Chapter1
“Miss Phoebe! Miss Phoebe!”
The chorus of excited squeals greeted her as she entered the packhouse kitchen. Phoebe smiled, sinking to her knees as the ten young pups ranging from four to thirteen rushed to greet her. She laughed, hugging each of them tight, rubbing noses with a few she was particularly close to.
“Thank you so much for taking them today,” one of the female wolves said, carrying a two-year-old.
Phoebe stood, accepting the pup who giggled at her and said, “It’s no problem at all. This is my favorite part of the day. All right everyone, let’s go on a scavenger hunt!”
“Yeah!!”
Phoebe herded the pups away from the packhouse and led them to the woods. This was how all her days started since her rejection.
* * *
The Rimrock Pack was located in the southwest corner of Washington State about forty miles from Mount Rainier. Only a few miles to the north was the similarly named town. The town and the pack had been there so long no one remembered which had been established first. Regardless, the pack used the city for many of their needs, including shopping and schooling, though their pups sometimes had a difficult time adjusting to a human-run school. Pack members who went on to college generally only went as far as Seattle or, more rarely, Portland. Phoebe was no exception.
Their pack was not overly large, about four hundred members, a respectable size carefully nurtured by their previous alpha. While most pack members lived in the packhouse, Phoebe still lived in the small cottage she once shared with her parents. She was not an omega but also not one of the high-ranking members.
Like the majority of pack members, she was one of the unranked masses: the nameless cogs without which the pack would cease to function. Her parents had been fated mates and also unranked members, though not without their own bit of prestige. Her mother had been head cook and her father the chief groundskeeper in charge of the pack gardens as well as a tutor for members struggling with their studies as he was one of the few with a college education.
Human beauty standards didn’t mean much to wolves who skewed more toward voluptuous profiles. High-ranking wolves were fit, muscular and aggressive whether male or female, especially if they were warriors. The unranked members below them were not quite as extreme muscle-wise, but still physically strong. Below them, omegas lacked physical prowess and stamina. Though they didn’t stand a chance in a fight against a high-ranking wolf or even most unranked ones, omegas were still far stronger than humans.
As an unranked member, Phoebe was…average. She was average height, if somewhat petite by wolf standards. Her form was pleasingly curvy, though her breasts were only B-cup. Like most wolves, she had a mane of thick mousy-brown hair that reached just past her shoulders though her skin was on the pale side. Her only notable physical feature was her silver-gray eyes. Phoebe was average in every way, except her wolf.
Wolf spirits usually awakened in their mid-to-late teens. The more powerful the wolf the sooner it emerged. Alphas, betas and some gammas awakened as early as sixteen, while omegas might awaken as late as their early twenties. Phoebe’s wolf awakened when she was fifteen.
Phoebe was in a deep asleep when Máni suddenly woke her up with a bright, ‘Hello, moonshine!’
To say she was surprised was putting it mildly, but Máni proved to be excellent company for a wolf san siblings. An even greater surprise awaited Phoebe on the first full moon after her sixteenth birthday. Máni woke her in the dead of night and insisted she go out into the forest behind her parents’ cottage. Sleepy and confused, Phoebe nonetheless obeyed her wolf’s directives.
Once outside, she greeted the rising full moon only to be wracked by a sudden excruciating pain as her joints popped and bones lengthened and realigned. Fur bristled, covering her body as her nose elongated to a muzzle. Máni talked her through the pain, urging her not to resist and to give into her wolf instincts. After an excruciating hour, Phoebe stood on four padded paws.
‘Shall we see ourselves?’ Máni suggested, bringing them to the water’s edge of a nearby pond.
Looking at their reflection, Phoebe saw a silver-white wolf. Their fur practically glowed in the moonlight with silver-blue eyes that shimmered like water.
‘
