Jesse

Chapter One

Chapter One

The thing about being an Alpha werewolf's daughter is that you don't grow up thinking it's weird.

Even when I was old enough to understand that mentioning my dad's ability to grow fur and fangs at will was a big no-no, I still remember thinking it was weird when I realized other people's dads couldn't turn into giant wolves.

I guess it's kind of like being a celebrity's kid. You don't think about your dad being unusual or special to other people until you see how the rest of the world reacts to them. Even then, it's still kind of weird because to you, your dad is just...your dad.

My life got a lot weirder when the werewolves "came out," and my dad became the poster boy for pretty much all the werewolves in North America. He appears on national TV anytime the general public starts freaking out about their personal safety. I think he reassures them now. But at first, the announcement that werewolves exist just freaked people out. I lost a bunch of friends when everyone learned that my dad was the head of the Columbia Basin pack. A bunch of parents even yanked their kids out of school out because they didn't want them attending the same high school as me.

Right. Because I'm soooo dangerous. *eye roll*

I understand wanting to keep your kids safe, but being scared of having them around me is just dumb. I'm not a werewolf. I'm just related to one.

As dangerous as werewolves can be, it's not like they're mindless killing machines. They don't survive by feeding on people's blood, for one thing. Werewolves are at least half human, and they can still marry and make perfectly mundane babies with humans. As evidenced by me.

So the only thing you really need to be worried about is not pissing off a werewolf. True, their tempers run high, but this is actually pretty easy to avoid if you are not a total moron. When it comes to me, for example, all you have to do is avoid kidnapping me or causing me grievous bodily harm and you should be totally fine.

See? Easy.

Because seriously: the wolves have more important things to worry about than people who are just trying to go about their everyday lives.

Like right now, for instance. They are way more worried about an unidentified freakish monster terrorizing people on a bridge.

"What. Is. Happening," said Izzy.

Izzy and I were sitting on the couch in my dad's living room, staring wide-eyed at the Channel 5 news broadcast. Izzy had come over earlier with her mom, who'd been on a mission to sell Mercy essential oils and other things nobody really needs, and we were still hanging out when Mercy burst into my room and announced "Monster on Cable Bridge" before running off with my dad to fight said monster.

It had taken Izzy and me almost half an hour to find a local news station that was broadcasting the chaos. There were barricades at both ends of the bridge. In between was a mess of wrecked cars, dotted with members of the pack in both wolf and human form, attempting to stop the Monster on Cable Bridge from escaping and destroying the rest of the town.

"I think they're fighting the Hulk," I said.

In reality, it was some sort of fae, but I didn't know what kind. It was big and green and throwing Miatas, so Hulk worked for me.