Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel Read online

  I snorted, hopping down from the stool.

  “Hey,” Clay barked, snagging me by the arm. “Give me your keys.”

  I frowned at him. “I wasn’t going to drive, anyway.”

  “Then you won’t mind handing them over.”

  Grumbling to myself, I drew them out of my pocket and tossed them to him. He and I both knew that two fingers of Jack weren’t enough to really impair my driving. Shifters burned that shit off at least five times faster than mortals. It’d be out of my system in less than twenty minutes. But it was one of his many rules, and breaking them had never worked out in my favor.

  “Tell Vivian not to wait up if she’s tired,” Destiny called after me, taking my emptied glass from the bar. “Kyle’s on security tonight so I shouldn’t be too late, but you know how she gets when she’s over-tired.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  I’d known Vivian for most of my life. She was one of my best friends, and at first, it’d been hard to share her with Destiny, but there truly wasn’t anything that could keep a mated pair apart. Besides, they were so happy that I wouldn’t have dared try. Even if Destiny could be one of the most filterless, abrasive people I’d ever met when the mood struck her.

  “I’ll tell her.”

  The half-drunk customers lifted their beers to me as I left, and I offered them both a nod. I didn’t play a massive role in any of our pack-run businesses, but I was sure that by the way my pack regarded me in public, the general population of Forest Grove probably thought I was some kind of Queenpin.

  I chuckled darkly to myself as I made my way down the street toward where the sidewalk ended. If only they knew that I spent the first two—no, really the first three—years in my role as alpha, stumbling through day to day.

  I’d had no idea what I was doing, and if I hadn’t had Jared and Clay and the others to guide me, I was one hundred percent sure I would have royally fucked something up by now. As it was, we were all still here. Still alive. Wealthier than we’d ever been. More at peace than we’d ever been. And somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like I was trying to shove my foot into a shoe that didn’t fit.

  I made my way wistfully past my Chevelle, cursing myself that I forgot to get my books out of the passenger seat before giving the keys to Clay. I supposed I could wait another day to read them. It was better than going back in there now and would only serve to give Clay two opportunities to take the keys from me in front of staff and customers. The bastard.

  Taking a quick look around the immediate area, I made sure there wasn’t anyone watching as I slid from the edge of the concrete and into the tree line. My wolf awoke at the scent of damp earth and warm pine, making my skin bristle and a little rumble quake in my chest.

  I cracked my neck, moving to our spot further in to be sure I was away from any prying eyes before stripping down to my birthday suit. I crudely folded the clothes and set my boots atop them, shoving the leaves and bramble away from the nook between the tree and midsize boulder to tuck them inside.

  My clothes from the last time were still in there, and I’d have to remember to come and fetch them before my whole damned wardrobe ended up here.

  I carried them home sometimes in my mouth, but they usually ended up with holes that way. I’d need to remember to bring my pack if I wanted to get them back to camp.

  Replacing the branches over our makeshift locker, I cracked my neck again and took off at a run, pounding my bare feet against the earth as my wolf took hold. When I was first changed, the transformation was painful. Excruciating. The first couple of times it had taken hours. Now, I could shift between one footfall and the next with only a split second of agony that was easy enough to endure.

  I launched forward, giving over that part of myself that would allow my wolf to be free. She took the reins, bursting out from within me with a snarl. Our twin tails bobbed behind us as she carried us swiftly toward home. Once, she’d felt like a separate entity from me. Like a force I could neither control nor understand.

  Even though her instincts didn’t always align with mine, I knew now that we were one. She was merely an extension of me. A shadow self that ran on primal instinct and raw emotion instead of logic and limits.

  I luxuriated in the feel of the cool, shaded breeze running through channels of our black and silver fur, giving us a reprieve from the scorch of the sun.

  The borders of our land now extended far beyond the boundaries of Forest Grove, encompassing two other pack territories that had been absorbed into ours during the battle of the Four Corners before I ever became alpha. But the border I crossed now was the border of our pack camp.

  The inner ring. One of three that always had a constant patrol.

  We didn’t anticipate any attacks. Only a fool would try something against what was now one of the largest packs in the US. Though if I’d learned anything from the time I was bitten by my psychotic ex-boyfriend until now, it was that you could trust no one. That when you feel you’re the most safe, is often when you’re the most in danger.

  My ears pricked as another wolf approached from the west, and my wolf recognized them as pack. I slowed as they approached, my sides heaving from the long sprint. Layla came into view a moment later, her all-black wolf offset with a starburst of silvery fur on her forehead and socks to match. Her trademark jasmine scent clung to her even in wolf form.

  Seth was only a few seconds behind, loping up to greet me with his long tongue lolling out to one side.

  They were dating now. Had been for a few months, and even though Layla was one of my best friends along with Vivian, I couldn’t say I saw it coming.

  Where Layla was quiet, reserved, and preferred to dress in all black to match her long dark hair and near-black eyes, Seth was the complete opposite. With hazel eyes often set in a mischievous stare, and a loud ass personality.

  A case of opposites attract, I supposed.

  Did you leave the Chevelle in town? We didn’t see it on the way past the garage, her voice slipped into my mind as her wolf cocked its head.

  I did. Had a drink at Grove’s End, so...

  Clay take your keys? Seth butted in, bumping my shoulder with his as he stalked around me playfully, making me skid to one side to avoid his snapping jowls.

  You good, Allie? Layla asked before I could answer, and I was reminded just how well my besties knew me even if we didn’t have a mate bond allowing us to sense one another’s emotions. Truly, I’d all but put the encounter with the witch out of my mind, but the lingering aftereffects of it kept my muscles taut and strained.

  I’d expect the inquisition from Vivian, but Layla would let it go.

  Yeah, you guys should get back to your patrol. Is Jared back yet?

  No, Seth replied. But I talked to him earlier. He said he’d be back in time for the festivities.

  I gave Seth a nod and looked north toward camp. How are they settling in, do you know?

  They’ve already started work on their cabin, Layla told me. A bunch of the pack are helping, including Viv and the guys, so they should have it built within the week.

  Some of the weight lifted from my shoulders at that, and I let out a relieved chuff. If Viv is on it, I doubt it’ll take more than a few days, I joked. With her barking orders, no one would be getting any breaks.

  Come on, babe, move that cute tush, we have work to do.

  Seth snapped at Layla’s behind, making her yip before they took off to continue their rounds. No doubt Seth had orchestrated it so that they could take the earlier shift and not miss the party. He never missed an opportunity to feast and drink. Ever.

  The new shifters we were welcoming tonight were from a pack further to the south. They’d been forced out by their alpha when they mated. It was the same old story. Once word spread that we were accepting of same sex mated pairs in our pack, they started seeking us out.

  Four mated pairs had joined us already over the last four years and that was a lot, considering how few shifters remained. The fa
ct that they couldn’t procreate was the reason given when their alphas forced them to blood out, but I knew better. They were backward thinking asshats with antiquated principles who wouldn’t understand the concept of love even if it got them by the jugular.

  This new couple had it rough, though. One of them, Callum, was a freshly turned wolf, and their alpha mangled him when he blooded them out, going for the face instead of the usual shoulder, arm, or leg that inflicted less damage and left a less noticeable scar.

  I’d have been pissed too if I knew I was going to lose a shifter as strong and able as Archer when he mated to Callum, but that was his choice to cast them out...and there was no excuse for that sort of behavior. If they hadn’t come over two-hundred miles to be here, I’d go show him exactly what I thought of his barbaric methods.

  Shifters healed quickly, and often without scarring. The only thing that did scar us was a bite from another wolf. Something in the venom prevented proper healing, hiding away beneath the tissue and lingering there, keeping the scars from ever truly healing.

  I had several of my own I would bear for the rest of my life, and I knew that if I held the position of alpha, there would be a great many more to come.

  Just like Seth and Layla said, there was a small crew hard at work on the new cabin at the edge of the massive clearing. Soon, we’d have to clear more forest if the pack kept growing.

  Viv waved as she saw me pass, her short blonde hair catching the last rays of the sun before it would slip down below the trees. She stopped for only a second before spinning to bark more orders at her small group of conscripted helpers. The newbies waved too, nervously, and with smiles that were too broad and didn’t reach their eyes.

  They were nervous. Didn’t know what to think of me. Of how I ran my pack. They would see soon enough that they were more than welcome and the only things I expected from those under my command, other than their loyalty, was for them to pull their own weight and not start shit with other pack members. That was it.

  I shifted back at the sliding door to the rear of the cabin I shared with Clay and Jared. Even after four years, I preferred being naked without an audience, though it didn’t bother me much when the need arose anymore. Not like it used to.

  “Do you think they’ll like chocolate chip or peanut butter better?” Grams asked as I slid the door closed, unsurprised to find her baking in my kitchen. It was the only one with a working oven. We’d have sprung for her to have one in her own cabin, but I think she liked the excuse to come by just as much as she liked to bake. “Or should I just do a cake?”

  “If they’re anything like the rest of us, they’ll eat whatever you want to make.”

  When it came to Hazel’s baking, we didn’t discriminate. For an old blind woman, she really knew what she was doing.

  “Hmph,” she grunted, pulling out the ingredients for both kinds of cookies like I’d suspected she would. No matter how many she made, they’d all be gone by morning.

  “You see my grandson today?”

  “Yep. He’ll be by for the welcoming ceremony before he goes on patrol.”

  “Good,” she huffed. “Between that damned bar and him patrolling every night and sleeping all day, I never see him.”

  “You and me both, Grams.” I slid past her to grab a drink from the fridge, going for the cold brew. She brushed my shoulder and stilled, turning on hobbling legs to yank my hand away from the handle on the fridge door and pull it into hers.

  She squished my hand between her palms and then turned it face up as though she could see the lines in the surface of my skin with her milky white eyes. I knew what she would see, or sense more like.

  Grams had been blind since birth and that affected the senses of her wolf when she made the transition. Heightening them in a way that allowed her to glimpse emotions and snippets of the past and present events that spurred them.

  “Who was it?” she asked, tilting her head. Her long gray braid shifted behind her shoulder as she stared at me, unseeing. There was no sense in lying to her. Never was.

  “A witch,” I told her, gently pulling my hand away from her grasp. “I sent him away. He won’t be back.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Don’t mention it to the guys?”

  Her hands went to her hips, and I could already anticipate the talking to I was about to get and rolled my eyes. “Look,” I added before she could get a word in. “If he comes back, I’ll tell them. There’s no reason to worry them over nothing. Deal?”

  “What did he want?”

  “A meeting. With someone from the Arcane Council.”

  Her expression soured. It was a truth universally known and acknowledged that the witches didn’t exactly get along with the other three races. They hadn’t ever since the original voyagers left their veiled homeland of Emeris and sailed to the mortal lands.

  Ancient history if you asked me, but old grudges died hard it seemed.

  “I don’t like it,” she replied, clucking her tongue before turning back to her task at the counter with a flustered blush in her pale cheeks.

  I patted her on the shoulder as I passed. “Save me a few chocolate chips before they’re all spoken for?”

  A grunt was her only reply as I went to get ready for the night ahead, a new kind of anxiety taking root next to the other one still blooming. A sense that something was coming. Something out of my control. Maybe it was just the visit from the witch putting me off, but my gut hadn’t ever been wrong before.

  3

  Clay still wasn’t back from Grove’s End.

  It was full dark now, and Jared had returned an hour ago, though he was still in the cabin getting ready. I liked a good hot shower as much as the next person, but he liked to drain every drop out of the hot water tank. Good thing I’d already showered before he got home from the quarry.

  “Have you seen Clay yet?” I asked Viv as she came over to sit next to me, passing me a beer I wasn’t sure I could stomach, but I took anyway.

  Though the bonfire warmed my skin and baked the fronts of my jeans, there was a coldness within that had me hunching, arms tucked in against it. I hadn’t been able to shake it for hours.

  She frowned and shook her head. “Why? His patrol isn’t for another couple hours.”

  “No reason. Just thought he’d be back by now.”

  Viv narrowed her eyes at me but didn’t pry for once. I drew my phone out of my pocket and fired off a text to set my mind at ease.

  Allie: Have you left yet?

  When my phone didn’t ping with a reply straight away, I clutched it tighter as though willing a reply message to appear.

  I’d checked to make sure the witch hadn’t followed me to Grove’s End. My eyes had been glued to the rear-view in the Chevelle just as much as they were on the road. And I hadn’t picked up his scent anywhere around the pub when I left.

  He left town, I reassured myself.

  I turned him down so he had no reason to hang around. With a resigned sigh, I put the red cup to my lips and sipped the frothy beer, my head a million miles away.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  I blinked, almost having forgotten Viv was there.

  “You guys fighting or something?”

  I chuckled a little at that. It wouldn’t have been unheard of if we were. Clay and I had some of the most epic arguments. He once slept outside in his wolf form for an entire month when he was pissed at me. But he never left pack camp, and he slept only a stone’s throw from the cabin, unable to stay too far away.

  “Nah,” I told her. “Just on edge today.”

  “What is it? The new recruits?”

  My phone pinged a moment later, and I fumbled to lift it, thumbing the screen to life to view the message.

  Clay: I already grabbed your books from the car, woman. Chill. Leaving now.

  I sat up and tucked my phone away, taking a longer swallow of my beer this time. “Nah. Everything’s good.”

  “Want me to get everythin
g set up? We should start soon.”

  “Thanks Viv.”

  “No problem, Allie cat,” she said with a wink, rising to clear a space and fill the ceremonial bowl Layla had bought for the pack a couple years back with whiskey.

  The brass combined with the amber liquid that reflected the flames from the roaring bonfire made the drink look like liquid fire. It was such an archaic tradition, but at least blooding in a new pack member was less barbaric than blooding them out. I’d only had to release two shifters since I became alpha four years ago. And they only left because they mated to shifters from other packs whose alphas wouldn’t release them to join us.

  Someone had to be the bigger person, but the fact that it seemed it always had to be me got old.

  The screen door of our cabin clattered shut, and I turned to find Jared bounding down the steps, his dirty blonde hair still damp from the shower. His toned chest and abs glistened from the flicker of the firelight as he strode toward me in only a pair of low hanging gym shorts that left nothing to the imagination.

  His smile radiated the warmth I felt as my inner wolf felt him draw near, banishing the rest of the coldness from my bones.

  I shuddered as he settled himself onto the arm of my chair, snaking a hand through my hair to brush over the back of my neck. Like he always did, Jared swept the immediate area before leaning down to press his lips to mine. Where Clay was all hard edges—the darkness that harbored my moon—Jared was the complete opposite. He was my sun.

  He was warmth and comfort. A steadying presence that I could always count on no matter what.

  His hand tugged lightly at my hair, tipping my head back more so that he could sweep in with his tongue and steal my breath away from my lungs.