Page 1 of Winning the Wolf

Chapter One

The phone would give me the answer I needed, it had to. Dialling the number again, I cursed when it bleeped loudly in my ear.

“Why won’t you answer?” I cried, dropping to my knees and putting my head in my hands.

The tears dribbled from my eyes, sliding down my face and soaking my palms. Where had my sister gone? And what had she done?

Only days before, my life had been normal-ish. My twin sister and I had been told that our father, who had been visiting his brother, the alpha of the Sedona Pack, had gone missing. Since then, my life had gone from boring to fucked up. Big time.

Huffing out a breath, I moved my purple hair out of my eyes and wiped my face. I had to get a grip. My sister had called me, only an hour ago, to inform me that she had left the pack with her boyfriend. And that she was sorry for what she had to do. But she hadn’t told me what the fuck she was going to do.

Retrieving my phone, I paced up the valley of the gorge and headed towards the steps that led to the top. Phone reception was sketchy in this part of the village for a reason. Our alpha liked us to stay under the radar. Under his control, more like.

I sighed as I tried to dial my sister, yet again. Surely she wouldn’t betray the pack? She had been secretly seeing her boyfriend, who was from the Dusk Moon Pack, for a few months. Her behaviour had changed, her lies becoming bigger and more dangerous. If the alpha had known that she was sleeping with the enemy, he would’ve killed her. And probably me, too.

“Jeez, Nyla, why do you have to go against the rules, all the time?” My breath started to get short as I skipped up the steps, two at a time.

Cheddar was a quaint village in the South West of England, nestled at the bottom of a gorge. I’d been dying to leave ever since my sister had blackened our family name five years ago. Why had I remained loyal to my rebel twin? Oh, yeah, cos she was the other fucking half of me. Not that it had ever been good for me.

“There you are, Larissa,” a deep voice said as I came out onto the top of the gorge.

Killick Huntington stood in front of me, his hands resting on his slim hips. His T-shirt rode up as he lifted his arm to wave, revealing the deep curve of his love line – I had always adored the sexy V shaped muscles that hugged a man’s hips.

Shaking my head, I cleared the image of Killick’s muscular belly. He was my enemy, someone who despised me… and I him.

“What do you want?”

My skin crawled as a couple of his friends wandered over, their stances ready for a fight. Or maybe it was my flight. The bastard had stopped me from leaving numerous times, despite my desire to be away from the pack.

“My father heard that Nyla had left. Naturally, we’re concerned.” Killick ran a hand through his dark blonde hair, ruffling it so the soft edges fell back into place.

It was a balmy summer evening and the sun was just disappearing below the horizon. Killick wore light blue jeans with his biker T-shirt and running shoes. He clearly wasn’t planning on attending his club tonight, then.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” I replied, looking behind me to check if my escape route was clear. Nope. “Call your dogs off!”

The werewolf behind me growled low in his throat, baring his sharp canine teeth.

“You know I can’t.” Killick almost looked bored.

Killick’s father was the alpha of the Twilight Moon Pack and my father’s best friend. He pretended to stop me from leaving the Cheddar Pack due to duty, but I knew it was because he didn’t want any of his wolves going rogue.

My phone beeped and everyone glanced at me, their eyebrows raised expectantly. I glanced down at the screen, cursing when I saw the alert from the alpha.

More beeps filled the air as the others’ phones went off, receiving the same urgent text. We were to all report back to the pack headquarters, immediately. Shit, had my sister done something?

The beating of my heart intensified when Killick’s phone rang and he answered, his tone clipped and sharp.

“Something’s happened,” he said when he hung up. “We need to go.”

Waving for his men to grab me, he dropped to his hands and knees and shifted into his wolf form. Dark grey and white fur pushed through his skin as his clothes burst away and his muscular back bent and contorted.

It only took moments, but once he was shifted, he looked at me with his yellow eyes. The intensity of his gaze made me freeze, giving his friends time to take hold of my arms.

My chest squeezed as foreboding gripped my muscles. The way Killick had glared at me, accusation pouring from him, scared me.

“Let’s get you back,” one of the guys said, shoving me to my knees.

The quickest way to return to the pack headquarters was on four feet. I didn’t want to shift in front of all my captors, however, I had to know what was going on too.

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