Wolf's Gambit: Blackridge Peak Series

Kezia Cool water lapped at my feet as I moved carefully through the river, a wooden spear held tightly in my hand as I stalked my prey. The fat trout swam lazily ahead, taunting me with their leisurely afternoon swim. Grinding my teeth, clutching my spear tighter, I brought it down in a smooth, practiced strike, ready to impale an unsuspecting fish. I missed Mr. Trout by a country mile. The loud laughter from the riverbank made me close my eyes and count to ten before I turned and faced my peers. My best friend and accomplice in all of my crimes, Cass, sat on the grassy banks, her head thrown back as she laughed loudly. Beside her sat her brother, Landon, who was grinning at me as I stomped out of the water. “You’re both d***s,” I grumbled as I dropped down beside them on the bank. I refused to look at their two overflowing baskets of trout. “Why is it, when you shift, you’re practically perfect, but you’re just…” Landon floundered as I raised an eyebrow at him in a silent challenge. “This? You’re so bad like this,” he finished lamely. “I’m bad?” “Kezia, you’re a terrible hunter in human form. You know it, we know it, and the whole of Anterrio Pack knows it.” Cass exchanged a look with her brother, and they started chuckling again as they filled my empty basket with some of their catch. “You don’t need to,” I told them quietly. Keeping my eyes averted, I looked out over the river toward the peak that sat to the west. “As you said, everyone knows I can’t hunt when I’m human.” “Who cares?” Landon said as he bounded to his feet. “We won’t tell, and who the hell is asking us anyway?” His smug grin earned him an eye roll from me as he helped his sister to her feet. Dusting off the back of her shorts, Cass bent down to hand me my basket. “Stop moping. We caught lots. Trout is still on the menu tonight. At the end of the day, who cares who caught what? The fact we have the food is all that matters.” “Teamwork makes the dream work,” Landon cried out with his arms wide and his head tilted back as if he were a showman. As Landon always did, he made me laugh. His bright blue eyes twinkled with glee as he looked at us both. “You’re such a clown,” I told him with a smile as I took the basket off Cass. “Which is why you love me.” Pretending to think about it, I rubbed my chin. “Love? It’s more like…tolerate. I tolerate you.” “Cassandra! Do you hear how she wounds my pride?” “You’re an ass.” His sister elbowed him as we set off back to town. With a final glance back to the river and a look down at my half-full basket, I shrugged off the day’s fishing failure. When it was time to hunt in my wolf form, I would be victorious. My wolf never failed in the hunt. I may have been crap at most things in human form, but when I was one with the wolf, I was almost invincible. “She isn’t listening again.” Hearing Cass complain to her brother got my attention. “I was listening.” “You’re such a rotten liar, Kezia,” Cass said with a scowl. “You weren’t listening, because if you had been, you would know I was talking about the Luna Ball.” Shit. I hadn’t been listening. “I was listening. I’ve been listening for two months, because all you’ve talked about is the ball. I know, we know”—I indicated to Landon—“that it’s the biggest event of the year. We understand that your dress will be the best and most beautiful, and we appreciate you’re hoping to meet your mate.” “We also know,” Landon started, as he grinned with me, “that you will not meet your mate. We recognize it is the most boring event of the year, and we know that your dress will only be spectacular until the next one. And that, my fair-haired sister, is exactly why we don’t listen.” Cass looked between us for a moment and then stuck her tongue out. “I hope you both get pimples.” As I slipped my arm through hers, the three of us walked back. The siblings fell into an easy banter, talking about everything and nothing as I walked beside them, content to be quiet. We’d been friends from a young age, not long after we’d joined the pack. My brother, Kristoff, or Kris as he was known now, and I were taken into the pack when my brother realized he was too young to raise me alone. Especially since I’d shifted into my wolf form as a babe and hadn’t shifted back. Our parents had been nomads. Packless. They’d chosen not to conform to the ways of the larger packs, preferring to be their own pack, so when I shifted before I was even one year of age, they never made me shift back. They’d been so delighted at how in tune I was with my inner wolf that they allowed us to run free. Encouraged it. When our parents were killed in an accident, there was no alpha or pack leader to force the shift on me, and instead, Kris forced himself to stay in wolf form to take care of me. But even as a young boy, my brother knew he was too inexperienced to raise a sibling. He may have been a child himself, but my brother was methodical. Kris watched and studied the Anterrio Pack for weeks before he approached the pack’s leader and told him our story, seeking shelter and refuge, but really, he was asking for help. Guiding the pack leader and the shaman to where I was hidden, he explained I had been in my wolf’s form for nearly five years. As an acknowledged pack leader, Bale had the power to force my shift. It took weeks of being forced to submit to him before I didn’t automatically change back to my wolf and learned to embrace my human form. The shaman advised I should remain human until I was of the age when most children embraced their wolf for the first time, normally between ten and twelve years of age. He said I needed to learn my body and mind as a human. My wolf already knew me, but the human side of me needed to be just as dominant. I was six when they took us into the pack. They refused my shift until I was fourteen. For eight years, they forbade me to let my wolf come forward. I knew why they did it. There was little to distinguish me between a shifter and a wolf cub born in the mountains. I had been wild. Untamed. Feral. Even now, almost twelve years later, I preferred to be in my wolf form more than my human one. Four legs were better than two. Short legs were better than the gangly things I had as a human. A wet nose close to the ground was better than being stuck in a book like Cass usually was, believing that her prince would one day come. A white-furred wolf was more acceptable than a white-blonde eighteen-year-old girl with pale blue eyes and skin as light as her hair, which still caused some pack members to look away instead of meeting my eyes. Being human sucked. Being a shifter was better. Being a wolf? Nothing would beat it. Ever. “Earth to Kezia,” Landon murmured from beside me. Looking up, I saw Kris waiting for me on the outskirts of town, and all three of us naturally slowed our steps. “Kezia,” he called to me brusquely, the warning in his tone that he knew I’d slowed as we approached was clear. His gruff voice was at odds with his handsome face. Kris had light brown hair that reached his shoulders, not my white-blonde coloring. His eyes were deep blue rather than the pale blue I had. But the constant frown line on his forehead, on an oval face like mine, with the same sharp cheekbones and thinner upper lip, and the way his fingers twitched at his side as if he were constantly restless, gave away our familial resemblance. My brother may be more comfortable in his skin than me, but we both shared the same wildness that the other shifters of the Anterrio Pack lacked, and when Kris scowled at me as he was now, it was even more prominent. “Kristoff, lost your reindeer?” Landon jibed as he walked past him. We should never have let Landon watch that movie. That one character shared the same full name as my brother and was a constant source of delight to Landon. He took every opportunity to refer to it when Kris was within hearing distance, and my brother had exceptional hearing.