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“Happy birthday!” Rory yelled.

I pulled the phone away from my ear, squinting. Did she have to be so loud? It was too early for that. I hadn’t even gotten a cup of coffee in me yet.

“Thanks . . . I think,” I grumbled.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did I wake you up?” Rory asked, not sounding sorry at all. Like a menace to society—that’s what she sounded like.

“Yes. Would it have been so bad to let me sleep a couple more hours?”

She laughed. “Seeing as you have your birthday dinner with your parents in about an hour, I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Wait a minute . . . dinner? In an hour?

“Rory...” I hesitated, pulling the blanket off my head. My long, dark red hair came with it, falling over my face. I hurriedly cleared it with my free hand. “What time is it?”

“It’s five o’clock, chica.” She was full-on belly laughing this time. “You slept all day.”

I sat up and looked at the clock on my desk. Yep, there it was, in glowing purple numbers. Shit.

“Hey, come open your front door,” she said. “I brought you coffee.”

“You are a goddess and I take back every evil thing I ever thought about you.”

I sprang out of bed. I was only wearing an oversized T-shirt, but I didn’t care. I ran through my tiny apartment and threw open the front door. Rory stood on the other side, holding a tray of Starbucks drinks and grinning from ear to ear, her large hoop earrings shaking in the breeze.

“I appreciate that.” She ended the call and walked past me to put the tray on the kitchen counter. “Now I get to tell you about the other part of your gift.”

“What other part?” I yawned and sank into a kitchen chair, scratching at my scalp. I needed to brush my hair, quickly, before it ate something.

“We’re on the list at Club Spice tonight,” she said, as if it were nothing.

I gaped at her, all yawns banished. This was even better than the coffee.

Club Spice was the new place in Boston on the harbor.

It was for the elitest of the elite, and it was practically impossible to get in without knowing someone.

I wasn’t much of a partier—no matter what my wake-up time today might suggest—but that place looked amazing.

I’d been drooling over the pictures on their website for weeks.

“How?” I nearly screeched at her. “And way to bury the lede!”

Rory took a sip from one of the cups and leaned against the counter.

“My cousin is deejaying there tonight. We have to help him set up or carry an amp or two, but whatever. Small price to pay for getting in that place. And for free .”

Rory danced in place, swaying her hips from side to side. I would have been doing the same thing if I hadn’t just woken up.

“Wow, that’s... amazing.” I continued to stare at her in shock. “That has to be the best birthday present ever.”

“Exactly, which is why you need to go have dinner with your family, then hightail it back here so we can go dancing.”

I jumped up and headed to my room to get dressed.

I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and threw on a pair of jeans, a shimmery silver bandana shirt, and a pair of sneakers.

With the addition of a pair of diamond studs, a simple necklace to match, and a cozy chunky sweater to avoid any awkward conversations with my parents, I was ready for both events.

I grabbed a pair of heels to change into later and gave myself a mental high-five.

Back in the living room, Rory was eating a bag of chips and watching a Grey’s Anatomy rerun.

“I take it you’ll be here when I get back?” I asked, heading toward the door.

She nodded. “Yeah, my roommate has a guy over.”

She waved her hand in the air at me, eyes still glued to the TV, as I went out.

It was only about a forty-five-minute drive from the city to my parents’ home in the mountains.

The stone manor I’d grown up in loomed over me as I pulled into the half-circle driveway.

The house was huge, and for good reason: it needed to house the entire wolf pack in a crisis, if necessary.

Beyond the large windows lay an immaculately kept interior; my mother had fallen headfirst into interior decorating and could give Martha Stewart a run for her money.

I headed for the dining room. Technically, I was about ten minutes late, so I imagined my parents were already sitting down to a wonderfully presented meal.

I was neither wrong nor disappointed. My mother sat at one end of the table with a glass of red wine.

At the other end sat my father, with an empty whiskey glass in front of him.

In the center of the table was a tray of chicken, bacon, and avocado flatbread pizzas drizzled with ranch dressing.

My stomach growled at the sight; I hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours.

I walked up behind Mom and kissed her cheek. She gave me an air kiss and patted the side of my head.

“Sorry I’m late, I... lost track of time.”

“We will forgive you this once”—my dad smirked—“seeing as it’s your birthday.”

I smiled at him, and he motioned for us to eat.

The dinner conversation was casual and informative as usual.

Mom talked about the interior design clients she’d had that week, projects she’d enjoyed.

Dad talked about an investigation for his department that had unfortunately led to a dead end, even with his wolf senses.

We talked about how everyone in the pack was doing.

Two members were due to give birth around the same time, and one of the younger men had voiced interest in challenging my father for his alpha position, which made me laugh.

The pack wanted to throw me a birthday party. Seeing as I had finals coming up in a week, they decided to wait until after the semester was over to celebrate, which I could appreciate.

After dinner, my parents sang “Happy Birthday” to me as Mom brought out a two-tier chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. I blew out the candles, excited to eat my piece of cake and meet Rory to hit the club. I could practically feel the club music vibrating on my skin when I took my first bite.

My father cleared his throat. I licked the frosting off my fork and looked at him. He held out a square, velvet-covered box.

“Olivia, this is for you. It has been in our family for generations.”

I opened it. It was a necklace: a silver wolf paw pendant set with a moonstone crescent and strung on a silver chain. The stone shone as if it were backlit. I touched it, tracing the shape with my fingers. I recognized it from the old pictures in my mother’s boudoir.

“This was your grandmother’s,” I said.

Mom nodded. “The Salem witches never forgot how we put our lives at risk to help them escape the trials. They infused the stone with their magic and gifted it to the Grayson pack. It’s supposed to give visions, but all it ever gave me was a headache. We were hoping you might have better luck.”

“ Visions ,” I repeated, looking down at the necklace. “Like... seeing the future?”

“Sometimes,” Dad said. “Sometimes it shows the past, or the answer your soul is searching for. Witch magic is... unpredictable when not controlled by a witch.”

“That’s intense,” I said.

My curiosity got the better of me; I unclasped the chain and put it on.

For a moment the cool metal hung heavy around my neck, and nothing happened.

Then I was no longer sitting at my parents’ dinner table but standing at an altar, wearing a white dress. Across from me was a man with dark brown hair, dressed in a suit, his face obscured. A priest stood between us.

“Do you take Olivia Jessica Grayson as your lawfully wedded wife?” the priest asked.

The man across from me nodded. “I do.”

The world around me tilted and I fell to the floor, my hands spread wide on plush, white carpet. I looked up to see another man I had never seen before, with dark brown hair and blue eyes. He had a strong jaw, and there was something about him that made my heart race.

The image slipped away and then I was looking at Rory—smiling back at me as we danced at Club Spice.

The church came back in a flash, and now a woman stood between me and the man who had said I do . She was saying something I couldn’t quite make out, as if someone had muted the scene.

A few more images crossed before me, but I couldn’t make sense of them. There was a baby boy with bright blue eyes, a close-up of a pen in my hand, and two wolves snarling at each other.

Then I was sitting in my seat again: Mom on my left, Dad on my right. They were watching me, patiently waiting for me to steady myself. My mother looked apologetic, but my father’s face lit up with joy and—if I wasn’t mistaken—pride. He grinned and reached over to pat me on the back.

“You handled that really well!”

I was busy regaining my breath, having apparently tried to hold it through the whole thing. In the future, I’d have to make sure to breathe.

“It’ll become easier in time,” Mom said, “so long as you continue to wear the necklace. It has to learn you – your soul, your path – for everything to make sense. It needs to tune into your wavelength or something along those lines.”

“So don’t take it off or I’ll have to go through all that again?”

My mother nodded.

“Duly noted.” I stood. “Well, thank you for the gift. I greatly appreciate everything. I have another birthday celebration to get to so I—”

“We have one more thing to talk to you about,” Dad said. He didn’t look happy.

“That sounds... ominous,” I said, sitting back down.

“Well... it’s about the pack and what we need from you in order to secure its safety.”

Okay, that really didn’t sound good. I looked from him to my mother, who looked even less happy.

“What’s going on, Daddy?”

“You know we have been having border issues in the north,” he said, “with the Ironborn pack.”

I nodded. The Ironborn territory bordered ours to the north, at the New Hampshire-Massachusetts state line.

Because our territory is so big, they think they can move onto Grayson land without us knowing.

Our packs fight over it constantly. Two years ago, a Grayson pack member died during one of those battles.

“Well, we’ve finally found a solution,” he continued. “If we can merge our packs, there will be no reason to fight any longer. So we’ve arranged for you to marry the Ironborn alpha’s son.”

I gaped at him, seriously hoping I had misheard him. Marriage? To a stranger?

“I’m sorry, what? You’ve . . . arranged my marriage?”

“Yes, honey. I’m sorry, but it was the best solution. Just think of the opportunities we’ll have with more wolves on board. And you’ll be the alpha female. Your mother and I have been training you for this your whole life.”

There was a loud buzzing in my head like a hive of angry bees had taken up residence between my ears.

Marriage? It was my twenty-first birthday, for crying out loud.

I was too young to get married, especially to a man I’d never met.

I shook my head and stood, using the table to steady myself.

My parents looked at me with concern in their eyes. I stared at my cake plate.

“I have to go,” I said. “I gotta... thank you for dinner and the gift and... for letting me know what’s going to happen, I guess. I—I’ll call you.”

I headed for the door. My parents called after me, but I kept walking. I couldn’t hear what they were saying anyway; the buzzing had gotten louder.