One Bite

Chapter 1-3

The morning after Cole subjected me to an embarrassing beat down started the first day of my 'real' education. I wasn't sure what learning about being a werewolf entailed, but I hadn't expected to start with a geography lesson.

And Elena's serious.

"Now... There are five territories in our country." Elena laid out a large book, shoved a map spread across two pages in front of me, and fanned it flatter with her hand on the binding. "Each territory is owned, controlled, and run by a different werewolf pack."

Her other hand's finger tapped the landlocked territory, etched in a thicker border of black ink. "Your father is Alpha Cassius over the Central territory, with controlled alliances between the Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western territories."

Her finger moved across each marked territory as she spoke, paired with a quiet tap. All four of the directional territories surrounded my father's area, with "White Moon" written over the center of the map.

"My father controls all of this?" I frowned down at the map. "Like... a king?"

"Werewolves don't have kings." Her lips twitched up at the corners and eyes sparkled behind her lenses.

"Then why am I called Princess?" My eyes lifted as I questioned her teasing.

Her smile faded into a firm line, and voice shifted back into a bossy teacher mode, "I don't know. There's not much history on you in this library."

"What?" My eyes traveled down the poorly lit, dusty row of bookshelves behind her head. They led into the dark, musty corner of the restricted section, where Elena had pulled all our reading material from. "There's stuff on me in here?"

She snorted and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Of course, it's within your family history books. Every pack has a book, although your family's is a bit sparse."

I wiggled my eyebrows. "What do they say?"

Stunningly beautiful, witty but lonely girl kept in isolation?

I've been drinking the fairy tale Kool Aid too long.

In my defense, as weak as my ability to punch Cole's smug face, the princess disillusion was hard to let go of, harder than the mafia conspiracy theory.

Equally as embarrassing though.

"Not much." She shifted in her seat and frown lines creased between her eyebrows, like she bore weighted information. Her lips parted, which she wet with the tip of her tongue. "Your mother died in childbirth, along with your brother, and you survived."

My eyes averted down to my hands, which I unclasped in my lap and flattened on my thighs under the table.

Survived.

The corners of my mouth curled down at the word, yet it described my life perfectly. I existed, took up space, and converted oxygen into carbon dioxide. I'd never accomplished anything of significance in my life and hadn't lived at all.

Maybe not yet?

My father's words 'everything will change...' echoed through my mind. I didn't have a chance to dwell on the thought though.

"So, back to this." She tapped her index finger on the map, redirecting my attention back with her 'direct track to Snoozeville' geography lesson. "Each territory is controlled by a separate pack, but yes your father controls those packs. He controls everything and everyone."

No surprise there.

Bitterness bubbled in my stomach as her words 'he controls everything' filtered through my ears and settled on my consciousness. I hoped other girls in this country didn't have their bodies manipulated like in my pleasurable injection experiences.