Chapter 1 - Prologue
Noah
We’re sitting in our garages, the sun is already setting. Ethan is rummaging in the bowels of his motorcycle, Jayden is leaning casually against the wall, his mate Skadi firmly in his arms. Roxy crouches behind me on the jacked-up motorcycle. The mood is tense and depressed because Roxy and I have arrived late and we have already lost time for our next job.
“This time the jobs are easy, we come back earlier and have a few extra days off,” Jayden explains again after Roxy asks if we really have to go again.
This time we’ve been home less than forty-eight hours, but our Alpha Elijah, Jayden’s brother, is already sending us off again.
Roxy purrs in my ear: “Shall we just sit this one out? I really don’t feel like it this time.”
She doesn’t want to go on tour, she hasn’t wanted to for months. It kind of started when she came back from her aunt’s a few months ago.She’s been different since then. Maybe it’s because Jayden, the leader of our group, has found his mate - in a human, in Skadi.
This is actually good news for all of us. The more balanced everyone in our group is, the better.
Even Ethan, who hasn’t yet found a girlfriend or mate, was just as happy as I was for Jayden.
But Roxy has always had a deep aversion to humans, which she likes to show. She sees them as inferior, weaker and more fragile, and she is right on the last two points at least.
No one can protect themselves from the danger posed by our debtors.
But Roxy even takes every opportunity to bully Skadi. Skadi was not ignorant when Jayden met her. Skadi was already familiar with the world of shapeshifters, having grown up in a pack. She herself is not a wolf, but her parents are both shapeshifters.
I’ve often told Roxy that she shouldn’t whine like a puppy in front of everyone. Especially not in front of Jayden, but she seems to have forgotten that again.
Because it annoys the others, I know that, and it’s also not the right time.
Roxy almost hisses at Ethan as he says, “What’s the matter Roxy, are you afraid Noah will find his mate and you’ll end up alone?”
With a jerk, she throws her hair back and replies confidently: “Ridiculous! I’m not afraid”.
Skadi gives her a brief but skeptical look. You don’t have to be an empath to know that Skadi doesn’t really like her, but I can’t blame her. How could she? After all, she’s only being bullied by her.
“Don’t look at me like that, you wouldn’t even know what this is if Jayden hadn’t found you because you’re incapable of having a wolf,” Roxy growls, visibly annoyed.
Jayden admonishes her for the hundredth time: “Roxy, I’ve already told you once to back off!”
I know that Jayden, Ethan and Skadi only accept her because she's my girlfriend, and I have to listen to that often enough. Especially because Roxy has not only changed, but has also become uncontrollable.
“Are you scared?” I ask her so quietly that the others can’t hear.
She immediately looks at me seriously and her wolf is in her eyes.
“Are you on her side now?” she growls at me.
I’ve known her for a long time, I know what she’s like. But my wolf snorts contemptuously. He doesn’t like it. He’s always held back with her in recent years, even though he’s usually rather uncontrollable. But that way we could take the pressure off and always have someone by our side.
“Can’t you take your relationship dramas somewhere else?” snaps Ethan, annoyed.
“Don’t be so jealous just because you don’t know anything about love,” Roxy retorts crossly.
Jayden looks at me skeptically. He knows, as we all do, that what Roxy and I have is not love. It’s a conscious decision not to. Because we know that when our mates come, it’s over. From now on.
Then it’s as if there had never been an ‘us’.
From the moment you turn eighteen, you are able to recognize your mates, and Roxy and I were clearly not.
Nevertheless, we stayed together, even though we knew it would only be temporary. We agreed that when we were thirty, I would mark Roxy. But I hope that one day I will find her, the one.
“What’s it about? A mage?” I ask, trying to divert the subject, while Skadi and Ethan sigh almost simultaneously.
“If you’d been on time, you’d already know everything,” Jayden replies irritably.
“You can pick up the scent yourself,” I suggest. Maybe I’m behaving like a puppy who doesn’t get his way, but the whole situation just annoys me.
I feel like I’m caught between two stools and am just trying to keep the peace somehow and keep my wolf under control.
Ethan is not only our own doctor, although we don’t need doctors, but also our IT specialist, he can hack in anywhere. He always gets all the information from our Alpha Elijah, just the key data and the amount our target owes the pack. Ethan then works everything out with Skadi and Jayden leads us.
But I’m one of the best trackers in the pack. My wolf and I find the target or whatever we’re looking for with the smallest of tracks.
Of course, the other wolves can also read scents, but they are not able to follow the scent by magic themselves like I can. And that’s nothing unusual, especially in recent times. Mages and witches are masters at disguising their tracks in this way, and recently they’ve even been helping others with it, although they’re actually more of a hermit type.
So they need me, but I need them too.
The boys and Skadi are my brothers and sisters, we are a broken, crazy little family.
“Don’t be like that," says Skadi, smiling at Jayden and me. She often acts as a mediator when - as is so often the case - we can’t agree.
“Come on, we can’t waste any more time. We’re already late anyway,” Ethan urges us on after he has reassembled his bike.
“We only left so late because of you,” Roxy grumbles behind me, glaring angrily at Ethan.
“Calm down,” I try, but she just growls at me again.
Annoying habit of hers.
“We’ve been waiting for you for two hours,” Jayden says angrily, the wolf clearly visible in his eyes.
Yes, the three of us are so strong together precisely because all three of us don’t really have our wolves under control. Jayden only has much more control now than Ethan or me because he has Skadi by his side and the contact between the mates is reassuring.
But disrespect still makes him quite angry, especially when Roxy shoots at Skadi.
“We were just having fun in bed, don’t be jealous,” Roxy whispers anyway, getting off and walking to her own bike.
Ethan gives me an annoyed look as he starts his machine.
“Then let’s go kick some mage’s ass,” Roxy yells happily, revving up her machine. Like we’re thugs and not just loan sharks for Alpha Elijah. We don’t want trouble, we just want the money we’re owed.
Skadi rolls her eyes in annoyance and gives Jayden a meaningful look.
Wherever the journey takes us, I just hope it doesn’t end in chaos.
