Thud.
Fuck!”
Kristen shouted before planting face down on the ground.
Howls of laughter filled the air.
“Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
Laugh all you want now,” Kristen said, rolling his eyes.
He stood up and dusted himself off.
“Stupid mutts,” he muttered, glancing toward the source of the laughter — toward his three friends, all in various states of doubled-over hysteria.
Kristen flipped them off, which only made it worse.
The only warning he had was a growl, and then something heavy jumped on his back.
Kristen found himself on the floor again, this time with a heavy weight on his back.
Hot breath fanned against his ear, smelling faintly of whatever poor rabbit had crossed its path an hour ago.
“Pleck, pfft.” Kristen spat out particles of dust and earth.
“Get off me, you crazy runt!” he exclaimed, wiggling on the ground, trying to get the wolf currently sitting on his waist off him.
The wolf raised his butt as if he were about to stand up, then sat right back down.
Kristen groaned in pain.
“I’m sorry!
Damn,” Kristen finally said, giving up.
Laughter filled the air.
Kristen glanced around, surprised, and saw that the rest of his friends had already shifted back.
The wolf licked Kristen’s hair roughly, wiped his legs on Kristen’s back, and walked off to a nearby tree, presumably to shift back.
Kristen stood up again, glaring around at his friends, who’d decided to laugh at his misery instead of helping him up like decent pack mates.
“Come on, Kristen!
Lighten up, you were the one who decided you wanted to race against us in human form,” one of his friends, Theo, said, a wicked glint lighting up his chocolate brown eyes.
Kristen stared at him, a bit starstruck, before shaking himself out of his daze.
“Too bad big, bad next Alpha can’t keep up with real wolves,” his other friend, Malachi, spoke up, resting his back against the bark of a tree, his light blue eyes dancing with mirth.
“Fuck off.
You guys have zero respect for your pack Alpha, huh?” Kristen said in mock anger, unable to hide the twitch of a smile on his lips.
“You’re not the Pack Alpha yet, you greedy pup,” a new voice cut in.
They all glanced towards the voice and collectively rolled their eyes.
“Who are you calling a pup?
I’m older than you are, punk,” Kristen said, walking over to him and ruffled his hair.
“Took you long enough to shift back.
Even Malachi doesn’t take as long as you do,” Kristen said, joking.
Dalton shoved Kristen’s hand away and smacked his arm.
“That’s sexist,” he said, his eyes narrowed in faux seriousness.
They stared at one another for a beat before bursting into renewed laughter.
“You’re all assholes,” Malachi wheezed, clutching his stomach, his voice shaking from excessive laughter.
Theo was the first to catch his breath.
He looked up at the darkening sky and sighed.
“It’s getting late, we better get back to the territory before we run into…
unpleasant guests.”
A collective shiver ran through the group, the lighthearted mood instantly souring into something solemn.
“And before the actual pack Alpha skins you alive, Kristen,” Dalton added, giving him a playful shove.
Kristen rolled his eyes, but the heavy tension remained.
With the sun dipping rapidly below the horizon, they decided to shift.
Running on four paws would be much faster.
They broke into a sprint, racing the fading light toward safe territory.
Paws barely touching the earth before pushing off again.
Kristen closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, reveling in the cool dusk air rushing through his fur.
To his left ran Malachi—his coat a rich brown with reddish tints, his eyes a darker blue that signified his Omega status.
To his right was Theo, a Beta with a brown coat marred by a distinct bald spot on his left flank.
It was the permanent casualty of a prank gone wrong involving a fake clipper and Kristen’s sister.
Kristen secretly thought the bald spot made him look unique.
His eyes were their normal human color, as usual for a beta.
Dalton lingered somewhere behind.
He always took his time when it wasn’t a strict competition.
Dalton’s wolf was pitch black; as a fellow Alpha, his eyes bore the traditional dark, reddish tint.
Growing up, Kristen had always believed he was a freak.
Aside from being abnormally tall for his age, his eyes broke the genetic mold.
Where other Alphas had reddish tones, Kristen’s wolf eyes were a striking, brilliant gold.
He used to cry looking at himself in the mirror as a child
‘It feels good when you let me out,’ a smooth voice echoed in his mind, cutting off his train of thought.
Oh, yeah.
There was also the minor detail that he was the only werewolf alive capable of literally speaking to his inner beast.
His parents had initially thought he was schizophrenic.
For a long time, Kristen believed he was genuinely insane, even after the pack doctor cleared him of any medical illness.
Though their kind had evolved from wild wolves, the ability to consciously commune with their beasts had been lost for centuries.
The pack still believed in the Moon Goddess, but the era of her Oracles was ancient history.
It had taken the doctor months to realize Kristen was hearing his actual wolf.
Once they confirmed the voice wasn’t instructing Kristen to run around naked or eat rusty nails, the entire family had heaved a massive sigh of relief.
That freakish connection was exactly what had cemented his position as the next Pack Alpha.
Though he had an older Alpha sister, she had been more than happy to forsake the leadership role—mostly out of sheer laziness rather than a profound belief in his mystical abilities.
Jerk, Kristen thought, trying to direct the insult to her via their mental link.
But mind-links were another evolutionary trait that had died out generations ago.
‘We’re no longer as fast as we should be.
You need to cut back on the sweet, Kristen’, his wolf chided.
Shut the fuck up, Kristen snapped back, thoroughly flustered.
The sun was completely gone now.
It was going to be a dangerously close call.
He could feel the mounting panic radiating off his friends.
As the future Pack Alpha, he was responsible for their safety, and he’d be damned if he lost someone tonight.
Howl!
Kristen unleashed a piercing howl into the night air.
The moonless sky only amplified the primal terror gripping them.
Without the moon, their senses dulled just enough to matter, just enough to make every shadow between the trees feel like it was holding its breath.
Suddenly, the wind shifted.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Kristen panicked, pushing his paws to their absolute limit.
He silently vowed to never touch sugar again if they survived the night.
The thick, metallic stench of blood suddenly coated the air.
Up ahead, the heavy iron gates marking the pack boundaries finally came into view.
They howled in unison, desperate to alert the guards for immediate entry.
They leaped through the threshold just as Kristen felt a phantom chill lick the back of his paws—like death itself missing him by an inch.
The gate slammed shut.
Clang!
The wolves collapsed onto the ground, panted, exhausted and utterly shocked that they had made it alive.
For one heartbeat, it was almost peaceful — the gate locked, the quad safe, his heart slamming against his ribs in something close to relief.
Then, without warning, something hard violently struck the top of Kristen’s head.
Who this?
New book!
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