Clear Lake

Chapter One

That love song from Cinderella is playing dreamily in my head. So this is love mhmm mhmm. So this is love. My eyes probably have little hearts shining in them. Directly in front of me is a masterpiece.

Creme brûlée New York cheesecake. Drool. My little werewolf-y heart is in love.

I've been working on this recipe for a couple of weeks and I know I've finally done it. Reached perfection.

"Iris!" I yell. "I did it!"

"Oh, Sare-Bear, what did you do now?" Her words sound annoyed, but her voice sounds indulgent. And she's always exactly both with me.

I love Iris. She runs the bakery in our pack and she has to be the best person on the planet. For the last 7 years of my 22 years of life, Iris has taught me everything she knows about making the most spectacular desserts. She has been one of the few bright lights in my predominantly dark life, here in the Clear Lake Pack.

When I was just 5 years old, I lost both of my parents in a territory battle. The leader of our pack - Alpha Jeffrey Harris - was more interested in acquisition and trying to appear like a powerful Alpha - rather than caring about his pack's needs and actually being a good Alpha. He doesn't really associate with lower pack members and comes off as uppity, to me. My parents were omegas - about as low ranking as you can get - and they were also both warriors. And skilled ones at that. It's always seemed so strange to me that the best fighters - wolves that defend the lives of the rest of the pack - are considered low ranking. In my opinion, warriors are pretty important to the pack, but what do I know? My parents loved me as best as they could, but with as many battles as Alpha Jeffrey threw the pack into, they weren't able to spend as much time with me as most parents could. They spent a great deal of their time in training, then fighting the Alpha's territory battles. Alpha Jeffrey never wanted to stop growing our borders, which made them harder to defend. During the battle that won us the rest of our territory in Washington State, my parents lost their lives and I lost my only family members.

I've never met my grandparents. I'm not sure if they're even still alive. My parents never talked about them, and they weren't in this pack. I wish I'd had grandparents, though, because my life changed drastically, after my parents' deaths.

In Clear Lake, orphaned children go to our pack orphanage. A run down, forgotten building, at the edge of our compound. And in Clear Lake, the omegas that work in the orphanage - known as the "caregivers" (insert major eyeroll) - are the ones who fail at every other pack job. I try not to think about the time I lived there. The caregivers knew that age 10 was when we received our wolf and the special abilities that come with that, including a faster healing rate. Some of them decided to take their anger out on us, knowing that signs of their abuse would disappear in hours. At least the physical signs.

On my way from school every day, I would walk by The Sweet Tooth - our pack bakery. It had a cheerful pink scalloped awning and a giant display window. I'd stick my hands and face on the window and just stare at all the delicious desserts. Most of the desserts I'd never tried - or even seen - before. Who cares about homework or boys, when cake pops exist?!