Page 1 of Kendrick

Chapter One

Jonas was in hiding. He felt ridiculous even thinking about it, but he couldn’t deny it. He was hiding.

He was a powerful Krsnik, could turn into a wolf, and had been bred to fight and defeat Kudlaks, yet here he was, afraid of a bunch of humans.

Hence, the hiding.

“You do know you can leave the house, right?” Caroline asked from behind him.

He didn’t even turn to glare at her. He was sure she already knew he was. “I’m busy,” he commented before sticking his brush into the paint bucket a bit too harshly. The paint splattered on the floor, which he’d thankfully covered in plastic.

He moved a little more carefully now, cleaning the brush so he had the right amount of paint before returning his attention to the doorframe he’d been painting around.

“You’re making excuses,” Caroline said. “You don’t have to paint the living room today. You could go out there and make friends.”

But making friends would mean people would get to know him, which in turn meant they’d find out he couldn’t fight. He was pretty sure Alexis had already told the two clan leaders about it, but they’d probably forgotten or something. That had to be the only reason they’d welcomed Jonas into their clan, even though he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

Jonas wanted them to continue to not remember that detail. He was afraid that if he left the house and they noticed him, they’d suddenly remember he existed and would try to put him to work. As a Krsnik, he’d be useful fighting Kudlaks, which was what he’d been born to do.

He had to have been born defective, though, because he’d never successfully fought a Kudlak, and he wasn’t planning tostart anytime soon. He couldn’t fight, and he was fine with that as long as it wouldn’t cause him to lose his two best friends.

Alexis and Caroline had had no problems settling in at the village. It was like they’d always lived here and had always been part of the Harper clan.

The same couldn’t be said for Jonas.

“I already have friends,” Jonas reminded Caroline.

“You have me and Alexis, but there’s an entire clan out there who wants to get to know you. Why don’t you give them the opportunity?”

The opportunity to do what? Reject him? No, thank you. Jonas was fine keeping to himself if it meant people wouldn’t try kicking him out of the clan. He only trusted Caroline and Alexis, and possibly Alexis’s mate Boyd. That was it. No matter how much Jonas wanted to trust the clan leader and his mate, he didn’t know either of them well, so he didn’t dare.

And yes, he knew that the only reason he didn’t know them was that he’d been avoiding them.

Jonas was a mess. He supposed that everyone around him was, too, so that didn’t make him special. He’d lost his clan to a Kudlak attack, but he wasn’t the only one. Most of the people who lived here, except for the humans, had gone through the same thing, and even the hunters had more often than not become hunters because they’d lost someone they loved to the Kudlaks. They were all in the same boat.

And sometimes Jonas felt it was rapidly sinking.

Clay and Rowan were doing their best, but their clan was very new. They didn’t have a lot of members, and at least half of them were human. They might have trained for this for years and even been good hunters, but as humans, they were still slower and not as strong as Kudlaks. It would be easy for a bunch of Kudlaks to attack the village and decimate it. Frankly, Jonas sometimes wondered why they hadn’t yet.

Caroline sighed heavily behind him, and he still didn’t turn to look at her. He understood why she and Alexis were worried. He was worried, too.

Hiding wasn’t like him. Even when it had just been the three of them, Jonas had been the happy one. He went out, talked to people, made friends everywhere, and returned with stories to tell his friends while they were dozing on the couch after spending a night killing Kudlaks. Neither of them expected Jonas to start fighting or even to train with the others, but they’d probably thought he would be at the center of the clan by now.

He wanted to be. He didn’t particularly like being stuck in this house, even though it was massive. Only he and Caroline lived here, and sometimes, it felt like it was too much. Sometimes, Jonas yearned for the tiny apartments the three of them had shared over the years.

But those apartments were long gone. Now they lived with the clan, and Alexis had a mate. He lived with Boyd, as it should be, but between that and becoming a clan member, Jonas had been a bit overwhelmed. He wasn’t sure where he fit in this new family or even if he fit at all.

Caroline and Alexis wouldn’t be happy if Jonas were to leave the clan, and they’d probably stay behind. Alexis wouldn’t go anywhere without Boyd, and this was Boyd’s home. Caroline was unattached, but that didn’t mean she’d come with Jonas. He was a lot of trouble, and if it was only the two of them, she’d have to babysit him all the time.

“Are you even listening to me, or are you that focused on painting?” Caroline asked.

“I hear what you’re saying, and I disagree. I don’t need to get to know the people in the village. I don’t think they’d want to meet me, anyway.”

“They do,” Caroline said a bit too forcefully. “Clay has approached me twice to ask what was up with you. I didn’t know what to tell him.”

“You should have told him I was fine, because I am.”

“We both know that’s a lie. You can get Alexis to believe you, but it’s not gonna work with me. You know better, Jonas.”

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