Chapter one
The City That Never Sleeps
**February 2004**
Kate
It’sbeenalittleover two years since I left the only place that I have ever called home. I had no other choice but to leave everything I have ever known and loved to break free of him. When I first arrived in New York City, everything was so unfamiliar and scary. Some call it the Big Apple, but I prefer to call it the city that never sleeps. Back home, nights are filled with the peaceful silence of the sleeping forest, insects chirping, and the howls of my people. Here? It’s so noisy all the time. Sirens at all hours of the night, the sounds of people’s voices, shouts, loud music, sounds of people moving around, horns, and non-stop traffic. For a werewolf like me, whose hearing, sight, and smell are enhanced, this city was almost too much for me in the beginning. Now, it’s home. My wolf, Sasha, and I have learned to tune out the distractions of the city and blend in with our surroundings. To keep Sasha settled, once a month, we take about a three-hour car ride into Connecticut to spend the weekend camping in the Cockaponset State Forest. It’s werewolf and shifter friendly, and even though I keep to myself, I have made a couple of friends along the way. While camping for the weekend, I allow Sasha to run free, allowing her to run, hunt, and play in her wolf form.
We have adapted to city life, the best we can. Even so, I miss home. I miss the smell of my mom cooking blueberry muffins every Sunday morning. I miss being squeezed so tightly by my dad that I think he’ll break one of my ribs. Pack life is what I miss the most. Hell, I even miss my annoying brother and his constant teasing. There is one person I’d like nothing more than to forget. As hard as I try, I still can’t get him off my mind. The man I fell in love with at fourteen, the man who helped me through my first shift at eighteen, the man I gave my virginity, and the man that shattered my heart into a million pieces. As much as I miss home, I can’t go back… not just yet. I can’t afford to run into him, not while my heart is still healing from being crushed by him.
You’d think that after two years I’d be over him, moved on, but no. I haven’t been able to just simply move on. It’s harder than I ever thought it would be. My human friends say that your first love is the hardest to get over. Maybe that’s true, but it’s not something that is often experienced in the werewolf world. Humans seem to fall in and out of love many times in their lifetime. In the werewolf world, we mate for life. There is only one love. When we meet the one Moon Goddess designed and made for us, an invisible bond that only true soulmates share pulls us to each other. It’s that bond that binds the two souls for life. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule. Mates get rejected or die, and in those cases, we can only hope that the Moon Goddess shows us mercy and grace and grants us a second chance mate.
Missing home is especially hard today as I go through my mail and see an invitation to my brother’s wedding. I’ve known about the wedding for several months, but this invitation sets it in stone, and I’m dreading going home. Since moving to New York City, I’ve been able to avoid going home, and haven’t seen my family at all. But my mom will skin me alive if I miss the wedding. She has already expressed that. Weddings are abnormal in our world; most don’t see a point in a wedding ceremony since the mate bond binds us together. My brother, Kelsey, is the future gamma for our pack. He will take over for my dad when he retires in two years. Anyone can have a marriage, but in our pack, the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and their mates are married in a very public ceremony that is noted mostly in the human world. The Alpha, Beta, and Gamma all work the pack businesses alongside humans, being married helps them to blend better in their world.
Looking at the blue and white invitation with gold embossed lettering, memories flood my mind. I wonder what my life would be right now, had my heart not been crushed. What would my wedding have been like? Would I be a mom by now? I can’t let the what if’s get to me… not now. I’m finally at a point in my life where I think I have found someone I can spend the rest of my life with. He’s perfect on and off paper. His name is Darren McCall and comes from a very influential family in Manhattan. He just passed the bar and is working for his father’s law firm. His father is a well-known attorney to the rich and elite, and his mother is a socialite and philanthropist. We’ve been dating for three months, and things are progressing in our relationship. I explained I come from a conservative family and have lied that I’m a virgin and want to wait until marriage. He says he understands and will wait, but lately he seems to push the envelope a bit more where sex is concerned. I’m pretty sure that I love him, but I have this nagging feeling that I can’t get past where intimacy is concerned. My birthday is in two weeks, and he says he has a special surprise. Thinking about what kind of surprise he might have in store makes my stomach flip and knot up… that can’t be normal. The wedding is six-weeks from Saturday. Maybe the apocalypse will happen between now and then. That’s the only way I’ll get out of going home.
My cell phone rings, jolting me out of my thoughts. I look at the display on the front of my flip phone… mom.Great.
“Hello?” I answer with a smile on my face and a light voice, so I don’t get asked fifty million questions.
“Hey sweetheart, get the invite?” Mom’s voice is so sweet.
“Yes.” I answer back, waiting for the shoe to drop and the interrogation to begin.
“Well? What do you think?” She asks.
“Why did you send me one? It’s not like I have a choice of going or not.” I look at the invitation.
“I meant, what do you think about the invitation? Pretty, right?” She sighs.
“Oh… Yeah, it is.” I push the invitation to the side.
“Did you get your dress yet?” Mom asks, and I don’t answer. “Kate?” I remain silent, trying to decide what to say. “Oh, my goddess, Kate!” She shouts.
“Yes, mother, got my dress.” The lie falls so quickly out of my mouth.
“Good.” She sounds relieved.
“Do I really have to go?” I whine.
“YES!!!!!” She growls, clearly getting irritated at me.
“Ok… Geez.” I roll my eyes.
“You don’t have to talk to him, Kate.” My mom’s voice is soft.
“I know. Look at the time… well, got to go, headed to dinner with the girls.” I blurt.
“Fine,” she sighs. “Love you, sweetheart. See you soon.” She blows kisses into the phone.
“Bye, love you too.” I giggle and blow a kiss into my phone. It seems silly to blow kisses through the phone, but it makes my mom happy, so I do.
I close my phone and put it on the counter, next to the wedding invitation. No, I don’t have dinner plans. I have my nose stuck in a book in my pj’s plan. I hate lying to my mom. She and I both know I haven’t bought the damn dress. I know exactly where that conversation was going, and I don’t want to hear it. She’ll tell me how much he’s changed, and that he is always asking about me, blah, blah, blah. It’s as if she doesn’t remember the pain he put me through, and why I’m studying art so far from home.
After a nice, long, hot shower, my Chinese delivery is at my door, and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into some roasted duck. I take the food and place it on the table next to the door when I notice some kids playing in the hallway. A little boy pushes his sister down and another boy is there to help her up. It brings back a memory from seven years ago, when a fourteen-year-old me realized she was in love with the future beta of our pack.
**April 1997**