Page 1 of Gavin

Chapter

One

The soft hum of the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Sadie Parker shelved the last of the returned books. The Willowridge Public Library was quiet, the sort of peace that settled deep into her bones and offered a welcome escape from the turmoil she felt at home.

She pushed the empty cart over to the circulation desk where Maggie sat with her head resting on her hand as she absently clicked a pen.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sadie asked, her voice low because she always felt like she should whisper in the library.

Maggie blinked like she hadn’t realized she’d been staring into space. Straightening, she put the pen on the desk and said, “Yeah, it’s just been one of those days.”

“Wanna talk about it?” Sadie leaned on the desk and smiled. Maggie, a forty-something female who joked about early-onset menopause and wore a scarf no matter the weather, had been a good friend to her since she began work at the library two years earlier. Maggie was the senior librarian and had shown Sadie the ropes and given her a lot of responsibility.

“You ever have one of those days where you just don’t want to go home?”

Sadie pressed her lips into a thin line. She absolutely knew what that feeling was, but because Maggie was human and Sadie was a wolf shifter, she never talked much about her home life. Humans could be understanding to a point, but they didn’t really get the sometimes harsh life that being a shifter entailed.

Hell, as far as Maggie knew, Sadie was twenty-three. But in reality, because of the long-life that shifters had, aging one body year for every twelve, Sadie was actually fifty-five, even though she was technically twenty according to her slow aging.

Instead of delving into the fact that Sadie was also pretty damn miserable at home, she asked, “What’s going on?”

“You remember my sister moved in after she and her husband split?”

Sadie nodded.

“Well, she’s more of a party girl than she led me to believe. I think she’s trying to relive her teen years. There are people over at all hours, music blaring. I can’t hear myself think.”

“That’s terrible. Have you talked to her about it?”

“Yeah, but she says I’m being dramatic, that she’s just having fun and I should too. My idea of fun is a good book, a hot cup of tea, and my favorite blanket.”

“I like that kind of evening myself.” Sadie offered a small smile. “I’m sorry for what you’re dealing with. Our homes should be a sanctuary like the library.”

The two of them were silent for a moment, the shared understanding of what it meant to not feel at home weighing in the air. Sadie would have offered to let Maggie stay with her except Sadie not only lived with her mom Evelyn, but humans weren’t allowed within the pack’s territory.

Maggie stood up and stretched. “It’s about quitting time. I can’t stay here so I better go home and deal with my sister. I’ll just tell her that I need my sanctuary back, and she can get with the program or find her own place.”

“Good luck.”

Sadie tucked the cart away behind the desk and grabbed her things from the small breakroom at the back of the library. After saying goodbye to Maggie, she stepped out into the coolness of the early evening.

Mid-June in Michigan tended to be mild, with sunny days and not too hot temperatures. She’d never lived anywhere else, but she did think it was a pretty dang beautiful place to live.

She got into her old two-door and put the windows down so she could enjoy the fresh pine-scented air on the way home. Willowridge was a whistle stop sort of town, with only one traffic light and plenty of quaint Main Street businesses like the Five and Dime that had an amazing candy counter and the gas station with the single pump manned by a human male who had to be in his nineties.

It was less than ten minutes from Ironwood, where Sadie had spent her entire life. Ironwood, like Willowridge, was small, but Ironwood was entirely wolf, from the businesses that catered to the pack to the homes and schools.

The Silvercrest Pack had called Ironwood home for generations, utilizing the dense forests of Michigan’s upper peninsula to hunt game and keep the pack members close. Sadie was the only pack member who didn’t work in town and help the pack out, and it was because no one wanted someone like her around.

She was bad luck.

A walking curse.

Because of her albino fur, her wolf wasn’t welcome to hunt or commune with the pack or participate in any gatherings. She was a perpetual outsider among her own people. The only person who treated her well was her mom, who was the most gentle and compassionate person Sadie had ever known.

She knew that it hurt her mom deeply that Sadie was so mistreated and had been ever since she shifted right before her sixteenth birthday. Alpha Holloway had taken one look at her bright white fur and declared her to be the worst thing to ever happen to the pack in the history of their people.

Which was quite a terrible burden for a teen to bear.

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