Prologue

Diana’s [POV]

When the last customers, waitress, and cook left for the night, I locked the diner’s doors and sat behind the counter. Closing my eyes for a second, I basked in the silence with only my heartbeat echoing in my ear until a speeding car drove by outside.

As a werewolf with heightened hearing, having a moment of complete silence was rare. Once the car was gone, I had another second of bliss then my phone pinged, signaling a message.

I knew without looking that the message was from my father.

He was the only person that sent me messages or even called me. Actually, he was one of three people who had my number, but what gave me pause was him calling me Diana. I stared at the name written at the end of the message, and for a second, I forgot the purpose of the text that he was checking if I’d left work.

Sighing, I typed a quick response that I was closing up. Sometimes I only remembered my real name was Diana whenever he said it. As of six months ago, I became Ila, and before that, I was Haley and Izadora. There had been other names, too, but I forced myself to forget them.

Being a part of a werewolf pack that didn’t have a territory and therefore left to wander from place to place hasn’t been easy.

I’ve worked so many low-wage and odd jobs that it was now all I knew, but this wasn’t how I’d seen my future playing out. Eleven years ago, my life was reduced to fake names and living out of an old and battered suitcase, but I’d wanted to become a nurse before that.

Now that dream was so far out of reach, sparing a second to imagine it was pointless. I’d see nothing but darkness and a blank future.

The issue of not having a territory wasn’t the only reason my pack members and I had to change our names wherever we went. We’d lost our territory and home after our alpha, Alpha Colin, challenged another alpha from a neighboring pack and lost.

Lives were lost, and my pack was chased out of town.

I pulled a face while thinking of Colin and how he royally screwed so many lives and caused the pack to be labeled problematic. In the werewolf community, that was a label that stuck.

Since then, we’ve been moving from town to town, our names changing each time.

The first time we’d done it, it was an attempt to start over from what was done in our hometown, but we ended up having issues with locals each time we moved.

Now, changing our names was like a rite of passage whenever we arrived somewhere new. Not everyone in my pack sought out trouble wherever we went, but the good kept suffering because of the actions of the bad.

After closing up the diner, which was my job every night, as well as cleaning, sometimes serving, and being the cashier, I grabbed a donut and left.

With my hands buried in the pockets of my jacket, the cold air bit at my exposed neck and face, but I was barely bothered by it, my high body temperature keeping me warm enough, like all other werewolves.

On either side of the street were stores and shops shrouded in darkness and a handful of bars still open. I could hear the loud chatter and sound of clinking glasses as if I was inside the bars, but Goddess was I sick of being here?

I was sick of living like this, of forgetting my real name.

Although it was almost midnight, a few people were out and about. Some humans walked by me without a second glance, but some supernatural creatures, like a witch with cherry red hair that I’d seen around town numerous times and even in the diner, looked at me suspiciously.

Her brown eyes turned purple when she passed by me, but I kept walking as if I hadn’t noticed. At this point, the odd stares and whispers did not affect me.

I was a wolf that belonged to a pack known throughout the town as trouble-makers and squatters, and I couldn’t blame the locals for being cautious.

There were no other packs here, but remaining full-time wasn’t going to happen. I’d even bet with my father that we’d be leaving after two more months tops. Already pack members were whispering that we were living in the worst conditions we’d ever experienced.

“Yeah, fuck you too!”

I looked up when I heard a familiar voice that made my skin crawl.

Jackson, Alpha Colin’s grandson, was being thrown out of a bar with his twin minions Nigel and Nathan by his side. He had Alpha Colin’s piercing blue eyes but red hair lowered to a buzz cut.

The second his eyes fell on me, I crossed the road.

“Ila?” he called, and I kept walking. “Ila!”

When fingers wrapped around my elbow, I yanked my hand away and spun around.

Being 5’8 while Jackson was 6’1, I didn’t have to tilt my head back much to look at him. While his lips curved with a sinister smile, my face remained blank.

“What do you want?” I grumbled, and the twins on either side of Jackson chuckled. Frowning, I looked from one to the other, both 6’1 with curly blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Do you two just follow him around all day and night? Does he pay you or something?”

The grins on their faces were wiped away, and I stood my ground when they stepped forward, growling. Jackson held them back with a hand against their chest while his smile turned into a full-blown scowl of disgust.

“It’ll be curfew soon,” Jackson reached to touch my face, and I pulled back. “You should hurry home.”

“I think I was doing that before you stopped me,” I rebutted. “So now that it’s established what my intentions are for the night, how about you, I don’t know, go away?”

I could smell the alcohol on his breath and was surprised a bar in town sold the unique concoction made specifically for wolves. There were no other packs here, and I doubted a local went out of their way to make it for our pack.

Jackson was like a rodent every bar owner hated, as he always started fights or refused to pay his bills.

Still, our metabolism was too strong for the alcohol humans consume.

When Jackson stepped forward until he was inches away from me, my eyes narrowed. I wasn’t scared of him. He was an alpha born, his father being Alpha Colin’s only son who passed away ages ago, but Jackson lacked all the qualities of an alpha born, just like Colin.

They had no integrity, and without that, they lacked everything else.

“Even as an outcast, you think you’re better than us,” he growled, and I took a deep breath before releasing it as a heavy sigh. This speech was one I’d heard a million times before. “You’re nothing, Diana. You and your father are trash, and you always will be. Don’t think your position in the pack has changed or ever will. You’re both bottom feeders.”

My jaws clenched, and my wolf howled in my head. I didn’t care about being picked on but speaking about my father was where I drew the line.

“Back off, Jackson. I won’t repeat myself.”

He leaned back and laughed while looking at Nigel and Nathan behind him, the sound mocking. “Run home to daddy, Diana, before you hurt yourself frowning like that.”

When he patted my head, my fist stopped an inch before his face. He threw himself back, his eyes wide, but the same realization I came to that stopped me from hitting him, he seemed to think of as well.

The surprise in his eyes vanished, and he smiled mockingly.

“Go ahead,” he whispered and rested his cheek on my fist. “Do it, but can you imagine what grandpa will do to you…again?”

Gritting my teeth, I said nothing and walked away, my hazel eyes no doubt glowing. Getting into trouble because of Jackson would be a waste. He wasn’t worth it, and the last thing I wanted was to cause more problems for my Dad.

Nonetheless, I’d wanted to hit him so hard that his face would sink in. He was a bully, a disgrace to wolf kind, and if he dropped dead tomorrow, he’d be doing the world a favor.