I was ready. I had spent months training for this moment and I was ready. The annual Grand Hunt had finally come for this year. Until now, I couldn’t be a part of the festivities because I was too young. The age for eligibility to participate was 24. This year, it was finally my year. I’d been training since before I even qualified. I would do it; I would win. For my family. I had to. I would restore my family name if it was the last thing I’d do.

My father had been best friends with Alpha Roman and well on track to replacing his aging Beta until all of a sudden, they had a really intense fight. No one knew what it was about, what caused it or how it started. But after that day, their friendship was no more. In its place, enmity rose. Alpha Roman shunned and ostracised my entire family and his arrogant son, Louis and the entire pack followed suite, even without knowing who was at fault. But today I would change that. Today I would come out the winner in this Hunt and claim my victory prize; a favour from Alpha Roman. I would ask him to publicly acknowledge my family and welcome us back into the good graces of the pack. My father was against this idea but I didn’t care. While he didn’t want anything to do with the Alpha, I didn’t want my little brother to grow up the way I did, ridiculed or otherwise ignored. So, I would do this. I would hunt and get the most spoils. I would emerge the winner.

“Angie, you don’t have to do this you know. You hate killing other animals” my best friend Devon said. I stared at him from where I stood in front of my dresser. He was seated on my bed directly opposite my dresser and I could see him in the mirror without turning. I met his icy blue eyes with my bright green ones.

“But I do have to do this. It’s the only way to make sure that we return back to the pack’s good graces”

“But why does that matter? Why do you care what they think?”

“We’ve been over this Dev, I’m not going to let Lincoln grow up in a place where he’s not accepted. We either get accepted into the pack or we change packs. Since we have deep ancestral roots here, I’m going for option one”

He sighed and made a fist. I knew he was digging his nails into his palms because that’s what he did when he was nervous or upset. I was curious which he was at the moment.

“I don’t want you to leave the pack”

He ran his hand through his thick head of dark hair.

“And I don’t want to leave either. So I’ll hunt and I’ll win”

I finished tying my long chestnut brown hair into a bun so it wouldn’t get in my way and stood back to examine my work. I was dressed in loose fitting shorts and an old tank top. I didn’t need that much. After all, when I transformed, the clothes would rip. Not that I was planning to transform with them on. You could only rip so much clothing until you learned to simply take them off and stuff them in a tree where you could later retrieve them when you transformed back into your human form.

“Then I’m coming with you”

“There’s no teamwork in this competition Dev, you know that”

“Yes but-“ “No buts. It’s fine. I’ve trained for this. You trained me yourself. I can do this”

“I know you can, I just don’t want you to have to just to prove something to some jerks who don’t even deserve to know you”

I smiled. “Let’s go serve up some carcasses”

Devon burst out laughing despite himself. “God, you and your morbid humour”

He stood and we made our way out of my house. Luckily, we didn’t run into my father; I couldn’t stand getting his disapproving look, it made me feel little and I tended to back down.

“Okay, we all have different starting points so we split up here” Devon said.

“And surprise, surprise, mine is at the outskirts of our woods, furthest from where any animals hang out” I rolled my eyes.

“Just remember everything you’ve learned and good luck” he leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek, then turned away to go.

I turned around myself and met the disapproving eyes of my Pack members. Each of them stared at me with scorn, derision and varying degrees of disgust. I rolled my eyes, used to it by now, and began my trek to my starting line. When I was halfway there, something slammed into my body with bruising force and I stumbled and almost fell before I caught myself.

“How did you think you were starting without hearing good luck from me?!” Melissa asked. Well she thought she was speaking. She was yelling.

“Mel, what have I said about slamming into me?”

She smiled an innocent smile that would be very believable to the untrained eye. Melissa could look entirety innocent if she set her mind to it. With her thick blonde hair, baby blue eyes and rosy cheeks, she was the picture of innocence. Too bad she was a mischievous minx. When we were kids, she used to get us into all kinds of trouble and I would always get blamed for it because once she flashed those big blue eyes, no one could accuse her of any wrongdoing.

“To do it more often?”

I laughed, thankful for the comic relief. Despite my bravado and earlier reassurances to Devon, I was still nervous. As he said, I did not like to kill animals. Werewolves were actually peaceful creatures and we didn’t hunt other animals asides from the Grant Hunt and the wolves who did it for sport. It wasn’t banned or anything so they were in their rights. It just wasn’t something I liked doing. For this reason, I was nervous. Plus, the Alpha’s arrogant son, Louis was participating in this year’s hunt which was alarming in and of itself. He’d turned twenty four three years ago but had never participated in the competition himself. He was always in other packs at this time, settling disputes and organising events. But this year, he was here. There were whispers around the Pack that he was the most talented hunter ever to be born into the Pack, if not the world. And he was my competition. The thought of that wiped the smile clean off my face.

“Oh come on, cheer up. You’re gonna do great!” Melissa said, trying to bolster my spirits. She was always good at that and I genuinely appreciated the effort even though it wasn’t working this time.

“I hope so Mel. I hope-“ the sound of the horn that announced the beginning of the Hunt stopped me mid sentence. I gasped in shock.

“They aren’t supposed to blow it yet. They’re supposed to send people to make sure everyone is at their station”

Mel winced. “I think they did hon”

It took me a second to realise that they’d intended for me not to be at my post before they blew the horn. All part of their little ways to make my life miserable. Honestly it was getting old. But this time it was really important that I be on time! Damn.

“Mel I’ve gotta go! Bye”

I ran away from her and just heard her shouted goodbye before I dashed into the woods. Although she also just became eligible to participate, she chose not to despite being a very skilled huntress. She never gave me a reason and I didn’t push.

I quickly pulled off my clothes and leapt into the air. As werewolves could jump really high even in human form, I reached the top of the tree and stashed my clothes, then quickly let my wolf take over so that I was in wolf form before my feet touched the ground. The snapping of bones and deformation didn’t bother me anymore; I’d been transforming since I was fourteen, the normal age most werewolves had their first transformation. I dashed deeper into the woods and sniffed the air. I could smell a mule deer nearby. They were pretty common here in Colorado so there wasn’t much points attached to them, it was five points at most, some bonuses for skill of kill. Regardless, I was working on an every point counts tactic so I paused and sniffed more to determine exactly where the deer was. It was about five miles away from me, give or take. I braced on my hind legs, then I dove, using the overpowering speed that Werewolves have, I was on it before it could even make a sound. I said a silent prayer for it and then sank my teeth into its throat, ripping its jugular and silencing it, all before it could make a sound.

I said another prayer and backed away from the bleeding corpse, wanting to retch. That was probably why I didn’t hear him until it was too late. The wolf slammed into me, making me tumble down a slope. Before I could get up, the wolf was on me, it’s teeth at my neck. All I could think over the erratic pounding of my heart was ‘Well, karma’s a bitch’.

I kicked out and pushed the werewolf off of me and quickly rose before it could recover. I started up at it, yes, up. It was easily almost twice the size of my wolf. Only rogue wolves who’d been in their wolf form for long and had been feeding on raw animals could grow that big. Which meant I’d been attacked by a freaking rogue werewolf! What would a rogue be doing in these parts anyway? Even a rogue had the sense of boundaries and knew that if it crossed into another pack’s territory it would be killed without a single thought and since it did not belong to any pack, it wouldn’t cause a war.

I looked into its brown eyes which looked crazed and almost stumbled backwards. This wasn’t a werewolf anymore. It was a feral, wild animal.

It dove for me again, swiping with its claws and I narrowly dodged the swipe and swiped at him with mine instead. I got its face but regretted it two seconds later when it looked up and I could almost feel the anger wafting off it.

‘I don’t want to hurt you. We don’t have to do this. Just go away’ I tried to talk to the wolf through the mind link all werewolves could forge but it was futile. There was no human left in this wolf so there was no mind to connect to in the first place.

It dove for me and as I rolled away, its claw caught my stomach and tore. The blinding pain was almost overwhelming in its intensity. I howled in pain and began panicking when I felt my hold on my wolf slipping. She wanted blood and I couldn’t stop her from breaking out. I usually kept a tight leash on my wolf because of what happened to the Luna of our pack, Esther, Alpha Roman’s mate. It was said that during a Grand Hunt, she lost control of her wolf and became feral. Her link to the pack was severed and she went rogue. After several attempts to get her back failed- although it had been a futile attempt, rogues did not regain their humanity- she had to be put down. It was rumoured that the loss of his mate changed Alpha Roman forever, he was simply never the same.

Because of this, I’d always kept my wolf side on a tight leash, only transforming when necessary. But now, my wolf threatened to break out and I could feel her taking over. I made to run away but turning my back on the wolf proved to be a mistake when the wolf tackled me. It gripped the wound it had made earlier and I howled in excruciating pain. And that was when it happened. I felt her taking over and my humanity receding. I felt like I was watching from afar as my wolf scratched an elongated paw down the wolf’s face and made a wound so deep that blood spilled out to bathe my chestnut brown fur. Then she dug her claw into its stomach the same time it sunk it’s teeth into her neck. That was like the wake-up call my body needed. I felt myself return and with it came the excruciating pain of having fangs tearing into my throat. I howled out in pain and then all of a sudden, the fangs were gone, as was the weight.

I opened my eyes and watched as a large black wolf wrestled with the rogue wolf. I wanted to go help but the speed at which they fought was overwhelming. If I went in, one of them would definitely finish the job the rogue started. So I stood aside and watched as they fought, praying my saviour would survive. From the bond I felt with the wolf, I knew it was a member of our pack, though I couldn’t tell who. I never ran with the rest of the pack. The only people I went out on runs with were Melissa and Devon so I wouldn’t recognize anyone else’s wolf.

As suddenly as the fight began, it ended a few minutes later. The rogue wolf laid dead at the black wolf’s feet. It looked up to me, light brown eyes narrowed in a severe expression I couldn’t understand.

‘You’re bleeding. Transform so I can tend to your wounds’

I felt lightheaded when his words entered into my head, like his voice was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. I almost swayed with the weight of its influence on me. I didn’t know why I felt this way until he spoke again.

‘Transform, Mate’

My eyes widened in shock even as I began to slowly transform against my will. I realised two things. First of all, this wolf was my mate. Second, with the fact that his order came to me as a command my body unwillingly obeyed, this was an Alpha wolf. And since Alpha Roman’s mate was dead and other Alphas wouldn’t be in our territory without explicit invitation, it was safe to assume that this was Louis.

Louis was my mate! How could that have happened? Of all the people in the world, it had to be the most obnoxious werewolf who practically hated me.

As I was transforming, he was too. His eyes widened when he saw me.

“No. You can’t be my mate”

“And yet here we are” I said, then gasped at the pain in my neck and stomach.