Chapter 1"Kenna, get in the car!" My mother bellowed from the driver's seat.
"We need to leave now if we want to reach Moonridge Estate before moonrise!"
"Mom, our SUV is too small. Where the heck am I supposed to sit with all this stuff in the back?"
It was our yearly pilgrimage to the Silvercrest Pack's sacred grounds — Moonridge Estate — where I'd complete my Coming of Age Ceremony.
Like always, my paranoid mother liked to over-prepare. Not just over-prepare. She packed like she was personally responsible for surviving a full-scale Rogue invasion.
The entire back of our modified SUV was crammed with clothes, food, silver daggers, wolfsbane antidote vials, moonstone amulets, pack relics for the ceremony — and, somehow, an absurd amount of toilet paper.
"Hmm." A stern voice came from behind me. "It's true we've got too much gear. Maybe Kenna's right. Let's leave some things at the house and—"
"Absolutely not!" Mom shot back.
"If we're going on an eight-hour drive through three different territories, I want us prepared for everything. What if we get ambushed by Rogues on neutral ground? What if there's a territorial dispute and we can't reach the pack?"
That was my mother being paranoid again.
I turned around.
It was Kodiak Silvercrest — Alpha of the Silvercrest Pack. My mother's Chosen Mate.
Lean and muscular, dark brown hair catching the early morning light, those intense hazel eyes that occasionally bled gold when his wolf pushed close to the surface. It was genuinely hard to believe this man was in his early thirties.
Mom must have done something incredible in a past life to have bonded with a wolf like him.
I'd lost count of how many times I'd been caught staring at him — at pack gatherings, at territory meetings, at the dinner table. I always looked away too late. And I hated that I always looked away too late.
Worse were the wolves who mistook him for my mate. The way their eyes would flick between us — his height, his build, that Alpha presence that made the air feel heavier when he walked into a room — and then land on me with that knowing look.
It was embarrassing. Obviously.
That's what I told myself, anyway.
"How about you two just go without me," I suggested, keeping my voice steady. "I'm eighteen. I've completed my First Shift. I'm more than capable of protecting the house on my own."
"There's no way you're staying behind, Kenna," Mom answered immediately.
"This is your Coming of Age Ceremony. It's tradition. Every wolf in our bloodline has done this for three generations. Who knows if we'll ever get another chance to do this together?"
I heaved out a long sigh.
I'd lived with her long enough to know: once her mind was made up, it was made up. Arguing was just burning daylight.
"If you don't clear out some of this gear," Kodiak said, his voice shifting into that quiet, authoritative Alpha register — the one that didn't need to be loud to land, "Kenna will barely have room to breathe back there. I don't want my little pup uncomfortable for eight straight hours."
Mom paused.
That's the thing about having an Alpha in the house. He didn't have to raise his voice. He didn't have to repeat himself. He just had to say it — and something in the air changed. Even the most headstrong she-wolves felt the pull of it.
Mom was no exception. Nobody was.
I was certainly no exception — though I'd spent the better part of two years pretending otherwise.
"Here's an idea then," Mom said, the gears visibly turning. "How about Kenna sits in the back with you, Kodiak? Problem solved."
A beat of silence.
"Sit in the back with me?"
His voice had gone very carefully neutral. Too carefully.
I knew that tone. That was the tone of a wolf who had just done a very quick calculation and wasn't letting anyone see the result.
Why did he agree so fast?
The thought flickered through my mind before I could stop it. I pushed it down.
It didn't mean anything.
It couldn't mean anything.
Chapter 2
Kodiak frowned. "Are you kidding? Haven't you been listening to a word I said?"
"No, you're not understanding what I mean," Mom shot back, completely unbothered. "All we have to do is move some gear to the passenger seat so you have room to sit. Then Kenna can sit on your lap and everything works out perfectly."
"Hold on—" His voice went flat. "You want her to sit on my lap? Why can't she sit on yours?"
"Because I'll be the one driving."
"The hell should you drive for? It's my pack's sacred grounds we're traveling to."
"And?" Mom's eyes didn't even flicker. "Kodiak, whenever you're behind the wheel, I don't feel safe. Who knows if you'll pull another stunt like last time."
"THAT HAPPENED ONE TIME."
I remembered that day.
Last year, during our supply run through Pine Ridge territory, Kodiak had been at the wheel on a long stretch of empty road. He'd decided — apparently on impulse, apparently without consulting anyone's nervous system — that it would be fun to floor it.
The burst of speed had launched Mom and me clean out of our seats.
It lasted maybe four seconds.
Mom had been bringing it up ever since.
"Fine," Kodiak said, something in his jaw ticking. "Fine. I'll sit in the back with Kenna. But don't make this any more uncomfortable than it needs to be. You hear me?"
"Um, excuse me," I cut in. "Shouldn't I get a say in this?"
They both looked at me.
It was the specific look of two people who had already reached an agreement and were only now remembering I existed.
I decided it wasn't worth the fight.
But the thing was — the thing was — I couldn't stop turning it over in my head. Kodiak had given in fast. Too fast. He never conceded this easily. Not on anything. The man had once spent forty-five minutes arguing with Mom about which route to take through Crescent Moon territory, on a trip he didn't even care about. His Alpha pride didn't allow for quick surrenders.
So why this one?
Why now?
I shoved the thought aside and climbed into the back, settling my weight over his thighs. Pulled the car door shut behind me.
Mom started the engine.
I shifted my hips, trying to find a position that wasn't — God, anything that wasn't this. My light summer dress was doing absolutely nothing for me. The fabric was thin. His jeans were not. I could feel every line of muscle in his thighs, the coiled, contained strength of them, and underneath that, the heat.
Werewolf heat. Not like sitting next to a warm fire. Like sitting next to something that burned.
"Kenna." His voice came low, right at my ear, with an edge in it I didn't entirely recognize. "You're moving too much. Stay still."
I went still.
"Sorry," I managed. "It's just — uncomfortable."
A quiet exhale against the back of my neck.
"That's odd." The words came slow, almost like he was choosing them carefully. "You didn't say that when you were younger. I remember you used to love sitting on my lap."
My face went hot. Fast.
"T-That was a long time ago."
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to answer. I could feel the slight tension in his thighs beneath me — the way his breathing had gone just a fraction too controlled, too deliberate, the way an Alpha's breath goes when he's keeping something leashed.
I stared out the window and watched the pack's territory roll past in the early morning grey, and I told myself — firmly, clearly, in no uncertain terms — that I was not going to think about why he'd agreed so fast.
I was going to sit here. Be normal. Not think about the heat of him soaking through my dress.
Just a long car ride, I told myself.
Eight hours.
Easy.
Chapter 3
"I—I'm eighteen now!" I said, hating how my voice cracked on it. "I've had my First Shift! I deserve to be treated like an adult wolf, not some—"
"Not going to happen, little one."
His voice came low and unhurried, that deep Alpha rumble that didn't need volume to carry weight. It moved through his chest and into my spine, and my wolf — traitor — went quiet and warm at the sound of it.
"You'll always be my pup," he said. "Whether you like it or not."
His arms wrapped around my waist.
Not loosely. Securely. Like something slotting into place. Like a wolf folding itself around the one thing it had decided, on some wordless level, it was not going to let go of.
My cheeks were burning. I was acutely, mortifyingly aware of how I must have looked — curled against his chest like a pup who'd fallen asleep at a pack gathering, too small and too young and too held to pretend otherwise.
Embarrassing, I told myself. This is embarrassing and nothing else.
But Kodiak's body was warm. Not the ambient warmth of another person sharing your space. Werewolf heat — that deep, banked, constant thing, like sitting against a hearthstone that had been burning for hours. It soaked through my dress and into my skin and settled somewhere behind my sternum, and my body, without asking my permission, decided it liked it there.
It felt right.
I hated that it felt right.
Mate, my wolf murmured, so soft I almost missed it. Ours.
No. I shut that down fast. He's Mom's Chosen Mate. That's what he is. That's all he is.
But even as I thought it, I was cataloguing things I had no business cataloguing. The way he smelled — pine and cold rain and something underneath that I didn't have a name for, something darker and more specific, something my wolf recognized before my conscious mind could. The way his heartbeat was steady and slow against my back, the way his arms stayed around me even after I'd stopped squirming.
The way my wolf wasn't just purring.
She was pressing forward, nose to the glass, cataloguing him the way she'd catalogue a mate's scent at a Bonding Ceremony. Proprietary. Certain.
I spent the next hour staring out the window while Mom and Kodiak argued about whether we should've taken the northern route through Crescent Moon lands. I let their voices wash over me and tried to think about literally anything else.
It didn't work.
Mom doesn't deserve a wolf like him. The thought surfaced before I could stop it, ugly and selfish and true. How does she even have him? How does someone like her end up bonded to someone like—
I stopped myself.
That wasn't a door I was going to open.
At some point — I wasn't sure when — the argument died out, the road smoothed, and exhaustion won. My eyes went heavy. His warmth pulled me under. I told myself I'd just rest for a moment.
I was asleep inside of five minutes.
I came back to consciousness slowly, the way you do when the car stops and your body notices before your brain does.
The engine was off. The road noise was gone.
My eyes opened to a rest stop — rundown, fluorescent-lit, the kind that exists in the dead middle of nowhere on roads that go through territorial no-man's-land. Neutral ground, technically. No pack markings on the signage. The sky outside was the flat grey of mid-morning.
Through the window, I could see Mom at the pump, talking to a Sentinel in border-patrol colors.
Beneath me — still, warm, breathing — was Kodiak.
Someone had put a blanket over me. Him, probably. I didn't let myself think about that too long.
I shifted slightly, intending to settle back in and go back to sleep —
And then I felt it.
My body went completely still.
Oh.
Oh no.
