“No one can know about this. If you never shift, if you reallyaremoonlocked—” he starts.
I tense, whiplashed by the word. “We don’t know if I’m moonlocked.”Of course I am.
“It would look bad on the family. Do you understand, Mandi?” Dad stops pacing long enough to close the distance and grip my shoulders. “We’ll figure out a way to hide it. If they think you’re moonlocked, we’ll lose this position. This house. We’ll lose everything. The pack will say I’m not fit to lead and cast us out.”
His eyes narrow like they keep the truth inside, that banishment is the least of what they’ll do to us, because of me.
His anxiety sends frissons of fear spiraling through me. “Is that all you care about?” I bite down on my lip. “This house? Your position?”
Why shouldn’t he care about it? Our house is the biggest, in direct proportion to his position of power. Like any of it matters.
The gates, the land, the perfect streets, none of it matters.
Because the wolf I’m supposed to feel inside of me is silent. Always has been.
His hands are the only things keeping me in place. When his arms fall to his side, when the disappointed groan is too real for either of us to ignore, I stomp out of the room. Dad doesn’t follow.
What if I never change? I’ve had to live with the fear my entire life.
When the other pups were off with each other, I watched them. I marked their movements even knowing there wassomething different about me. Despite the call to join them, I wouldn’t move.
I have to get out of here.
How many more talks like this will I have to endure in my life? How many more times will I be the disappointment? The dark stain on this family?
Air stutters in my chest.
I’ll have to keep up the charade for the rest of my life.
Hatred fills my mouth with the taste of something vile. Instead of going upstairs to my room, I cut to the left, heading out the back patio door.
Sun-warmed grass and air scented by the day fill my lungs instead. Crickets chirp and a slight breeze whispers through the trees and sends their limbs together like chimes.
We’ve been granted a clear night for the meteor shower.
The last thing I want to do is stick around with the pack and watch it with them. Dad managed to sneak in his pep talk slash interrogation before the schedule says we head to the communal hall and gather as one.
What a joke.
Another night of being moonlocked. Another night of wondering which of the friends and family members who moved with us will be the first to figure it out.
Night stretches out for me, wind whispering the thoughts inside my head. To run. To get the hell out of this place that will never accept me for who I am.
Run away from the secrets I’m forced to keep.
The best I can do is jog for the gate, slipping through the small space beneath the metal where I’ve gone thousands of times before, like the woods inside the compound are not enough to contain me.
But it’s no easier to breathe once I’m out. Goosebumps tighten my skin at the fierce cry of a wolf in the distance.
Coming from outside the fence.
I can ignore the glowing eyes in the darkness.
But when the rustling leaves nearby signal something creeping that doesn’t belong, and when the wind changes to bring the rotting scent of meat, I take off in the other direction.
No, no, hell no.
Adrenaline surges as my arms pump, legs carrying me along the line of the fence around our compound. Moon-mad wolves are a danger. They’ve never come this close to us. The Ironwood pack is strong.