The Marking

CHAPTER 1 MAEA thunderous roar burst through the forest from behind Dad’s Mercedes-Benz, conquering the light hum of its engine. Heart thrashing inside my chest, I stared into the rearview mirror with wide eyes, scanning the mammoth oak trees until I spotted the first few shadows of the wolves bolting through the forest behind us on their nightly run. “Drive faster,” I said to Dad, adrenaline rushing through my veins. I loved watching them run. Dad pressed on the acceleration, jerking the car forward. I rolled down the window, letting the wind blow back my silver-blonde locks, and glanced out into Witver Forest, catching sight of the enchanting golden eyes of the largest wolf among them all—the alpha. When he saw me, he howled to the setting honey sun and sprinted closer to the car with his pack, his claws scraping against the black asphalt with every leap. I reached out the window to stroke his fur, but before I could touch him, Dad rolled up the window, forcing me to yank myself back into the car. I clutched my arm and frowned at their slowing figures in the rearview mirror, their snouts pointed to the sky and their howls reverberating through the car. All I wanted was to be able to run free with them in their forest and live in peace, but someone didn’t find that acceptable. Knuckles white on the steering wheel, Dad clenched his jaw and shoved his foot down harder on the acceleration, throwing me backward against his leather seat. “You know better than to touch those filthy animals, Mae,” he sneered. After balling my hands into fists, I flared my nostrils and glared out the window at the sunset as we flew by the thousands of trees and toward the city. “Don’t you?” he asked me. Knowing that he wouldn’t let this go, I sank further into my seat and mumbled, “Sorry.” While I loved Dad, I hated him sometimes. He couldn’t see past his own prejudices. A deafening silence spread throughout the car, the engine’s continuous hum giving me some sense of peace and calmness among his madness. He relaxed his hand around the wheel and turned on Witver’s most conservative radio station. “Welcome back to our segment of Witver Without Wolves. All through the night, we’ve been keeping you updated on the riots that these filthy animals and their blind supporters are participating in throughout the city. And let me just say, they’re digging their own graves out there, igniting towns with lies about the wolves, saying that they’re civil creatures when all they do is kill. Our world is brainwashed. Werewolves should never live in a society with humans. Protect yourselves. Stock up on all the silver bullets you can get your hands on. Kill on sight. Our trusty police force is on our side. Those men and women are the true heroes, not those radicals trying to procreate with another species.” Rather than listening to this bullshit, I clicked off the radio station and glared through the shiny windshield glass. Dad tightened his grip on the leather steering wheel once more and cleared his throat, merging onto the highway toward the city. If he didn’t want to live with the wolves, I didn’t know why the hell we lived in the middle of Witver Forest. He could live in a high-rise with other humans in the city, but no, he’d had to find a gated neighborhood with people just as insane as he was. “I’m glad you decided to join me for dinner with the Braxons,” he said, thankfully not commenting any further on the Witver wolves. “I heard that Brett is going to be there tonight. He’s been asking for you.” “Brett?” I asked, glancing over at him and raising a brow. “He’s been asking for … me?” Brett Braxon was the biggest, sexiest flirt in all of Witver and my biggest crush since second grade, but too many other women and even some she-wolves fawned too heavily over him. I didn’t have time for that kind of competition; I was too busy figuring out my life amid all these protests about the treatment of wolves. “Are you excited to see Brett?” Dad asked, shooting his brows up and down. “Dad!” I shouted, cheeks flaming. “Please, don’t.” Since I’d moved out of Dad’s suburban home and into a secluded apartment in the forest with my best friends, I rarely talked to him about these things anymore. He always tried to overcompensate for Mom being gone, asking me questions far too personal about my love life. It was all with good intent, but … I didn’t want to be sucked into all his drama and negativity. I didn’t really like human guys anyway. I had my eye on a certain someone already. Turning off the highway, Dad parked in the lot to Tangled Orchard Winery. Overpriced and ritzy, Tangled Orchard Winery had large, bronze-cushioned chairs, white linen–dressed tables, and wall-length windows that flaunted the darkening honey-turning-violet sky. I hiked my cheap purse up my shoulder and stepped into the room, feeling out of place here. Dr. and Mrs. Braxon beamed at us from a candlelit dark oak table. Brett glanced over his shoulder with those sinful hazel eyes, his full lips curling into a smirk when he saw me. “Mae,” he said, rising from the table and wrapping me into a hug. “It’s been too long.” Muscles rippling against my body, he squeezed me tight. After awkwardly patting his back—not used to his proximity—I sat beside him, dreading tonight’s conversation. All anyone had been talking about lately were the protests downtown and throughout the forest. “Another one of those brutes was roaming around our neighborhood yesterday,” Dr. Braxon said, halfway through dinner. He sipped on his Tangled Orchard Winery red wine. “A neighbor called the police on him.” “What don’t they understand about that huge Humans Only sign outside our neighborhood?” Dad asked, shaking his head and scowling, accentuating the deep lines around his mouth. I balled my hand around my fork until my knuckles turned white, knowing where this conversation was headed and wanting nothing more than to say something. Yet every single time I did, Dad would go off on a rant or just completely ignore me. Once he was set on believing what that stupid radio station had fed him, there wasn’t any changing his mind. “I bet they’d understand if they were locked in silver cages and force-fed some wolfsbane, but the government is too afraid of them to do anything like that,” Dr. Braxon said. “Hun,” Mrs. Braxon said, shifting uncomfortably and smiling tensely. “Stop it.” “It’s a shame,” Dr. Braxon said to Dad, completely ignoring his wife. My nails cut into the skin on my palm, and I leaned closer to Brett. “They really are closed-minded, aren’t they?” Brett scoffed. “Would you want a feral animal roaming around on your property? Those beasts attack anything they want for any reason they have. They have no sense of logic. If we’re not careful, they’ll destroy everything we’ve built.” I stared at him with wide eyes, even after he turned back to the conversation. This was coming from the man who occasionally flirted and slept with she-wolves, as if he only used them for a good time and didn’t care what happened to their kind afterward. Forty-five minutes of agonizing conversation later, I was itching to leave. All we had left was dessert, but I didn’t want to spend a second longer listening to Dr. Braxon and Dad bad-mouth anyone else. It made me want to stab my ears out. “Dessert?” someone asked from my left. When I glanced up at him, my eyes widened. Standing at least six foot tall with a brawny frame, blond stubble, and vaguely pointed ears—one of the only distinguishing features of a wolf from a human besides their woodsy scent—a man stood with a platter of chocolate cake. A wolf? Here? He looked so … so out of place among all the humans. Dad scowled, his hatred for beasts making him ugly. “I am not eating that. Take it back.” “Have a human waiter bring it over, you dog,” Dr. Braxon ordered. Pupils dilating, the man tightened his grip on the steel platter. I inhaled sharply. Dad had warned me thousands of times that wolves’ eyes darkened right before they released their inner beasts. What if this man shifted and attacked him? Dad would provoke him more—I was nearly sure of it. Smiling nervously, I leaped from my seat and grabbed the platter. “Thank you so much! I’ll gladly take this cake from you if nobody else here wants it.” I sat back down with the entire cake in front of me, ignoring Dad’s death glare, and grabbed my silver fork. “Chocolate cake is my favorite!” “Mae!” Dad snapped. “What are you doing? Don’t you dare eat that.” Stuffing a forkful of sweetness into my mouth, I chewed and smiled at the grinning waiter. “This is delicious. By far the best cake that I’ve ever had. Thank you so much.” I didn’t know why I couldn’t shut my mouth. I just didn’t want to give Dad the chance to belittle him even more. I swayed my fork in the air at him, signaling delight. “You deserve a raise.” Dad shoved his chair back, the legs screeching against the wooden floor, and snatched my forearm. “I’m sorry for her rude behavior,” Dad said to the Braxons before dragging me to the other side of the room. The waiter glanced over his shoulder at me one last time and then disappeared through a side door as other workers stared at him quizzically, like they had never even seen the man before tonight. A strong urge washed over me to follow him, but I couldn’t do anything with Dad’s grip. Bracing for his scolding, I clenched my jaw and pressed my lips together. My logic failed every time against his closed-mind no matter what I’d say, he would never change his mind about people who differed from us. He had been scolding me for sticking up for them since I’d turned three years old and asked for a stuffed wolf instead of a stuffed doll at the store. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again!” Dad chastised, his grip so tight that my pale skin turned pink. “Do you know how embarrassed I am? You know better than to take anything from a brute. They are savage, disgusting, deadly animals; and they do not deserve to live in our society. We are better than them. We are higher class, Mae.” “Are you kidding me?!” I shouted back, unable to control my fury anymore. I ripped myself out of his hold and ignored the stares from the staff and other patrons. “Do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing while you disrespect an innocent person?” He stiffened. I rarely argued with him anymore, but I couldn’t stand his ridicule. “Why do you think I moved out and I hardly visit you anymore? I’m so sick and tired of you and your goddamn disrespect for people who are different! News flash: Not everything you listen to on that stupid radio station of yours is true!” Before he could even respond, I stormed away from him, snatched my purse from the table, and hurried to the exit without muttering a single good-bye to Brett and his family. They called my name, but I didn’t turn around and run back to them. I didn’t need them or even want to associate myself with them. Flinging open the door, I rushed out and crashed right into a man’s chest. “Sorry,” I muttered, glancing back through the closing door to see Dad shaking his head my way. I needed to get out of here as soon as— I glanced up at the man who hadn’t seemed to move away and inhaled the sweetest honeysuckle scent ever. With forest-green eyes that flickered gold every few moments, vaguely pointed ears, and a scar across his chiseled jaw, he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. My heart stammered inside my chest, my mouth drying. The wolf from Witver Forest, the alpha who had run closer to our car and nearly let me touch him. It was him. But what was he doing here? Wolves never frequented places like these. After another moment, he stood straight and postured over me. “What are you looking at, human?” he snarled, his long canines extending past his lips. If I wasn’t slightly aroused, I would’ve almost taken it as a threat. When he growled at me through them, I did. All of the constant warnings my father had ingrained into me about wolves’ dangerous behaviors suddenly rushed through my mind, rearing their ugly heads. I hated that man for instilling such vile thoughts into me. For the past eighteen years, I had been trying desperately to get rid of that implicit bias. Yet, still, my heart raced at the sight of sharp and bared teeth. “Why’re you so scared?” he asked me, glowering at me. “Just a moment ago, I listened to you scream at your father about disrespecting wolves, and now, you’re nervous, just standing in the presence of one.” Gnawing on my cheek, I stepped back but couldn’t seem to look away from his huge teeth. While I’d originally believed that my nerves caused me to react this way in front of him, I … I … I couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of his skin on mine, the way his teeth could slip inside my neck, and— Gosh, no. What was I even thinking? Wolves and humans never mated. Parting my lips, I tried to think of an excuse for my foolish behavior. When I realized no words were coming out of my mouth, I took another step back, wanting to put space between us because … the closer we were, the cloudier my thoughts became. He moved closer to me, almost … instinctively, yet I stepped back again and plastered myself to the door. Was it getting hot out here? Because my whole body felt like it was burning, scorching in flames even. Placing both palms flat next to me, he trapped me between him and the door. I froze, gulped in fear that I’d do something stupid with Dad in the next room, and stared into those smoldering forest-like eyes that held so much passion, yet even more pain. I wanted to venture inside and peel back layer after layer of leafy facades and thick fortresses to see who this big, bad alpha really was. He leaned down slightly and inched his face closer to mine, his honeysuckle aroma overwhelming my senses and his eyes darkening, just as the waiter’s had. While I should’ve been terrified that this man would rip me apart, I felt oddly comfortable, like he and I were supposed to meet. The door behind me swung open, and I stumbled back. He wrapped his strong arms around my waist and held me to his chest, a blazing fire erupting where his skin touched mine. My fingers curled into his taut chest, the energy charged between us. Dark strands of hair fell into his face, his honey breath fanning my lips. “Get away from her!” Brett shouted from behind me. A low, possessive roar erupted from the beast. He wrapped his large hands around my waist and placed me behind him, the muscles under his gray V-neck flexing through his shirt. Claws lengthening, canines extended, he held one arm back, as if to shield me from Brett. “And who are you?” “I’m her boyfriend,” Brett said, glaring at the animal. Boyfriend? I wrinkled my nose, the mere label sickening me. Where had that even come from? And why would he even say that? This wolf snarling between us wouldn’t care what I was to him. The wolf growled viciously this time and bared his large canines at Brett, his back muscles stretching and nearly tearing the threads of his V-neck. “No.” Wanting to defuse the situation, I placed my shaky hand on the werewolf’s forearm. He jerked himself out of my grip and yanked me in front of him, his callous digits digging into my shoulders. I yelped at the sudden movement, my heart leaping in my chest. “Let her go,” Dad spat, walking out from behind Brett. “Or I’ll call animal control on you.” “You can have her,” the wolf said, shoving me forward. I stumbled into Brett, who enveloped me in his embrace and stepped toward the door. But I didn’t move from the spot. I didn’t want to go back inside. I didn’t want to sit through any more of their shitty conversation. I wanted to stay. I needed to know who this wolf was, why I felt this way toward him, and if he … if he felt the same way. He probably didn’t, but … I wanted to know what this meant. I lived with a werewolf and didn’t feel this strongly connected to him. “You can try to keep her away from us,” the wolf said to Dad, staring right at me with those golden-flaked green eyes, “but you can’t stop the way she feels about us, nor the way she’s drawn to me.” “My daughter doesn’t like any of you.” Dad seethed, lunging forward and flailing his arms around in an attempt to hit the man. Swiftly dodging the attack, the wolf stepped to the left and smirked at my father. “Of course you think that. You can’t smell her the way I can.” Though his words were degrading, I couldn’t stop the heat clawing its way up the insides of my thighs. Forget everything I’d said about this man. He was an asshole that I never wanted to see again, especially after that last comment. He hadn’t needed to sell me out to Dad like that. Dad shot in for another punch, but I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him back. “Stop, Dad. He’s just trying to get you angry.” The wolf walked backward off the sidewalk and toward the street, as if he never planned on dining inside the restaurant tonight, as if he had come for a different reason entirely—me. Lips curled into a smirk, he winked at me. “Until next time, Kitten.” After he disappeared into Witver’s busy streets, I stayed glued to the spot. I’d talked to many wolves before, but not once had a wolf drawn me in so effortlessly. Meeting this man had awoken an inner hunger that I hadn’t known I even had. A starved, feral animal rumbled inside of me, pleading for me to find him again someday. And maybe, one day, I would. Dad snatched my wrist and stormed with me to the car. “What’s your problem? You know not to talk to wolves and certainly not to flirt with one like that. Do you not remember what happened to your mother?” I ripped myself from his grip in the middle of the parking lot. “How could I forget, Dad? You mention it every other day.” Nostrils flaring, Dad shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a silver necklace with an off-white oval pendant hanging from the thin chain. In the center of the pendant, a red liquid substance sat within a small container. “I wasn’t going to give you this now, as I wanted to keep it with me, but it seems you need the constant reminder every day.” “Are you giving this to me because it’s silver?” I snapped. Silver like these repelled wolves and would make them bleed from a single touch. “No, I’m giving it to you because it was your mother’s,” he said. “She used to wear it and said something about it making her stronger during the blood moon. I hope it can make you stronger and smarter too. Maybe it will remind you of her death when you’re out, hanging around those disgusting animals.” After ripping the necklace from his hand, I shoved it into my pocket. Nothing from him could ever just be out of simple love for Mom and me. Nothing could be sentimental anymore, not even my dead mother’s necklace.