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Chapter One
Maxim
Fourteen years earlier…
One month.
One month, and I’m free. I’ll be done with high school and fucking AP Statistics and out of my big brother, Bane’s, shadow for good.
Or at least for a year or two.
Dad finally okayed my extended trip to Europe, provided I take along a security detail. Come June, I’ll be on a plane to Prague. Then Croatia. Then to an island off the coast of Greece where European shifters meet up every year for a Midsummer party unlike anything boring, stick-up-its-ass North America has ever seen.
My friend Aaron says they eat these special mushrooms and dance until they can’t stand, and that he had more sex in three days than in the entire rest of his life combined.
Though I’m not sure that’s saying much.
Aaron is a cool, funny guy, but super shy around girls. Add in the fact that none of us are supposed to mess around with the other wolves in our pack, and there’s a good chance he was a virgin before his trip last summer.
But still…his tales have fueled the fire that’s been burning inside of me since sophomore year, when it became apparent my teachers were still going to mention my brother’s name every freaking class period, even though Bane graduated the year before. I make better grades than my brother and cause far less trouble, but his devil-may-care charm lingers in people’s brains.
Hell, it lingers in my brain.
I love my brother. He’s cool as hell and so much fun to hang out with.
But he’s also inconsiderate, has a Godzilla-sized ego, and struggles to focus on anything other than Bane—or his girlfriend, Kelley—for more than ten minutes at a time.
He hasn’t been to visit Mom in months. He sees Dad every day for Alpha training, but he’s too busy to head up to the family apartment at the end of the day to have dinner with Mom or play with our little sister, Diana.
I spend my fair share of nights out with friends or grabbing a quick meal in the Atrium while studying for AP Statistics—a class I’m convinced was created by the devil himself—but I always make time for Mom and Squirt.
Especially Squirt.
At four, my little sister is fucking hysterical. She barely comes to my knee, but bosses me around like a little queen. The second I’m through the door, she grabs my hand and drags me off to her room to play dolls or hide-and-seek or “Murder Kitchen,” a game she made up. Dressed in her chef costume, she’ll feed me plastic food from her Kids Cook playset, only revealing if it’s poison after I’ve pretended to eat it.
Then, if I’ve gobbled up a murder plate, I’m obligated to perform a dramatic and prolonged death scene, while Diana giggles hysterically like the sick little cookie she is.
Mom finds the game morbid and jokes that Diana’s going to grow up to be a contract killer or something if we keep it up, but I think it’s awesome.
I love how weird and creative and silly Dee is.
Because she’s sweet, too.
After dinner, we usually head into the living room to watch something on TV. And each time, she crawls up into the big armchair with me because I’m “very good at snuggling,” while Mom watches us from the couch with a smile.
And at bedtime, when I carry Dee into her room to tuck her in, she always says, “I wuv you, Zim-zim,”—Maxim is too hard for her to say—before she curls up into a tiny ball beneath the covers.
My heart twists in my chest every time.
She’s just so tiny and cool and I love her so much.
Honestly, I’d do anything for her, though I try not to let her know it, since she’s also a pint-sized tyrant who would absolutely abuse her power over me if she realized she had it.
“You’re going to be a great Dad someday, baby,” Mom said the last time I emerged from tucking in my little sis, pulling me in for a hug before I headed down to the apartment I share with Aaron and a couple of our friends on a lower floor. “I’m so proud of your big heart. Dee and I both love it when you come hang out with us.”
I rolled my eyes, but returned the hug, dropping a kiss to the top of Mom’s head as I said, “Yeah, yeah. I guess you guys are all right.”
“All right?” Mom pulled away with an arched brow. “We’re cool as hell, kid. Not to mention I’m the only one who knows the recipe for that sausage pasta you’re obsessed with, and don’t you forget it.”
