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I plummeted hard onto the concrete ground just as a set of headlights blinded me. A deafeningbeeeepstabbed my ears along with the screech of tires as the vehicle came to a halting stop, recoiling from my sudden appearance.
Upon reorienting myself, I noticed that I was in the middle of an unknown road.
A female driver waved a frustrated hand, gesturing at me as I picked myself up from the ground and squinted through the lights. She was scowling and panting at the same time, likely from the shock. I blinked and we stared at each other. She moved to open the car door, but my face had already broken into a small smile.
Not waiting to see her reaction, I ran back into the woods and welcomed the return of nature’s symphony, stopping only when my ears discerned a faint noise a few miles away.
Blocking out the sound of the water running over a rocky bottom, I took advantage of my wolf senses and focused. Immediately, I could feel my pack—their rowdy presence, the loud laughter as bottles clinked and chairs scraped the floor. They were carelessly partying again with the cabin door slightly open.
Determined to get there before they left and took the party to town, I leaped over the gushing, moonlit river and quickly disappeared into the trees to meet them at the deserted reservoir we calledCrescent Lake.
When I arrived, Huxley and Gretta were hanging around the front yard in wolf form, and Stan, the pack’s apothecary—in his brawny human form—was fishing in the lake.
“Gray, you’re back late. Did something happen at school?” Stan asked as soon as he saw me pacing toward the cabin. As usual, he blocked the way and inspected my clothes, the back of my head, my hands, my face, and the rest of my precious body. It was his routine. He knew I was a born troublemaker.
Seriously, though, maybe next time, he’d include my buttocks in one of his daily checkups.
“Yeah, something definitely happened.” I avoided the sight of his distracting bushy beard and scanned the illuminated windows of the cabin, looking for Rainer instead.
“You bullied another kid, didn’t you?” Stan swung his arms around my shoulders, his tone strict yet playful. “How many times do I have to tell you, kid? Only use your super strength to defend yourself and your pack.” Now that sounded accusatory.
I turned my attention back to him and in a biting tone said, “You hurt my feelings,Dad.”
“I’m kidding.” He laughed as he slid his arms off me and placed his hands on his hips. “So, what you got for us, kid?”
“I’ll tell you once everyone’s here.”
Rainer stepped out of the cabin with the rest of the pack, and they all welcomed me with flattering bows. Some of them were only a few months older than I was. Most of them were already in their thirties or forties. Since I was young for an alpha, many doubted me.
But not Stan. He often reminded me of the faith he had in me, saying I had the potential to be a good leader, maybe even better than my father. But with my father dying so early in my life, I’d been deprived of the opportunity to grow into this position under his training.
As soon as everyone exited the cabin, I cleared my throat. “Someone here went behind my back and had a rendezvous with a werewolf hunter so he could give him this.” I whipped the gun out of my bag and showed it to everyone. “It’s a gun with wolfsbane bullets.” I paused dramatically for effect, watching as my pack sniffed, picking up the scent of wolfsbane. As they started eyeballing each other, I added simply, “Care to explain, Rain?”
Everyone let out a rumbling growl, excluding Rainer. He looked more annoyed than guilty. The pack surrounded him and kept him from escaping, their menacing glares and growing claws ready to rip his skin off his body.
“What were you trying to accomplish?” I asked coldly, clenching my fists as the first flashes of betrayal rushed through my head. “You know Keith practically stays at my place for dinner. Did you want him to use the gun on me? Or are you trying to get rid of my cousin?”
“Gray—”
I interrupted him. “Haven’t I told you my family is off-limits?”
“I only did it because you weren’t doing anything about Willa’s murder,” he reasoned. “This is my girlfriend we’re talking about, Gray. It’s been weeks since she was killed. Roeske’s scent was on her, and yet you haven’t given us an order to seek vengeance,” he sneered, his upper lip curled back revealing his growing agitation. “Why?” His voice rose above the vibration of the pack’s warning growls. “Because your cousin is protecting him!” He spun, his arms held out, the moonlight reflecting off his claws. “What happened to our tradition?” He cocked his head to the side, meeting me glare for glare as he added, “Your father would be rolling in his grave knowing how you’ve failed to fulfill his role.”
His declaration made everyone’s glare shift to me.
“What part of ‘my family is off-limits’ wasn’t clear, Rainer?” It took all of my self-control to stay cool, calm, and collected so I wouldn’t point that horrible gun right into his stupid face. I held his gaze. Any longer and this staring contest would become much more violent.
“Isn’t our pack family? Wasn’t Willa family?” Rainer countered, finally lowering his gaze.
To my utter dismay, his jab made sense, and I was left with no choice but to think quickly before possibly being mauled by my own people.
“I have a plan.” My palms were sweating. “But right now, I’m asking all of you to calm down. If my father were the one standing here … I know he’d tell you guys to go ahead and kill anyone you suspect without further investigation. But I’m not him. I’m his son, and I do things differently. I don’t care about the tradition.” I held up a hand to forestall the pack’s rumblings. “I will think before I act. I will question things before pointing fingers, and then I’ll go from there. So, why did Willa have to get killed? What was she doing? How could a seventeen-year-old boy afford a silver bullet? Have we ever seen or smelled silver on any of the hunters at school, like at all?” Now that the groundwork for my theory was almost complete, I sped up to get to the point. “If the answer is yes, then why do werewolves still go to school when their lives could be at risk over a single silver bullet? Has it ever crossed your minds that maybe, just maybe, there’s another group of hunters out there—someone more dangerous than a gaggle of teenagers?”
All I got in return was silence.
“I didn’t think so,” I answered, looking back at Rainer. “And that is why no one is making a move until I say so. Especially you.” With every bit of control I could muster, I added, “Don’t touch my family, because I swear to God, if you even dare … I won’t hesitate to rip you apart.” My eyes turned red with fury as I bared my sharp, wolf teeth at him. “Does everybody understand?”
Finally, the pack submitted to me with their heads down.
