Page 1 of Rogue If You Want To
1
TORIN
I gripped my fingers around the cardboard box. It was light enough, with a few old books and my mom’s collection of ceramic ducks that used to live on the wall above the mantle. Those birds had flown in formation for as long as I could remember, but I’d taken them down and dusted them. They were headed to the second-hand store and hopefully a new home.
But suddenly, my arms couldn’t bear the weight, and I placed the box at my feet.
It had been two months since the funeral and I still couldn’t wrap my head around her being gone. She’d always been here cooking up something delicious in the kitchen or helping me with homework. When I was old enough to go out with friends, I’d arrive home and she was asleep on the couch with the TV on, waiting for me.
My wolf was almost as upset as I was, telling me how much he missed her.
I know, buddy. Her absence had left a hole in my heart.
I’d learned to tamp down my beast’s emotions over the years, but the fear that he’d take over when I was in public never left me.
I found myself in Mom’s bedroom. It’d always been filled with love and clutter and more than a smidgen of dust. But almost everything was gone except her favorite perfume that was embedded into the walls. Twenty-six years I’d lived here, and for every one of those years, the house had acquired an extra groan or squeak. And now that was all that was left.
The local realtor had told me the house would sell easily—and he was right—because families were fleeing big cities, looking for cheaper homes and safe communities. They were the folks who worked from home and didn’t have to scrabble over the few jobs in town other than the factory.
The final item waiting to be packed was a photo of me and Mom at my high school graduation. Even then I towered over her as she proudly put an arm around me. But my smile hid the secret that had stayed with me for three years. Almost overnight, people developed unique smells, even my mother. My hearing improved, so I picked up secret conversations fifty yards from me. And my hearing was so acute, I wore ear plugs to bed.
But sleep didn’t always bring respite because dreams of running on four legs through the woods filled my head.
Nothing about the world around me made sense which was why I’d thrown myself into my studies and aced my exams every year.
After wrapping the photo in newspaper, I placed it in the small keep pile. The trash and donation heaps were huge because I couldn’t take everything with me, and Mom would want people to use and enjoy her stuff rather than it being stored somewhere.
I squatted on the floor and rummaged through the items I was keeping until I found the shoebox I was searching for. Opening it, I pulled out the baby blanket I’d been wrapped in when Mom found me, abandoned on her doorstep. Along with the blanket were tiny booties and a letter.
The words had been immortalized and carved into my memory.
His name is Torin. I love him with my whole heart, but I can’t keep him safe.
Mom had told me she had adopted me when I was very young, and she’d never made me feel less than adored, telling me I was special and I’d come into her life for a reason. But some nights when I was in bed, I’d pull the covers over my head and fantasize that my biological parents were royals, pirates, spies, or possibly imprisoned.
But when I was a sophomore, the uncertainty of where I fit into the world compounded when I began hearing a voice in my head. Thinking I was losing my mind, I’d confided in my elderly neighbor, Mr. Garrison, because I didn’t want my mom to worry. That conversation and succeeding ones changed my life.
He’d introduced me to a world I didn’t know existed, one I was part of and yet not. He took me for walks in the woods and explained that the voice was real and an additional part of me. I hadn’t believed him and assumed he was losing his marbles faster than I was. But when he transformed into a wolf, I took off, until the following day when I ventured into the undergrowth behind our house looking for him because he hadn’t returned home.
I’d stood in the same place I had the day before and picked up the soft padding of an animal approaching me. The beast pauseda few feet away. His eyes reminded me of my neighbor and so did his scent. It was almost as though he was trying to communicate with me.
My belly ached and my limbs hurt. I put a hand to my head, convinced I was coming down with a migraine. And then it happened. The world revolved, and I felt as though I was standing on my head. I couldn’t feel my hands or feet until I was crouching, sort of, and peering at the trees from a different angle. And the overpowering smells battered my senses.
The wolf bounded off, and I followed, my four legs pounding through the forest.
I didn’t understand anything except I hadn’t imagined the voice and I wasn’t going insane.
Mr. Garrison had coaxed my wolf out of me, and in the following weeks, he taught me about shifters, packs, dens, and mates. But controlling a shift was the hardest lesson and one I hadn’t accomplished when Mr. Garrison fell ill and his son moved him to a nursing home close to his family.
Once again, I had no shifter to guide me, and I was at a loss as to how to meet other shifters and how I’d recognize a mate. And now Mom was gone, too.
Other than selling the house and delivering the boxes to the charity shop, I had one other major task: quitting my job at the factory.
Most townspeople worked there and stayed until retirement because it was the only company people could count on not to fold. No one liked doing the repetitive tasks, year after year, but they needed to pay their bills and put food on the table.
And I’d been one of them since I finished high school. Clocking on and off six days a week gave me a paycheck, insurance, and casual friendships with good people. My teachers had begged me to apply for college and Mom encouraged me, but I needed to be safe and run with my wolf in the forest behind the house.
Few people had the means or the courage to leave everything familiar and head to the city, and those that did never returned. It was as though they’d been swallowed up, and the locals spoke of them with a mixture of awe and jealousy. I’d been one of those townspeople, but now with Mom gone and Mr. Garrison far away, there was nothing keeping me here.
