Addie (Pack of Misfits #1) - Raven Kennedy Page 0,31

“They talk shit, but they’re too scared of you to actually hurt me.”

“Good,” he says with a vicious smile on his face. “They should be.”

I clear my throat. “Is my stepdad coming?” I ask, staring down at my lap.

Hugo shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Silence hangs between us as I turn to look out the window. It’s been ten years, and the memories of my childhood are still as fresh as ever. The first time I shifted, I was two. My parents are wolves. Well, my mom and stepdad, anyway.

Turns out, my mother had an affair with a drifter. She didn’t even get his name, let alone what kind of animal he was. To say that it was a surprise when I shifted into a duckling is putting it mildly. I was tormented from then on out, even by my parents. My stepdad hated me on sight, once he realized I wasn’t his. My mother blamed me for letting the duck out of the bag, so to speak.

As far as Pack Rockhead…yeah, I wasn’t welcome. I had two options once I came of age. Fight, or leave. I was a fifteen-year-old girl who would’ve had to go against twenty and thirty-something seasoned shifters. There was no choice.

Pack Rockhead was a pred-only pack. Being the only prey animal in that environment had been brutal. No friends, no real sense of family or love. I was shunned and hated, kept secret like a dust bunny pushed under a rug when company came over. I would’ve most definitely been killed if I had tried to fight the pack for status to stay. So I left.

Fifteen years old, broke, and completely alone, I didn’t get very far. I stayed in a few abandoned places around town, wondering where I was going to go and scared out of my mind that I’d be beaten up, kidnapped, or worse. Some of my old packmates that I’d grown up with were still gunning for me, like Drag and Jordy.

I had no idea why they hated me so much, but the day I defected from the pack and chose exile, I believed them when they said that they’d track me down. Which is why I couldn’t stay in one place more than a single night. Wolves had an excellent sense of smell, so I didn’t want to risk it.

At least while I was still a part of the pack they always stopped short of killing me, since that was against the rules, and it would’ve pissed off Alpha Rourn for the mess it would’ve made. As meager as that protection was, I missed it sorely once I defected. There were no laws to protect rogue shifters without a pack, so I had to be careful. I covered my tracks.

I carried around a spray bottle of ammonia to cover up my smell whenever I stayed somewhere, and I made sure to spray it on my clothes too, just in case. It smelled awful, but it covered up my scent, and that was what mattered. I had to stay in whatever place I could find, since I didn’t have any money to rent a room, and no one would hire a teenage girl who looked like she’d swallowed more pride than actual meals.

Call me naive, but I kept thinking that my mother would come to her senses, realize how much she missed me, and bring me back home. But that never happened.

After the third week, I’d made up my mind to try hitchhiking out of town, and leave everything behind me to start over somewhere new. In fact, I was on my way to do just that. With my backpack hanging over my shoulder, everything I owned inside, I left the empty barn shed I’d been sleeping in and started making my way toward the gas station in town where I knew I’d have a better shot of asking for a ride.

Luck must’ve been in a good mood that morning, because while I was leaning against the outside wall of the gas station, watching for truckers, who should walk up but Hugo. He took one look at me, and he just knew. It took some convincing on his part—I was pretty skittish—but when he bought me a gas station hot dog and promised that his pack accepted shifter misfits like me, I was pretty much sold. Hugo had just purchased land nearby, so he took me in and has been like a father to me ever since. I’ve found a