Prologue


Winnie


Past…




“Please don’t leave me here.” My voice cracks at the plea. I hate this. I hate all of it. I stare up at the alpha of the Gray Ridge pack, not wanting to part with him. One would think I’d want to get away from him as fast as possible. Everything about him screams strength and power. I’ve noticed no one even really makes eye contact with him, but I do. I stare up at him, pleading with my eyes. I feel safe with him. It’s almost funny because he’s easily a foot-and-a-half taller than me. Maybe more.

Stone’s an alpha in every sense of the word. I knew it from the moment he picked me up in his arms. I could feel it almost bleeding off him. He was attractive, but not what I would call handsome by any stretch. His dark-brown hair is shaved at the sides, with the top a little bit longer. He always grips it when he gets a little bit agitated with me. Which seems to be a lot since I started following him around like a lost cub. Which I am.

Even at night, when everyone would go to bed, I’d sneak into his room and crawl into bed with him. Maybe that’s why he’s making me leave. Who wants a lost little cub following them around everywhere they go? He’s all I know, but that’s not saying much since I can only remember the last seven days of my life. He’s my world at this point. He and Gwen are all I know, and I don’t want to let that go.

His big hand cups my chin, and I lean into it, trying to inhale his scent. It’s now become the scent I think of when I think of home, and he’s trying to take it from me. His thumb brushes my cheek, and something flashes in his dark-blue eyes before he drops his hand away liked I burned him. I want to reach out and put it back, but I don’t.

When I was first found in the woods, they brought me to him, and he held me for days. Lay on the floor with me in his home, petting me, trying to get me to shift out of bear form. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know anything except my first name. I still don’t know much. I seem to remember everything except my previous life. I know how everything works, and I can read and write, but my life just isn’t there.

Even the first few days after being found in the woods is still hazy in my mind. Just like the rest of my life, but no one has come for me. No one has come forward to claim me as theirs. I was abandoned and unwanted, it seems. And now it’s happening again. In seven days I’ve been cast out twice. Okay, maybe Stone isn’t casting me out as much as placing me in a new home, but it feels like it. He’s found me a permanent place among a family in his pack, but it feels as if I’m being thrown away.

“This is what’s best. Trust me,” Stone finally says. I want to believe him. Trust him. I turn my head to look at the place that’s to be my home now. A man and a woman stand on the porch with two blonde girls who look to be about my age. Well, what I’m guessing is my age. They look like they’ve been plucked right out of a magazine. Stone said it was a nice family. They have two daughters, and I will like it here.

I hear Gwen, Stone’s sister, let out an unhappy huff from behind him. She doesn’t want me to leave either. She and Stone have been fighting for the past two days about it. I hate that they were fighting about me. Maybe that was another reason he wanted me gone. She wanted me to stay with them, but Stone said it just wasn’t possible. I think it’s a lie. He’s the alpha; he could make it so. He just doesn’t want me to.

Even knowing it’s a lie, I try again, not caring how pathetic it is. “Please don’t make me go. I promise I’ll be better.” My voice drops a little before whispering the rest, even knowing everyone will hear it anyways. They’re all wolves, they hear everything. “I won’t sneak into your room anymore. I’ll stay in mine. Please don’t make me go.” I feel the tears hit my cheeks.