have a particular interest in Fay.
His piercing eyes were locked on her, their molten depths drawing her in. She unknowingly took a step forward but was stopped in her tracks when the wolf huffed.
He turned around and took the lead, with his pack following him into the territory. Once they arrived at the Pack House, the black wolf took his human form.
The man, who was just as magnificent as his wolf, held a hand out toward her. Fay’s arm lifted, seemingly on its own, allowing her hand to slip into his.
The Alpha gave her a dazzling smile before gently kissing her knuckles. “My name is Elias Spell. I’m the Alpha of the Moonfang Pack.”
