Chapter 1

I should have never jumped in that lake.

In my defense, it was Mia’s idea. Maybe not in the technical sense, considering I was the one who actually kicked off my shoes and jumped, but she’d known me long enough to understand that challenging me was usually a terrible idea. Especially when I was already bored, it was ridiculously nice outside, and we’d been standing beside the lake with almost an hour to kill before we had to be back at the pack house.

She’d said, “I bet the water is super chilly still.”

I’d said, “Probably.” My eyes cascaded over the sparkling water like it was a slice of triple chocolate cake begging me to eat it.

Then she’d looked directly at me and made the fatal mistake of saying, “I know that look. You wouldn’t dare. We have to be at the pack house soon for the dinner.”

All I heard was, “You wouldn’t dare,” and I was diving head first into that lake.

Naturally, things escalated, and now both Mia and I were running barefoot through the woods. Our shoes were clutched in one hand, wet hair slapping against our backs as she muttered threatening curses from somewhere behind me.

“You said we had time!” Mia yelled.

I ducked beneath a low branch without slowing down. “We do have time.”

“We’re supposed to be there in fifteen minutes!”

I glanced over my shoulder just long enough to see Mia several yards behind me, struggling to run in wet jean shorts and looking considerably less amused than she’d been when we’d first jumped in. “Exactly. Fifteen whole minutes.”

Mia’s mouth dropped open. “It takes ten minutes just to get back to the house!”

That was admittedly less convenient. I faced forward again and picked up my pace, trying not to think too hard about how long it would take me to shower once we got there.

“Then run faster.”

“I hate you!”

Her voice was getting farther away, which seemed like a problem she could solve by running faster.

“You’ll get over it!” I called back.

A string of profanity followed me through the trees, and I couldn’t help laughing.

This was, admittedly, not how I’d planned to spend my afternoon. I’d actually planned to be responsible.

Painfully responsible.

Dad had reminded me three separate times that tonight’s dinner mattered, which meant I was expected downstairs by five thirty, clean, appropriately dressed, and prepared to sit through several hours of pack leadership discussing territory budgets, patrol schedules, and whatever other thrilling topics people over forty liked to pair with roast chicken.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been invited, but my final year of Beta training had apparently unlocked a brand-new level of adulthood called sitting quietly while important people talk.

Dad called it observing council relations.

I called it being held hostage with dinner.

Nothing said congratulations, you’re almost an adult quite like watching twelve grown people argue for forty minutes over patrol schedules while your food got cold.

Still, I knew tonight mattered. I knew my father wanted me there because someday his seat would be mine, and I knew being Beta meant more than getting perfect marks in pack law or putting someone on their ass during combat training.

I took it seriously.

I just didn’t understand why taking my future seriously apparently meant I had to stop having fun in the present.

There were still fifteen minutes until I was required to be anywhere, and if I could get back to the house in ten, shower in three, and get dressed in two, then technically I wasn’t irresponsible. I was efficient.

The fact that those numbers were complete bullshit was between me and God.

The Wilder pack house sat near the center of our territory, three stories of stone and dark wood surrounded by enough land that Mia and I had spent most of our childhood disappearing into it. Her family lived there, but it had never felt like an ordinary home. Pack members came and went constantly for meetings, training, meals, or whatever crisis required the Alpha’s attention that day.

I’d been coming here since before I could remember. Mia’s mother had pictures of me missing front teeth, I had clothes permanently occupying one of Mia’s drawers, and my favorite cereal had somehow become a regular pantry item despite the fact that I didn’t actually live there.

Unfortunately, all that history came with one significant downside.

Cole Wilder.

Mia’s older brother. Future Alpha. The human equivalent of stepping barefoot in something wet while wearing socks.

Cole was five years older than us and had spent most of those five additional years developing an impressive talent for getting on my last fucking nerve. He thought I was reckless. I thought he was controlling. He thought I had a problem with authority.

I had a problem with his authority.

Important distinction.

Someday he’d become Alpha, I’d take my father’s place as Beta, and the two of us would be expected to work together without committing a felony. Personally, I thought the pack should start developing a contingency plan.

Mia caught up with me as we reached the back patio.

“Front door?”

I stopped and looked down at myself. My shirt was soaked through, my shorts were dripping onto the stone beneath my feet, and there was something green stuck to my knee that I wasn’t particularly interested in identifying.

Council members would already be arriving.

“No.”

Mia followed my gaze toward the kitchen window and immediately groaned. “Cassie.”

“What?”

“We’re eighteen.”

“I’m seventeen until tomorrow,” I reminded her.

She stared at me. “That makes this worse.”

“There are council members inside. Someone will see us.”

“There is a back door.”

“And someone could see us there too.”

Mia looked at the window, then back at me. “You’re actually doing this.”

I smiled and pushed it open.

“Unfortunately.”

She muttered something under her breath but followed me anyway.

I leaned forward and looked inside. The kitchen was empty, the hallway beyond it clear, and there wasn’t a council member in sight.

“Clear.”

“One day, I’m going to stop following you.”

“No, you won’t.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “Just get inside.”

I grabbed the sill and hoisted myself up. Getting through would’ve been significantly easier if my clothes weren’t wet, but after a brief and undignified struggle, I managed to swing one leg over.

“Graceful,” Mia whispered.

I looked back at her. “You want to go first?”

Her eyes dropped to my ass hanging halfway out the window, and she grinned.

“No. This is much funnier.”

“Bitch.”

I finally dropped onto the kitchen floor and brushed my hands together like I’d just accomplished something impressive instead of climbing through a perfectly good window while soaking wet.

“There. Easy.”

I turned toward the stairs, already calculating how quickly I could get upstairs and into the shower, when the pantry door opened behind me.

I stopped.

Of course someone had been in the one part of the kitchen I couldn’t see from the window.

And because apparently the universe had decided I’d been enjoying myself for far too long, that someone was Cole.

He stepped out of the pantry with a bottle of water in one hand and stopped when he saw me standing in the middle of his kitchen. His gaze traveled slowly from my bare, dirty feet to the water dripping from my shorts onto the floor, then finally to my wet hair. His expression shifted from confusion to suspicion before his attention landed on the open window behind me.

So much for the universe rewarding innovation.

I held up one hand. “Don’t.”

Cole’s eyebrow lifted. “I haven’t said anything.”

“Your face did.”

His gaze dropped to the puddle beneath me.

“You’re wet.”

“Excellent observation.”

“Why?”

“Long story.”

From outside, Mia called, “Is someone in there?”

I closed my eyes.

“Unfortunately.”

There was a pause.

“Cole?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.”

Cole looked toward the window. “Get in here.”

Mia climbed through a second later, landing beside me and pushing her wet hair out of her face.

“Hi.”

Cole gave her a look.

She winced. “Okay. Not the time.”

He looked between us. “Why are you both soaking wet?”

Mia pointed at me. “She pulled me into the lake.”

“After you dared me to jump.”

“You jumped in by yourself!”

“And you were standing there all dry and smug.”

Mia opened her mouth, then closed it.

Cole shook his head. “Why are you climbing through the window this close to dinner?”

I glanced toward the clock.

Shit.

“We’re going.”

“You have five minutes. We’ll talk about this later,” he grumbled in that annoying older brother tone of his that I never found the ability to appreciate. After all, he had no right to boss me around like he did Mia. I wasn’t his sister. She was.

I adjusted the grip on my shoes. “Whatever.”

Cole’s eyes flicked toward the clock again. “Four minutes.”

I stared at him.

He stared back.

“Go,” he said.

Mia barely had time to jump out of my way before I took off, wet feet slapping against the floor as I grabbed the banister and started taking the steps two at a time.

Mia’s laughter followed me up the stairs as I nearly lost my footing on the next step and caught myself against the railing.

“Careful!” she called.

“I am being careful!”

I reached the second floor and immediately turned toward Mia’s bedroom, already mentally calculating how much time I could shave off a shower without technically defeating the purpose of taking one.

Behind me, Mia finally caught up.

“You know,” she said, slightly breathless, “for someone who was very confident fifteen minutes was plenty of time, you’re moving awfully fast.”

I shoved open her bedroom door. “This is how efficient people move.”

“This is how people who are late move.”

“I’m not late yet.”

“You have approximately three minutes.”

“Then stop talking to me. I’ll be ready,” I said.

“I know you will.”

“And I’ll sit downstairs, eat my chicken, listen to old people argue about patrols, and impress everyone with my exceptional maturity.”

Mia snorted.

I pointed at her. “You’re not invited to my inauguration.”

“Betas don’t get inaugurations.”

“Mine will.”

“You can’t just make one up.”

“Watch me.”

She shook her head, still smiling.

I grabbed the hem of my wet shirt and peeled it away from my stomach. “Can we continue discussing my many personality flaws after I shower?”

Mia checked her phone.

Her eyes widened.

“What?”

“You’re already late.”

“Shit.”

I bolted toward her bathroom.

“Very responsible!” she called after me.

“Fuck off!”

Her laughter followed me as I shut the door.

Eight minutes and forty-three seconds later, I came flying back out.

Clean.

Mostly dry.

Dressed.

My damp hair had been dragged into a ponytail, and I’d managed mascara in a moving mirror, which should’ve earned me some kind of award.

Mia looked up from where she sat on her bed and raised her eyebrows. “Holy shit.”

I spread my arms.

Black pants. Dark green blouse. Boots. No visible lake water.

“Tell me I’m amazing.”

“You missed a button.”

I looked down.

Shit.

I fixed it and looked back at her. “Now tell me.”

Mia stood and walked over. Instead of answering, she reached up and pulled a tiny leaf from my hair, holding it between two fingers.

I stared at it.

She stared at me.

“That could’ve happened anywhere.”

“Of course.”

She tossed it into the trash.

I turned toward the mirror and checked myself one last time. Not bad. Actually, pretty damn good considering I’d been submerged in a lake less than half an hour ago.

When I caught Mia watching me in the reflection, I frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That was a something face.”

She leaned her hip against the dresser. “Tomorrow.”

It took me a second, then I remembered that tomorrow was my birthday.

The big, old eighteen.

“Don’t remind me.”

Mia smiled. “Nervous?”

“No.”

Her smile widened.

I sighed. “Maybe a little.”

Turning eighteen wasn’t just another birthday for wolves. It meant adulthood officially, not the version adults liked to dangle in front of us whenever they wanted us to behave. My wolf had been part of me for years, a presence beneath my skin I’d grown up knowing as naturally as my own thoughts, but eighteen changed things.

Pack expectations changed. My responsibilities changed. My future stopped being something everyone talked about like it was far away.

Soon, I’d finish school, complete my final evaluations, and begin working directly beneath my father until he decided I was ready to succeed him.

It was everything I’d spent years working toward.

So why did thinking about it suddenly make my stomach feel weird?

I pushed the feeling aside and reached for my earrings.

“I’m fine.”

Mia studied me for another second before letting it go. “You’re going to be a terrifying adult.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“I’ve chosen to receive it as one.”

She laughed just as someone knocked against the open bedroom door.

We both turned.

Cole stood in the hallway.

His gaze found me first, and for a moment he didn’t say anything. His eyes moved over the clothes I’d changed into before returning to my face, and something in his expression shifted so briefly I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Then it disappeared.

“Dinner,” he said.

I looked at Mia, then back at him. “See?”

Cole frowned. “See what?”

“I made it.”

“You’re late.”

I grabbed Mia’s phone from the bed and checked the time.

Very late.

I grimaced. “Define late.”

Cole stared at me.

“Okay. Never mind.”

“You are a disaster.” His eyes rolled so hard that I was worried they’d roll out of his skull.