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Chapter One

Davix

“Hazel,” I growled, canines lengthening from underneath my lips. I balled my hands into tight fists, trying to control the wolf inside me because we were in Java Junction, a café in the nearest human town of Castrover. “Drop it.”

The humans already didn’t like my family and close friends. If they found out we were wolf shifters, they’d shit themselves, lock us up, and examine us for years. Goddess forbid that anything was different from them. Some of them couldn’t even peacefully live with other races of humans, forget finding out there were other species of intelligent life too.

“Come on,” Hazel, my sister, dragged out. “You don’t want a mate? Seriously?!”

I grabbed her upper arm as we walked toward my beta and other higher-ranking wolves in my pack and stopped her completely. “I said to drop it before I use an alpha command on you. No, I don’t want a mate.”

“Why not?” she asked, her preppy attitude now gone. She ripped her arm out of my grasp, claws nearly shredded through the plastic glass of her Oreo milkshake. “A mate is the best thing that can happen to a wolf. Don’t you want happiness, Davix?”

“Don’t you remember what happened to Mom and Dad?” I scolded, glaring hard.

“You’re lucky I don’t smack you.” She flared her nostrils, holding my stare for another moment, then looked toward our pack, seated in our usual corner. “Even if they died, they still loved each other.”

“I don’t care,” I said, storming to the table. “They’re dead.”

That was all that mattered. Who the fuck cared how much love they’d had for each other if they couldn’t live a long life? Just popped out a couple of babies, then let love blind them so much that they became weak. No fucking thank you.

The last time an alpha had taken a mate, Hazel lost hers. Didn’t she fucking get it?

We had been cursed by the Moon Goddess herself, and the curse wouldn’t end until I rejected my mate. It had been written in stone, carved in marble, etched into the stars themselves about how to break the curse.

But nobody in my lineage had been strong enough to do it … until now.

“Enough,” I growled, capturing the attention of some humans here. I lowered my voice and peered over my shoulder at my sister. “Don’t speak about this again. That’s an alpha’s order. When I meet my mate, I will reject her. No matter the cost. A mate will weaken me and all of the Bronzetail Pack. Do you understand?”

She pressed her lips together and dropped her hard glare to the table. “Yes, Alpha.”

After blowing out a breath—because I fucking hated using my alpha power on her—I slid into the booth. Beta Matt and a couple of other warriors stayed quiet as Hazel took a seat beside Silas, my strongest warrior. Silas smirked at her discontent.

“You’ll never learn, Hazel,” Silas said. “Mates make you weak.”

Hazel snapped her glare at him. “Shut the fuck up, Silas. I wasn’t talking to you.”

“You should know better after your mate died.”

After winding back her fist, she slammed it into his neck. “I hate you.”

He rubbed the bump already forming and was about to open his mouth again when I growled to silence him. Hazel was annoying as fuck about mates, but she was the only family I had left around these parts.

“One of these days, I’m going to kill you in your sleep,” she growled under her breath.

“That’d require you to sneak into my bedroom late at night.” Silas raised his brows, the smirk still curled on his lips. “Don’t think that’d be such a good look for you, Hazy. Don’t want to be seen as a⁠—”

Before I could say anything, Hazel snatched the pointy tip of his ear—one of the most sensitive parts of a wolf shifter’s body—between her claws and dragged him out of the booth. He tried yanking himself out of her grip, but she continued down the walkway to the door, then threw him out of Java.

When the door reopened, Linda walked in with a couple of girls, with Hazel following, her fingers to her own temple in the form of a gun.

Linda bounced over to me, grinning from ear to ear, and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Hi, baby!”

I readjusted myself in the seat as Matt shot me a smirk. “Hey, babe.”

“I asked a couple of friends to come over tonight.”

“Tonight? For what?”