Chapter 1
The bonfire should have been for me.
That's all I could think as my mom's old Subaru bumped down the dirt road toward Ashen Woods. The headlights cut through the tall pines of Blackwood Falls, Washington. Through the trees, I could see the orange glow of the ceremonial fire. I could hear music. Laughter, Bass from someone's Bluetooth speaker. The whole pack was there, probably drinking cheap beer out of red cups like it was a normal Friday night party.
In Blackwood Falls, every girl gets her night. On your nineteenth birthday, you shift for the first time. It's bigger than prom. Bigger than getting your acceptance letter to UW. The bonfire, the chanting, your first howl. My best friends Jessica and Chloe had theirs last summer behind the high school football field. Grey wolves, both of them. Perfect. Normal. Their moms cried happy tears and posted videos on i********: with #FinallyShifted.
My mom hadn't said a word the whole drive. She just gripped the wheel of the Subaru so tight her knuckles were white.
I pulled my sweater tighter over my knees. I was wearing the ceremonial white dress under it, the one every girl in Blackwood wears from Lacy's Boutique on Main Street. It felt too thin. Too cold for October. My legs were shaking and it wasn't from the cold.
"You don't have to do this tonight, honey," Mom said finally, her voice tight and small. She kept bothñ eyes on the dirt road. "Elder Margaret called me. She said we can wait a month. Until Dr. Evans figures out—"
"The doctor can't figure it out," I cut her off, but not in a mean way. I was just so tired of hearing it. "Mom, my bloodwork came back 'inconclusive' three times. My DNA test glitched. I'm nineteen today. If I don't shift tonight, by pack law I'm declared Wolfless. You know what that means."
She didn't answer. Because she knew. An unshifted wolf at nineteen is cast out. You lose your pack protection. You have to leave Blackwood Falls and you never come back. I would have to move to Seattle and pretend to be human forever. I was born here. I couldn't leave.
We parked at the edge of the clearing. Everyone turned at once. The music didn't stop, but the laughing did. Fifty faces. People I'd known since kindergarten.
Jessica ran over first, her dark hair flying. "Aria! You came!" She hugged me hard. She already smelled like her wolf, warm and earthy and wild. "You look gorgeous. You're gonna be amazing, okay? Seriously, you're gonna be a badass grey like me."
Chloe was right behind her, smiling but nervous, holding two cups of cider. "We saved you a spot, Aria. Near the front."
They were trying so hard to be normal. But I saw how Chloe stepped back a half-step when I reached for the cider. They all knew the rumors from Blackwood Falls High. When I touched the class rabbit in biology, it had a seizure and died an hour later. When I tried to keep a succulent in my room, it turned black overnight. My touch killed living things. The pack doctor called it an "energy anomaly."
Elder Margaret was waiting in the stone circle in the middle of the clearing. She was 80 but looked 50, her long grey hair braided back, wearing her black ceremonial cloak. She looked at me with pure pity, not excitement like she had for Jessica and Chloe.
"Aria Cole," she whispered so only I could hear as I stepped closer. "Your aura... it's not settled, child. It's spinning. Are you sure? We can do this another night, when the moon is stronger."
"I'm ready," I lied. My voice cracked.
I stepped into the circle. The cold from the stones hit my bare feet and shot up my legs. My mom squeezed my hand once, hard, then let go and stepped back behind the line. I was alone in the middle.
The elder poured the black ash around my feet in a perfect circle. The pack started chanting, low and old. Words in the old wolf language my grandmother used to whisper.
_Blood to blood. Moon to moon. Reveal what sleeps._
The big bonfire in the center roared higher, twenty feet high, as if a sudden wind hit it, though the trees were completely still. The flames turned white for a second.
Then pain ripped through me.
It wasn't like Jessica described. She said it was like jumping into cold water in Lake Cushman, then feeling warm honey spread through your veins. This was not warm.
This was breaking.
I gasped as my spine arched backward so far I thought it would snap. A scream tore out of my throat that didn't sound human at all. It was a howl of agony. It felt like every bone in my body was shattering and growing back longer, sharper. My nails lengthened into black claws. My skin felt like it was being burned off and replaced with fur.
"Mom!" I choked out, but I couldn't see her anymore. My vision went pure white. I fell to my knees in the wet leaves, clawing at the dirt, sobbing.
I could hear my own heartbeat going insane, like a drum. I could smell everything - the pine sap, the fear sweat pouring off fifty wolves, Jessica's vanilla perfume, the copper of blood from where I'd cut my own palm on a stone.
I thought I was dying. I really thought this was what it felt like to die in the circle. The cursed girl from Blackwood Falls High finally dying on her birthday.
Then, as fast as it came, it stopped.
Dead silence. Instant.
The chanting had stopped mid-word. The Bluetooth speaker had been turned off. Even the crickets in Ashen Woods were quiet. All I could hear was my own ragged breathing.
I was on all fours in the dirt. I could see perfectly in the dark, every leaf, every terrified face. I could hear heartbeats. Dozens of them, racing fast. I could smell fear. So much fear it tasted sour.
I looked down at my hands.
Not hands. Paws. Huge paws.
White fur. Pure, snow-white fur that seemed to glow silver under the full moon. My paws were bigger than any female wolf I'd ever seen in Blackwood, bigger than Jessica and Chloe combined. My tail was long and fluffy.
White.
No. No, no, no.
White wolves hadn't been born in the Blackwood bloodline for a hundred years. They were in the scary stories Elder Margaret read us as kids around the campfire. The White Wolf was an omen of death. A wolf that brought war, that brought the end of its pack. The legend said every pack killed them at birth to save the pack.
Someone in the crowd, I think it was Chloe's mom, whispered loud in the silence, "The White Wolf... oh my god, it's real..."
My mom made a sound like she was going to faint. I heard her knees hit the dirt.
Then I smelt it, Cutting through the fear and the smoke.
Pine and smoke and expensive cologne and pure, raw power that made my new wolf want to roll over and show its belly and whimper.
I didn't need to turn around. I knew that scent from two years ago when he spoke at our high school graduation.
Boots crunched on dry leaves behind me. Slow. Controlled. Powerful. Each step silent but heavy.
Every wolf in the clearing, including Elder Margaret, instantly lowered their heads. A few of the younger guys dropped to one knee without thinking.
Alpha!
Kael Blackwood was supposed to be in New York. He was supposed to be running Blackwood Enterprises, the billion-dollar logging and tech company that owned half this town and all of Seattle. He never came to first shifts. He was too important, too cold. He was 26, an Alpha of Alphas, and he hadn't been back to Blackwood Falls since his father died two years ago.
But he was here now. In a black button-down shirt and black slacks, sleeves pushed up, like he'd come straight from his private jet at Sea-Tac. His dark hair was messy from the wind. His jaw was sharp. And his golden-brown eyes were locked on me.
On my white fur. On the monster I had become.
His face was stone cold. No emotion. But his eyes... his eyes were burning with something I couldn't name. Anger? Shock? Something else.
He didn't look at anyone else. He looked at Elder Margaret. His voice was low, calm, and so Alpha it made my white fur stand on end and my ears pin back.
It wasn't a request. It was an order that would be obeyed.
"Chain her. Now. Before she kills us all."
