Page 1 of The Forbidden Wolf

Chapter One

Wolves didn’t watch movies, but I had never let that stop me.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, humans liked to say, and the way for this wolf had always been over the Third Avenue Bridge from the Bronx into Manhattan where I didn’t have to worry about nosy pack mates recognizing me as their Alpha’s spare daughter.

Of course, I did have to worry about members of the Manhattan pack getting wind of my presence—crossing borough borders was considerably more forbidden than watching movies—but I had never ventured any further west than Madison Avenue nor any further south than 121st Street. I didn’t have to. Everything I needed could be found at the Last Century Cinema on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 123rd.

But only at midnight. For me, anyway.

Other people, one-hundred-percent human people, Jayla, Evan, and Charlie kind of people, they could catch a classic movie as early as 10 a.m. if they wanted to, and sometimes they did, but not me. I always had to wait until the city that never sleeps dozed off just a little. Then I’d throw some goofy human clothes on over my least chafing shiftskin and give my father’s guards the slip. Just like Princess Jasmine in Aladdin, only I wasn’t important enough to have any unwanted suitors to run away from.

Yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I brushed off the gravelly inner voice of my grouchy white wolf. Most of the time, she didn’t bother me in the theater, just curled up beneath my ribs and tried to get enough sleep for the both of us, but lately, she’d developed a nasty habit of talking during romantic movies because gods forbid I forget for even one millisecond that a love like Buttercup and Westley’s wasn’t in my stars.

Duty calls, Elyse.

But not tonight.

Won’t be long…

I rolled my eyes and sank deeper into my usual seat between Jayla and Charlie, causing the entire rickety old row to groan. Jayla shot me some mean side-eye, and I mouthed an apology. The theater’s ancient cushions had been ground down to thin sheets of coarse red fabric long before our butts ever touched down on them, so we did our best not to fidget because the speakers weren’t that great either. The first time I watched The Princess Bride, I left thinking Vizzini’s famous catch phrase was “Conceivable!”

That was awkward.

Oh, what do you know?

My wolf chuffed deep inside my soul, or wherever it was that she lived when she wasn’t in control. I couldn’t really explain how it was that we were both one and the same and totally distinct from each other. She definitely fancied herself the superior Elyse, and back home, she wasn’t alone in that belief. Even my father and sister liked her better.

Only at the movies could I be with the people who preferred the real me: Charlie, Evan, and Jayla in the flesh, yes, but also Buttercup and Westley, Marty McFly and Doc Brown, Ferris Bueller and the entire Breakfast Club, Princess Leia and Han Solo, Elliot and E.T., Seymour and Audrey II, Harry and Lloyd, Harry and Sally, Harry and Marv, Baby and Johnny, Bill and Ted, Ripley and her orange cat…

She fell in love with a cat?

What? No! That’s—

Disgusting.

You wouldn’t understand.

You’re rotting our brain.

I growled low in my human throat. Out loud, apparently, because Jayla shot me another mean side-eye and threw in an elbow nudge that nudged my elbow all the way off the armrest and into my lap. Inside, my wolf snarled.

Don’t let her get away with that.

It’s not a big deal. Chill.

Fight for what’s yours.

I quietly folded both arms over my stomach where it seemed all of the buttery popcorn and cherry Jujubes I’d consumed since the movie started had decided to declare war on each other. Jayla shook her head in my peripheral vision, and I knew the end credits would bring yet another lecture on the dangers of junk food.

Of my three best friends, Jayla had the most in common with my wolf. Meaning I loved her, but she could be a real buzz kill. As a pre-med student at Columbia, her opinions on healthy living didn’t always vibe with the whole film nerd aesthetic the rest of the tastebuds in our group had going on. I would pretend to take her coming lecture to heart though because, like my wolf, she also had an intensity that made her hard to say no to.

Honestly, she reminded me a lot of Niobe in The Matrix sequels, which were frankly just okay compared to the original film, but I really liked that character. And I really liked Jayla. Even if she did believe everyone ought to be sneaking almonds and sparkling water into the theater. I admired her conviction and the easy confidence with which she ignored all the signs around the lobby forbidding anyone from bringing in snacks from outside. She was a rebel. Like the real me.

My wolf whined, feigning hurt feelings, but I knew her game. She didn’t have feelings. She only had primal urges. And unless we somehow beat the odds and found our fated mate before some other male claimed us, none of those urges would ever be as powerful as her need to be part of the pack. Lone wolves were dead wolves, which meant rebels were flapping red flags. My wolf had learned a long time ago that guilt trips were the best way to get her own needs met whenever they conflicted with mine.

But more and more often, I’d been standing my ground. For instance, a few months ago, when the Last Century Cinema broke its own cardinal rule—no movies released after December 31, 1999—to show all three Matrix movies in one glorious night, that furry, blue-pill bitch tried every trick in her book to get me back to the Bronx before we got caught. But I stayed until the bitter end of Revolutions, and with my mind on the verge of exploding, I borrowed some of my wolf’s speed to propel my human feet back across the Third Avenue Bridge and into bed before my father and sister awoke.

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