He was the most obnoxious, sorry excuse for a wolf on the planet.
I didn’t know many people to compare him to, but I was pretty confident he was the fucking worst.
I listened to the sounds of my pack running together outside from my spot on the couch and gritted my teeth so hard I may have cracked them.
I’d never run with my pack. From the first time I’d shifted aged twelve, I’d been on house arrest. Not because I’d done anything wrong — I’d just committed the grievous sin of being a badass, dominant wolf.
Irritated with all the howling and general happiness going on outside, I stomped my way into the kitchen to make myself some enchiladas.
When in doubt, eat.
When in a foul mood, eat Mexican food. The cheesier, the better.
My parents were out there, running with the pack like they didn’t have a care in the world. They fit right in with the elitist assholes of the Azymus Pack. They sat comfortably in the middle of the food chain, submissive enough to not be seen as a threat. They never rocked the boat, never challenged the Alpha, and definitely never stood up for their only kid.
How they’d produced an alpha she-wolf as dominant as me was a mystery only the Fates knew the answer to. If I didn’t have my Indian father’s coloring, my mother’s face, and half of their scents, I’d think someone had swapped me at birth.
It couldn’t hurt to hope.
My wolf rose to the surface, but I fought the shift, pushing her back down. Maybe later tonight, when the pack had gone to sleep, I’d let her out. In the cabin, of course. If I left the cabin in wolf form, I’d have all eight centurions on me before I even got off the porch.
Soon, I reminded my wolf. Soon we’d be free of the Azymus Pack. We’d be able to roam free, uninhibited by cowardly wolves who didn’t know how to handle us.
I represented a threat to the Alpha and his family. My wolf was a Luna at heart — an alpha female, meant to lead alongside an Alpha. My mother had let slip once that they were worried I would take a mate from outside the pack and bring him in to challenge for the Alpha position.
I’d have been a good Luna, once upon a time. Much better than our current Luna. When I was a kid, pack members would always tell my parents how caring I was, how sweet I was.
Six years on and my own family had sucked the sweetness right out of me. There was only bitterness left. And I’d rather chew off my paw than be the Luna of this ignorant bunch, so they really had nothing to worry about.
I diced the onions a little more forcefully than I needed to, trying to ignore the noise outside that was calling to my lonely wolf. It was unnatural for wolves to be alone. We were pack animals. I needed the interaction. The physical touch. But I couldn’t risk going out there. My wolf was tough as hell, but against an entire pack, they’d rip me to shreds.
The Alpha had permitted me to stay on pack territory until I was eighteen, but I wasn’t allowed to take part in pack events and was supposed to stay out of sight as much as possible. I lived in my parents’ cabin, right on the border of the territory, while they mostly stayed at the main pack house to avoid me and all the awkwardness that my existence caused them.
Every week, my mother would leave a crate of groceries on the porch, occasionally adding in some clothes or the occasional treat, like makeup or bath salts. It was probably her version of an apology. Or maybe it was how she would assuage her guilt.
I got the chicken breasts simmering in a broth on the stove and tidied the kitchen. Cooking had been my lifeline throughout my isolation. The sympathetic rebel next door, Marco, would come visit the cabin from time-to-time, but for the most part, my best friends were the chefs I watched religiously on TV. My TV chef friends never let me down. They didn’t have fuckwit alphas bossing them around.
The house filled up with the smell of simmering garlic, onion, and chicken, and my mood lifted.
My eighteenth birthday had come and gone a week ago, and I knew my grace period was ending. Alpha Mercer would show up