Chapter One
“She clearly hates him.” Tannith leans on the counter next to me, both of us watching our high-tempered friend glare at the handsome wolf shifter who has come to the bar every night for two years—just to annoy her.
It began with him growling at every male that went within a hair’s breadth of her existence, and it evolved into him outright standing in Illyia’s path when she ignored him and growling at her.
All women hate men—well, I do. It’s only annoying when they look like literal gods. Which describes most shifters.
Tonight, it seems she has finally had enough of his wolf-possessive shit. Illyia is shouting at him for leaving food outside her apartment and knowing all the foods she likes but often cannot afford.
“I’m not seeing the yearning you’ve been going on about. You read too much, Mere,” Tannith says, shaking her head.
I tap my fingers on my book, which I stopped reading for this debate.
It’s my break, and I have fifteen minutes before our boss will come and check I’m back working.
The pub is quiet tonight though, and I might get an extra five minutes to dive into my book and pray to the goddess that I’m a secret princess, rich as fuck, and that some insanely hot male is in love with me. A girl can dream. Or read in my case.
“Come on, it’s the human district. Why else would a shifter guard waste his time in this shithole pub when he could be in the pack district’s much nicer pubs?
Why else would she bother arguing with him every single night?
She wants him back.” I watch as she stands up to him, her red hair falling down her back in waves I’m jealous of, as she pokes his chest with her finger.
He grins at the contact, and I roll my eyes.
“He wants her, she knows it, but she doesn’t want to date a shifter.
She can’t leave the human district to be with him unless… ”
I drift off, uncomfortable with the truth of what has to happen to a human like us to be welcomed into their packs.
Tannith pales too. No thank you. I’d rather die.
A quick death, I’m not insane. I have no interest in suffering.
All my friends are human, and I know they feel exactly the same about the pack lands.
I’ve seen humans in the Crone district to the north, just once when I was sixteen, and it was enough to scare me away for the rest of my life.
We both watch for a bit longer, seeing the tension bouncing off them like it’s a living, breathing thing, and for a moment, a betraying moment, I wonder what that is like.
To have someone burn for you. Then again, I’d have to deal with someone invading my space.
Tannith, who knows me better than I know myself, sears me with a knowing look.
“You could try dating, Meredith Crone, if you want to find someone outside your books. That one kiss with the human boy doesn’t count.
” She casts her eyes around the pub. There was another kiss, but we don’t talk about him. “There are potentials here, and—”
“I don’t date, and you know exactly why I don’t bother. It would mess with my plans.” I purse my lips at the frown she gives me. It’s not exactly a lie, but the real reason will make her shout at me.
Tannith is my sister, well, not by blood, but by the strings of fate—or divine destiny of the triple goddesses—she is my person.
We ended up at the human district orphanage on the same day, and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her.
I don’t remember a single moment of my life before I was eight, or around that age, and I was a depressed mess who had given up wanting to live when I’d been dumped there.
The older kids enjoyed beating the crap out of us younger ones, a sick treat for them before they aged out of the orphanage, and I had gotten to the point that all my food was stolen and I had nothing and no one.
That’s when Tannith stepped in, grabbed my hand, and told me we’d make our own family starting right then and there.
She had a black eye that matched mine, and we both made a plan that night to get back at our bullies and get some food.
We bonded over our dark humour and literal no care about if we died or not.
Now, twelve years later, we have gotten a job, a shitty apartment we share, and a life that isn’t too bad.
The pub is warm; we get some gold each month to pay rent and buy food.
Any tips we get and manage to hide from our boss, we give to the young ones in the orphanage.
Maiden only knows they need every bit of gold they can get, and I learnt that from experience.
It’s a far better life than the one we had in the orphanage, and I have a solid long-term plan that Tannith thinks is the ramblings of a virgin who needs to get laid.
After five more years of studying, I can apply to the triple goddesses academies to learn to be a priestess.
I’d be protected from the shifters, have money to give to Tannith so she can have a good life, and I’d be helping people until the end of my time.
A relationship would mess with that plan, and besides, males can’t be trusted.
I learnt that lesson young too. A flash of images flicker through my mind, with the phantom smell of smoke, and I close my eyes.
He is dead. I’m safe. A clatter of glasses makes me jump, and I shake my head, focusing on my friend.
“You should explore those potentials, Tan, and then tell me everything. I live through you.” And my books—goddess above—and the males in them who would die for their loves.
Tannith sighs, pushing off the bar and heading to a man who has sat down and is waiting to order. I lift my book, diving into the world at my fingertips. After all, they’re my only escape from reality, and I need them to breathe. And cake. I need cake, or life isn’t worth it.
Everything in the bar fades away like a brush painting across the world—my world.
The deep laughs, the thick smell of whiskey and wine that lingers on the sticky surfaces of the bar and the equally sticky floor underneath my boots.
I don’t feel my corset digging into my ribs or the fact that my leggings are thin, way too thin for a cold winter’s night or the fact there is a hole in the toe of my boot that is damp.
No, everything fades away—it’s just me and words.
I like it like that. I like living in someone else’s world, just for a while.
I read for a good ten minutes before a clock chimes, marking the time for me to get back to work.
I glance at the door behind the bar, waiting to see if our boss is going to check, and I smile when he doesn’t.
Two men sit down close to me, both of them lifting a hand to order from Tannith, and they are thick in a discussion that I can’t help but overhear.
“I can’t believe the Folkland begins in two days. My boss has me working extra time to farm enough for their celebrations,” the one murmurs. “The extra pay is nice though.”
“I wonder what unlucky shit is gonna be chosen by the goddesses to represent the Crone Pack.” The other one snickers. “The fire wolves are crazy fuckers.”
His friend nods in agreement. “I don’t see the point. I’ve heard rumours that most of them die, and the ones who survive come back as shells of themselves.”
We all can agree on that comment. Ridiculous.
That’s my only thought about the Folkland.
It’s a tradition drenched in bloodshed and somehow is meant to choose a ruler at the end who can protect the pack.
I don’t know much about it other than the basics.
It’s a wolf thing, a deciding set of trials over six months that the three packs use to choose their next bride or groom for the alpha heirs.
The goddesses apparently choose five wolves from each pack by marking them at midnight on Manchala Day, and those wolves go to a mythical island to the very north of the Crone Pack.
Further north than any sane person would want to go according to legends.
The chosen fifteen fight it out in a series of tests and trials—but mostly they hunt and kill each other. One of them from each pack always survives, and they go on to marry one of the ruling heirs, the one that will be next in line to the throne. It doesn’t happen often, every six hundred years.
A perfect leader, drenched in blood and nasty decisions to survive, will soon be leading the most powerful packs who rule everything.
I can’t see how that would go wrong—oh wait, our world is fucked up.
The poor die, the rich wolves survive, and we are on the brink of war near constantly between the three packs.
It’s only been a hundred and fifty years since the last war.
They all hate each other, and they never see eye to eye about anything.
Being human is seen as being nothing to the shifters, but I’ve never been as happy about my human blood than I am right now. The Folkland will ignore me because there has never been a human involved in it, and it’s been going on for three thousand years.
The only good thing is it might bring more patrons into the bar and therefore more money and tips.
More money to give to the orphanage. Last time I was there…
I shiver thinking about it. Things are rapidly getting worse, and the freezing temperatures of the unusually cold winter are not helping.
The orphanages are getting overrun. Heating the building is draining the money they are given by the district, and the worst part is more orphans are turning up because people keep dying.