Nearly Werewolves (Supernaturals in Training #3)

Prologue

TWO MONTHS AGO

Nothing ever changes in a small town. Or in a werewolf pack.

It’s the first thing you learn when you’re born into a life like mine—the comfort in cookie-cutter suburban houses packed with predators. The repetition. The tradition. And if it’s not clear the first time, it’ll eventually sink its claws in, over time.

There’s no escaping it, after all.

Just like there’s no escaping the disappointed look my father gives me nightly at this point in my life.

We are safe as long as we are strong.

Which only makes it glaringly obvious what a burden I am. Being what I am.

Or, should I say, what I am not.

“I don’t know why it’s so tough for you,” Dad repeats, hands shredding his hair from his skull in frustration. “We came here so you’d feel less pressure. Are you sure there was nothing? Were you trying hard enough?”

Nothing. I’ve gotten used to it.

I shake my head and adjust my weight from foot to foot like it makes me stand taller. “Sorry, Dad.”

His words tell me not to be sorry, but his demeanor speaks a different story. “It will happen. You’ll shift when it’s the right time.”

I’m sure he doesn’t believe that anymore. Not really. I am the one wolf in Ironwood who hasn’t changed into her wolf form, and I’m the one who absolutely needs to.

I bite down on another apology.

Does he think I don’t want to shift?

It’s not the same for me as it is for everyone else. And the borders of the town, the flowers lining our front walk, are a reminder that we came here for a fresh start and more space.

Suburbia will help me shift, so says the alpha—my dad—and James Thornton is never wrong.

Our entire pack lives in the gated community we built from the ground up, surrounded by high fences and with plenty of open plots to shift in safety.

“You’re a teenager.” Dad paces the length of the fireplace, the gentle flames comforting instead of warming. “Sometimes the change doesn’t happen until after puberty. It’s rare but it does happen. Even to an alpha’s daughter.”

“What if it never happens?” My fingers clench the water glass hard enough to shatter it.

Instead of cleaning up glass shards, I set it on the side table, the greasy fingerprints at stark odds to the neatness of the rug. Even the lines of the couch follow the strict guidelines set out by the pack alpha.

There isn’t a thing out of place from the fringe to the furnishings. Only me.

“What if I never shift, Dad?” I ask again.

“You will.” It’s the only thing he insists on tonight.

His muscles tense into rigid notes, dark hair mussed from his agitated fingers.

“You’ve been under a lot of pressure recently.”

“Because I don’t belong.” He must see it. Right? “Because I’m out of place.”

“We all feel that way from time to time.”

Goosebumps race over my skin, a product of nerves. “You’re not listening to me.”

“No one can know about this. If you never shift, if you really are moonlocked—” he starts.

I tense, whiplashed by the word. “We don’t know if I’m moonlocked.” Of course I am.

“It would look bad on the family. Do you understand, Mandi?” Dad stops pacing long enough to close the distance and grip my shoulders.

“We’ll figure out a way to hide it. If they think you’re moonlocked, we’ll lose this position.

This house. We’ll lose everything. The pack will say I’m not fit to lead and cast us out. ”

His eyes narrow like they keep the truth inside, that banishment is the least of what they’ll do to us, because of me.

His anxiety sends frissons of fear spiraling through me. “Is that all you care about?” I bite down on my lip. “This house? Your position?”

Why shouldn’t he care about it? Our house is the biggest, in direct proportion to his position of power. Like any of it matters.

The gates, the land, the perfect streets, none of it matters.

Because the wolf I’m supposed to feel inside of me is silent. Always has been.

His hands are the only things keeping me in place. When his arms fall to his side, when the disappointed groan is too real for either of us to ignore, I stomp out of the room. Dad doesn’t follow.

What if I never change? I’ve had to live with the fear my entire life.

When the other pups were off with each other, I watched them. I marked their movements even knowing there was something different about me. Despite the call to join them, I wouldn’t move.

I have to get out of here.

How many more talks like this will I have to endure in my life? How many more times will I be the disappointment? The dark stain on this family?

Air stutters in my chest.

I’ll have to keep up the charade for the rest of my life.

Hatred fills my mouth with the taste of something vile. Instead of going upstairs to my room, I cut to the left, heading out the back patio door.

Sun-warmed grass and air scented by the day fill my lungs instead. Crickets chirp and a slight breeze whispers through the trees and sends their limbs together like chimes.

We’ve been granted a clear night for the meteor shower.

The last thing I want to do is stick around with the pack and watch it with them. Dad managed to sneak in his pep talk slash interrogation before the schedule says we head to the communal hall and gather as one.

What a joke.

Another night of being moonlocked. Another night of wondering which of the friends and family members who moved with us will be the first to figure it out.

Night stretches out for me, wind whispering the thoughts inside my head. To run. To get the hell out of this place that will never accept me for who I am.

Run away from the secrets I’m forced to keep.

The best I can do is jog for the gate, slipping through the small space beneath the metal where I’ve gone thousands of times before, like the woods inside the compound are not enough to contain me.

But it’s no easier to breathe once I’m out. Goosebumps tighten my skin at the fierce cry of a wolf in the distance.

Coming from outside the fence.

I can ignore the glowing eyes in the darkness.

But when the rustling leaves nearby signal something creeping that doesn’t belong, and when the wind changes to bring the rotting scent of meat, I take off in the other direction.

No, no, hell no.

Adrenaline surges as my arms pump, legs carrying me along the line of the fence around our compound. Moon-mad wolves are a danger. They’ve never come this close to us. The Ironwood pack is strong.

Strong enough to withstand the curse turning our brethren into monsters.

Tears prick my eyes and when the scent fades and the sounds disappear, I stop, breathing hard. Imagination is a terrible thing.

Imagination can have a perfectly sane person conjuring up nightmarish wolves who lose themselves to whatever the madness really is. I huff out a laugh and slap my hand against the nearest tree to ground and steady myself.

“You’re insane.”

My voice steadies me, but in the shadow of the words, I remember Dad’s disapproval. His empty placations of more time.

When I stretch, the sky lights, a shower of stars gilding the treetops in silver. Meteors jet overhead in a blast of energy.

I know the perfect spot.

Because I’m already outside the parameters of my neatly ordered existence, I jog into the woods. My heart races. My pulse is thunder.

The stench of blood barely registers before I slam into something hard and warm, then topple backwards. I hit my tailbone hard. Those same stars leap in front of my eyes when my teeth clack.

“Ah, shit. Are you okay?”

A male voice cuts through the haze. I’m on my feet in an instant with my arm stretched uselessly between us.

Someone grips my hands to steady me and the brush of calloused palms over my skin sends an immediate lurch in my bloodstream.

“Hey, it’s okay. What are you doing out here?”

Distance and silence stretch between us, both freezing, the young man making no move to break the hold. My first sweeping glance of him is clinical, a boy around my age, maybe a little older.

Tawny skin stretches tight across his cheekbones, his eyes dark pools. Even in the darkness, his pain registers.

My disconnect shatters as my heart comes into play immediately.

His scent stings my nostrils and my gaze drops unerringly to his side and the bite mark on his shoulder, the deep groove of claw marks on his side.

“You’re hurt.” I reach for him and he takes a step in the opposite direction, his hands a shield to protect him from me.

The movement knocks him off balance. He clamps a hand to his side. “I…it…I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be sorry?”

“For knocking you down.”

A wolf marked him, bit him. I scent it everywhere on him, a rich and pungent brand.

He lists to the side with another groan and hits the nearest tree trunk with a heavy thud.

“I’m the one who ran into you. And you need help. What happened? Who are you?”

“Grayson Scott.” He bites out his name like it’s all he can manage.

Shit, he’s losing a lot of blood. The heat rolling off him singes my fingers when I reach to help keep him upright. Then a chill splits me in two.

Oh my god. The reek of a cursed one lingered in the area minutes ago. He’s injured… What if Grayson was attacked by the moon-mad werewolf? If I really did hear one, and he’s been bitten—

Then it’s only a matter of weeks until the curse takes him under and he goes rabid. My pulse spikes. The urge to run is sharp enough to taste but I can’t just leave him.

He’s going to turn eventually. What the hell will I do with him then? Is it better to get help now, or to leave him out here to fend for himself?

Instinct moves me forward. I slide underneath his shoulder and take the bulk of his weight.

“Come on. Let’s get you help,” I mutter.

“You don’t have to…”

“Mandi.”

“You don’t have to do anything for me. I’ll be fine. I need to catch my breath.”

I scoff. “Do you know what attacked you?”

The poor thing is broad shouldered and muscled, the kind of physique you see in a sports player. And human through and through. At least, he used to be.

“Werewolves aren’t real.” He says it like he’s begging me to call his bluff.

“Sure. Werewolves don’t exist.” I swallow over the dryness in my throat. “All the stories say so. They also say that no one gets out of a bite or a scratch unchanged.”

“So you’re telling me to buy stock in shaving cream?”

Grayson takes a shuffling step forward before another moan wracks through him and he falls forward, pulling me with him. We go down together. My knees hit an exposed tree root and I wince and swallow the jolt of pain.

He has no idea what’s going to happen to him. And although the Ironwood pack hates the bitten, the turned, any other shifter besides those born—

Leaving him is wrong.

Sometimes the right thing to do isn’t the easiest.

I clench my jaw and somehow find my feet. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t have to do this…” he trails off. “You don’t even know me.”

No, but I understand. He’s probably out here for the same reason I am, to watch the meteor shower from the hill and the cluster of rocks with an open view of the valley. One of the local boys at the high school, probably a jock, the kind who wouldn’t look twice at a girl like me.

“I know I don’t.” I drag him through the woods, towards home, the meteor shower lighting the way. “But my father will help. He’ll know what to do now that you’re a…a—”

Grayson chuckles. “You can say it. I’ve read enough science fiction to get it. Plus, I really hate sugar coating. If honesty is brutal at least then I’ll know what I’m dealing with.”

I shake my head. “Werewolves don’t exist, right?”

It’s the lie we need the public to believe.

He’s silent another moment before saying, “No, they don’t.”

It’s unspoken, my hesitance and his reluctance pointing to the same truth neither of us can avoid. If he survives this, I’ll probably end up telling him the truth, the history, the strict guidelines for life in a pack.

For now, Dad will know what to do, how to save this boy. Loyalty is everything to wolves.

Especially when one of our own needs help. Like it or not, Grayson has been bitten. He’s one of ours now until the moon madness takes him, if that’s what really happened.

So I’ve either done the bravest thing of my life, or the stupidest. We’ll know in a few days. I can make a thousand wishes on a thousand shooting stars and it amounts to the same thing for us.

Nothing.