“Fuck a duck,” I muttered and kicked the flat on the brand new Tesla Model Y I borrowed from Phillip.
Phillip was sort of my boyfriend. We’d been dating on and off for six months, and our relationship sort of felt like a hamster on one of those spinning wheels. In other words, we were always moving but never really going anywhere.
Phillip was easy on the eyes, smart and not at all needy. He’d just made partner in the law firm we both worked for and was busy with a sudden influx of added responsibilities. I was happy for him. Really, I was. He worked hard and earned the job. Besides, changes were coming for me. Changes I hadn’t shared with anyone. Not yet.
I’d been thinking about this thing with Phil for days now, mulling it over. No, I was not mad about his dedication to his job. In fact, I really didn’t care. It was just, his sudden promotion was the reason I was headed home alone. Typically, we accompanied each other at family events. But this was just another indication of where we were going, in separate directions.
I hadn’t told Phil what I was planning, and I doubted he would approve. It didn’t matter. I would do what I felt I needed to do with or without him. I didn’t need permission from any man to follow my path, much less a man who spent more time on his skin care routine than he did on making sure I came. I mean, really. Who the fuck did that?
Reminded of my sexual frustrations, I growled and grabbed my cell phone, calling the insurance company to send a tow. Fucking Tesla. Electric cars might be the wave of the future, but for all their gas saving blah blah blah, they still used rubber tires. And as I just found out, running over six-inch-long rusty nails were hazardous to all vehicles, regardless of all the fancy tech shit.
So there I was, an hour late to my own damn birthday party and stuck on the Garden State Parkway just two exits away from my hometown. At least I had heat. I checked the temperature gauge and frowned. Sixteen fucking degrees was too damn cold, I didn’t give a shit what anyone said about majestic blankets of white across forests or winter wonderland photo ops.
Despite the enormous midnight black Wolf inside me, I did not appreciate winter. Like at all. I turned the heat on full blast, snuggling into the seat as I waited for the tow truck. It was fifteen minutes away, which wasn’t bad. Of course, as soon as I had that thought, the battery light went from green to red and within thirty seconds, the damn car shut down on me.
“Motherfucker,” I snarled, tapping my long fingernail on the damn thing.
It was no good. The car was dead. I had no heat. And my phone just chirped, letting me know the tow truck was delayed, and I’d be sitting there for the next two hours if I didn’t do something. Gritting my teeth, I called my brother.
“You’re late,” he said jovially, and I could just picture the goofball smiling wide as he scolded me.
“I’m stuck,” I countered.
“Are you safe?” Erryn asked, having grabbed the phone from Davi.
Her tone was more than concerned, and I knew her eyes were probably glowing purple with her Hybrid beast. God, I missed her! Actually, I missed both of them. Erryn and Davi raised me and our sisters. They were the best people I knew. Caring and protective, but also loving and fun. The two of them were so in sync, I used to stare at them in awe. For the past six years, I lived in Manhattan, and I never came across another couple like them.
“Yes, I’m fine, Err. Phill’s car just—”
“That fancy electric thing I told you not to drive?”
“Yep, that one,” I mumbled, feeling like I was twelve all over again. “Anyway, I got a flat, so it wasn’t the car’s fault,” I grumbled.
“Then why are your teeth chattering, Marti?”
I closed my eyes and huffed a sigh. Dammit. Nothing got past Erryn.
“Because after I got the flat, the car shut down and now, I have no heat. There. You happy?” I barked, trying to stop my teeth from chattering.
“Of course, I am not happy. Just vindicated,” she replied, and I heard a muffled laugh that told me Davi was listening.
Ugh. Incorrigible. There was nothing like looking like a fool to make you feel like a child again. I cleared my throat and tried for patience.
“Why don’t you use magic to fix the flat?”
“Because, Erryn, as you know, I’d be more likely to make the damn car explode. Besides, fixing the flat wouldn’t matter. The engine is dead!”
“Still having problems with your powers, pup?”
I ignored her probing question. I knew she meant well, but I didn’t want to get into it.
“Am I walking or are you coming to get me?” I asked, finished with this conversation.
“Stay put, pup. I’ll send someone to get you.”
Erryn hung up before I could respond to her cryptic statement, and my rumble filled the tiny car. Something was totally up with my Wolf. Ever since the Curse of Natalis had been broken a few years back by a tenacious teenager named Grazi Kelly, I’d been able to communicate with my inner animal faster and clearer than ever.
But living in the city was hard on Wolf. Hell, it was hard on my magic, too. Truth was, I’d been so busy pretending to be normal with my human boyfriend and my human world job, I’d lost touch with my supernatural self. What was I supposed to do? My entire life, I tried so hard to just fit in. Years of hiding my magic from the Macconwood Wolf Pack had taken its toll. How long could a person live in denial, anyway?
The sign to Maccon City loomed in the distance, but with Wolf’s help I could read it just fine. A bitter wind shook the idiotic, pretentious automobile, and I shivered, but not because of the cold. Something was coming. A change. And I wondered if I was ready for it.
My phone buzzed, and I saw a text from Phillip, but I really was not in the mood. He probably got an alert his precious car had stopped working. The man was ridiculous about material possessions. I knew he grew up poor and was proud of how far he came, but sometimes it felt like I was just something else he’d acquired.
After all, with my Hispanic heritage, my noticeable curves, and my own hard knock life background, far as he knew anyway, I checked off more than a couple of the boxes he needed to appear a super guy. The first time I met him he greeted me with some badly accented Spanish, and I had to tell him I didn’t speak a word.
That was when he really got interested. I guess I’d had a weak moment, or seven. I mean, Phil was a nice guy, if a little vanilla. He’d been a good listener though, and hearing about how I’d been abandoned and put into foster care, he didn’t judge me. In fact, he seemed to admire how far I’d come. Maybe we were alike in that way, but something was very clear as I sat in his overpriced car a few hours away from where I left him.
I did not love Phil. Not even a little. What was I doing with this guy? He was human. He knew nothing of my real life. Even the physical aspect of our relationship had taken a huge nosedive. And it wasn’t all that to begin with.
Shit. I really needed to break up with him. I’d told him in the beginning, this would not be a forever kind of deal. He’d thought I was issuing a challenge, playing hard to get. But he had to know I didn’t love him. And he sure as fuck didn’t love me. We hadn’t even had sex in months! I grabbed my phone and scheduled a reminder for later that week.
Break up with Phil.
What? Don’t judge me!
I was bound to get sidetracked by family shenanigans, and this had to get done. Shivering in earnest, I checked the time. What the heck was going on? Fifteen minutes had passed, and the temperature was dropping.
I thought about the welcome I would get when I walked into Harbor House and my Wolf perked up. A long while had passed since I’d come home. Ever since Davian and Erryn, my adoptive brother and sister-in-law, had taken to globetrotting, it seemed kind of pointless. Sybil and Nova were busy with their own lives, and I was doing fine with my law career, living in the Big Apple.
Some life, huh? I was living the dream, or so I told myself. But the truth was my Wolf was out of sorts and my powers were wonky as fuck. The second I got the call from Davian asking me to come home to celebrate the birthday I shared with our two sisters, I knew I was going to say yes.
How could I say otherwise? My big brother did everything for me. For all of us, really. Davian Harbor was a saint. Okay, maybe not a saint. He was a Witch. But he’d raised Sybil, Nova, and me after our foster mother, Mama Anne, passed away, and that meant a shit ton of sacrifices on his part. He wasn’t perfect, but none of us were, and Davian loved us just the same.
When Erryn came into our lives—literally from another world—we were struggling a bit. But after they took care of a couple of goons who wanted to hurt us, Davi and Err put all their strength into raising the three of us. But that still wasn’t why I said yes to coming home for a visit.
It wasn’t out of obligation. No way. That was a copout, and I was not into lying. Not even to myself. I was coming home because I needed to recharge. My life was going according to plan, but lately I had started to wonder—what if the plans were wrong? What if I was supposed to do something besides help wealthy businesses cheat the government?
Did I mention I worked in corporate law? It was challenging at first and fun, but lately, it seemed to have lost its appeal. My Wolf yearned for something else, and the way I kept setting the sheets on fire at night—because of bad dreams not super smexy times—all pointed to one very obvious thing. I was homesick.
Our little makeshift family was anything but normal, and that was exactly how I liked things. But coming back to Maccon City? That left me feeling kind of iffy. I had a complicated relationship with the town where the biggest, baddest, and most powerful Werewolf Pack in the entire world had its headquarters.
See, back in the day, Witches were a big no-no to those guys. The problem was, I was one of those guys. A Werewolf, or Wolf Shifter. But only half. The other half of my DNA was pure Fire Witch. Of course, that sort of magic was something most covens feared, and therefore hated.
So, there you have it. Outcast on both counts. Hated by Wolves. Feared by Witches. I was left to rot on the outskirts of town, which was exactly where Mama Anne had found me almost thirty years ago to the day. God, I missed her. She was the kindest, most giving person I had ever met. Her example was a strong one, and somehow, I felt that I disappointed her with my life’s choices.
Before I could get too maudlin, however, an enormous, cherry red pickup truck pulled in behind me and out of the driver’s side came the tallest, widest man I had ever seen. He had a thick scruff of beard covering his face, a skullcap pulled down tight over his head, and a pair of reflective sunglasses covering his eyes.
Wolf, my inner beast growled, having sensed his animal before I even had time to register, he was coming towards me.
The stranger wore a thick, hooded sweatshirt. It was one of those brands people who worked outdoors favored, and it molded to his powerful chest and arms perfectly. He had dark blue jeans on his long legs and work boots, and the prints they left on the snow-covered ground had to be at least twice the length of mine.
“You gonna come out or what?” he asked, his Jersey accent brisk and no nonsense.
Fuck. I startled hard, grabbing my chest before I remembered myself. Motioning for him to step back, I opened the car door and gasped as the freezing wind whipped against me.
“Did Davi send you?” I yelled above the noise of the traffic and bitter January weather, and the man nodded.
He hadn’t backed up a step either, which meant I had to push him a little with my hip to wiggle out of the car.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled, and the man bent down.
“What for?” he growled.
Damn, but that accent of his was so familiar. Jersey natives tended to drop r’s so what for became what faw, and so on. It took me a really long time to get rid of my accent, which was a necessity in the legal world. I bet I’d have it back in an hour, being home.
Sexy voice. Good body.
“Oh, just—hey! Did you just sniff me?” I asked, shocked at his bad manners.
I knew the Macconwood Pack had stopped its ban on Witches and magic, but that didn’t mean I liked this big, strange Wolf sniffing at me like I was a bag of Cheetos, for fuck’s sake.
“Smell good, sweetheart. Got any bags?”
“Yes. Two in the back, and I am not your sweetheart,” I growled, stomping my way to his truck.
I stopped short, certain I heard him say “not yet” but when I glared at him, he totally ignored me. I noted the stenciled logo on the truck door and frowned.
Truman Contracting LLC? It couldn’t be! Could it? The Truman boys had been in school about the same time as me and my sisters. I’d had a crush on Timothy when I was ten, but this wasn’t him. This man was too big, too dark to be the delicate blond boy I’d once known.
Didn’t Tim have a brother?
I gulped. Oh crap. Yep. He had a brother named Mitchell. And I remembered him.
Mitch Truman had been every teenage girl's dream in high school. If I remembered correctly, he’d played varsity basketball as a starter freshman year. The guys had talent. But he was one of those beautiful, popular boys. The kind who never paid attention to me.
Now, Nova, she’d had her pick of the boys at Maccon City High, but my sister was ridiculously beautiful. She never dated the Werewolves, though. None of us did. But I wasn’t a teenager, we were not in high school anymore. That meant I had options.
Wait. What?