Page 2 of Wanted By the Wolves

Grandmother Natalia growls, crouching low. She snaps at me with her muzzle pulled back over her sharp fangs.

My heart races, knowing this will be the last time I see my home or her. Her warning growl urges me to run.

I turn and never look back, even as I hear her haunting song in the wind.

Chapter 1

Nova

Ten Years Later

Ducking out of the tent, I shrug off my worn coat and slip on the one I lifted from the sleeping alpha inside. I’d watched the tents from my perch in the forest for an hour, waiting until I knew for sure that the younger alpha and his friends had finally passed out before I was brave enough to sneak inside.

The jacket and the hat were what I needed, but the canned food and cash were a nice surprise. I left him game in trade—I’m not a monster.

I stuff the cans into my pack, and the motion brings a whiff of sweetness. My chest wrap is soaked in sweat, and the fabric of my thermal shirt sticks to me after the two-day hike along the forest trails. The jacket I was wearing reeks of my tart green apple-and-cinnamon scent.

I’m not sure the jacket I lifted with the alpha’s musky blend will be strong enough to mask it. Too much of my scent seeps through the blocking ash I’ve applied. Even though I’m dressed like an alpha, if anyone looks too closely, they’ll see I’m too small. I’m not sure passing for a pup will work.

I waited too long to come.

As the nights count down to the full moon, my scent will continue to rise. It’s still two weeks away, but it’s a date I’ve wished I could avoid forever.

This month is my twenty-fifth birthday. Only it’s nothing to celebrate. I’m an omega wolf—possibly the last. My first heat will come with the full moon, and with it, my chances of survival nosedive.

An omega in heat in a territory full of only alphas? It’s not good odds.

Does my perfume take that under advisement and simmer down?

No. It’s all flashing arrows pointing toward the last omega.

The only way I’ll survive is if I can make the suppressing tea and hibernate in my den until the full moon passes. I force myself to calm the fuck down before the fear in my scent makes me prey.

I toss my old coat in a lit barrel and pull the alpha’s jacket tighter around me. The alpha's scent is strongest near the neck, and I practically rub myself along the soft inside, trying to mask my sweetness. The hat is next, covering the hack job I did on my long hair two nights ago before I left my den.

To keep as much of myself covered as possible, I tuck my chin into the collar and shove my shaking hands into my jeans’ pockets. I pass a group of alphas drinking and playing cards in an open tent, but none of them bother looking my way.

Deep voices and snarls fill the night. Shifted wolves fight in small groups as others in human form mill about. Some cook or warm themselves by the open flames. Others are drunkenly brawling while a few try for sleep.

The tents of the Outskirts make me nervous. There are so many alphas in one place. Like me, all of them are here because they have nothing left. Their villages and homes are gone, and their people are lost. It creates a sense of barely containedhopeless rage, the air charged with recklessness. One whiff of my true scent and this desolate place would become a free-for-all.

Weaving through the tent rows, I force myself to move at a pace that won’t cause suspicion. I listen to their conversations as best I can, cataloging news. I’ve only been into the city a handful of times since I fled my home a decade ago, but the frequency of ferals in the forest is all I really need to know. Things aren’t better. If anything, they’re worse.

There are whispers of a new king, his lost boys, and his promises for a better future, but I think it doesn’t matter if a new king has risen. As long as the magic is broken, our future is nothing but more death.

The omega wolves started dying out when my mother was a girl. When she and my fathers were killed in the first feral attack on our village, my grandmother, Natalia, told me the truth. My mother had been the daughter of the true Wolf King. It was a fact my mother never knew.

My grandmother was a woman of no blood relation to me. The night the usurper king and his wolves rose against my grandfather in an unfair challenge, the omega queen begged my grandmother—the queen’s midwife healer—to flee with my mother. She did, taking the newborn pup back to her old village and raising her as her own.

According to my grandmother, the wolves’ magic has been unbalanced ever since that night. Grandmother Natalia believed the usurper’s betrayal broke our magic and angered our gods. She prepared me to hide and taught me how to survive in the forest as my wolf. Sometimes even surviving seems like too much to ask.

The hair on my body stands on end, and my wolf paces in the forefront of my mind, lending me her eyes as we weave through the crowds of alphas. The scents are driving my wolf wild. It’s equal parts fear and need. She wants her alpha mates’protection. In every crowd, she searches them out. Each wolf we manage to pass without being outed feels like a victory.

How can I blame my wolf’s instincts though? She’s hardwired to need alphas, to want the safety and stability they provide. She’s not wrong. It’s the world that’s so fucked. But no matter what my omega needs, alphas aren’t an option when I don’t know which ones will turn feral or who can be trusted.

It takes another twenty minutes to pass through the housing tents before I find the makeshift trading square. My mouth waters at the fragrant grilled meats, the strong coffee brewing, and the freshly baked bread. I can almost taste the sweetness of the dough in the air.

My stomach protests in longing, but I force myself to keep moving. No matter how much I wish I could eat something other than fresh game, it’s too risky. Being here at all is already a risk.I need to get the two last herbs I couldn’t find in the forest for the heat-suppressing tea and hightail it back to my den where it’s safe.

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