Her Pack

by Candace Wondrak

  Her Pack

  Candace Wondrak

   Candace Wondrak

  All Rights Reserved.

  Book cover by the wonderful Claire Holt over at Luminescence Covers by Denise Design

  Chapter One – Maia

  The first time Maia woke up in the forest, she was naked and covered in blood. They’d warned her it would happen, her first transformation would be wild and uncontrollable, that her turns would then be willful, almost fun, but they’d neglected to mention how bad deer smelled after it had been sitting on the forest floor, rotting for the last few hours. Also how bad the lingering taste would be in her mouth, that it wouldn’t go away for days, even with brushing her teeth for a full two minutes.

  Two minutes. Who did that?

  Maia did, the entire first week after her initial shifting. That was, what? Nearly four years ago. Now she was older, wiser, maybe, and had a lot more to say about it.

  Like fuck you, pack. Fuck you, Jackson. And, most of all, fuck you, Zak.

  Female wolves were rare, a prized possession in most packs, at least that’s what she grew up hearing. Human women could pass on the gene from the father, but it was a toss-up; the only surefire way to have a wolf pup was to have both parents with the gene. Because that’s what lycanthropy was—something passed down through genetics. A human could not be infected with a bite or a scratch. That particular detail was an invention of modern day Hollywood. Usually those movies with werewolves and shifters were downright awful ones, too.

  Maia had also grown up thinking she’d be the mate to her pack’s future alpha, Zak. How badly did Jackson wish he’d found another female for him now? Probably pretty bad, considering Zak was dead.

  He was dead because Maia had killed him.

  Clawed him, right in the throat, tore his skin all to hell with a half-shifted claw. Maia did feel bad about it, especially at first. Murder was a big no-no, in both the wolf communities and the human ones. Some things were universal. But as time wore on, meaning, as she hightailed it out of the house before anyone could find the body, she started to feel less bad.

  Only thing which sucked majorly, however, was the fact she had no money. No real-world experience. Maia had spent her entire life in the pack, and being away from them—as full of testosterone as they were—took some time getting used to. The cash she’d swiped from Zak’s wallet had bought her a bus ticket to the middle of nowhere. She’d make a life for herself, somehow.

  Right?

  Maia wasn’t sure, but she had no other options, unless she wanted to go back with her tail tucked between her legs and let the pack beat her. And then, ugh, breed her.

  Female wolves weren’t supposed to question the hierarchy. They could never be alpha; the highest was beta. In some packs, the females were the omegas, the lowest of the low, kept in the pack’s houses and bred continuously. How was that something Maia could get behind? She was her own person, her own wolf. If she wanted to take charge, say no, damn it, she should be able to.

  It was just purely coincidental her first time saying no also happened to be the time she dug her claws into Zak’s neck, but. Eh. Really, the jerk deserved it. He would’ve made a terrible alpha anyways. She did Jackson a favor by killing him. He probably didn’t see it that way, though.

  Maia had been on the run for a little over a week now. Not long, but long enough for her cash to run out. She spent her nights sleeping in parks, off the streets, usually curled up in her wolf form, as it was warmer. She’d gone from the sunny west coast to the middle of nowhere. The towns she’d put between her and the pack? Small, insignificant places with less than five hundred people. Surely, if Jackson had sent anyone trailing after her, they’d give up and turn back instead of wading through the ridiculously quaint midwestern towns.

  Who wanted to search through a town that thought a new solar stop sign was front page worthy news? Maia didn’t even want to lay low in it, but she had to. At least for a while. At least until she figured out a way to refuel her pockets, maybe buy a car.

  Honestly, she wasn’t even sure what freaking state she was in. She just bought a ticket for the bus leaving soonest and left, glancing over her shoulder the entire time.

  She’d laid low the first few days after she arrived, hunting in the farmlands just outside of town, to make certain that she wasn’t followed. Whatever trackers Jackson would send would’ve been good ones. If they hadn’t found her after a week, they wouldn’t, because they’d probably gone sniffing in the opposite direction.

  Such was the miracle of buses. They were fraught with the smells of humans. Masking her scent was necessary, because when male wolves smelled an unclaimed female, something inside them snapped. They went crazy dominant, all alpha male. Some women might’ve found it attractive, because wolves were usually insanely ripped with muscles and ruggedly handsome in an animalistic way. But Maia? The gender roles were too restricting, even if her inner wolf sometimes wanted to be dominated.

  To willfully submit, it was…well, it wasn’t the same as being forced to. Obviously.

  It was a rather bright and sunny morning when Maia decided she wanted real food and not prairie dog, so she zipped up her boots and adjusted the white and pink dress she’d been stupid enough to wear to the so-called date she’d had with Zak, a dress that had no sleeves and ended just above her knees. Too much skin for the future alpha. Too much for him to handle like a gentleman.

  God, she would not keep thinking about Zak. She would live, survive. She’d get a job somewhere in this Podunk place and save up enough money to get to a real town. Saving up for a car shouldn’t be hard when she planned on crashing in the fields each night. Barbaric, yes, but cheap. She was a cheap kind of gal.

  Wait, that didn’t come out right.

  Whatever. Maia was too focused, too zeroed in on hopping over the barbed wire fence that kept the cattle from wandering to the road to care. Her black boots drew her to the only road into town, and she walked alongside it for fifteen minutes before the small prairie town came into view. The town of her nightmares, a place where everyone had to know everyone else, and no one’s business was secret.

  Maia wouldn’t make friends. She wouldn’t start to like this place. This wasn’t a Hallmark movie. This was…something else. This was her screwed-up life.

  And it probably wouldn’t end well.

  Still, she allowed herself to be cautiously optimistic as she headed down the road. Not a single car passed her on the two lane road as she made her way to the heart of town. The heart of town was nothing like the big city, nothing like a small city, either. There was one strip of businesses, and the rest of the town was pretty much small shacks that these humans called houses. A grocery store, a police station, a fire station that looked as if it were taken straight out of the fifties, a few boutiques that sold clothes and furniture, among a few others.

  The sidewalks were clean, free of any trash. There weren’t even any cigarette butts that she could see. It was almost too idealistic here. Maia’s skin crawled, but it was a feeling she’d have to get used to.

  She was a wolf. She could handle anything the world threw at her.

  Every small boutique she passed was closed, for dawn had only been an hour or so ago. None of them had help wanted signs, which made Maia think finding a job around here was going to be harder than she’d thought. Great. Her life needed more difficulties. She was getting bored just being on the run.

  Maia’s feet drew her across the street, where a horde of cars sat, parked before a diner whose sign just said Eatery in bold yellow letters. And by horde of cars, she meant, like, ten. A horde by any means for this town. She reached into her dress’s pocket, drawing out the bit of cash she still had.

  Three dollars. That’d be…enough for a coffee, and t
hat’s about it.

  Sighing, she crunched up the cash and glanced inside the diner. The entire front of the business was a wall of windows, allowing her to see in. Only a dozen seats, most of them booths, and there were only a few empty ones. Maia wasn’t a fan of stealing, but maybe she could dine and dash, slip out after eating but before the waiter came with the bill.

  That, or she could just get a freaking coffee and call it a day.

  She figured she’d decide once she was in there, sitting down. Maybe she could order water and an egg or something, not that a single egg would give her much sustenance, but it would taste so much better than the raw rodents she’d been eating these last few days.

  Knowing she had no other choice, Maia went to the diner’s door and stepped inside. Immediately her ears were hit with half a dozen different conversations, people slurping their drinks and scraping their forks against their plates.

  Ugh. She’d forgotten how loud humans were, and it took her far too long to tune the useless noise out. When tracking and hunting, her hearing was a blessing, but not so much when she was around people who didn’t know how noisy they were.

  The inside of the diner was quaint in an old kind of way. The kitchen was in the far back of the place, separated from the seating area by a counter where the cash register sat, and six or so stools that were mostly empty. The walls were a deep red, each picture hanging on them antique-looking, though Maia guessed they were newer and just made to look old. This place screamed fifties diner a bit too hard.

  A girl who couldn’t have been much older than eighteen or nineteen came rushing around the corner, carrying a tray full of a variety of breakfast food. Never did an omelet smelled so good. She was small, shorter than Maia, but pretty, with darker skin, pitch-black hair and green eyes that seemed far too tired. The tips of her hair were dyed a deep purple, and she wore jeans, a plain shirt, and an apron, where pens and extra straws and a little notebook sat. She looked flustered.

  “Sunday is never the day to skip work,” she was saying to the older man in the back. “I know what you’re going to say. Oh, Violet, they’re the managers, the owners. They can do whatever they want. Damn it, for once, I’d like a peaceful morning, and not—” She trailed off, noticing Maia standing in the front. “Have a seat wherever you like, I’ll get to you in a minute.” And then she went back to her complaining.

  So the girl with purple hair tips was Violet? Maia mused, sliding herself into one of the empty booths. How original.

  It wasn’t too long before the waitress slapped a menu onto the table before her and asked, “What’ll you have to drink?” She had an easy way of talking, and apparently, she didn’t care whether or not the customers heard her complaining about the owner. It was something she could get away with because this was a small town. In any of the restaurants back home, comments like that would not fly, especially if they were said in front of paying customers.

  Well, Maia only had three dollars, but the waitress didn’t need to know that.

  “Water,” Maia said, and the girl nodded once and said she’d be right back with it. Flipping open the menu, she mainly glanced at the prices. She couldn’t order any full-size meal (she’d need a few more bucks for one of those), and of course she had to remember the tax that would be added onto the bill. She could get a side of toast, or a side of two eggs, but not both.

  God. This running away business sucked ass.

  By the time the waitress returned with a glass of water, in a plastic cup that faked the look of glass and a bendy straw, Maia told her what she wanted, having decided on toast. While she was a wolf and she liked meat the most, there were times when she grew tired of it. As the girl nodded and said it’ll be up in a minute—after shooting her a weird glance, because who the heck came to a diner to order just toast—Maia let her eyes scan the place.

  No one paid much attention to her. Everyone was busy in their own lives, eating their hearty breakfasts, chatting about whatever nonsense they thought of. So carefree. Maia was a little jealous, for never in her life had she ever felt carefree. Even before her first turning, before the night Jackson had brought out the wolf inside of her, she’d always known her duty: be Zak’s second, his mate, and start their own pack with a few of the other younger males.

  Her mother, her father…Maia had been taken away from their pack, traded, pretty much, the instant they knew she was a wolf. But parentage didn’t matter to wolves; they simply belonged to the pack. They were raised by the pack, loved by the pack. Unless the pup was a female, and then everything changed because female pups were so rare and precious and needed to further the wolf population. Jackson had told her her pack traded her for an alliance against another pack that had been threatening them. Such a prized commodity she was.

  Honestly, it irked Maia. No matter how she thought of it, she could not understand how any parent could give their kid up like that, no matter what they got in return. It didn’t seem right. But the wolves were stuck in centuries-old ways of living and dealing with things. It was a wonder any of them knew how to use the internet or a cell phone.

  The waitress returned with a tiny plate, two slices of white, toasted bread atop it. She set it down before Maia, giving her a smile as she said, “Here you go, honey. Let me know if you need anything else—” Before she finished her spiel, an older man from the booth beside hers called out to her about more syrup, to which she rolled her eyes and said, “My work is never done.”

  Maia watched her go, taking a sip of her water.

  This place was so boring, it made watching wet paint dry seem fun.

  Chapter Two – Alarick

  The day was only starting, and already Alarick had gotten a call. So he woke up the others and asked if either of them wanted to go with him while he checked out the unusual occurrences, in the words of Billy Mason, the herder who kept near a hundred cows in the eastern fields just outside of town. Grimm had shaken his head, saying no more than that. Farkas had been more than willing to go, anything to get him out of the diner.

  After hopping in the shower, Alarick had dressed himself and waited for Farkas to get ready. What sort of unusual occurrence could merit a call at six in the morning? Alarick didn’t know, because Billy refused to clarify, in spite of his asking. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

  Alarick had waited in his truck for ten minutes before Farkas came out, his brown hair still wet. The three of them shared the house, which was nothing more than a two bedroom, twelve hundred square foot place that frankly needed a whole lot of updating, but it was home. He wouldn’t trade it for anything, and even though their numbers were small, he loved his pack.

  The townies thought they were brothers, though they each looked quite a bit different. But humans tended to focus on their size, their arms and their tough, no-nonsense expressions, enough to overlook the fact none of them had the same hair or eye color, or even the same nose.

  Alarick and the others had come to town over a decade ago, before they were even legal to be on their own. In a stupid, foolish fit, he’d challenged his alpha for the title, right after his first turn. He was but a boy of sixteen at the time, and his alpha had been the meanest son of a bitch on the west coast, so it wasn’t a wonder that he lost. What was a wonder, however, was that his alpha had let him live, provided he leave the pack.

  And he did. Grimmwolf and Farkas had left with him. Farkas had been his friend since birth, and Grimm was always an outsider. Odds were they were not biological brothers, but in the pack, everyone was a brother. There was no greater sense of camaraderie than there was among the wolves in a pack.

  Once Farkas was settled in the truck, he was measured in clicking his seatbelt across his chest. His hazel stare flicked to Alarick, and Alarick asked as he turned the key in the ignition, “Is the primping done? Are we ready to see just what strange occurrences have been going on in old Mason’s fields?”

  “I don’t primp,” Farkas said, though his gelled brown hair would insist otherwise. �
��Just because I don’t want to cringe every time I look in the mirror does not make me a prima donna.” His arm moved to the window, and he stared at the scenery flying by as Alarick drove. “Plus, you never know when we might meet—”

  “Don’t,” Alarick warned. Farkas might’ve been hopeful for a female to come stumbling to them, but he knew better. He wasn’t an optimistic fellow. If anything, he was a realist, and being a realist meant he had to cool his beta’s constant wishfulness. It got old, fast. “The odds of any girl, wolf or not, stumbling into this town…well, they’re not good. We’ve been here how many years, and all you’ve done is date the reverend’s daughter—which is still the reason Grimm won’t come to church with us.”

  Okay, so they didn’t go every week, but they tried to. At least for the holidays.

  “You know,” Farkas said, rubbing a hand on his smooth jaw. “You could go for a haircut and a shave, Rick.”

  Alarick wanted to roll his eyes, but he settled for a glare as his truck came to halt outside of Billy Mason’s house. The wife and kids were probably at mass right now, which would allow the men to figure out just what the hell was going on. Whatever it was, it had to be bad. Old Mason never asked for anyone’s help.

  They each got out of the truck as Billy exited his house, carrying a shotgun that was nearly as heavy as a child. It was as long as one of his arms, too. He wore a hat and overalls, the typical Mason outfit. His lower lip protruded due to the tobacco chew, for the man was constantly spitting. A bad habit where humans were concerned, an even worse habit when it came to wolves.

  Tobacco was…not the most pleasant thing to smell, especially after it’d been sucked on by a man for the last ten minutes.

  “There you are,” Billy spoke after hawking a huge chunk of chew on his front porch. He moved down onto the ground, leaning the shotgun’s barrel on his shoulder. His squinted eyes glanced to Farkas. “Brought the frilly one too, did you?”