A Girl and Her Wolf (Howl, #7) (19 page)

Check out the first two chapters of First Moon (The Koto Chronicles, #1) a Howl spin-off series!:

Chapter 1

“I caught one!” Thane yelled, laughing as he
struggled to reel his fishing line in. A rainbow trout fought against it as it was lifted out of the water, weighing down the flimsy pole.

“Poor thing,
” I said, unhooking the fish. It flopped around a bit as I held it in my hands. Its scales felt rough, but slimy, against my skin, and it was cool, just like the water it lived in. I gently set the fish back into the water, watching as it dove beneath the surface.

Thane smiled at me, his brown eyes twinkling. I’d always loved the way they glimmered in the sunlight, even when we were kids. It was one of
my favorite things about our Alaskan summers.

“You know, I always have so much fun with you when we come out here by ourselves. It’s nice to get away from the rest of the pack sometimes.”
He cleared his throat and added nervously, “And it’s also nice to be able to hear your thoughts.”

I glanced away from him and out at the water. The stretch of lake extended far beyond us, with the beautiful mountains in the background. It looked so calm, so peaceful…and yet so incredibly boring. It made me wish that a storm would come to stir things up a bit. “You say you can always hear my thoughts, but I don’t understand it, Thane.” I met his gaze again. “If we’re really mates like you say we are, why can’t I hear your thoughts, too?”

Thane shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just one of life’s little mysteries, I guess. I just know that if you’re not really my mate, I wouldn’t be able to hear your thoughts or feel your emotions the way I do. You’re intense sometimes, Skye.”

I sighed. “I know I can be intense at times. I just don’t understand why I can’t hear you. It almost doesn’t seem fair.” I wanted to be able to hear his thoughts
so
badly. It would let me know that the feelings I had for him actually meant something. Instead, I wondered if we were both wasting our time.

I’d known Thane my whole life. We had been the best of friends, ever since we had been in deerskin diapers. It had always been assumed that we would be together one day, and I really did have feelings for him, but I didn’t see how it was possible that we could be mates if I couldn’t hear his thoughts. Mates could almost always hear each other’s thoughts, especially if they were both already wolves
in the same pack.

“I have a feeling that everything is going to change once we mark,” Thane went on. “I
’ve heard that the dynamics between mates can change after they marry. So, maybe once we get married, you’ll be able to hear me, too.”

“Maybe,” I replied, even though I had my doubts about it.
Sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe we weren’t really mates at all. Maybe my mate was someone else and the only reason Thane could hear me was because we had been such good friends since we were kids. We had a special bond with each other, sure…but that didn’t necessarily mean we were meant to be together, did it?

“Maybe we
could do that soon,” Thane suggested quietly.

I glanced over at him sharply. “Do what soon?” I questioned, searching his honey brown eyes. Had he meant what I thought he’d meant?

“Get married.”

A knot tightened in my stomach. He
did
mean what I’d thought he’d meant.

When I didn’t say anything in response, Thane continued. “I mean, we’re both
sixteen, Skye. The Koto wants us to get married and start having babies in a couple of years. Why not just do it now?”

“Because I’m only six
teen,” I said, turning away from him and staring out at the water. I thought about what he was saying; I knew that our pack, the Koto, wanted us to get married and have at least one kid before the age of eighteen, but it seemed so early to me. “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

We were too young, but truthfully, there was more to it than not being ready for marriage yet. I wanted to be able to hear Thane’s thoughts or feel his emotions—at least once—before agreeing to marry him. I wanted a sign that we really were each other’s mates before I jumped into a relationship with hi
m at all, let alone got married.

Sometimes, if a wolf doesn’t find a mate, they settle for companionship—another werewolf, or a human—that they would never have as close of a connection with as they would have with their true mate. As much as I cared about Thane, and wished that he
was
my mate, I didn’t want us to go through that. I wanted each of us to have that connection that only mates have with one another.

An uncomfortable silence passed between us. I glanced down at my watch. “We should get going now. The meeting is going to be starting soon.”

Thane reeled in his fishing rod and nodded. “Okay,” he replied, even though I could see the confused look in his eyes. My reaction to getting married had crushed him a little.

I only hoped that he understood why I had rejected him.

As we headed back to our pack’s campsite, the tension between us thickened, but I knew it was only temporary. Thane and I had known each other for too long for things to stay awkward between us.

*

“Skye!” my mother called out to me from her place around the circle our pack was sitting in. I could tell from a hundred feet away that she was angry with me. “Where have you been all day?”

I glanced over at Thane, who gave me an apologetic look, before we separated. One of the Koto pack rules was that men sat on
the left of the circle, and women sat on the right. It was one of the many, many ways in which our pack was stuck in the old times—which was one of the things that I hated the most about being a Koto.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I replie
d as I approached her. “Thane and I went to the lake. We caught a bunch of fish.”

“Where are they?” my mother asked, tucking a piece of long, silky black hair behind her ear. The excitement was obvious in her
caramel-colored eyes. “Perhaps Thane and his parents would like to come over for dinner tonight, and we can cook for them. Was it trout that you caught?”

“Yes, but we didn’t keep them,” I replied, knowing that she wouldn’t be happy about this. “I threw them back in the water.

She stared back at me, horrified. “Why would you do that?!”

“I felt bad for them. I made Thane throw them back so they wouldn’t die.”

“Skye!” My mother placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you really mean to tell me that you skipped out on all of your chores today to go fishing, but you didn’t even bring any fish back with you because you
felt bad
for them
?”

I nodded, and my mom shook her head frustratedly. “What am I going to do with you? When will you ever learn to be more responsible? That could have been our supper tonight! Now, we have to hope that someone else has some fish or moose they can spare us.”

“Well, maybe we should go to the grocery store and buy food like normal people then,” I told her with an eye roll. As soon as I saw the angry expression that her face had twisted into, I knew that I’d said the wrong thing.

“Because we’re not
normal people
, Skye! We’re werewolves, and it’s about time you start acting like one! We need to stick to Koto pack traditions, and that does not entail buying our food at a store that is frequented by humans.”

I noticed that some of the other pack members were staring at me, watching as my mother scolded me in an embarrassingly loud tone of voice. An angry red heat had risen to her cheeks, and I knew that she was really livid with me this time.

Comparing us to humans was taboo in my mother’s book. Not all werewolves hate humans, but my mother did because my father was shot and killed by a human. It had been an honest mistake; the human really believed that he was a wolf, but my mother and grandmother had both held a grudge over all humans ever since.

I sighed
as I took my place on one of the logs that circled the campfire. I didn’t want to argue with my mother, but she and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things. She was a traditionalist; she believed that we shouldn’t stray away from our pack’s ways, but I felt the opposite. I wanted to stray away from the Koto completely. I wanted to explore the world; I didn’t want to be stuck here in this same boring place for the rest of my eternal life.

I had been so envious of my best friend, Kyana, when she had left our pack the previous year to join the Tala pack and be with her mate, Chris. She was finally able to see the world in a whole new light, unlike me. I was stuck here in Alaska, always seeing the same old people and the same old places.

Kyana and I couldn’t even talk to each other on the phone, since my mother didn’t allow me to have a cell phone. The only way we could communicate with each other regularly was by writing letters. She seemed happy where she was now and, even though I wished I could leave like she had, I was happy for her.

At that moment, my sister, Kirima, came and sat down beside me, interrupting my thoughts. “Where have you been all day?” she whispered, leaning in close. “Mama has been worried sick about you. Not to mention angry that you didn’t finish your chores this morning.”

“Thane and I went to the lake,” I replied with a shrug.

My sister shook her head at me, and I knew that she was frustrated. She was just as strict as my mother was, really. I was seventeen, and Kirima was twenty-two. Like my mother, Kirima believed that we should stick to the traditional ways of the Koto. It was annoying. There were times when it felt like I had a second mother.

Akar stood before us, and our pack quieted. Akar was Kyana’s brother and Alpha of the Koto pack now that Orkos, his father and our former Alpha, had been killed during a fight with the Tala pack. “I need your attention, everyone,” he said, moving towards the center of the circle and glancing at each of the members of our pack as he spoke. “I have an important announcement to make today. The Koto pack as we know it is about to change, and all of you have a decision to make.”

Change?
I scoffed. I didn’t see how that could even be possible. Nothing
ever
changed for the Koto pack.

Akar glanced over at me, and I knew he’d heard me scoff. He didn’t say anything about it, though. Instead, he continued with his announcement. “For many years, the Koto pack has resided in Alaska. This state is our home, and many of us have ancestral ties to this area. It’s time for me to leave, though.” He paused. “
It’s been hard for me to be this far away from Kyana. As all of you know, she’s chosen to live in Pennsylvania permanently. While I’m not going to be moving to Pennsylvania due to the high number of packs that are already in that area, I will be moving to New Jersey. Being an hour away from her will make me feel better, as her brother. She has a mate now, but I still need to know that I can be within a close distance to protect her if she needs protecting. I hope you all understand why I must go.”

So,
this
was the big announcement? That he was leaving our pack? Big freaking deal. I, for one, didn’t mind seeing him leave. I’d never really known how to feel about Akar. He was Kyana’s older brother and the leader of both the Koto youth and adult packs, so I’d known him my entire life. Even though I’d known him forever, though, it also felt like I didn’t know him at all.

Every time he stared at me with those dark brown eyes, I got the feeling that there was something mysterious about Akar. It seemed like there was a certain side of himself that he always showed to the pack, as well as another part that he kept hidden. I just wondered sometimes what that secret part of him was like.

“Anderson is going to stay here and act as your Alpha,” Akar went on. “Like me, he will be the Alpha of both the youth pack and the adult pack. At least until fate decides otherwise and a new Alpha is chosen.”

There were a few loud groans from the circle. No one really liked Anderson. He was nice and all, but h
e was probably the weakest guy in the pack. He didn’t seem like the type who could really defend our pack.

“But the good news is that if you don’t want Anderson to be your Alpha, he doesn’t need to be,” Akar went on. “I’ve decided that I’m not going to join a new pack when I move to New Jersey. I’m going to be forming a new youth pack—another chapter of the Koto. My goal is to find new members once I get there, but I hope that at least some of you will choose to come with me.”

A dead silence spread across the pack circle. I could tell, judging from the expressions on the adults’ faces, that our parents weren’t happy with this idea.

“Now, you all have two days to make your decision,” Akar continued, glancing to each of us. “I know that doesn’t give you very much time, but I would like for you to consider it carefully. If you choose to leave, life as you know it will change. We’ll all need to go to public school. Once you’re out of school, you’ll need to get a job. Life will be different for all of us who leave, but I hope that it will be for the better. You can always come back here if you really hate it, but I hope that you’ll stick it out at least until the new chapter of the Koto is strong enough to not need you anymore.”