First Moon (The Koto Chronicles, #1) Read online

  “Don’t you think I thought about you when I made my decision, Thane? It would be impossible for me not to. I think about you all the time—every day. I like you, more than I should. And that bothers me. You wanna know why? Because, as much as I like you, it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t hear your thoughts. It makes it really hard for me to believe that you could be my mate. I need to force myself to not have feelings for you.” I swallowed hard. “So, if you want to talk about selfish, then you should be talking about yourself. You should want me to be happy and do what I need to do, even if it doesn’t include you.”

  He studied my face for a few minutes before saying, “But that’s the thing, Skye. I can’t just sit back and watch you go.”

  “Well, you can’t come with me,” I insisted.

  Thane shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. I can come with you. And I have to.” I started to protest, but he continued. “Being that far away from you every day sounds like torture. I get it. You need to explore the world and see what’s out there. I assume that means in regards to potential mates, too…but I can’t let you be that far away from me. I have to come with you.”

  “That will defeat the whole purpose,” I replied. “How am I supposed to do whatever I want to do when you’re going to be there, looking over my shoulder, the whole time?”

  “I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want. I’ll try to live my own life while we’re there, but…I need to be there for you. I need to be there to protect you in case something happens.”

  I sighed. “I don’t want your protection.”

  “I don’t care what you want. If you’re going, then I’m going, too.” He met my gaze. “Do you still want to go?”

  I considered it for a moment. Having Thane come along to New Jersey with me would ruin everything I had planned. Even though he was my best friend and I hated the idea of being far away from him, I didn’t want him there, either.

  But the alternative was worse. If we stayed here, nothing would ever change. I’d be stuck in the same place forever. There wouldn’t be another chance to leave.

  I needed to go, even if it meant that Thane was going to come with me. I nodded. “Yes, I still want to go.”

  “Okay, then. It’s settled. I’ll let Akar know that we’re both going,” Thane replied. He stared at me for a few moments before turning around and heading off to find our Alpha.

  As he faded away into the distance, my mother and Kirima walked towards me. I could tell from the angry expressions on their faces that neither of them were happy with my decision.

  I’m doing this for me, I tried to remind myself. Everyone else will accept it, eventually.

  Why did I have a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy, though?

  Chapter 3

  ONE WEEK LATER

  I stared at myself in the mirror, knowing how vain I would’ve seemed to the guys in my pack—who were now my housemates, too—if they saw me, but I couldn’t help it. Over the past few days, I hadn’t been able to stop myself from stealing glances in the bathroom mirror, the glass hallway picture frames, or the tiny foldable mirror that I’d found with the other items Kyana had mailed to me. Heck, I’d even found out that I could see my reflection in a spoon.

  I wasn’t being conceited or anything like that, though. It’s just that I’d never seen myself in a mirror before now.

  Back in Alaska, the only way I’d ever been able to see my reflection was when I went to fill up our buckets for drinking water or when Thane and I went fishing. Even though the water in the stream and the lake gave me some idea of what I looked like, it wasn’t the same as seeing my reflection in the mirror. The images I’d seen of myself in the water were nowhere near as vivid.

  As I inspected myself that morning, I still couldn’t get over how different my hair looked than I’d originally thought. I knew my long, silky black hair cascaded in loose waves over my shoulders, but I’d never known it looked so…shiny. And my eyes looked so much different than I expected them to look! Dark eyelashes, which were much longer than I’d ever thought they were, framed my almond-shaped eyes, which weren’t the color of coal like I’d always thought, but were actually more like the golden-brown leaves I’d seen on the trees outside. They actually stood out a little against my naturally tan skin. My eyebrows were dark and bold; they were possibly the most striking feature my oval-shaped face had to offer.

  Knowing that I needed to stop staring at myself and actually start getting ready for school if I wanted to get there on time, I glanced into my closet and sifted through my new collection of clothes. When I told Kyana that I was going to start going to school, she’d mailed me some of her old clothes she thought I would like. Even though the clothes were nice, I couldn’t figure out what to wear. What did someone wear on the first day of school?

  It took a few moments of consideration, but I finally pulled a glittery light blue three-quarter sleeved shirt and a knee-length skirt off their hangers. I slipped them on and examined myself in the mirror again. I looked okay…at least, I hoped I did. It was the first day of school for everyone, so I was fortunate that all of the attention wouldn’t just be on me being the new girl, since everyone else would be new, too. Even so, I still wanted to make a good first impression.

  I grabbed a bag of makeup, which Emma Taylor, one of the girls from Kyana’s pack, had also sent to me, and nervously headed into the bathroom. I’d never worn makeup before. Even though most of the other girls had smuggled makeup into their dens without their families knowing for when they snuck off to the club most of our youth pack often went to, makeup had never been an option for me. My mother was one of the strictest mothers in the pack. She checked our den regularly to make sure that I didn’t sneak in things that I wasn’t supposed to have—namely things that could be found in the human world.

  And she wondered why I’d been so determined to get away from her.

  Pulling a container that held three shades of purple powder out of the bag, I realized that they must have been for my eyelids.

  I dipped the soft end of the tiny plastic stick that came in the container into the medium shade of purple, and then glided it over my eyelid, hoping that I was applying it the right way. It left a harsh, thick line of purple. I dabbed it with my finger, trying to blend it in, before doing the same to the other eye. Satisfied with the results I’d gotten on my first try, I set it back inside the makeup bag.

  The next item I pulled out was a thick tube. I pulled it open, finding a stick with dozens of tiny bristles, which were coated in a black liquid, at the end. It took me a few minutes, but I finally figured out that it was for my eyelashes. Mascara, the letter that Emma had written to go with the makeup bag had called it.

  Deciding that it looked way too complicated—and slightly dangerous—I put it back inside the bag, and pulled another item out. It was a pink, sparkly tube, which was labeled as lip gloss. That seemed easy enough. I squirted some of it onto my finger and then rubbed it over my lips, admiring the shiny look it gave them.

  “Skye! I have to go to the bathroom,” Chance whined from outside the door.

  “Yeah, Thane is hogging the one downstairs,” Hunter complained.

  The Cameron brothers were identical twins. It was hard enough to tell them apart just by looking at them, but it was nearly impossible to distinguish their voices from one another. If it weren’t for the fact that Chance’s was slightly higher pitched than Hunter’s, I probably wouldn’t know the difference.

  What also didn’t help when it came to telling the two of them apart was that they acted as though they were one in the same most of the time, too. It was often said that most identical twins acted like total opposites, but that theory didn’t apply to Chance and Hunter.

  Luckily, I’d spent enough time around them to be able to pick up on some of the other small differences. They’re both really impatient and immature—Chance a little more so. Hunter is the slightly calmer, more laid back twin...most of the time. The
y could both be really annoying, though.

  My hand was on the bathroom door knob, ready to open it, when I heard shuffling on the other side of the door. “If you’re not out in five seconds, I’m opening the door. I found a key, and I’m not afraid to use it,” Chance called, sounding proud of himself.

  I yanked the door open, finding Hunter staring me in the eyes, hand raised and ready to knock. He had the same light brown hair, fair skin, and bright green eyes as his twin brother, but his face was free from any scars.

  Chance, on the other hand, had a tiny dent on his chin—a scar he’d gotten during a sledding accident back before he made the transformation into a werewolf. It was actually pretty rare that he was scarred at all. You see, werewolves are technically still humans until we turn sixteen. Usually, though, scars that we got when we were still humans disappear once we become werewolves. Werewolf skin heals faster than human skin, so it was possible for us to get a cut or burn and watch it disappear within hours.

  It was almost unheard of for werewolves to keep their old scars they got from when they were humans, but we were lucky that Chance did. It was the only physical feature that helped us distinguish which twin was who.

  “You guys can be so annoying, sometimes,” I told Hunter, rolling my eyes at him. I was still going to need to get used to living in a house filled with guys. It reminded me of a fairytale my mother used to tell me when I was a kid. She normally didn’t tell me stories that were also told by humans since she hated them so much, but she’d always sworn that this was one of the few that had originated from werewolves first. The tale was called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

  Coincidentally, my last name was White, too. Skye White and the Five Annoying Werewolves would be the name of my own fairytale—if you could even consider living in a house with a pack of wolves a fairytale.

  I slid back into my bedroom, grateful for the fact that I had my own bedroom now—a huge, beautiful room, which we had painted a soothing shade of blue. ‘A sky blue room for Skye’, Chance had joked when he and Hunter had helped me paint it two days earlier.

  Akar hadn’t wanted me to paint my room since one of the landlord’s terms was that we would need to paint it back to white if we ever left the house, but it was the first time I’d ever had walls to paint. Back home, I’d lived in a tiny room in our den, which had stone walls and no light. The wonders of electricity amazed me, and it was nice to be able to have some color in here.

  Since I was the only girl in the house, I was able to have my own bedroom in the old townhouse Akar was renting. Being the Alpha of the pack, as well as the one who was paying the rent from the money he’d inherited from his father, Akar had taken the master bedroom, which was downstairs. Hunter and Chance were sharing a room, while Ashton Campbell, another one of the guys from our pack, was rooming with Thane.

  I’d barely said two words to Thane since we’d moved here. It was mostly because I was mad at him for coming even though I hadn’t wanted him to, but it was also because I needed to be true to what I said. I needed to force myself to not have feelings for him, which seemed a lot easier if we didn’t speak one-on-one. We had to pretend to get along in front of the rest of the pack, mostly so Akar didn’t question how strong our pack could be when two of us were barely speaking, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to talk to him.

  I grabbed my backpack and headed downstairs. Even though I’d been hoping to just slip out the front door to get an early start to school, my growling stomach forced me to enter the kitchen. As I put a few breakfast sausages on a paper plate and stuffed it in the microwave—a really neat gadget with buttons that I still didn’t fully understand—I could feel Thane’s presence in the room.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I found that he was standing behind me, staring at me. “Skye.”

  I gave him a vague smile. “Do you know where Akar is? I haven’t seen him yet this morning.” Of course, I wasn’t sure what time our Alpha normally woke up. I’d been a late riser lately, ever since I’d discovered the wonders of a human mattress.

  Thane nodded. “Yeah, he left about an hour ago to go job hunting.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Even though Akar had enough money to pay for our pack’s rent and other living expenses for many years to come, he had mentioned that he wanted to get a job so he wouldn’t be bored out of his mind while the rest of us went to school all day. I couldn’t blame him.

  Thane seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying, “Skye, I was wondering…do you want me to walk you to school? You know, since it’s our first day and all?”

  As the microwave beeped, I grabbed the plate out of it and slammed it shut. I grabbed a napkin and wrapped the sausages in it. “No, that’s okay,” I replied. “I’ll be fine on my own. It’s right across the street.”

  He stared at me, looking as though I’d thrown cold water in his face. I didn’t give him the chance to say anything, though. I fled out of the house, crossed the sidewalk, and darted across the street before he probably even got the chance to blink his eyes.

  *

  As I walked against the sea of people, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed. I’d never seen so many people who were my age all at once. There were hundreds of them, all walking towards the courtyard where kids were tossing around balls or scarfing down their breakfasts. I could feel almost every pair of eyes on me, scrutinizing me.

  The way they stared at me, with knowing looks in their eyes, made me feel as though they somehow knew the truth: that I was a werewolf. I knew that wasn’t even possible, though. There was no way any of them could have known—unless they were wolves, too. We could always smell each other from a mile away, so a nearby wolf would know what I was. Each pack had its own identifying scent. Ours was a mixture of snow and fresh breeze, probably since we were from Alaska.

  I doubted all of the pairs of eyes on me belonged to werewolves, though, considering I didn’t pick up on any strange scents. Really, what they were probably noticing was what a misfit I was. I felt grateful that Kyana had thought to send me some clothes, because my outfit was way trendier than the hand-sewn clothing, which was mostly made of animal hide, that I’d worn back home. Even so, my three-quarter sleeved shirt made it seem like I was dressed for autumn, whereas all of the other girls were wearing tank tops and the guys were wearing t-shirts.

  Everyone’s stares sort of made me wish that I’d asked one of the other members of our pack—besides Thane—to walk to school with me. Maybe that way, I wouldn’t feel so alone.

  Sitting down on a bench outside the courtyard, I opened the napkin and pulled out the sausage. I stuffed it in my bag, deciding that I would eat it later. I’d suddenly lost my appetite, but it had nothing to do with the food, for once.

  Sausage was one of the few foods I’d found here that I didn’t mind so much, even though it tasted unlike anything I’d ever had before. I’d found that processed food was so much different from the fish and moose meat I was used to eating back home. My mom wasn’t kidding when she’d said that most humans didn’t eat as well as us. I felt tempted to become a vegetarian, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. If it was, I would have given meat up years ago. I hated the idea of killing innocent animals for food, but werewolves needed meat; even though it wasn’t possible for us to die without meat, our bodies would become too weak. So, I was just going to need to suck it up and eat gross food or maybe send the guys out to hunt.

  I glanced across the street at our house, watching to see if any of my other pack members were on their way over yet, but none of them were. I expected to run into all of them—including Thane—at some point during the day, but right now, I was completely alone. As much as that scared me in some ways, it was also exactly what I wanted.

  Rising to my feet, I headed for the main entrance of the school. As I reached to open the door handle, I felt someone’s hand brush against mine, the touch of their skin electric against mine. I glanced over to find a guy who stood a few inches above me. His pale blon
de hair was spiked in the front with gel, and the tips were colored blue. His soft, delicate face held thin, kissable lips, and he had an eyebrow piercing.

  When his sea-blue eyes met mine, the breath caught in the back of my throat. He was, quite possibly, the cutest guy I’d ever seen.

  “Sorry about that,” the guy said, his voice low and husky.

  “Oh, no. It’s okay,” I replied, not even making an attempt to move my hand away from his. I liked the feeling of his skin against mine.

  After a few seconds, the guy pulled his hand away, but he still studied my face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before…have I?”

  I shook my head. “No, today’s my first day here.”

  He nodded. “What’s your name?”

  “Skye. Skye White,” I replied, instantly feeling sort of stupid for blurting out my last name. “What’s yours?”

  “Gage Mason. It’s nice to meet you.” He flashed me a wide grin, and I noticed that his tongue was pierced, too.

  His piercings were probably one of the most normal things I’d noticed about anyone here so far. It was common in the Koto pack for us girls to have piercings. Even though my mom didn’t know about it, I had one of my own—a bellybutton ring, which had been painful as hell with the needle and ice method we used, but had been well worth it.

  “It’s nice to meet you, too,” I replied, peeling my eyes away from his piercings and then glancing down at the rest of his body. He was slender, but sort of muscular, too. I noticed that he wasn’t dressed anything like the other kids at school. He wore a pair of black pants, and his wrist was covered in black leather bracelets, which had studs and spikes on them. His black t-shirt had lime green words written on it. I pointed to them. “What’s ‘Bitter Darkness’?”

  Gage glanced down at his shirt. “Oh, it’s my brother’s band.” He met my gaze. “Do you like rock music?”