Jenny

Chapter 1 - Five years Later

            Jenny gave up. Here hair just was not going to work with her this morning. All she wanted was a cute messy bun. Literally everyone else could do it, why couldn't she? Instead she just let bundle of curls fall down past her shoulders. At least her make up looked good. She threw on her blue silk dress and a pair of strappy heels. The spring weather was making her feel some kind of way, but there was a hunger deep within her that attempted to gnaw away from that feeling. It felt like her wolf was pacing, antsy. She knew she'd have to go on a run at some point today.

Deciding that her outfit was as good as it was going to get, Jenny grabbed her purse and headed out of her room and down the stairs. Jenny's room was at the very end of the long hallway. Her parents room was on the bottom floor, but the rest of her siblings were upstairs with her. They had two spare bedrooms, one upstairs and one down, with a guest house in the back yard. Though Jenny's family didn't live in the pack house, sometimes it definitely felt that way. Her father, James, and older brother, Eric, were in the kitchen snacking on god knows what, when she passed through. "Someone's dressed up," her dad had commented.

"I'm going to meet Mom for brunch, I figured I'd dress up a little. We're going to that new restaurant out by the old flower shop on fifth," Jenny walked over to the island in the kitchen the boys were leaning on. The pair had devoured those little oranges you could buy in bulk. They had had at least 5 between them. Jenny sighed, the rest of the oranges wouldn't last the day, let alone the week.

"I heard they had really good chicken sandwiches. You should bring me back one," Eric said and then quickly added: "with fries."

"You're going out today, why not just stop in and get it yourself?"

"Because you're going and you can just grab it."

"But what if-" Jenny was cut off by her dad chiming in.

"Enough, Jenny you look beautiful, go ahead and go. Eric, get your own food." Her father was annoyed. Jenny and Eric loved to bicker at one another. They argued for the sake of arguing. With a final goodbye and "love you," Jenny spun on her heels and walked out of the house, grabbing her keys before she left. On her way out she heard her brother make a comment about how she's the favorite and her dad retorted that the dog, in fact, was the favorite. Jenny couldn't help but smile.

Years ago the Clark family had gone to bed only to be woken up by a guard on patrol saying a small wolf had entered the territory. She was injured and seemed nonthreatening. Little did James and Adella know that the traumatized girl would become their new adopted daughter. The family had taken Jenny in and helped her heal from her traumatized past. She slowly regained a healthy weight, the nightmares became rare, and she learned how to trust again.

Her father, the alpha, had sent patrols out to try to find John and bring Jenny a sense of closure and help her feel safer, but they never found anything. She could never remember what happened between the time she finally shifted till the moment she became aware in the woods. But for the first year and a half of her finding her new home, they upped the guards that watched the house and the boarders of the pack territory just in case. By now, if John came back, Jenny knew how to protect herself and she would kill him on sight.

Self-defense was the first thing James had wanted to teach her. Adella had pushed for Jenny to start at home tutoring, but James refused. He had said that the most important thing in her journey to recovery was that she felt safe. If Jenny learned how to protect herself, she could be more independent and sleep better knowing that if any one tried to hurt her again, she could make sure they would regret it. Her father's plan had worked. The more she learned how to fight the better she felt. The safer she felt. To this day, Jenny still trained with her family and the guards.