AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once I was home again, I vowed that I would prove I was more than that. That was seven months ago and I’m still trying.
It’s hard. Barrow’s betrayal didn’t just piss off the whole pack. I fell for his lies, and ended up beaten, drugged, and captured because one wolf was nice to me following banishment. You think I would’ve learned my lesson after Shane Loup used me to put a wedge between Ryker and his mate. Nope. Barrow flattered me, I believed him, and in the end I returned to Accalia with my claws and fangs blunted, my tail tucked between my legs.
My parents worry over me. I don’t have any siblings, but my cousins, aunts, and uncles tried to close ranks around me before I put a stop to that. My packmates whisper. The older gammas think I had it coming, while my old friends… well, let’s just say they stopped coming to see if I wanted to go for a dish and run sesh anytime soon.
Kind of hard to join a pack run when my wolf prefers to stay right where she is: far away from anyone else.
Life moves on. At least, for most of us, it does. I’m still struggling, but I’m not the only one.
And that’s why, when I do want to see any of my old friends, I know there’s someone in Accalia who will always welcome me.
Audrey Carter is about twelve years older than I am. Before last year, we didn’t run in the same circle. She was happily mated to Grant when I was still a young pup, though her younger brother, Shane, was in the same age group as me and Ryker and a bunch of other packmates. That’s how I first knew her, through Shane, and her tie to her brother is the reason why we’ve become so close since last summer.
In all of the pack, Audrey is the only one who understands what it’s like to be an outcast. Not because of anything she did, though—unlike me—but because she was Shane’s big sister, and the only family he had when he turned on Mountainside. She blames herself for not noticing how dark he went, and when Ryker was forced to put him down, she was the only one to visibly mourn our former Beta’s death.
She loved her brother, but she’s as loyal to Accalia as I am. No one doubts that. Her place as one of the maternal deltas is solid. Her mate is a member of Ryker’s pack circle. There’s not a single shifter who blames her for what her brother did.
Except for Audrey herself, of course.
When it first came out that Shane betrayed Ryker by working with the Wicked Wolf and targeting Ryker’s mate, Audrey came to visit me. Like the rest of the pack, she knew that I was helping him try to drive Gem and Ryker apart. At least, I thought I was helping him. Turns out he was manipulating me, turning me into another pawn in a convoluted plan I still don’t fully understand. Either way, I was the only one who had any insight into Shane’s motives.
I told her as much as I could which, admittedly, wasn’t really a lot. I was too consumed with getting my own happily-ever-after to second guess why Shane thought I’d be a better mate for the Alpha than Gem to carewhyhe was helping me. Looking back, I realize just how flighty and ridiculous I was. Still, making amends for my actions didn’t just stop with the Alpha couple. I tried my best to support Audrey, and now she’s my best friend.
She’s a sweetheart. There’s not an ounce of darkness in her which makes you wonder how Shane became so twisted. Just born that way, I figure. A gentle she-wolf, Audrey honestly does whatever she can to keep the morale in the pack up. Once upon a time that was going along with the pack council’s plan to throw an unprepared Gem at a feral Ryker during the full moon. Nowadays, she works as the pack seamstress when she isn’t doing everything she can to support the rest of our packmates.
Including inviting me for weekly sewing lessons that couple as unofficial therapy sessions for the both of us.
I usually visit her for lunch every Monday. Since the new year, I’ve learned how to darn socks, sew up any holes in a packmate’s clothes that come from partial shifts, and I’ve even started a quilt that I’m planning on adding to my back porch. At my pace, it probably won’t be done until next winter, but I think Duke would like it.
If he’s still watching over me, of course.
Today’s Thursday. I don’t know if Audrey is busy, but after last night’s bad dream, I don’t want to be alone. With Duke obviously too busy to be my babysitter today, that leaves me with only a handful of choices: visiting my parents on the northern side of Accalia, visiting Bobby or Nina, my younger cousins, or seeing if Audrey is willing to keep me company until I shake off last night’s shivers.
Bobby is one of Gem’s trio of guards. With Jace our new Beta, and Duke… Duke, Bobby and Dorian Howard spend most of their time making sure our female Alpha doesn’t do anything she isn’t supposed to. Only when Ryker is with her do they back off, something I just don’t understand. When I asked Bobby, he said it was a female alpha thing, and I decided I didn’t want to know any more about it so I dropped the subject.
Ryker’s not in Accalia today. Ever since rumors got out about the Luna-touched female who lives in the Fang City at the foot of our mountain, he’s been spending a lot of his time going back and forth between our territory and the nearest shifter pack in River Run. Walker was killed in Muncie, and there are rumors that some of his former packmates are looking for retaliation. The vamps are prepared for any scuffle between supes, but the two Alphas are working to keep another Claws and Fangs war from breaking out so close to their land.
As our Alpha, the whole pack senses it when he’s gone. It’s easier to tolerate because Gem’s still here. That’s why shifter tradition has it so that a new Alpha almost always takes a mate shortly after he takes over the pack. We need balance, and an Alpha’s mate provides it.
Would I have been able to? I… I thought I would. Now it doesn’t matter.
On the plus side, I don’t have two determined wolves dogging my every step. Just one, who is conspicuously absent today.
And, no, I’m not annoyed that there’s no sight of Duke at all as I get ready to leave, then take the walk over to Audrey’s cabin… uh-uh. Not even a little.
* * *
When I visit Audrey,we have an unspoken agreement. I don’t mention Shane anymore, and she doesn’t bring up this weird… thing I have going on with Duke Conlon.
She did in the beginning. She implored me to open up to her when I felt ready to, to tell her about what happened after I went missing. Because her mate is high up in the pack’s hierarchy, she knew all about how Duke is the reason I made it out of the Wolf District at all. Not as if his need to watch me is a secret. In Accalia, there aren’t any, and everyone knows that I somehow triggered his protective instincts.
Too bad I didn’t trigger his mating ones…
Audrey was working on hemming a dress for Flora, a newly mature she-wolf who was getting ready for her Luna Ceremony next week. Flora is a delta, and so is her intended, a shy delta called Mack. To become bonded mates, they have to wait until the Luna is completely full, mate beneath her to ask for her blessing, then mark each other to prove that they choose to be bonded together forever. Unlike an Alpha’s mating, there’s no real ceremony. The pack congratulates every newly mated pair, but it’s a private ceremony.
Still, a young female wants to look her best for her mate, and the dress Audrey is working on is perfect for it.
“The soft pink will really bring out the golden notes in her eyes,” I tell Audrey. “It’s beautiful.”
