Rebirth

As they slowly approached the territory that used to be her home, Avani’s anxiety increased. There were too many uncertainties at the end of the road. Like, where was she supposed to sleep tonight? While fairly confident that the vamp who’d let her crash in his sister’s bedroom wouldn’t close his door on her now, it didn’t change the fact that not having a home sucked. She was back to where she used to be eleven years ago. Homeless. At least this time she wasn’t on the run. Yet.

To take her mind off her anxiety, she rummaged through her bags and pulled out a white box containing a brand-new phone.

Shiny.

It was a considerable upgrade on the one she used to have; back when she bought hers two years ago, she hadn’t had much cash to spare.

To her surprise, she managed to get all her stuff transferred to this device and reported the previous one as lost with a few clicks. Now she had her contact list.

There weren’t many names on it; she didn’t know more than a hundred people, and most of those didn’t use phones that often.

Knox’s details were there though. Her fingers hovered over the call button, but talking to him while being in the car with Mikar would have been pretty rude. Instead, she put the device away and turned to the driver. “Thanks for today. I was pretty stressed out about how it was all going to work out.”

Mikar shrugged. “I didn’t do much. You were pretty good at convincing people to do what you wanted.”

The bank had been a smooth ride because, luckily, she’d ended up talking to an employee who did remember her; they’d had her cards reissued and let her get some cash out. Without any ID, the maximum she could take wasn’t very much, so she’d reluctantly dipped into Alexius’s pile of money.

“You did a six-hour round trip.”

“I was going that way anyway.”

“You stuck around while I shopped for half a day.”

He hadn’t even rushed her, as most men she knew might have.

“Don’t sweat it, wolf. What you did yesterday was brave. We all think so. You have our respect for that. Giving you a hand is not a hardship. How are you going to get your cards, though? Won’t they be sent to your pack’s postal box?”

The residents of Oldcrest couldn’t exactly get mail delivered to their doors, given the fact that their territory was hidden to all those who hadn’t been invited. They had post office boxes set up in a local town and the administration picked up the mail once a week.

She shook her head. “I have an individual box, as I own a business. It has a digital code instead of a key, so I won’t have to worry about it. I’ll have to hitch a ride back to town at some point, though.”

She winced. More favors. She’d have to ask for someone to drive her since she didn’t technically have her license.

Her mom had taught her how to drive when she’d been nine—when they were getting chased by people who intended to harm them, driving age limits didn’t seem as important as they should be. But no one drove in Oldcrest so when she’d come of age, she hadn’t had the opportunity to get her license.

Not that she had a car to use anyway.

Damn, her life was a mess.

“I’ll take you. I don’t mind driving.”

She was so very ill equipped to deal with kindness; her mind immediately jumped to suspicion, wondering what he could want from her. Seriously, who offered to take a six-hour round trip twice for a stranger?

“Thank you. I get a notification when my post arrives, so I’ll know in a few days, I guess.”

“Save my contact details, then.”

Mikar drove into the territory. She could feel her shoulders tense, and she didn’t think she breathed all the while they drove along the side of the Wolvswoods. It could just be her imagination, but she felt like there were eyes in the darkness of the trees, looking right at her.

Maybe she was a little paranoid. A little.

“They’re watching you. I sense some serious animosity.”

Then again, maybe not.

She bit her lip. “Maybe I should leave Oldcrest after all.”

Mikar lowered the black-tinted window of his Audi to wave at the troll, who growled in acknowledgement from his little cabin before punching the command to let them through. Then he turned back to her. “It’s up to you. The most they can do is stare and they know it. The wolves are in the woods at Levi’s forbearance. He can kick them out. Besides, they can’t be suicidal enough to attack you while you’re under the protection of Night Hill.”

All of that would have been considerably more reassuring if she didn’t know the Elder Pack. "I mean, that's logical enough. Except you're assuming the pack is, like, sane."

That earned her a smile. She didn't know him well, yet something told her they were rare. "How did you end up there? You were not born in the woods."

He said it with absolute certainty.

"What makes you think that?"

He shrugged. "Oldcrest is my home, even though I've been sent all over by Levi. I come back here in between assignments. The pack is a fixture in these parts; I got used to them. I can recognize their looks, their way of moving—their smell, definitely. You stand out."

She looked out her own window, lowering it to feel the wind in her face. Soon, Mikar stopped in front of Alexius's place, their destination. She could just get out of the car, ignore his question. But the guy had been incredibly nice to her.

She didn't like speaking of her past, though not for the obvious reason. It wasn't painful. It just earned her too many looks of pity. She despised it.

"I was born in the States. I grew up in a small town in Florida." Mikar lifted a brow—werewolves didn't usually live in towns. Loners sometimes established a base in cities where they could blend in with the masses and disappear, and packs tended to have their own territories, away from humans. He didn't interrupt her, so she kept going. "I used to love school, gymnastics, and was a complete daddy’s girl. When I was nine, I was at the beach with my parents one day, playing with my friends. Then everyone started screaming. Yelling and running away in every direction. I tried to find my parents—I couldn’t, not at first. I was all alone when I saw it, a black wolf, so big. Shifters can be huge; I'm pretty sure he was about the size of a bear, but to a child? I saw a mountain. And he came at me, going for the throat, I think. My mom pushed me out of the way. He tore through my shoulder pretty badly, and she was in a worse state. We were both on the sand, she was holding me so tight. I knew we'd die. I was certain the monster would kill us both. And then, there was blood. So much fucking blood. Something cut its head clean off in one strike. I looked up to see a guy who looked old to me, at the time, with a thin sword that he sheathed inside a tool he used as a walking stick. I don't know why, but even then, I was more terrified of that guy than I had been of the monster. He spoke to us softly, telling us we were dying. It made sense, given how much the wound hurt. Then he asked us if we wanted to be saved. He warned us it would be painful. And that we would change, after."

She closed her eyes, recalling the sharp pain when Knox had bitten her, then the painful few days as her wound healed. And finally, the first time she'd growled, flexed her claws, and jumped out of her skin wearing her thick fur coat.

She smiled. People didn’t remember the day they were born. Well, she could. She hadn’t been herself until her first shift; just a stranger she didn’t quite understand. She remembered her interests as a child, they just didn’t make any sense to her now. She was a wolf, through and through. Unlike her mother, she’d taken to it naturally, loving every part of her animal.

Including the temper. She knew she was more impatient, less focused, and more direct than any human. She just didn’t see anything wrong with it.

"You were turned." Mikar's tone held wonder. “I didn't think it happened these days. Shifters have strict laws against it. People can only be turned in certain cases, after passing tests and getting approval, right?”

When the sups had announced their existence to humanity about thirty-five years ago, the regular humans did what they do best, jumping on the offensive, attacking any vampire or shifter they could get their hands on. The witch trials started again, too; many hippies and yoga fans were targeted on suspicion of using witchcraft. Fools. If they’d actually gotten their hands on a real witch coven, they would have had their asses handed to them.

The vampires put a stop to it, killing a staggering number of anti-sups and taking control of governments throughout the world, thereby starting their era, the Age of Blood.

They only held on to the governments for about three decades before retreating to the shadows, even as they’d made a clear point that needed to be understood: if the humans wanted war, it would be their blood on the pavement.

Shifters weren’t vampires. While more powerful than any human, they didn’t have the numbers to risk an open war against regulars, and they couldn’t guarantee that the rest of the shifter community would have their backs if anything like that happened. And they knew that turners were likely to be the reason why the regulars would freak enough to try to target them. If humans realized that some shifters had the power to change normal humans into one of them, they’d take it as a serious threat.

Until recently, turners had been a dirty secret that the shifter council took seriously. They killed any child that exhibited that power as soon as it developed. Then, a few years back, a pride of shifters had fought back against the council, rewriting their laws.

Now turners were allowed. Feared, restricted, and closely monitored, but not immediately murdered, which was always a plus.

She shrugged. "No shifter laws apply to Fenrir Knox. He made them. He founded the council that enforces them now. Every shifter alive right now comes from a line originally sired by him. People kinda let him do what he wants.”

Mikar nodded like it made sense to him. "So, he brought you here?"

"Not immediately. He hoped we might be able to get back to our lives, or make a life for ourselves, first. Instead, we were hunted for a few years. My mom didn’t take well to the change and used to get episodes. She’d shout, growl, go wolf. You know. So we were ostracized in our town, and moving made sense. But when we did, we started to get hunted. A female without experience and with a pup in tow? We were an easy target. The anti-shifters loved it. When I look back, I think it was a huge mess. Mom should have called Knox directly, told him what was going on. She didn’t; perhaps she had too much pride, perhaps she hated him for turning her into something that she couldn’t control. But she was killed. Although we didn’t keep in touch, I think Knox still tracked us; he’d turned us and felt responsible. He found me before the regulars got to me, and brought me here."