Page 1 of Bullied By the Alpha Wolf

Prologue - Kit

Twelve years ago

The room was decorated and ready to go. At least, it was somewhat decorated. There weren't many to be found in a pack full of wolf shifters, and less for the one human among them. I wasn’t expecting much of a turnout. Sandy and Jade were coming to have cake and watch dumb movies on the tiny tablet I’d convinced Papa Glen to get me years ago in the human village for a supply run. So, all in all, I was ready for a quiet night with my besties.

There was a reflection in the window, the sunlight coming in from the opposite side of the little building casting me in a yellow glow, and I inspected my appearance.

The dress was lovely. I’d snagged that from the human city, too, a pretty white thing with sunflowers all over it and ruffles. My hair was down around my face like it usually was, and I smoothed down a bit of frizz at the top where the chestnut-colored waves parted.

I still frowned, though. I wasn’t like the others here. And yeah, that was very much because I lacked the DNA to be one of them. The wolves were all tall and lean and fast. I was…not.

Fat. That’s what I heard whispered behind my back, even though the wolves knew I could hear them. I squeezed the locket that dangled around my neck, knowing the images of Papa Glen and Mama Tansy were inside. They’d been gone for so long now, and not for the first time, I wondered if I was doomed to have no family.

First, my birth parents died—killed by hunters going after Glen and Tansy—and then my adoptive parents themselves after that. Grayson hardly spoke to me when they were gone. He’d been kind enough as far as adoptive, untrusting brothers go. Still, once his parents fell to that horrible disease that was claiming more and more wolves, he pretended like I didn’t exist.

Because somehow it was my fault.

I’d done nothing, but I was sure it was that damn Kaiden that was giving him ideas. You’d think as another child of adoption, he’d be kinder to me, but he was the golden boy, the unblooded son of the alpha, and fuck did he act like it.

His sister MacKenzie was all right, but she was always so busy studying to take over as healer for the pack, and no one among the teens here really spoke to her. We saw her during the homeschool lessons, but that was basically it.

“Hey, Kit!”

I turned, finding Jade walking in through the open door to this little-used activity room. Sandy was hot on her tail, coming out of a shift. It was still something else to see her do it. Jade tried to avoid it around me, knowing it only made those feelings of inadequacy worse. Sandy didn’t seem to have good control over it, though.

The light brown wolf merged into Sandy’s form, her deep brown eyes coming into focus from the shimmery copper of her wolf’s. She reached out a hand, took the dress that Jade offered, and slipped it on over her head.

Sandy was as beautiful as they come, with perfect boobs, a small waist, and curvy enough without it being too much—like me.

“Damn, girl. You really need to get the hang of that. I can’t just keep carrying around dresses for you.”

With a cheeky grin, Sandy turned to Jade and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “What would I do without you?”

“Die naked, I suppose,” Jade replied, a glint of humor lighting her near-black eyes. “I guess it’s a good thing I love you.”

Sandy kissed her again, and Jade swooned gently, rubbing her nose across Sandy’s until they both realized they weren’t alone anymore.

“Oops. Sorry.” Jade rubbed the back of her neck, a deep flush flaring behind her bark-brown skin. “We are terrible.”

I smiled, shaking my head. “It’s fine. If I didn’t like it, why would I hang out with you?”

“You have no one else to hang out with, so that’s hardly a compliment,” Sandy smirked, but then she walked up to me, giving me a hug, and I brushed off the joke easily.

“I adore you, Kit. And I swear, if you understood these damn hormones more intimately, you wouldn’t be so envious of us. It sucks.”

Jade came up to us, wrapping her arms around our necks, and we both smiled as she nuzzled between us. “Sandy is an early bloomer, they say. She’ll be ready to have pups tomorrow if her wolf has anything to say about it.”

“Too bad I want none of that. Plus, you don’t have the junk for that, babe.”

We devolved into a fit of giggles, and soon enough, they were cuddled up next to me, their higher-than-average body temperatures keeping me warm as we watched Pride & Prejudice on the tablet.

They’d snuck in a tiny bottle of Jade’s dad’s blueberry schnapps, which he was definitely going to notice, but we didn’t care. This birthday was the big one for me, and as the youngest of the three of us, Jade and Sandy were determined to make sure I knew what it was like to be good and drunk—and likely dealing with the gut rot that came afterward.

“Bottoms up, Kit!”

I knocked back a large pull after Sandy’s prompting, wincing as the burn of alcohol was only slightly dampened by the sugary taste of fake blueberry. The dizzy feeling set in pretty quickly, and after only a moment, Jade was making me do one more.

“Happy eighteenth birthday, Kit!” they shouted in unison.

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