Raised by Wolves

by Bridget Essex

  Raised by Wolves

  by Bridget Essex

  Synopsis:

  Meet Becca Swift! She's got the most overbearing family in the world—because she was raised by wolves. Literally. Becca is a werewolf, and she is part of a loud and crazy, up-in-your-business pack. In her day-to-day life, she tries to keep the fact that she's a werewolf a secret...

  But then along comes Loren. Loren has legs for days, the most gorgeous smile Becca's ever seen, and a sense of humor that's off the charts. Becca's smitten.

  Still, when Becca's mother asks her to bring Loren to dinner, Becca's not ready to tell Loren exactly what she is. So she begs her family, for one single night, to "try to act perfectly normal."

  But "normal" just isn't in the DNA of this pack of werewolves.

  "Raised by Wolves"

  © Bridget Essex 2016

  Rose and Star Press

  First Edition

  All rights reserved

  No part of this e-book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Rose and Star Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. Please note that piracy of copyrighted materials is illegal and directly harms the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication:

  Always and forever to my wife. I love you to the moon and back.

  Contents:

  Chapter 1: Family Troubles

  Chapter 2: The Woman in the Bookstore

  Chapter 3: Strings Attached

  Chapter 4: The Morning After

  Chapter 5: Mixed Signals

  Chapter 6: A Wolf and a Woman

  Chapter 7: Winging It

  Chapter 8: Still a Little Wild

  Chapter 9: The Calm Before the Storm

  Chapter 10: The Den of Wolves

  Chapter 11: The Goat

  Chapter 12: Hungry like the Wolf

  Chapter 13: Family and the Fight

  More from Bridget Essex

  About the Author

  Chapter 1: Family Troubles

  “Bad day, huh?”

  I roll my eyes at Rob so hard that they're in danger of falling out. Then I snort, blowing upwards; a stray wisp of jet-black hair flies up and out of my face.

  “Yeah, you could say that,” I mutter, winding up for another punch. My fist connects with the punching bag, and then the thing is sailing through the air because my fist connected with such force that the chains holding the punching bag in front of me creak. I step away from the swinging bag and pivot on my feet, shifting my weight backward to prepare for another punch, my fists held close to my face.

  Sometimes, there's nothing more satisfying than pummeling an nonliving thing into submission. And this punching bag? It's on my list today.

  Rob takes a quick step backward, narrowly avoiding the swinging bag as he leans against the wall across from me, his brows raised. “Geez, Becca, what's gotten into you?” he asks, looking at me askance and then gazing worriedly up at the ceiling the bag is suspended from. The ceiling groans as the bag swings wildly. Rob's gym, Wolf Strong, is set up in the lower half of an old factory, roaring twenties era, and some of the beams are sturdier than others.

  I hold out my hands and grab the bag, stilling it. Then I sniff. “Oh, I dunno,” I tell him, gritting my teeth. “I'm just taking out all of my familial aggression on this poor, sad bag.” I pat the leather; then I take a step back, crouching down into my punching stance. “You know it's just a regular day in the life of Becca Swift,” I say, “when I feel the urge to destroy all of your gym equipment to take out my aggression.”

  And then I punch the bag again. This time, the punch is so hard that the bag flies sideways, and dust begins to fall down from the beam above us. We both look up as the beam complains—loudly—and then we regard one another with wide eyes.

  “Dude, this is my gym,” he tells me, his voice high-pitched as he flicks his gaze upward again. “And I really don't want to be replacing that ceiling anytime soon.” He sidesteps a bit of plaster that falls down from the ceiling, nearly hitting his head.

  I bite my lip, stretching out my arms for a minute as I massage one shoulder with a leather-gloved hand. “Eh, you worry too much,” I joke weakly, with a wink. “Really, you don't have to sweat this. You outfitted everything to be extra durable, just for moments like this.”

  “You mean moments when werewolves get crazy aggressive?” he mutters, his eyebrows twitching. “You know, I'm thinking I might need to take out another insurance policy because of you,” he tells me then, leaning against the wall and shoving his hands into his jean pockets, his eyes narrowed as he watches me go right back to punching furiously. “Although, I have to say—you've got good form today. Been practicing?”

  “Nope,” I grunt, delivering a volley of controlled, sharp jabs to the bag. “Here's the trick: I always have good form when I'm really mad.” The chains are creaking again overhead, and when I wind up to take another punch, the bag almost smacks the ceiling.

  “Becks, seriously, please try to be gentler with the equipment.” Rob laughs and then pushes off from the wall. “Okay, look, it's my job as your cousin to distract you from your worries,” he tells me with a smile. “Can I convince you to go out for drinks? Talk to me about what's bothering you so much that you're determined to destroy my place?”

  “Tempting. But,” I say, panting and then leaning over a little, placing my gloved hands on my knees as I try to control my breathing, “I kind of just want to pummel this thing for, like, a thousand years.” I gesture broadly to the swinging punching bag.

  “Or,” Rob says, rocking back on his heels with a shrug, “you could kick back with your best friend and tell me all of the ways your mother has annoyed the crap out of you today.”

  I'm already laughing, because Rob's right: he's my cousin, which makes him family, but he's also my best friend, which means he can read me like a book. So he knows, of course, exactly what's bothering me. “I don't know if either of us has the time for me to recount all of the ways my mother has annoyed the crap out of me,” I tell him with a groan and shake of my head.

  “Well, if anyone understands,” says Rob, spreading his hands again, “it's me.”

  I stand up and straighten my back. “Yeah, I know, bud,” I tell him with a small smile; then I start to undo the leather gloves, pulling my fingers through the holes. “Yeah,” I finally relent with a shrug. “Drinks actually sound pretty good. I've been beating this thing for an hour now, and I still don't feel any better. Maybe getting smashed is just the ticket.” I take a step forward, my arms open. “You're a great friend, Rob,” I tell him, coming in for a hug, but he quickly sidesteps me, wrinkling his nose.

  “Drinks are on me if you take a shower,” he teases, and I laugh, throwing my gloves at him.

  “You're a jerk!” I yell, as he grins and trots out of the room.

  By the time we meet out front of Seven Crows, the little dive bar around the corner from Rob's gym, the sun has already started to set, slipping below a horizon smudged with ominous-looking storm clouds. I'm freshly showered and still feeling pretty dejected, my red-knuckled hands shoved deep in my leather pockets, my slick black hair pushed back from my face, wet from my shower.

  Rob's waiting on the bench out front, looking down at his phone, but when he hears me coming, he pockets the device and stands up with a smile, immediately slinging a brotherly arm around my shoulders as we aim for the bent metal door of Seven Crows.

  “I've got ninety-nine problems,” I tell him with a sidelong grin
, “and my family is all of them.”

  “Ah, kid, we've all got family troubles,” he chuckles.

  “Yeah, but we have special family troubles,” I tell him with a sigh and an arched brow. It seems obvious to say, but I say it, anyway, my voice pitched low: “Special werewolf troubles.”

  He offers me a wide, wolfish grin. “True. But we both know that being one of us isn't easy.”

  “That's an understatement.” I hold the door open for him. We both duck inside the darkened interior. Instantly, my eyes adjust to the darkness, and the smell of the bar washes over my senses. There's sawdust on the floor (Seven Crows is a real dive bar), and a pungent mixture of odors wafts through the air. I start breathing through my mouth. Rob does the same thing, a slightly pained expression on his face.

  “So why does it have to be hard with family, too?” I ask him. “I mean, I've heard that Greek families are, like, super in-your-face about stuff, overbearing... But I don't think they hold a candle to werewolf families,” I mutter.

  “It's the pack thing,” he tells me with another shrug as we walk up to the bar. “You know it, and I know it. The pack is the deepest connection any of us has. We're all in this together.”

  “Well...that's what I'm afraid of.” I order a beer from Julie, our favorite bartender, who gives me a wink as she hands me an ice-cold bottle. Rob orders the same thing, and then he's paying for both of our drinks—because Rob's just awesome like that. I wink back at Julie, but I'm just not feeling flirty right now. By the time we take our cold bottles to a table far away from the bar, I have my shoulders slumped forward, and I'm ready to spill the whole story.

  “Okay, so, this morning,” I begin, taking a quick drink from my beer and setting it on the table, curling my hands around the bottle as I start picking at the wrapper, “Ma calls me. First thing, like, at five o'clock. The damn birds weren't even up yet,” I tell him, brow raised as I lean forward, thumping the tabletop with a short-nailed finger. “And she tells me hello, and then immediately starts in on me about my job.”

  “Your job,” Rob says, deadpan, and then chuckles a little. “What, she doesn't approve of you working at the Mountain of Footballs?”

  I give him a withering look. “Sports Mountain, Rob. I work at Sports Mountain.”

  “They have a mountain of footballs,” he tells me cheerfully, “so I was kind of right. Right?”

  “Anyway, I'm a stock girl, and it's a menial job.” I shrug as I pick up my beer bottle and take another sip. “And Ma doesn't want me doing something so 'low on the ladder.'”

  Rob sighs for a long moment; then he lowers his voice as he leans forward. “Your mother's Alpha, Becks,” he tells me, holding my gaze. “I mean, it sucks—you should be able to do whatever the hell you want to do. But she's trying to groom you to someday take over being Alpha from her, and if you're still working at the Mountain of Footballs—”

  “Smart aleck,” I tell him, just as softly.

  He laughs and shakes his head, continuing. “You know as well as I do that if you're still working at that store when it's time for you to challenge your mother for Alpha, no one's going to take you seriously. Even if you win the title. Sad but true: you're not Alpha material if you work retail.”

  “That's just ridiculous,” I tell him with a snort, leaning back in the booth. “I don't believe that. And I don't even know if I want to be Alpha,” I say with a moan, casting my eyes heavenward. “I've told Ma that only a thousand times, but she keeps thinking I'll change my mind. But I don't want... I don't want...this,” I tell him, gesturing between us. “I don't want the stupid hierarchy. I don't want the stupid pack all up in my business all the time.” I purse my lips together, shaking my head. “I don't want to be under anyone's microscope.”

  Rob's brows are up. “Becks, you can't be serious,” he says then, reaching across the table and squeezing my hand.

  “Don't you ever wish... Man, I don't know,” I tell him, taking my hand away and running it furiously through my hair. “Don't you ever wish,” I begin again, leaning forward and whispering fiercely, “that you didn't have to answer to the pack? That you didn't come into a bar and immediately notice every unwashed body, every bit of piss or spilled beer on the floor because your nose is so damn sensitive that's all you can concentrate on? That you were...” I take a deep breath and then sigh. “Normal?” I ask him, whispering the word as if it's sacred.

  Rob shakes his head, spreading his hands. “Becca Swift,” he says, narrowing his eyes, “we can't be what we aren't. We're werewolves. We're frickin' powerful. We can turn into wolves,” he says, lowering his voice and casting his eyes about—but it's early in the afternoon, and there are only two drunk old guys (who smell strongly of malt liquor and Cheetos) sitting at the bar. The rest of the place is deserted. “I mean,” he mutters, “that's pretty badass. I don't know if you got the memo about how exactly badass we are.”

  “Badass?” I fish around in my leather jacket's pocket for my phone. “Please tell me, dear cousin, exactly how badass this is.” I bring up the text message my mother sent me right before I got off shift at Sports Mountain—and then hightailed it to the gym because of how pissed off her words made me.

  “'You're next in line for Alpha,'” Rob murmurs, reading the text off of the screen as I hold my phone up to him. “'Start acting like the wolf you are, and stop behaving like a toy poodle.'” He blinks and looks past the phone's screen at me. “That's kind of insulting to toy poodles,” he says uncomfortably.

  “It's because I told her that I'm happy working at Sports Mountain,” I tell him, the fury coming out loud and clear in my voice, “and because I told her I don't want to move out of my apartment into a fancy house. How I don't care if I'm broke as long as I'm content. But the thing is, my mother can't understand things like that. I know,” I tell him, running angry fingers through my hair again—since it's drying from the shower, it's probably sticking up right now at all sorts of crazy angles, but I don't even care. “I know,” I repeat, “that she cares about me. That she really does think I have a shot at Alpha. But we do things the exact same way we've always done them, going back a thousand years,” I tell him with a groan. “We've never revised the books that say there has to be this big fight when Alpha is passed on to someone new. We've never updated the stupid, old way of doing things. We've never gotten with the times.”

  “That's not your mother's fault,” Rob tells me gently.

  “But it is,” I persist. “We've talked about it. She seems to think that an enormous, bloody fight is good for morale! I mean...” I trail off, growling, placing the back of my head on the booth seat and staring up at the dirty, dusty ceiling of the bar. “She wants me to be living an entirely different life.”

  “Not all of that is because she's a werewolf,” says Rob, leaning back in his seat, too, as he lifts the bottle of beer to his mouth. “I mean, she's a mom, and she wants you to get the most out of life.”

  I sigh. “Sometimes, I think that's true. Other times, I think I'm this colossal disappointment to her. I mean, I'm thirty-three. I work a retail job, and I have a tiny apartment. I know that sounds like I'm not really doing that well, but here's the thing: I'm fine with the state of my life. I don't need much. I mean, some pretty girls,” I tell him with a smirk, glancing over his shoulder at Julie, who's currently wiping one of the beer steins with a white cloth and glancing down intently at her work. Her long, curly brown hair is flowing over her shoulders and her generous breasts, and I can't help but imagine what they might feel like if...

  “Earth to Becks,” Rob mutters with a laugh. “Please come in, Becks. It's hard to hear you from Planet Boob.”

  I give him another withering glance and peel the rest of the label off of my beer bottle. “Point is that I'm a simple person who requires simple pleasures, and the rest of my family doesn't understand that. At all.”

  “Well, I understand that,” says Rob, and I know he means it. But then he leans forward, a wolfish grin turning his mou
th up at the corners. “But I'm afraid I'm going to have to start calling you toy poodle now.”

  “Do that,” I tell him, lifting the beer to my mouth and baring my sharp canines, “and I'll make sure that punching bag really does tear a hole in your ceiling. I was holding back, you know.”

  He laughs, lifting his hands in a mea culpa. “I kid, I kid,” he tells me with a wink. “But don't think about your mother anymore today, okay? Let things cool down a little.”

  “How did you guess we were fighting, anyway?” I ask him, brow raised.

  “Ma,” he tells me with an uncomfortable shrug.

  “See? That's what I'm talking about,” I tell him, jabbing the tabletop with my finger again and growling. “Me and Ma can't have a spat without her telling Aunt Sonia, and then of course Aunt Sonia and Ma tell everyone else, and it becomes pack business instead of mother-daughter business. Which it should have stayed.” I groan and glance heavenward. “So what does Aunt Sonia say?” I mutter.

  “Ma says you should listen to your mother,” he says, wincing and not looking at me. “Sorry, but you know everyone in this whole damn family is opinionated as hell.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, viciously tearing the beer label into a thousand tiny pieces. “I know.”

  “But, hey, Becks, I support you, whatever you may do. I know you're happy right now. I know it doesn't take much to make you happy. And since I know what it does take,” he says, leaning forward and giving me a wide smile, “I think I know exactly how to cheer you up.”

  I lift a brow and lean forward, too, intrigued.

  “Well,” he tells me, drawing out the word, his eyes twinkling, “you know how I'm addicted to that new romance series—”

  “Rob, whatever lady gets you, she's lucky,” I tell him, downing the rest of the contents of my bottle and saluting him with it before setting it back down on the tabletop. “You're a sensitive guy, and ladies like that. Or so I've heard,” I tell him with a complimentary smile.