Chapter One
Henrietta
“Repeat after me: We do not bite the Alpha,” Uncle Silas says.
I don’t need to ask which Alpha he’s talking about.He could only be referring to Andrew Ward of the Moonstone Pack, the bastard who’d betrayed my family fifteen years ago.
“He should be so lucky,” I scoff, as I survey the pizza pan on the weathered wooden table in front of me.
“What did you just say to me?”Silas glares at me, trying to project Alpha energy, and failing as usual.
Our pack doesn’t have an Alpha since my father died a few months ago, but his brother Silas is sort of our pack leader at the moment.Our lack of Alpha is the reason my clan was forced to slink back to the last place in the world that I’d ever want to be - Cedar Run, Arkansas.
So there we were, in the guesthouse of my former pack, eating lunch before we head over to visit the Moonstone Pack.Pack of wieners, that is.
I don’t say that out loud.I do have some survival instincts.
I lean over the table and shove a big slice of pizza in my mouth, taking an enormous bite.
“Repeat it,” Silas says, glowering at me.
I make a gesture towards my mouth as I chew, and shrug apologetically.I would never talk with my mouth full.The horror.
“Chew that food and swallow it, and repeat what I just said!”my uncle growls.
I chew very slowly and make more gestures.What?Does he want me to choke?
He fixes me with a steely glare.“We are going to go enhance their crop growth, and they will pay us a tidy sum.We need that sum.Right now we are beggars, living on the charity of whatever pack will take us in.Do you think I enjoy that?It’s humiliating!”
As he speaks, my Aunt Dorcas’s shoulders sag and her eyes fill with tears.
Dorcas is the complete opposite of Silas—soft where he’s hard, round where he’s all sharp angles.Her white-streaked brown hair is pulled back in a braid that’s pinned up in a crown on her head.She looks worried.She has every right to be.
When our family clan was kicked out of the Shadowpine pack 15 years ago, we were forced to form our own very small pack, made up of our family members.Most packs have their own lands, and multiple families called clans, and hundreds of members.We were the smallest pack I’d ever heard of.
But at least we had my father, who was a strong enough Alpha to scare off any enemies – until his bad heart took him from us.
Now we’re not only a very small pack – the Romero family pack currently has 22 members - we also don’t have an Alpha.A pack without an Alpha is weak and vulnerable.Any pack in the country could take us over, kill or banish the males, and do whatever they liked with the women and children.
The humans would never step in to help us.There’s a truce between humans and shifters, since the Shifter-Human Accord of the 1960s, but they avoid us and we avoid them.We live in our own territories, and if we’re traveling to another shifter territory, we just drive straight through the human areas without stopping.
And humans never interfere with inter-pack affairs.The only time they’d sit up and take notice was if anything we shifters did affected them.
The only thing keeping us safe at the moment is that we’re visiting our former pack and staying on their lands.We haven’t proved our worth yet, though.At the moment, we’re contributing nothing to them.And we’re dragging a bad reputation with us, unfair and unearned though it is.
Damn it.
I swallow my pizza – and my pride - and nod.Unfortunately, my uncle needs me.The two of us are the strongest plant mages that our pack has.Together, our powers can significantly increase the yield of crops and strengthen them against insect damage.
“I will not bite Andrew Ward,” I recite dutifully.“I will keep my mouth shut.I will help you with the crops.We’ll earn enough money that we can pay our way.”
And once we earn that money, I will punch him in his smug, stupid face, consequences be damned, I think.
“Good,” Silas growls, and Dorcas brightens up immediately, smiling at me.“Maybe you won’t even run into him,” she suggests.Always the optimist.
She wasn’t exactly what I would call a mother figure – nobody ever stepped in to take that role after my mother died giving birth to me – but she made sure I was fed and clothed.Mostly.I was always welcome to wander into any family’s kitchen and help myself at mealtime.The women in the pack all took turns caring for me until I was old enough to care for myself.
My late father was a strong Alpha and a great plant mage, but he never really seemed to cotton to the “parent” thing.I could disappear for days, and he wouldn’t notice.
