Chapter one

On the day my adopted father died, dark clouds rolled into the sky like thick ink spilling across an old canvas. The air grew heavy, pressing down as if the world itself knew something terrible was coming. I wasn’t home. I wasn’t there to witness whatever final breath he took. I was in school, in gym class, pretending, just like every other werewolf in this city, that I was human.

The gymnasium smelled like sweat and rubber, the sharp sting of cleaning chemicals barely masking the stench of teenage exertion. The walls were lined with faded banners from championships won decades before any of us were born. The floor was polished wood, worn down by years of running feet and scuffing sneakers, gleaming dully under the harsh fluorescent lights. The air was thick with heat, bodies moving, sneakers squeaking, breaths coming out in short, sharp gasps. Dodgeball. The most brutal game they could have picked.

Coach Calloway’s whistle had barely left his lips before the first ball went flying.

The difference between humans and werewolves, Nick Delaney. A human, through and through. He stood at about 5’9”, with a wiry build that gave him the kind of awkward energy you’d expect from someone still growing into their own skin. His sandy blonde hair stuck to his forehead in sweat-soaked strands, and his brown eyes darted nervously across the court. His movements were hesitant, deliberate, as if he was second-guessing every single step.

I remembered the first time I talked to him, back in freshman year. He’d fumbled with his locker combination while I waited impatiently behind him, tapping my foot against the tiled floor. When he finally managed to open it, he turned to apologize, his face flushing a deep red. His stammered "Sorry, uh—Feyre, right?" was all I needed to confirm he wasn’t like the rest of us. Humans had a way of being transparent, their emotions written all over their faces, their voices betraying them.

Even now, three years later, he hadn’t changed much. When a dodgeball came sailing toward him, he reacted a half-second too late. The rubber smacked him square in the chest with a loud thwack, sending him stumbling backward. His arms flailed, desperate for balance, before he hit the floor with a graceless thud. The impact left him sprawled on the polished wood, his breath coming out in wheezing gasps.

Humans always hesitated. Always thought too much. That was their weakness, relying on their brains instead of their instincts.

The gym echoed with laughter, some cruel, some just amused. Nick picked himself up slowly, cheeks burning as he tried to laugh it off. I could tell it stung, though. Not just the hit, but the embarrassment. Humans felt those things deeply, carried them like weights. Werewolves didn’t have time for that. Survival didn’t leave room for shame.

I glanced away, my eyes drifting to the next target in my mental game of “human or werewolf?”

Leah Carter.

She was built for this. For movement, for survival, for the split-second decisions that made the difference between getting hit and getting out of the way. Her golden-brown eyes tracked every motion on the court, never stopping, never losing focus. Before the ball even left the thrower’s hands, she was already moving, twisting her lean body at just the right angle, letting it skim past her shoulder with a precision that wasn’t just practice, it was instinct. Pure muscle memory. She never wasted a movement. Never hesitated.

Leah was a wolf through and through.

She stood at 5’7”, with a runner’s build, long, toned limbs built for speed. Her dark brown hair, thick and wavy, was always tied back in a high ponytail, strands escaping to frame her sharp, angular face. High cheekbones, tanned skin, lips that were always pulled into a knowing smirk, like she was in on some private joke the rest of us would never understand. She had a scar above her left eyebrow, a faint, silvery mark she never talked about.

I knew where it came from, though.

Our first real interaction wasn’t at school. It was in the pack territory, deep in the woods, the night we were thrown into our first fight. Not for survival. Not for dominance. For training.

We had been thirteen. Young, but not young enough to be spared from learning how to fight. Our pack was old-fashioned, brutal, even. They didn’t believe in coddling. You either learned to defend yourself, or you became a liability.

That night, the elders had lined us up in a circle under the full moon, forcing us to pair off, to fight. To draw blood.

Leah had been my opponent.

I had known her before that, of course. Everyone knew Leah Carter, the Beta’s daughter, the girl who could outrun most of the boys, who never backed down from a challenge, who carried herself with the quiet confidence of someone who had never known what it felt like to lose.

But that night, she wasn’t just another packmate. She was my enemy.

The fight started fast.

Leah was quicker, more experienced, her body moving with a predator’s grace. I barely had time to react before she had me on the ground, my back pressed into the cold dirt, her hand clenched around my throat. Despite being the alpha’s daughter, adopted, I was weak. The weakest of the wolves at the pack house. According to the elders, my wolf was dormant. I didn’t have one, yet I wasn’t a human.

“Yield,” Leah had hissed, breath hot against my face.

I hadn’t.

Instead, I had fought like a cornered animal, twisting, kicking, raking my nails across her forehead in a desperate attempt to break free. I didn’t have a claw like other wolves but the motion had been enough. My nails had caught her skin, splitting it open just above her eyebrow.

Blood.

She had drawn back for just a second, just long enough for me to throw her off, to flip us, to press my knee into her ribs the way she had done to me.

She had grinned up at me through the pain.

"Good," she had murmured, her golden-brown eyes gleaming.

Then the elders had called time, and the fight was over.

She had won. Barely.

From that moment on, we weren’t just packmates. We were rivals.

And maybe, in some twisted way, friends.

At school, she acted like she barely knew me. Like we were just two people who happened to exist in the same space. But in the pack? In the woods? When no one else was watching?

That was when Leah Carter acknowledged me.

And right now, as she ducked another dodgeball with the ease of someone who had been dodging attacks her whole life, I knew one thing for certain, Leah was built for survival.

Humans?

Not so much.

The difference between humans and werewolves—Mason Holt. He looked like he should’ve been unstoppable. Broad shoulders, thick arms, the kind of strength that made teachers nudge him toward football and wrestling teams with eager smiles. Six feet tall already, and still growing. His hands were massive, calloused from years of working at his dad’s auto shop, where he spent summers lifting tires and hauling equipment heavier than most of the guys on the team.

Mason was built like a tank. But that didn’t mean he knew how to fight.

Strength meant nothing when you didn’t know how to use it.

His dark blond hair was always a little too messy, like he never really cared enough to fix it. His blue eyes were sharp but not calculating, not like a wolf’s. There was hesitation behind them, a human’s way of second-guessing, thinking too much instead of acting.

On the dodgeball court, he was all force, no finesse. He threw the ball like he was trying to break something, his muscles tightening, his arm snapping forward with too much power and not enough control.

Predictable.

A wolf would’ve seen it coming a mile away.

And dodged.

Mason thought brute strength was everything.

Wolves knew better.

The difference between werewolves and humans?

Sienna Reyes was a blur, not just now, not just on the court, but always. Everything about her moved too fast—her legs, her thoughts, her sharp brown eyes that flicked from one person to the next like she was tracking prey. At 5’7”, she wasn’t the tallest, but she didn’t need height. She had speed.

Her black hair, cut short at her shoulders, whipped behind her as she dodged another ball, her body twisting at the last second so it barely skimmed past her. Her breathing never changed. Not once. She never burned out, never wore down. Wolves knew how to last.

Humans gasped, faltered, let exhaustion creep in. I had known Sienna my whole life, but she had never truly seen me. She wasn’t cruel—not like some of the others—but she never tried to be my friend either. Because I wasn’t really one of them. No wolf. No scent that marked me as pack, no connection to the others that made them belong to one another in ways I could never touch. Sienna was pack. Through and through. I remembered watching her train behind the packhouse as a kid, effortlessly taking down a boy twice her size with a single move, and I had wanted to be like her, wanted to belong. But the pack didn’t want an Alpha’s daughter with no wolf. And Sienna? She hadn’t even noticed when I stopped showing up. Now, in gym class, she still didn’t see me. She was too focused, too sharp. Another dodge, another move too smooth to be human. She never tripped, never hesitated. Sienna Reyes never showed weakness. Wolves never did. But I wasn’t a wolf. Not really.