Chapter 2
Valarie
The next day, I slammed open the door of my family’s house and stalked out across the fallow field surrounding the small home. I could still hear my mother and father arguing inside, my mother shouting and close to desperate.
“What is wrong with you, Peter?! Haven’t you heard what kind of person the King is! Do you really want our daughter joining a pack of women he’ll have at his beck and call?!”
I couldn’t hear Dad’s voice. He was always quiet and steady, a tall and broad-shouldered man.
I passed Jason, my younger brother, as I headed away from the house.
“Where are you going?” he called after me, stopping whatever it was he was doing—possibly taking apart and putting back together some machinery he had found lying around.
Jason was good with his hands, like our father, and had shown a sort of genius when it came to intricate machinery at a young age. I doted on him as much as our parents did, but right now, I was furious.
I began to run, letting my body lengthen and focusing on the stretch of my muscles.
I had been a runner as long as I could remember. The lowest members of the pack—omegas—ran. Their ancestors had all ran, all been involved in hunting, but as the packs settled into their territories and became more civilized, the running was left to lower levels of the hierarchy.
I knew it embarrassed my mother when I ran, but I just couldn’t help it. It had to do with stress. And right now, I had never felt more stressed, more pressure to make the right decision for my family.
If I went with Sophia to the Kingdom, I would have the opportunity to raise my family’s status in the pack. But my mother was terrified I would get taken advantage of. And I could understand that.
Not only was King Gabriel well-known for seducing every woman he came across (and he would inevitably come across me as I tended to Sophia), but I didn’t have any experience with the city. It was almost overwhelming to even think about.
“It isn’t like our territory,” my mother had scoffed. “You won’t be out snaring rabbits or helping with the washing. Cities as big as the Kingdom are full of cut-throats and men waiting to take advantage of women.”
I had been confused by the bitterness in Mom’s voice and could tell by the way my father wouldn’t look at me that there was some deeper story there. But with my mother raging, there was no way to approach the subject delicately. And I had only days to prepare.
Truthfully, my mother’s reaction scared me—the thought of going to the Kingdom scared me almost as much as it excited me. But the stubbornness rose in me, as always. I was twenty-one! I could handle myself; I had proven that countless times!
But I couldn’t let my father, or Jason, see that small bit of doubt and fear that lived inside me. They had both been so full of hope when I’d told the family at dinner what Sophia had offered.
I was still loping through the woods, skimming the edge of a stream that ran through our territory and connected to the next pack’s.
I could feel my muscles beginning to burn as I pushed myself.
It was a delicious feeling that caused a low growl to form in my throat.
The wolf wanted to come out, being so close to the full moon, but I fought it down.
I kept running until I reached the edge of our land, and then followed it, curving back toward the town and my family’s home on the outskirts.
Nearby, there was a small rise covered in wild apple trees that overlooked the town center. Sometimes, I’d go there at night and look at all the streetlights still on, the lights in windows, like constellations spread over winding back roads.
As I neared our small property, I slowed to a jog, my muscles burning deliciously. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes when I smelled the pine trees. I could hear Jason tinkering with some machinery in the shed.
It was quiet otherwise, my parents’ argument having ceased.
I could see in an upstairs window the outline of my mother’s silhouette as she sorted through the seven dresses Sophia had given her for mending. It was a large project, to be done quickly, but the family would be well paid for it, and I knew my mother would be up late into the night sewing.
“Valarie.”
I stumbled to a halt, shoulders jerking up with a gasp.
My father sat on a log at the edge of the woods where I had emerged from the path. I had a hand over my heart and exhaled loudly.
“Dad. You scared me!”
He chuckled as I moved toward him to sit down on the layers and layers of pine needles.
I breathed in deeply and caught the scent of his pipe, which he must’ve just put out. My mother didn’t like him smoking it in the house, but he savored the taste of the sweet tobacco.
“If you keep frowning so hard, your face will get stuck that way,” my father murmured around a smile.
I couldn’t help smiling back and rocked on my haunches.
“Sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about the Hunt. And the Kingdom.”
My father, Morton Pratt, sighed.
He looked grizzled, older than his years, and lean from his work. I frowned, remembering the last few full transformations and how his coat was much grayer now.
“I have something for you,” he said, leaning back and reaching into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a delicate locket made from polished wood, hanging from a length of twine.
I held up a hand and he placed it carefully in my palm. I looked at it closely, trying to figure out the trick of it.
Even though Dad was a handyman, willing to fix anything and everything, he loved carpentry and woodworking more than anything.
But in a pack as small as ours, there was no need for the kind of high-end products he was capable of producing. Beautiful tables, cabinets, small boxes that were impossible to open unless you knew their secrets, and even jewelry like the locket I was holding now.
“Thank you,” I breathed, still looking for the secret of this piece. My dad was smiling down at me.
“I’ve been waiting for a good time to give it to you, and this seems to be it. Valarie, I want you to know—your mother, she’s just scared.”
“I know,” I muttered, turning the small, polished necklace over and over in my fingers.
“You have to understand. She was sent to the Kingdom as a girl—”
My head snapped up. “She was?”
My father’s face remained serious, more serious than I’d ever seen it whenever he began to tell a story. I waited with bated breath to see where this conversation would go.
“She was sent there by her family to find work. And although she got out safe, several people tried to… take advantage of her.”
Part of me wanted to know what that meant exactly. The other part shied away from it. I didn’t want to know if my mother had been subjected to anything horrible, but it made sense that she wouldn’t want me to go.
“She knows you’ll be part of Sophia’s close revenue—” “Exactly!”
Dad held up a hand. “And that you’re smart, and capable, and careful. But you need to understand that she can’t help how she feels. It’s her instinct as your mother.”
I was quiet, contemplating this new information.
“You wanted to go to the Kingdom once,” I finally said, stating the fact simply.
It was something he had told me before, when he was in the right mood for it.
He didn’t often talk about his aspirations, as it seemed to only make him sadder about where he’d ended up.
But now seemed like a good time to get him to talk.
“I did. But it’s almost impossible to switch packs—” Especially for an omega, I thought to myself
“—and I was too young and unskilled to know how to find a place there. But yes. Once, a long time ago, I hoped to find my fortune there. Our fortune.”
As he spoke, I could see the light of the dream in his eyes. It was clear he still thought of the past often, and was excited by the prospect of the trip, although he was trying to suppress it.
I leaned forward on my knees and took my father’s hands, smoothing my fingers over the scars on his.
“Let me go,” I practically begged, quietly. “Let me go and I’ll do everything I can to find our fortune. It isn’t lost.”
Dad sighed, his eyes searching mine and seeing his own hope reflected there.
“It isn’t too late—” I began, but just then Jason ran out into the yard, waving something over his head.
He was still shorter than me, but seeing him from a distance, I could tell he was starting to fill out and wondered if this would be the month he finally transformed, and if I would miss it while I was away.
The thought made my heart squeeze in my chest.
“Dad!” he shouted, “Dad, you need to come see this! I think I figured it out! I got it to work—”
Morton Pratt grimaced, bracing his hands on his knees to stand. I stood quickly and helped him by hooking a hand under his bicep.
“Let me go,” I asked quickly, trying to ignore Jason’s excited chattering behind us. “I promise—”
“Valarie,” my father interrupted with a small laugh. “You think your mother and I don’t know that we couldn’t stop you if we wanted to?” He sighed. “We are worried—we can’t help it, you’re our only daughter. And you’ve heard the rumors about King Gabriel.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. My hair was a mess, practically knotted around my ears, and I could feel the dirt under my fingernails. If I made it to the Kingdom, there was no way Gabriel would give me a second glance. An Alpha would never consider an omega.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Dad pressed, gripping my hands tightly.
I practically bounced on the balls of my feet. “I will!” I exclaimed, hope rising in me again. “Dad, I swear, I’ll go, and I’ll show them we belong somewhere better—”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about us. Just do whatever you can to stay safe. Enjoy yourself, but stay safe, okay? And keep this with you to remind you.”
He opened our hands to reveal the locket I was gripping tightly. I ducked my head and let him raise the twine over the mess of hair, around my slim neck.