Page 2 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

I reached the gate first—of course—followed closely by Reid and our other best friend, Nolan Shepard, who was one year older than us. Not far behind him was my little brother, Sebastian. He was two years younger than Reid and me and three years younger than Nolan, but the four of us had been inseparable since we were pups.

Our parents were the current leaders of our pack, and the four of us would take over for them in the future. Once we were ready, of course. And once I found my mate.

“Ugh, Nolan, be glad you’re a year older than us. Mrs. Appleton made us do this STUPID assignment. We have to write letters. To pen pals. It’s just… so dumb and childish!” Reid complained as he punched Nolan lightly on the shoulder.

“Oh, poor you, you had to write a letter! Meanwhile, I have a ten-page report on the history of the Moon Goddess due on Monday!” Nolan shot back, shoving Reid off the sidewalk and towards the copse of trees we always cut through to get to the packhouse.

“And let me guess… you haven’t even started it?” I asked with a smirk.

“No, I wrote some already!”

“How much? One page?”

Nolan paused for a moment, clearly deciding whether he wanted to answer me, before he finally, sheepishly said, “A sentence.”

Sebastian, Reid, and I exchanged looks, all three of us trying to hold in our laughter. Reid broke first, his laugh cackling and echoing through the almost empty forest, scaring a flock of birds out of the branches of a nearby tree. Sebastian and I joined in right away, and even Nolan chuckled at himself a little.

Our pack was in the Redwood Forests of Northern California, near a little-known lake shaped like a crescent moon. Hence, the name, Crescent Lake.

Our pack was a decent size. Large enough to have our own elementary school on the grounds. It went up through eighth grade, so I’d be attending school there for two more years before they shipped me off to the nearby city’s high school. Once I was there, there would be a mix of werewolves and humans.

My teacher, Mrs. Appleton, had a sister who recently found her mate in a pack in Colorado, so she had moved there. The elementary school her sister worked at was a mixed school, meaning humans and wolves all together, even from kindergarten. She’s the teacher whose class we were exchanging letters with, so I had to be careful not to reveal anything about werewolves in my letter, since I didn’t know if my pen pal would be a wolf or a human.

It was especially hard to not sign it “Future Alpha Wesley Stone” since that was how I was used to writing my name and being addressed by most of the members of my pack.

Not that it mattered. Because there was no way I was going to be writing to my pen pal again. I did the bare minimum for the assignment. I would get my A, and then I would never have to write to them again.

HAVEN

My jaw clenched after reading his letter, and I turned it over, grabbed the closest writing utensil to me—a dull, red crayon—and wrote out my response.

Dear Wesley Stone,

You do not deserve the word “dear” in front of your name. You are a big, ugly meanie. I hope someone punches you in your stupid face, and I hope it hurts you the same way your words hurt me.

See you never,

Haven Kenway

I dropped the red crayon onto the top of my desk, then tucked my hands beneath my thighs, trapping them between my legs and the seat of my chair so no one could see how much they shook.

I blinked back the tears shimmering in my eyes, trying to remind myself it was nothing personal. It was nothing against me. He didn’t even know me or anything about me.

He wasn’t trying to be a big, ugly meanie.

I shouldn’t have let his words bother me. He didn’t know I was an orphan. He didn’t know someone left me at the fire station when I was a baby, wrapped in a purple blanket with my name, Haven Kenway, embroidered on one corner.

He didn’t know the social workers searched for any records of anyone with the last name Kenway having given birth in any nearby town and that they found nothing. He didn’t know I had spent my life being moved from home to home to home. He didn’t know I was with my ninth family in the same number of years.

Again, it shouldn’t have bothered me. Because I was finally in a home where I felt comfortable and safe, where I actually felt the beginning of a connection to the people fostering me.

When I was a baby, they moved me early. I was what they called “high needs.” I constantly needed to be held and hated to be left alone in any room, ever. I guess it was exhausting for my first family because they moved me before I was even a year old.

The next family lasted longer, almost until I was two, before they decided I was too old, and they only wanted to foster babies. And after I turned two, it had been one home every year. Until it wasn’t.

My foster parents, Jack and Shirley Franklin, didn’t have any other kids in their home. Well, not anymore, at least. Their children were all grown up and moved out, so they wanted to open their home to a child in need. A child like me.

I’d been keeping my fingers crossed that this placement would last longer than the rest. It had already been almost a year since I moved here when I was eight.

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