The baker gives enough bread to last us two months for the assortment of mushrooms and wild nuts I find for her. The butcher inside the tiny grocery store has a long-standing arrangement with me. I bring him the rudimentary oils I make from mountain ginger and willow bark to help with the ache in his hands throughout winter better than the medicines his doctors prescribe. In exchange, I get my pick of seconds cuts, hard cheeses, and the candies he always throws in for my sisters.

I scored big for today’s bounty. It isn’t like those usual exchanges. When I snuck into town last week, I heard there’d be a market passing through. I had to make a second trip today for the chance to get rarer things I don’t usually have access to in Ashbury.

I rely on the supplies I’m able to barter from anyone outside, because if I counted on my own pack, we’d be dead by now. The measly allotment of meat distributed weekly by the kitchens is hardly enough to sustain the three of us. I learned that within days of being forced out of our family home at the heart of the pack. After our father’s transgression led to his death by the alpha’s hand, we had to move to the crumbling cottage we live in.

With the coil of wire I secured today, I should be able to finally splice the feeble electricity from an outbuilding near the cottage to run a line to the ice box in the back that’s been dead for years. If I can get it running, it will make our stored food last so much longer. Most of the other cabins and buildings in the pack have electricity. The fanciest, like the Alpha’s lodge and other high-ranking families in good standing, have even more amenities.

I check the contents of my satchel are secure before spotting a lucky find this late in the season twining along a vine climbing the thick tree root. I slip a pair of garden shears I stole from the deep pockets of my green, knee-length coverall dress and brush back strands of light brown hair dangling over my shoulder.

Despite the chill in the air, a shifter’s body temperature always runs warmer. I’m comfortable enough in the dress and short-sleeved shirt beneath.

Crouching down, I admire the tall, bristly appearance of the purple flower shoots blooming on the liatris plant. I have some left from the ones I’ve picked throughout the summer, but I can always use more to help with my youngest sister Lena’s sore throats in the colder months. Once it’s cut, I tie it so it dangles upside-down from the side of my bag as I continue picking my way through the woods.

It’s not much further to the border designating pack territory. There was a time when I could come and go as I pleased rather than sneaking around like this, same as anyone else in the pack. I’d leave the mountain to visit other packs, like my aunt in Timber Hollow Pack, especially after she became the only other family I have besides my sisters. The freedom only lasted through the last couple of years of the previous alpha’s reign, before his son took over as the current alpha. Since then, rules in the pack have grown stricter.

I’m nearly back, undetected as always. It’s lucky the usual patrol schedule isn’t something I have to worry about today, so it’s easy to cross the pack border without worrying about evading someone like Liam Jennings, head of pack security. He’s a stickler for obeying the rules. I’ve learned it’s best to remain unnoticed by anyone in this pack.

A twig snaps. I stifle a gasp, ducking into a circle of bushes to blend in with my surroundings. Straining my ears, I sag in relief when it’s not anyone from Silver Falls, only a deer. I watch it nose at the ground. It lifts its head, ears perked, swiveling in my direction, then behind it. Once it moves on, I linger for another moment, enjoying the sound of the trees rustling.

This is my happy place. Well, this has become my happy place that I’ve discovered for myself. Being in nature, not living in this pack.

That happiness was shredded beyond recognition seven years ago when I was sixteen. The day my life changed forever, going from a prominent and respected family in the pack to the scorned outcast at the bottom of the ranks overnight. My sisters and I are the only ones left bearing the disgraced Morgan name.

I clear the heavy memory of that dark day with a shake of my head and step over the boundary. It’s strange how old magic works. The wards for the pack’s border were set long ago, when shifters and witches weren’t at odds. The invisible threads of magic woven to protect us recognize my blood as a shifter, welcoming me home. If humans hike this far up the mountain—an uncommon feat, but one that’s happened a time or two—the magic deters them, sending them in another direction.

It was designed for a time in the distant past when humans had no idea they weren’t alone in this world amongst countless beings, each with our own unique set of powers and abilities. Shifters, witches, vampires, and the like have all left the shadows to mingle openly with humans. It’s no longer necessary to hide after humans discovered supernaturals weren’t figments of their imaginations from storybooks around forty years ago.

I huff at the irony that we still use the wards so we always have the safety of our dens to return to, as if we’re still hiding our bones away like the beasts we descend from.

An inviting scent of spicy cedar tickles my nose as I reach the narrow path that connects the lower, well-traveled trails to the one that leads home. The loggers must have been through this section to cut trees to replenish the winter firewood store and building material. They often dip into the day’s quota when it’s a full moon to feed the massive bonfire for the pre-run festivities.

I halt, realizing the mistake too late. It’s not the freshly chopped wood for tonight’s bonfire. There’s a male with a massive muscular build ahead. The smell of the forest is coming from him.

It’s all too familiar, tugging harshly on my heartstrings.

Every part of me seizes, my breath catching in my throat and my body rigid. I duck my head, gripping the leather strap so tight the aged leather might disintegrate.

I know the imposing, powerful shifter striding towards me, blocking my path back to the dilapidated remains of a cabin I call home.

Caden Blackburn. He’s Alpha Blackburn to me now.

2AVERY

“What are you doing out here?” Caden demands.

His sharp order is bolstered by his mighty presence. His voice is domineering, expecting compliance, and his broad stature towers over me, jaw set. He’s every bit the alpha I’m meant to bow for.

I swallow, slowly lifting my face to meet his stormy blue glare. Tousled dark brown hair falls across his forehead. This close, his masculine woodsy musk that used to be a comfort to me is overwhelming, even to my muted senses.

This is the first time he’s been near enough to look at me in ages. It still hurts the softest parts of my heart and my pride to see his ire directed at me when he used to look at me so differently.

Back when we were friends. Before he was the one to argue with his father exile was too harsh for three young girls, only to convince him we deserved to be sent to live in the old cottage at the far edges to the north of the packlands, high up the mountain surrounded by hard soil inhospitable to any food I might grow.

My throat stings with the memory of him dragging our things from the nice cabin we lived in after the judgment, burning the broken pile of furniture outside. My childhood home’s been given to someone else now.

Caden must believe he spared us certain death. He only made my life hell after his father killed mine.

His piercing gaze narrows when I remain stubbornly silent. He searches our surroundings as if the trees will whisper my transgressions.

They won’t—or rather, can’t turn their backs on me the way he did. They remain as silent as me, branches creaking and swaying with the breeze. According to the legends shifters pass on to their pups of this land’s history, dryads, the trees’ spirits that once nurtured and protected the natural land from those who would bring harm, fell into deep slumber, long before the maiden of the moon descended from the Heavens and granted the first wolves our ability to shift forms between animal and man.