Page 1 of Wolf Mate

CHAPTER ONE

My blood jolted in my veins.

Hands tightening on the steering wheel, I drove under the black iron sign with the wordsEvergreen Elite Universitymolded into the center. Even on this cloudy day, the words, thick with large gaping holes between each letter, were easy to see. Add in the two gigantic brick pillars on either side of the road that held up the sign in all its glory, and it was an old-world version of a neon light. Already, this school screamed prestige and wealth, and I couldn’t believe I was here.

I hadn’t even applied.

The thought had never crossed my mind.

My blood gave an extra jolt, informing me that coming here had been a bad idea—as if I didn’t know.

Only the top five percent of applicants were admitted to this exclusive Portland, Oregon university, and one semester here cost more than what my parents made in a year combined.

I couldn’t even dream of affording it, despite having straight A’s from my two-year community college. The university was so prestigious that even most class valedictorians didn’t believe they had a chance of getting in. Believe me. I knew. I was one of them.

This place was known for producing some of the greatest minds in America, along with shaping the future of students from the country’s wealthiest and most influential families. Some people dared to say it was even more elite than the Ivy Leagues out East.

Mysteriously,Ihad received a full scholarship, including room and board. The advisor assigned to me still hadn’t given me a clear answer as to why. All he’d said was that an anonymous donor had sponsored me and believed I had the makings of greatness, which this place supported and celebrated.

Anyone saying something that nice about me was a first, and my parents had practically pushed me out the door to attend. Mom couldn’t believe I’d seriously considered not coming here, and Dad had piped in, proclaiming it as an opportunity of a lifetime.

Maybe it was, but I suspected my parents were also eager to get me out of the house. I tended to hole up in my room whenever I wasn’t out hiking, and they worried about my lack of social life.

As I coasted onto campus, my heart sank. Two parts of me were at war, one part telling me to turn around and drive the two hours back home and the other part bursting with butterflies of excitement because this was a fresh start.

I had to calm down. How was I supposed to meet my roommate like this? We’d texted one another after getting our room assignments, and Lucy seemed like a fun person. I’d let her know when I planned on arriving, and she’d said she’d be there to meet me. But whenever I got anxious, weird shit happened, and “weird” wasn’t the first impression I wanted to make.

No one I knew went to school here, so there would be no preconceived notions about me. I had a chance to make my first real friend and, maybe—just maybe—fit in.

The latter was the scariest hope of all because I doubted it would happen. My emotions were running rampant. The last thing I needed was to put pressure on myself, hoping to find a place that might feel like an actual home.

With my track record, that wouldn’t happen.

I was setting myself up for an inevitable disappointment.

A huge brick stadium that housed the college’s renowned football team towered to my right, and the student center loomed straight ahead. The pictures I’d seen online didn’t do justice to my view of the towering cherry trees framing the lawn in front of the student center where myriad students gathered and lounged lazily on this Sunday afternoon.

The administrator had told me to take a left here for the quickest route to the apartment I’d been assigned, and I followed his instructions, driving past soccer fields and tennis courts.

Hope expanded in my chest even as cold tendrils of fear knotted in my stomach. The two opposing emotions contrasted with each other like repelling magnets. My breathing quickened, and my blood jolted higher, informing me everything was about to crash and burn.

Whenever my blood jolted and worked up to a hum, strange incidents occurred around me—things that didn’t make sense and proved that something was seriously wrong with me: Dishes rattled on the table, lights flickered, and a sense of how people were feeling sometimes swamped me. The jolt was the first sign of an episode, making me feel as if I’d gotten a dose of some drug and could go full-on humming at any time.

I took deep breaths to calm myself. Soon, I passed the administration building, and the parking lot the advisor had instructed me to use appeared on the left. I washere. As in, going inside and unpacking my stuff in my room imminently.

As I pulled into the lot, my breathing technique wasnotworking, especially as my janky old Honda Civic passed by Lexuses, Mercedes, BMWs, and a Rolls-Royce.

My vehicle screamedoutcast, and I hated to see what would happen when I did something so strange it defied the laws of physics.

By the time I pulled into the last spot in the back corner farthest from the apartment buildings, my blood had an extra fizzle to it. The fizzle came between the jolt and the hum.

If I didn’t squelch this now, there would be no reining in the weirdness.

My eyes homed in on the woods behind the apartment buildings.

Woods.

Comfort.

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