Page 1 of Whisper Woods

Prologue - Seff

Five Years Ago

I probably shouldn’t behere.

Scratch that—I definitely shouldn’t be here.

I just couldn’t bethereanymore.

The full moon bathes the Whisper Woods in an eerie, silver light. It highlights the shadows and valleys in front of me, the densely packed trees behind me, and disguises the deathly plummet below me.

Standing at the cliff’s edge like this is dumb. But no one else would really expect anything else from me. I’m sure if I slipped and fell to my death they would no doubt laugh, “Ha, that is so Seff.” I’m not even clumsy. Or dumb. But they can’t see that. They don’t seeme. Just what they want to see.

It’s probably a good thing, I guess. It means they can’t see how angry I am.

Like tonight. I just couldn’t do it.

It was just too exhausting to sit there, and play like I wasn’t furious at every single one of them for what they did to me. Did toCaelan.

It’s been three moons since he stood for membership with the Everfyr pack, stripped totally bare—emotionally and physically. And they fucking rejected him. All because his blood isn’t “pure enough.”

Fucking toxic alpha bullshit and his backwater thinking.

But that’s Colin. The asshole. And I have to kiss his ass because he’s my fucking pack leader. I’ll roll over dead before I call him alpha. And I’d like to see him make me. He knows not to push. He may have the title, but I’m younger. Stronger. I could take him.

Right before his bootlickers take me out.

Huffing a bitter laugh, I roll my shoulders to release some of the tensionbuilding there. Not that it’s any use. It’s kind of a permanent thing lately, and I hate it. This anger isn’tme. Thankfully everyone has put it down to Caelan breaking up with me after his failed pack bid. Everyone keeps giving me sad looks and half-assed apologies.

We can’t go against the pack leader. I’ve heard it in one version or another my whole life, and no one seems to ever question it, just happy to go with the flow, even if it means they are all varying shades of miserable.

Maybe I’m the problem. I just can’t seem toacceptthe way they can.

Fuck.

I came out here to get away from all the thoughts chasing themselves through my head. Usually it helps when the feelings get too big and I can’t keep them inside anymore. I come here to the Woods and run until I’m too exhausted to think anymore. It’s soothing, the closest thing to freedom.

Especially standing here. It feels like I’m right on the edge of the world. It makes me feel…connected. Like I can see where I belong—I’m meant to be here. For this brief moment, everything feels in balance and I can finally breathe.

Tonight…tonight, I knew if I didn’t run, I was going to punch someone. And that wouldn’t have gone over well, because that someone was going to be Cassian—Colin’s nephew and general pain in my ass. So I left the full moon gathering and ran and ran until Wolf took over and together we ran even further, until we were exhausted and he retreated, leaving me here at the cliffs.

Hopefully, the pack will think I’ve just run off to hook up with someone.

Fuck, that would be nice, though.

The weight of the full moon has my body thrumming with energy, making everything so much bigger and uncontrollable inside me. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if I found someone—someone not in the pack—to sink myself into and forget.

But out here, in the loneliest depths of the Woods, I doubt there is anyone else roaming about. Not at this time of the night on a full moon. I can’t even hear the rustle of any creatures in the trees, the calls of any birds.

It’s like the Woods are empty. There isn’t even a breeze to tickle my balls. It’s weird really.

Closing my eyes, I inhale the soothing air of the Woods deep into my lungs. Willing it to infuse my spirit, to let the magic heal the little fractures inside just enough. Again and again I suck the deep breaths in, relishing in the magic as it fills me.

After a minute—or five? I don’t know—the breeze returns, sending a tickle across my overly sensitised skin. The chill sends goose pimples springing over my ass cheeks.

It draws me back to the present, the pink lights of dawn seeping into the edges of the dark horizon. A shift in the air has my instincts switching back on. A pull of something, magic warping the energy of the space like a wave, followed by a loud crack of a stick breaking in the trees behind me. Footsteps.

My hands flex by my side, tensing into fists. There is a very good chance that whatever it is is perfectly harmless. But I’m naked on the edge of a cliff, and it doesn’t take a genius to know to be prepared.

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