Page 2 of Primal (The Prey Drive #1)

Chapter 1

Noa

I never wanted to go back, and I thought my mother had agreed with me on this, but as it turns out, the notorious and powerful Thalassa Alderwood had every intention of one day coming home.

In one shape or another, she was always going to return to Fallamhain Pack territory. I just wish she had been the one to tell me this and not some estate attorney with a unibrow and a weird curly hair growing out of the tip of his nose. Grooming habits aside, Mr. Miller must be good at his job because my mother was the least trusting person I’ve ever met, and she bestowed him with some fairly important tasks. It was this lawyer, whose name I’d never once heard before, that not only oversaw the deed transfers of our beloved Victorian house and the apothecary to my name but was also the one who conveyed her final wishes.

Wishes I never saw coming.

Thalassa’s last earthly request was to be reunited with her long-passed mate. His remains have resided in the Fallamhain Pack cemetery since his death over two decades ago. The instructions left for me in her perfect cursive writing were that I spread her ashes over his grave. A sentiment I may have considered to be romantic—if not in a slightly morbid kind of way—under different circumstances.

“Are you sure you want to do this today?” Seren’s lyrical voice comes through my SUV’s speakers. It’s barely been an hour and a half since she watched me pull away from the house. “You’ve been putting this off for, what? Eight months now? No one would blame you if you needed more time. Hey! Halloween is in a couple weeks. Here’s an idea, come home and we can pop some googly eyes on her urn. Maybe a tiny hat. It was Thalassa’s favorite holiday. You know she’d get a kick out of us dressing her up one last time.”

At the mention of my mother’s urn, I risk taking my eyes off the winding Northern Idaho mountain pass to glance at the pewter vessel buckled into my passenger seat. Yes, I buckled my mother in. Safety first, folks. Don’t want her going through a windshield for the second time in a year, you know?

“We could have gotten her a matching costume with Ivey. Now that’s something Mom would have really enjoyed,” I allow myself to muse along with my best friend, a mere hint of a smile curving on the lip I’ve been relentlessly chewing on since I left the safe haven of my small Washington town. It still makes me sad that mom never got to meet Ivey. The baby was born almost three months after mom’s accident. Having to navigate a world without my mom and learning how to help take care of a newborn was a wild time for both Seren and me.

If there is something I’ve learned in these difficult months it’s that humor, no matter how dark or macabre, is the only way forward when dealing with deep, debilitating grief. If I hadn’t had Seren there to hold my hand and find the humor in the small moments with, I don’t think I could have made it through this horrific transition in life. The reality of losing the childlike naivety that your mom will always be a constant presence in your life is a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I never saw myself being a packless orphan at the age of twenty-five. Without Seren and her daughter, and the small community my mother has built for us in Ashvale, I would be facing the weight of the responsibilities left to me by Mom completely alone, and the thought of that is unfathomable. Handling the official day-to-day duties of our little shop, Potion & Petal Apothecary, is a lot to juggle all on its own, but to also take on the mantle of the less “legitimate” dealings we also secretly run through the business is enough to make me want to flee for the hills. I won’t, of course. Those dealings are vital for so many people, and while dangerous, it’s been my greatest honor to assist those in need of our help.

While the learning curve hasn’t been necessarily smooth and has more resembled being dropped into the deep end of the pool with my hands tied behind my back, I’m proud of the way both Seren and I have stepped into our new roles. I like to also believe Mom is pleased with the way we have been able to keep what she built flourishing.

At the mention of Seren’s five-month-old daughter, Ivey’s babbles echo through the vehicle’s speakers. “Yes! See? That’s the spirit. Even the baby’s into it. Thalassa loved a new outfit. Now, turn your cute little ass around and we can go shopping.” She’s trying hard to mask it with manufactured lightheartedness, but the distinct and sharp sound of Seren’s worry is hard to miss. “I think this is a much better plan. We can postpone your little quest for another day when we’ve had time to fully think this through.”

“Seren—”

“You should have at least waited for a day I could go with you instead of lone-wolfing-it. If you’d given me some notice, I would have asked Edie to babysit,” she interrupts before I can attempt to explain the rash decision-making. “I just really don’t like the idea of you going there alone, Noa.”

The drawn-out breath I exhale is to buy myself a little time and to calm the nerves that have been on fire since I first opened my eyes this morning. “If I waited any longer, I don’t think I ever could have done it. When I woke up, I just knew in my gut it needed to be today. It’s literally the last thing I want to do, but it’s also the last thing my mom asked of me, and I can’t let her down. For her I can do this. I can face this.”

I can face them , the pack who rejected and exiled me and my mother almost eight years ago.

And I guess when it comes down to it, that’s the real mystery at hand with this shitshow I’ve found myself in. Why in the ever-loving fuck would Mom insist on me going back to the Fallamhain Pack and asking their Alpha this favor knowing how we parted ways all those years ago? And why would she want to be officially laid to rest in soil owned by the very people who rejected her daughter for something out of her control.

Being a latent wolf shifter is obviously something I’d never choose for myself, but that didn’t matter to the pack Alpha. Alpha Fallamhain refused to allow a “weakness” like a latent wolf to be part of his pack. That’s what my mother explained to me the night she told me we had to leave the only home I’d known. That chaotic and fateful night is merely a blur in my head these days. Just vague memories from another life. Memories I try hard not to linger on due to the sharp pain they cause my suppressed wolf.

Seren knows this story and the history I share with my birth pack, and that’s why she’s upset I’ve decided to travel alone to the Fallamhain territory that’s nearly two hours away.

Is it the smartest thing I’ve ever done? Perhaps not, but it’s something I know I needed to do by myself. Which is what I told her this morning when she caught me walking out the front door with my homemade latte in one hand and the urn in the other. You know, just my everyday essentials.

My wolf had also fully agreed with my impulsive plan.

Being latent doesn’t mean I don’t have a wolf. It just means I can’t shift. For years, I tried to find a way to access the animal I share the very fibers of my soul with, but nothing I tried brought her forward. On the best of days, she’s a trapped beast pacing the impenetrable glass cage she’s confined to. On the worst days, she’s nothing more than a ghostly presence within my being. When I try to grasp her, she slips through my fingers as if made of smoke.

When I’d fully accepted today would be the day that I was brave, she had perked up more than she had in years. The closer I get to Silverthorne, Idaho—the town closest to where the pack resides—the more antsy my wolf within becomes. The more she bangs against those indestructible walls she’s trapped behind. I can’t think of another time she’s been this…present.

If I admitted to Seren how my wolf is feeling, I have no doubt it would only make her fight me harder. She knows how vast and devastating the disconnect between my animal and me is. Her knowing my wolf’s presence is amping up the closer I get to my old pack’s land would only aid her campaign for my immediate return home. Shit, if she were here and picked up on my heightened emotions with her charmer gifts, I just know that she-wolf would be scheming up a way to hogtie me and toss me in the back seat until I was home safe.

“I know you can face this. All I’m saying is you shouldn’t have to face it alone.” Seren’s tone takes on a somber cadence. “This is heavy, babe, and it’s a lot to take on. I just want to be there to support you. Or bite that bigoted Alpha on the dick tip— hard —if he doesn’t agree to let you spread Thalassa’s ashes.”

An image I haven’t conjured in years fills my mind and it instantly has my inner beast baring her teeth. Merritt Fallamhain. The long-standing Alpha of the largest pack in Idaho. It’s not the way he was a walking, talking wall of sinewy muscle or that he had a permanent scowl on his face that I remember best. It’s the coldness that lived in the pitch-black depths of his eyes. There wasn’t a hint of warmth in those obsidian orbs.

Knowing I will have to look into that chilling gaze today and beg for a favor I, by all accounts, am not entitled to as an exiled member of his pack has me wanting to pull over and purge my vanilla latte onto the side of this mountain road. But that would be a waste of precious espresso, and we don’t fuck around with caffeine in my house. That sweet nectar of the Goddess is sacred.

“While I continue to endlessly appreciate your colorful brand of unwavering support, Ser, I will be okay.” If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I’m trying to assure her or myself with those words. “I found the phone number for the Alpha’s assistant this morning. The woman who answered was shockingly kind and she assured me she’d squeeze me into the Alpha’s schedule. Which is more help than I was expecting. The way I see it, there’s two ways this can go. Option one, I have an awkward conversation with him. He tells me no and to get the hell out of his territory. Option two, some kind of blessing by the Goddess occurs and he agrees to my request. I spread Mom’s ashes and I’m back on the road home in a matter of hours.”

I don’t admit there’s a third option. One where I’m met with open hostility and somehow end up in a precarious situation. The harried way Mom rushed us out of the territory back then is the reason this last option is on the table. Most of my memories of that night may be hazy, but the way fear darkened her features is something I’ve never forgotten. In all my years at Mom’s side, I’ve never seen her react like that to anything else. And we’ve gotten into some sketchy-as-hell situations with our secret little operation.

The growl of frustration that comes from the woman who’s all but become my adopted sister since she showed up in our lives is downright animalistic. “Fine. I don’t like it, and I will be holding a grudge about it for the next five to seven business days, but fine,” she relents. “But just know, if you don’t text me the second you get through those gates and don’t provide me with adequate updates, I will drive there and drag you home.”

I can’t help but snort at this. “As if you’d interrupt Ivey’s naptime to drive to Idaho and get me.” The infant’s sleep schedule is inflexible and any disturbance to it is not tolerated in my dear friend’s book.

Seren scoffs so loudly I can visualize her powder blue eyes rolling in her head. “For you, I would. I’ll leave her with the coven if I have to. Those crones love fussing over her, and Ivey likes when Amara makes random shit float in the air. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

“Ah, yes, I’m sure the very powerful coven High Priestess and elementalist would love to hear you’ve relegated her gifts to ‘making shit float’.”

The High Priestess of the Ashvale Coven has long earned her position and our respect. The only person I’ve ever met more gifted than Amara was my very own mother. A feat not easily accomplished seeing as Mom wasn’t a full-blooded witch like the Priestess is. Wolf shifters born with magic in their blood are often called charmers. They are rare shifters who descend from a powerful coven of witches who mated with a pack of shifters about ten generations ago. The power from those unions still runs in their descendants’ blood. Often, it presents in miniscule ways, like basic scrying or surface-level healing, but in scarcer occasions, it presents as pure boundless power. The kind of power that can only be gifted by the Goddess herself. My mom was blessed ten times over with that kind of power.

In the end, it didn’t matter how much witch’s blood ran through her veins. It wasn’t enough to keep her here with me.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” I counter, smiling my first full smile of the day. “You and I both know you needed to stay and watch over Potion & Petal, anyway.” The second the apothecary’s deed was transferred into my name, I promoted Seren to an official leadership position. In my absence, there is no one else on earth I trust to leave in charge of our precious establishment. “We still don’t know if Nightingale is going to show up. Her call to the emergency line was cut off, but she sounded terrified. Someone needs to be there in case she finds her way to us.”

Nightingale. A code word Mom came up with for the little birds we take in and help. With all the things my mother could have used her vast power for, she chose to selflessly dedicate it to fighting the abuse and neglect that so many innocents face in the shadowy corners of our world.

Seren exhales a breath. “I know you’re right. One of us needs to be here to man the fort and keep everyone in line. I’ve been worried sick since I heard that call, too. Fingers crossed she makes it to the town borders on her own. Amara will know when someone passes her shields, and she or Lowri will alert us like they always do.”

I’m not sure how she did it, but Thalassa Alderwood managed to accomplish the impossible—convincing the famously reclusive and insular Ashvale Coven to join her secret endeavor. I watched her not only befriend the High Priestess but also persuade her to stand with us. In that moment, I swore there was nothing my mother couldn’t do. In my eyes, she became Goddess-like.

Amara believed in our cause, and once she committed, the rest of the coven followed. And with them came the all-female wolf pack led by Amara’s alpha wolf lover, Lowri Craddock. An alpha with a similar cause to ours who brings in females who have been exiled from their old pack or are running from something in their pasts but still long for the stability and sense of community that a pack can offer. A lot of our Nightingales end up joining the Craddock Pack when they leave us. being part of pack.

Their support is the backbone of everything we do. Without the assistance and safety the Ashvale witches and the Craddock Pack offer us, we wouldn’t be able to save half the people we do. Our sanctuary—our underground refuge—wouldn’t exist at all.

“Keep me updated. You know what to do if she makes it to our doors, and if she does, text me immediately. I’ll drop everything and head back.” Nothing is more important than a Nightingale. My mother instilled this in me and that’s why I know she’d understand if I had to further postpone finally laying her to rest. “I’m thankful for your fussing and your willingness to act as my savior on the off chance I need one, but I’ve got this. I promise I’ll be home soon. Love you! Kiss the baby for me!”

I end the call before she has a chance to try and talk me out of this. Again.

The rest of the drive, I can’t bring myself to turn on the radio or listen to my current audiobook. It’s just my restless wolf pacing her cage and a singular thought I keep repeating in my head that keep me company…

What the hell have you gotten me into, Mom?

“Someone will meet you in front of the house,” the young beta male on shift at the pack’s security shack instructs after handing me an obscenely bright yellow visitor’s tag to place on my dash. Nothing says you don’t belong like being branded with blinding neon. “I’ll call up there once you’re through the gates and tell Rhosyn you’re headed that way.”

Behind my dark sunglasses, I glance toward the familiar massive iron and pine gates. The last time I drove through them I was barely eighteen years old and was more confused and heartbroken than I’ve ever been in my life. Confronting the gates that literally and figuratively closed that chapter of my life brings forward the sorrow I thought I’d long since buried. My wolf, whose anguished howls join the thundering drumming of my heart, echoes my emotions.

“Okay, thank you for your help…” I trail off, realizing I’ve already forgotten what he introduced himself as when I’d pulled up.

“Danny,” he tells me with a kind, albeit noticeably wary smile.

Anticipating the worst, I braced as if I was going to get smacked in the nose when I had first rolled down my window to greet him. To my relief, Danny has shown no outward signs of disdain, only mild curiosity and caution. Both of which only appeared once I’d given him my name. Up until that point, I had been secretly clinging to the hopeful delusion that after spending nearly a decade away from this pack, my surname and the history associated with it would have dwindled into nonrecognition, but it appears the notoriety has lingered.

His lack of hostility does little to soothe my pent-up beast. My inner wolf doesn’t appreciate or take kindly to the attention of men. It’s been a mystery for as long as I can remember as to why she reacts like she does when in the presence of a male. Alpha or beta, she doesn’t discriminate. The only male I’ve been around who didn’t set her teeth on edge was a rare omega male I interacted with years ago. Her severe reaction to the male population has made dating a no-go and trust me, I’ve tried to push her on this. Latent or not, it’s not in a wolf’s nature to be alone. We are meant to find a mate. In the end, it just winds up causing us both immeasurable stress. After my last attempt, where I pushed her issue further than I ever had before and it ended in disaster, I gave up on the issue entirely. That was nearly four years ago.

“Danny,” I repeat, offering him a smile of my own. This pack may have rejected me, but I can’t find it in me to be rude in retaliation. Besides, it’s not like this young guard played a hand in my exile. He would have been a kid himself when it happened.

“Do you know where you’re going?” he asks. “If not, there are signs that’ll direct you back to the Alpha’s place. Just know, if you reach the gathering hall, you’ve gone the wrong way.”

My head bobs once as the nerves in my gut further twist into a knot. “Yes, I believe I remember enough to find my way there.”

Danny’s dark brows pinch, the curiosity in his gaze amplifying.

Yes, I’m who you think I am, buddy.

“Well, I hope you have a good rest of your shift. Maybe I’ll see you when I leave.”

His throat clears. “Yeah, maybe. Shift change is only three hours away, though, so probably not.”

I wave this off with a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, Danny, if I’m here longer than two hours that means something has gone terribly wrong. I’ll see you on my way out.” My promise is more to myself than to the guard. I will not stay in this territory longer than I absolutely must. With that, I dip my chin in goodbye as I roll up my window.

The imposing gates swing open when the front of my army green Jeep is about ten feet away. With one last steadying breath and a silent prayer to Mom, I drive into the place that was once my sanctuary.