Chapter 1: Left Alone

They were talking about me like I wasn’t here.

Again.

“Gawd!” Shem said. He exaggerated with the biggest, fakest yawn I’d seen in my life. “What are we doing out here, anyway?”

Van snickered, then joined in. “I dunno, Shem. It’s like somebody pissed off our Alpha.”

The only reason no one else had chimed in was because half of our group had already left. Those four were the ones on the furthest patrol route. That left four shifters milling about camp, taking their sweet time with starting their day. Plus me would make five. At least, it should have.

“Oh, wow! Is that what happened? Now, who could that be?”

If I wasn’t the weakest member of the pack by far, I’d have kicked the stupid grin off of Shem’s face.

This was getting ridiculous. But, what were my options? I could stay silent while they made fun of me, or I could try to defend myself and them make fun of me anyway.

I interjected, “Guys, we get it. Can we just—”

Shem looked around, a little startled. “Do you hear that, Van? The wind! It’s speaking to us!”

I don’t know why they were getting to me, because that insult wasn’t even clever. I’m not the wind. That doesn’t even mean anything.

But even if it was meaningless, Van responded all the same, “and boy, is it loud! And it complains, and…”

I had had enough. I started picking my way through the outskirts of our camp, collecting wood. It didn’t matter if I engaged with them, or if I skulked off and did my loner thing. If only the Alpha had put anyone else in charge instead of Van. He was as juvenile as they came, and he and his butthead friend, Shem were the most uninspired bullies ever to exist.

I mean, sure, we were here on a joke mission. The whole thing was absurd. Everyone knew it was absurd, if not downright humiliating. We would have had more success if we’d been sent out to discover whether water really was wet. But I wasn’t to blame for it, and they knew it. And also, couldn’t they all just shut up and do their jobs?

Once I had started to just ignore them, Van and Shem (and the other two lingering shifters as well) went off to run their patrol. That left just me, alone in our shamble of a camp we’d set up hastily the night we arrived.

“At least they’re finally gone,” I said aloud.

I knew I was talking to empty air, but it was also a small dare. How loud I could talk back at them without their enhanced shifter senses picking it up? I opened my mouth as though to say more, but thought better of it. No point tempting fate and them actually hear me talk back.

But I did let out a small “I hate them” under my breath. Then I sighed and tried to shake my head clear of the thoughts swimming around in there. Did I feel alone? Yes. Was I alone? Yes. Was dwelling on the situation going to make anything better, and magically materialize some Adonis of a mate in front of me who wouldn’t think I was just a waste of space?

Well, probably not, but a boy can dream, can’t he?

My pack connection was the weakest anyone the pack had heard of. Wolves who had gone full rogue could sometimes sense old pack mates better than I could feel mine. In wolf form, it was at least strong enough to be useful. I could generally tell what direction my pack mates were in, and we could talk if I seriously focused.

I huffed, then shifted and started pacing about the camp.

But for me, it mainly only worked in wolf form. So they purposefully left me behind, to force me to hang out while shifted, maybe even all day, while still expecting me to ‘tend to the camp.’

I started pushing some rocks around with my forepaws, trying in vain to make an actual firepit to add some civilization to our ramshackle operation.

Mission from the Alpha or not, who had ever heard of vampires and shifters getting along?

I chuckled at the thought, though it came out as a sort of odd wheeze in wolf form. But it gave me pause to wonder. Since, in my experience, at least, it didn’t feel like anybody really got along. No vampire required.

I wasn’t sure what the issue was, but it felt like some part of the pack dynamic was somehow missing. Else, I had the pack connection, same as anyone else did, and sometimes they just shut me out of it.

They made fun of me for lots of reasons, but most of them were right. I had a small frame (way smaller than probably any other shifter I’d ever seen), both in wolf form and as regular old me. Not to mention that white fur wasn’t all that common. The more white, the more rare. And it was stereotypical, but shifters usually associated with white fur were feminine. Basically, white fur was the sort of thing a male wolf could get made fun of.

And, as luck would have it, my fur was just about as white as snow.

Except, one of my paws was getting a little dingy as I kept pushing rocks around our dinky campsite.

This would be so much easier in human form.

Then I sighed a big, hearty sigh. It was laced with boredom, as well as helplessness.

But making me tend camp in wolf form was just dumb. Not that I minded being shifted. It came as naturally to me as anyone. But the Moon Goddess didn’t give us the power to shift form so that I could push rocks around with my paws, or pick up errant sticks with my mouth.

I said to myself that what I was doing was so dumb. It felt so true, and resonated with me so much, that I listened to that inside voice and shifted back to human form, just so I could repeat it to the world.

“This is so dumb!!” I shouted. It felt brave to say it out loud, even though I knew nobody was around. In wolf form, I had sensed that my pack mates were nowhere near, and even with our sensitive hearing there was only so far sound could carry.

It felt good to shout it out loud. I laughed and really enjoyed this ‘being abandoned at camp’ thing.

I enjoyed it so much that I kept about my business, and kept setting up our campsite in human form. It left me vulnerable. It left me with no immediate way to call for help if something happened.

But then, I so highly doubted that something would happen that I just decided not to care. Plus, it felt like sort of double-dare, a way to get at my pack mates for trying to put me in a stupid position.

So I stayed human, making a nicely arranged firepit with my normal, human hands. Then I moved on to arranging our rations and clearing out the site.

When I finally spotted the dark-haired shifter across the clearing, I had no way of knowing how long he’d been watching.

Furthermore, I had no idea what was going to happen next.