Chapter One
Victoria Pirie, was a Geordie. She had blood like white fire and a heart of pure solid gold. What she lacked in stature, she more than made up for in personality. She, like her wolf, was fiercely loyal to those who deserved it.
Victoria, known as Tori to her friends, had a flame coloured curly bob cut that was in stark contrast to her almost black eyes and olive skin. She stood out, especially from her family. They all had grey skin and greying hair, she knew she was different. Everyone knew she was different from them, and that wasn't a bad thing.
"Mam? Mam! I'm going to work" Tori shouted up the stairs with a screech.
"Ok. What time are you in?" Her mother appeared on the landing.
"It's a double, so about five or half-past but might crash at someone's" Tori shrugged.
"Ok. You be careful alright. Text me." Her mother frowned lightly.
"Alright!" Tori waved as she closed the door with a slam, the letterbox clinking metallically.
"Urgh. Stupid rust bucket" Tori kicked the red car door that was stuck for the billionth time. It was on her list to get it fixed or just get a new car. But something else always took priority both in money or her time.
"Come on man, I've got shit to do" She yanked the handle with both hands, and it finally gave way, Tori nearly ended up in the neighbor's brown, dead hedge.
"Right. Let's go," Tori turned up the cheesy music on her stereo to an unholy level and revved the tiny engine as though it was a Ferrari.
Tori worked as a manager at a gay nightclub in the city centre of Newcastle. Usually she was there from six in the evening until two in the morning , but she was covering a shift this evening so was doing six until half-past four in the morning. She spent everyday constantly exhausted. If she wasn't working, she was partying or trying to keep up with everything.
"Jamie. message. Alreeeet? Are we still going for food?" Tori's car read out the message to her, cutting off her music.
"Reply. Of course we fucking are. Just driving in, meet you at the usual? Send" Tori clicked the button on the steering wheel to reply.
"Jamie. Message. Ayeee. I need deets on last night"
"Reply. Yasss. Send" Tori chuckled to herself.
"Pick a lane dickhead" She stuck her manicured middle finger up at the driver in the next lane who cut her off.
Finally getting to the city centre, Tori eased her red car into her parking space behind the club and headed to the pub where she had agreed to meet Jamie. Her red hair messed up in the wind as she jogged across the crossing.
"Got your usual" Jamie pointed to the triple-layered toasted sandwich.
"Ahh, I'm hanging," Tori slumped into the ripped leather seat. The pub always smelled a bit funny, musty with stale beer and cheap aftershave.
"So how was she? The delectable Scarlett?" Jamie leaned forward, clasping her hands together with an excited grin.
"Lives with her Mam obvs, but eight out of ten on pussy. I just hope she knew it was a one night thing." Tori shrugged almost coldly.
"Has she messaged you yet?" Jamie glanced at Tori's phone.
"Twice. I'll leave her on read for a few more days," Tori rolled her dark eyes.
"Seriously when are you gonna stop playing games, man? You're gonna get your fingers burnt or catch the clap, whatever's first. I know you want a relationship to be loved, but if you keep running you'll never find your mate," Jamie's brow creased. Despite her brashness, she cared for Tori like a sister.
"When I meet me mate I'll pack it in, until then I wanna get around and have fun," Tori smiled.
"That doesn't mean banging anyone who falls at your feet," Jamie tapped Tori's hand with a smack.
"I get tested often enough and I'm having fun. One day I'll be stuck in the house with screaming pups and a boring mate and I'll just eat until I'm pushing up the daisies."
"You know, when you meet your mate, life doesn't just end. You don't just have pups and become boring. Do you know what you need?" Jamie sighed.
"Someone to do my double shift?" Tori smiled widely.
"No man, you need to get your wolf out, have a good run, shake out your fur, some proper food and a good night's kip. Honestly, man, all you're doing is working and avoiding gan home. I know your Dad's a bellend."
"I don't remember the last time I got my wolf out, let alone listened to her. I've buried her until I can cope with her demands. Life's just hard. If I'm not working, I'm avoiding both parents."
"You stop at mine and Sarah's when you're not shagging around, just so you don't need to go home and for him to be drunk and do what he always does," Jamie sighed. Sarah was her mate. She was a beautiful femme, tall and blonde. She was smart, funny and so caring, she mothered Tori. When Jamie met her, it was like two halves of the same circle coming together. They instantly clicked. They had their own home, a dog, everything Tori dreamed of.
"If he wasn't so fucking big, I'd have him," Tori smiled sadly.
"No, you wouldn't. Because that isn't who you are. I don't want you to change and I know you're protecting your Mam. If the pack knew, he'd be fucked, I want to smash him over the head with a spade for the way he treats you," Jamie muttered, pushing her pink, curly, cropped hair back and rubbing the shaved undercut.
"And we're not telling them formally because me Mam would be fucked as well. If he got exiled, she's not going to leave him, is she? They probably already know and just don't want the hassle. Are you going to that pack meeting tomorrow?" Tori looked at her phone.
"We have to, don't we?" Jamie shrugged, draining her drink.
"Some big announcement. Anyone important and I'll be shoved in a metaphoric cupboard anyway," Tori chuckled. Since being open about her sexuality, she had found that her pack wasn't the most accepting, especially as she was bisexual. Things like "Pick a team" "best of both worlds" "just a phase" were too commonly said.
"I'll join you, we'll get back in the closet together." Jamie rolled her blue eyes.
---
"Frankie? What are you doing here?" Tori gasped and threw herself into his bulky arms as he picked her up and swung her around at the pub they had agreed to meet in.
"Heard about some big pack meeting and thought I better show me face. Maybe old cock face is stepping down?" The enormous man grinned, pushing his dark cropped hair back like he had a golden mane as he sat down. Frankie was in the army and stationed nearby. Tori didn't see him as much as she would like to. He was her protector, her safety net.
"Nah, he's gonna hang on until his last breath just to fucking spite us man. Unless someone takes him out. Still, who could do that? He's old, but he's still got an iron grip on the elders," Jamie rolled her eyes, her trademark facial expression, as they sat holding glasses around a small round table.
"He's probably going to announce all us LGBT'ers need to do extra pack work so everyone's inclusive," Tori sighed.
"Don't give him ideas. I swear he can hear our every fucking word man," Jamie elbowed Tori.
"Anyway. What've you two been up to?" Frankie looked between the pair.
"Nowt, working, shagging, trying to work out while I'm on this stupid planet, you?" Tori shrugged.
"Same" Frankie grinned. He was so handsome. Tori had always wished they'd be mates when they were younger, but alas, she wasn't a man.
"Working, studying for me finals" Jamie nodded. She was studying biochemistry at university. She loved it, it had been tough for her, but she had such a passion.
"Ahh aye I forgot, brain box" Frankie smiled, his deep dimples popping in.
"Hardly, I'm clinging on by the skin of me fucking teeth. It's so hard and there's so many books and it's like there just isn't enough hours in the day," Jamie huffed with frustration. Tori looked over at her friend's dark under the eye circles, her pale skin more so than usual. She looked tired, worn out.
"At least you got in and you're doing something you love. If I wasn't so fucking thick, I wish I had got to go to uni," Tori smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
"You're not thick, you're dyslexic!" Frankie nudged Tori, almost knocking her off her chair.
"I felt thick all through school," Tori shot back at Frankie.
"You didn't have any help. You were amazing at anything that didn't involve reading," he kicked her foot lightly under the chair. He was right though, anything practical Tori could do. She was good at art, textiles, woodwork, and she could listen to audiobooks and podcasts all day.
"Precisely, yet still my Dad insisted on leathering me for getting shit grades," Tori's face seemed to change the instant she mentioned her Father. "You want a lift to the meeting?" She asked, changing the subject quickly.
"Aye. Then we can all escape together before we end up roped into some shit none of us have the time or the will for," Frankie stood up, putting the legs of his jeans straight.
"Aye. You," Tori looked at Jamie.
"Sit on your fucking hands," Frankie almost growled.
"What? I just like to help," Jamie smiled innocently.
"Concentrate on getting that degree. You always sign us up for stuff and disguise it as team bonding. Remember the last time? Ended up cleaning the bloody riverbank," Frankie nudged her with a smile, showing he was joking.
"Aye Aye Captain" Jamie mockingly saluted him.
---
"Tori? VICTORIA!" A gruff voice shouted up the stairs.
"Yeah?" Tori walked to the top of the dimly lit hallway and started walking down the threadbare blue carpet on the stairs.
"Can you lend us a tenner?" Her Father asked, trying to be polite, his narrowed grey sunken eyes on his daughter.
"What for?" Tori asked with a sigh.
"Can you lend us it or not man?" She could tell her Dad's patience was wearing thin and she just wanted to run.
"Is it for a drink?" Tori asked with frustration.
"What if it is?" Her father's face seemed to change to a cocky sneer instantly.
"Then I'm not lending you it," Tori shrugged, turning to walk away.
"Look at you. You're a disgrace, thinking you're better than us. Won't even lend your Father money after everything I've done for you!" He looked at her in disgust.
"I'll lend you money. I'll give you money, if I knew you weren't going to piss it up the wall," Tori replied firmly as her father walked up to where she stood on the stairs.
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" He shoved her against the wall. His stale breath was warm against her face.
"You get like this every time you drink or want a drink," Tori replied quietly.
"You stupid bitch. You'll never amount to anything. You'll just be a dumb slag all your life," he growled in her face.
"Get off me," Tori squirmed, sighing quietly.
"Get out of my sight!" He let go, angrily storming out of the house and slamming the door, making the ornament rattle.
"What did you do?" Tori's mother whined, perched at the top of the stairs. Claire was a tiny woman, in frame, in stature, in personality. She seemed about three decades older than she actually was.
"Why do you always think it's my fault? He wanted money off me!" Tori rolled her eyes.
"Why didn't you just give it him? You know I'd give it you back. Why do you have to argue back all of the time?" Claire asked as Tori scoffed at her.
"Because I'm not at work tonight and if he has a drink, I'll end up with the bruises, and I can't be arsed. It's not like you're going to say anything to him is it? I'm not a bank. If he wants money that badly, he could always get a job instead of you working your fingers to the bone every damn day while he sits in that chair!" Tori was losing her patience, with both of them.
"Tori, you know that's..."
"Don't say it like that. You've never stuck up for me with him. You've always made excuses for him. You let him hit me, let him make it so I had more time off school than anyone else just so no one asked questions, even now. If it wasn't part of the pack rules that I had to stay here, I'd have left a long time ago. You know that!"
"Tori I..."
"Don't say you're sorry. I'm tired of it Mam."
"You'll find your mate. That's all I want for you, to find yourself a mate and have pups." Claire almost pleaded with the universe, the light seemed to have dimmed in her grey eyes over the years, as her shoulder length thin, long-gone grey hair hung limply.
"No Mam, you want me to be straight, you want me to stop being bisexual. You think it's a phase. You want me to suddenly become a perfect housewife and wear pretty dresses. You think it's the answer," Tori gritted her teeth.
"I just want you to be happy," Claire pleaded pathetically.
"Yeah, with a man. Even if I end up with a man as my mate, you know I'm still going to watch lesbian porn, I'm still going to think women are fit, I'm still going to..." Tori gestured.
"Alright. We don't need to go into details Victoria!" Claire snapped coldly.
"You just want me to have what you don't. You can't live vicariously through me. You're not dead yet Mam, what happiness is he bringing you? All I see is you being his servant when you're not working and scurrying off like a mouse to avoid his temper and leaving me to deal with him when he pisses himself." Tori walked back upstairs with a tired sigh. She was sick of arguing, sick of living with two people who she knew didn't care about her, she was just helpful to have around.
"God, sometimes I wish I could just be someone's sugar baby and just send them tit pics once a week and be a spoiled Princess." Tori threw herself back onto her messy bed, wishing she could just escape her entire life.
Dictionary
Mam- Mum
Man- usually used as an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence.
How- Oi, hey
Gan- Going
Scran- Food, to eat
Aye- Yes
Hanging- Hungover
Kip- Sleep
Nowt- Nothing
Leathering- Hitting
Tenner- Ten pounds
