Wolf Alphas of Cedar and Smoke

Chapter One

Hazel

Pausing with my hand on the doorknob of our apartment, I took a long, deep breath and steeled myself for the worst or for the best. Either had the potential to be terrifying.

My father could be having a good day. Maybe he’d gotten some groceries or decided to clean up his mess or sleep in the bed instead of wherever he passed out.

Or today could be a bad one. And those horrors ranged from urine and vomit to shady friends to rage and anger. I hated the surprises of my everyday life, but until I got enough money to run away, this was where I was stuck.

What I walked into made me tremble in the most uneasy way.

The apartment was immaculate. The smell of a lemon cleaner I didn’t know we owned burned the inside of my nose and brought tears to my eyes. The furniture had been moved. The dingy carpet still held the stains of years of tenants, but there were lines along the edges. Someone had vacuumed.

Oh, goddess, I hoped he hadn’t found another girlfriend. They lasted as long as a lit cigarette and usually tried to be a mother to me.

I was twenty years old, for crying out loud. I’d lasted this long without a mother. I certainly didn’t need one who was strung out and was one of my dad’s drug buddies.

He had plenty of those already.

I put my bag down and took off the apron from my job at the local diner. Not my dream career, but it helped pay the bills with enough left over to afford ingredients for scent blockers. I’d formulated them myself after figuring out which herbs and scents threw everyone off the fact I was an omega.

My father knew. A few close, trusted friends, but that was it. I wasn’t one of those who went to omega facilities or schools to learn how to be a good mate to a pack. I wanted none of that.

Men and trust didn’t go hand in hand for me. No one wondered why.

I pulled the container from my pocket and rolled some of the homemade oil on my wrists and at my omega glands on my neck just in case. My nose picked up someone else. I didn’t know if they were present or if they had already gone, but either way, my own safety was paramount.

“Dad?” I called out, taking in the fact that someone had dusted and opened the curtains. No answer.

The kitchen held surprises more terrifying than the clean space. My favorite Salisbury steaks with mushroom gravy simmered in a slow cooker on the counter. A pot of warm rice was on the stove. Dishes were done.

Raspberry tea and a small chocolate cake were in the fridge alongside the condiments.

I didn’t even realize we owned a slow cooker, and my dad hadn’t made that for me since my twelfth birthday. I’d come home from school crying after I’d gotten my first period and the nurse asked me to call my mother before checking my file.

Instead, I had to call my dad.

That was before the drugs. Before he stopped coming home some nights. The times when he held down a job and made dinner, watching baseball with a beer in his hand the only vice he had.

Sometime after that, he hurt himself at work. Then came recovery. And the pain pills. That avalanched into what we called our life now.

I grabbed my bag from by the front door, stashed it under the window in my room, and laid out a pair of jeans and my favorite sweater along with my blockers and a pair of socks. I put my shoes next to all of it.

I usually did that before I went to sleep, but tonight, danger was in the air. Maybe it was my omega instincts. Perhaps a touch of paranoia.

In my room, after changing out of my waitress uniform, I put on sweatpants and a T-shirt. The nights were getting colder, but I was running hot for some reason. A quick check of my heat suppressant meds reassured me I hadn’t missed one.

Huh. I slipped on a pair of socks, intending to go eat the food my father prepared, when I heard the front door cry as it opened. A warning that made me shudder and goose bumps break out all over my body.

The scents of alphas, rotten apples, and mildew replaced the lemon and dinner smells.

Alphas. Plural.

My father used to smell like oak and leather to me. Now, he had the tang of drugs and the slow, festering wound smell of addiction. It clung to him and his clothes and the walls of this place.

Slowly, my instinct told me to put my purse into my backpack. I followed my omega instincts. I had read everything online and in books once I realized my designation since my mother was out of the picture and, other than my friends, I had no older figure to go to for advice.

The male voices grew louder, and I heard the door close. My father called out, but I stayed in my room, not answering. He didn’t know my schedule. Couldn’t be sure I was home and, thanks to my concoctions, my scent was present but the omega part was hidden.

“You said she would be here.” The voice shook the walls and the ceiling. No. No, that was me. The voice vibrated in my bones. A warning.

“She will be.” My father’s voice trembled.

“She’d better be. You sold her to us. This is the only way we’re forgiving all the debt you’ve run up, James.”

I froze in place, processing the words. No. I hadn’t heard that right.

“I know. I swear she will be home soon and then you can take her. She won’t put up a fight. She’s a good girl.”

My brain flicked on my fight or flight, and the latter won. I was a good girl. Did what I was told. Kept my head down because of my designation and because it kept me out of the affairs of my father and the activities in the hellhole we lived in.

That ended tonight.

I would never be sold to anyone. At any time. Another layer of hatred blanketed the other ones as I made up my mind.

I turned around slowly and eyed the setup I’d made out of premonition. Survival.

Since I’d perfected silence, I opened the window, bag in hand, looked back at my room one more time, and told my things goodbye. My clothes. My possessions. My pathetic excuse for a nest—the best I could put together. And one little wooden box of handwritten cards.

And then I ran for my life.