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Wolf Blood

by Shona Husk

Chapter 1

Macey unfolded her spare pair of skinny jeans then hung them in the tiny closet space she’d been allocated in the shared cabin. The closet was musty as though one too many items of wet clothing had been hung in there over the years. At the last pack gathering she’d stayed with the other pups—kids who still hadn’t shifted. At seventeen she’d been the eldest and had been given pitying looks by kids and adults alike.

Back then she had hope that her change was just late.

Now at twenty-two she knew it was never coming.

She was a genetic reject. Wolf blood might run in her veins, but that was all it did. She was well past the age of even a hopeful late shift. There would be no painful prickling of sprouting fur or grinding of joints as her entire body shifted, only the lengthening of her teeth into pointed fangs. The partial shift marked her as a vampire.

Her status in her pack had changed with her failure.

Instead of being housed with her pack, and the other wolves, she’d been shunted off to be with the other vampires. She tried to view it as a good thing. For a start she was away from her family and pack—this could be the first step in moving away, second, she might find some new vampire friends who didn’t think she was pathetic.

It was better to be with her own kind—all she had to do was believe that was true.

With mechanical care she hung up her shirts. Outside the cabin people laughed and talked as they caught up with friends they hadn’t seen in the five years since the last gathering. She wasn’t ready to face her old friends, and see the looks in their eyes before they turned away as they realized she wouldn’t be joining them on midnight runs on four feet through the woods. She’d be learning how to fight and defend her pack instead.

Vampire. Bodyguard. Failure.

Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry anymore. When she’d started college she’d stopped hoping for a miracle and instead focused on getting her degree and finding a way to move on. But as long as she was living at home, she’d never be able to get past the disappointment in her parent’s eyes. Or that little bit of sadness when they left her at home and went into the forest for a run.

She finished putting away her clothes—she wasn’t living out of a bag for the whole gathering—then grabbed her sunglasses. Once she wouldn’t have bothered, but her eyes were more sensitive to light with each passing year. By the time she was forty sunlight would burn her fast. By the time she was sixty she’d truly be a night creature.

But her night vision had improved to the point where she didn’t need a torch in the dark. She was faster too. Able to outrun all of her pack, her soon to be old pack. Not that she’d spoken to her parents about her wish to move, but she was an adult it was about time she had an adventure and began living.

She could’ve studied mortuary science anywhere—her parents had been horrified with her degree choice, and in truth she’d selected it as a joke because of what she was—but stayed home because her parents hadn’t wanted her to leave.

So she’d helped with her siblings instead of finding her feet in a new pack and a new city. Instead of finding out who she was since she wasn’t a wolf. Now she chafed for more.

Maybe being a vampire wasn’t all bad. She never had to worry about the shifting energy rising with the full moon. And a little blood hunger was nothing that a rare steak couldn’t sate. She lifted her chin and slipped on a smile as though she was perfectly happy with her new place on the edges of pack life.

With luck there’d be a hot vampire to take her mind off things.

She opened the cabin door and stepped out into the daylight. Despite her sunglasses, the sunlight slicing through the trees made her squint. She went down the steps but didn’t know which group to go talk to. Two female vampires that were sharing the same cabin nodded, but she’d be spending time with them later. She needed to widen her circle…or create a new one.

On the other side of the central clearing were the girls—now young women—that she’d hung out with last time. They were wolves now and no doubt looking for a good match.

Vampires weren’t meant to become involved with wolves. Not that wolves were particularly interested in getting with vampires anyway, no one wanted to spread the dodgy genes around no matter how useful vampires might be in defending the pack.

She stepped onto the dirt and hesitated. This was like the first day of high school all over again.

Five years ago she’d been with the other teens waiting on their first change and full of hormones and angst. That summer everything had been possible. Except that she’d failed to get the guy she liked to kiss her because he was three years older, a werewolf and not interested in an unshifted teen.

No doubt he would be here, and no doubt he’d be sniffing around her former friends looking for a mate. Her cheeks heated at the thought of running into Owen again. She’d rather die than have him sneer and look away.

She tilted her chin and tossed her hair like she didn’t care what anyone else thought.

I am a vampire. I need the same haughty ‘can’t take me on’ attitude as the rest of them.

Then, like a coward, she slinked over to the vampires she was sharing a cabin with and pretended that she knew her place and was thrilled about never growing fur.

* * *

Owen noddedat whatever his cousin was saying, but he hadn’t been listening to a word Ben had said since he’d seenherwalk out of the cabin. It had been five years since he’d seen her. Five years since she’d walked up to him and dared him to kiss her.