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“John! She is our daughter! Please,” she begs, tears in her eyes and streaming down her face.
“That whore is not my daughter,” he growls, his canines protruding.
“Dad, please, it's freezing outside,” Ava begs.
“I said no! I will not have a rogue whore for a daughter!” he screams, his face turning red in his anger.
“Then take him, please. I will stay outside; just don't put him out. Please, Dad, he's your grandson,” I choke out. He growls at me, his hand shoving me out the door. He's about to shut the door in my face when I try once more.
“Please just look at him, Dad. He'll get sick. Just one night. Then I will leave,” I plead.
My mother reaches for Valarian, but my father pushes her behind him.
“John, at least let me take him! Let me take my Grandson!” my mother cries.
He lets me go, looking down at my son before staring at my mother, who is sobbing, her hands outstretched for him. Those same hands that held mine when I was a little girl, now grasping the air for my son.
“Give him to her, but you stay out. You aren't welcome in my house,” he says before walking off. My mother rushes over to grab Valarian before hugging me briefly.
“I will watch him; I'll stay by the window,” she says, and I nod.
“Ava has his baby bag,” I tell her. My sister clutches my fingers, nodding. Tears roll down her cheeks as her lips quiver.
“It's okay, Ava. I will be fine,” I tell my sister behind her before my dad yells at them, making them jump.
“I'm sorry, I have to,” my mother says, closing the door. I nod. The curtain in the living room opens, and the lamp flicks on. I see my sister rush off toward the kitchen, and my mother sits on the lounge with him next to the window, so I can see him.
Leaning over, my mother cracks the window so she can speak to me. “He has your nose,” she says, smiling sadly at me, and I smile, sitting on the chair out front on the porch. I shiver; my sister’s flannel pajamas become soaked as the rain blows toward me where I sit, listening and watching my mother through the window feeding my son his bottle.
At least he is warm and dry,I think to myself. Huddled up on the chair, I tuck my knees to my chest, trying to warm myself and shield myself from the cold and the strong gusts of wind.
It doesn’t take long before I start shaking uncontrollably, and my teeth chatter so hard I feel like they'll break. My mother taps on the glass where my head rests—I can see her heartbreak at watching me sit in the cold, stormy weather.
“Shift sweetie. Shift to try to stay warm,” she says, placing her palm on the glass.
“I haven't shifted yet,” I tell her, and she looks at me sadly.
Shifting is a big thing with werewolves; it is a coming of age. Your wolf is meant to represent your future in the pack. I haven’t shifted yet, but when I do, it will not be celebratory like it is for most wolves; it will be purely a necessity. What is there to celebrate? My failures; the fact I am pack-less and homeless; that I am raising a baby on my own because the father refuses to believe he got with a seventeen-year-old; because he can’t recognize me as his mate.
ChapterSeven
“Shift! Please, Everly. I can’t watch you suffer in the rain. Please,” my mother begs through the window, sucking in a deep breath.
You can do this, Everly,I whisper to myself. It isn’t how I imagined shifting, but I need to put my big girl panties on and do what’s required. I tell myself it doesn't matter that nobody will be celebrating for me anyway—not anymore—before stripping my saturated shirt off. I hang it over a railing along the far wall before removing the pajama pants. It's late at night, so I'm pretty sure no one will see me. Even if they did, they wouldn't pay any attention to the Alpha’s disgraced daughter.
My mother taps on the window and I look in; my son is drinking his bottle in her arms, gazing up at her, nice and warm. His eyes get heavier and heavier the longer he feeds on his bottle.
“Thank you,” I whisper to her. She smiles sadly while nodding her head.
“I’m right here. You don’t have to be alone for your first shift,” my mother says, and I nod. Others—when they shift for the first time—go running with their family and have a big celebration. Me? I'm shifting to stay warm. I'm transitioning out of necessity while everyone else shifts for celebration. Funny how things work out, isn't it?
I have been able to feel my need to shift for months. However, being pregnant, I couldn’t change without causing harm to my unborn baby; once he was born, I didn't have anyone to watch him while I did. This is my only chance.
Swallowing down all emotion, I kneel on the ground, stretch my fingers, and tuck my toes under, so I'm on a sort of tiptoe. My neck cracks first, my face twisting and morphing. Everything stretches and moves, and then I feel the first snap of bone. It is agony. I knew it would hurt—the first shift always hurts, apparently—but I never imagined it like this.
“Don’t think of it, just envision your wolf,” my mother tries coaching through the glass window.
I dread seeing myself in wolf form. Alphas are supposed to be big, but I've been stripped of my title and my pack; I hadn’t shifted on my eighteenth birthday like I should have, and all these things affect a wolf's strength. It's unlikely my wolf will be anything close to what it should have been. I suck in a deep breath, trying to envision what I will look like, and ignore the pain. Will I be a sandy color like my mother or black like my father?
