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

  Our pack color can also be seen on us when we’re in our human forms, too, but in a different way. All of the members of a certain pack get a tattoo in their designated color. No two packs in the world get the same tattoos, either. Our tattoos appear on their own on the night of the pack initiation that each of us must go through, which happens shortly after our sixteenth birthdays.

  For the Koto pack, our tattoo is two tiny orange paw prints with a black outline on our left shoulder blade. Akar is the only one that has a different variation of our tattoo, because he is our Alpha. He has the same tattoo that we each have on his shoulder blade, too, but his entire back is also covered in more orange tattoos: tribal markings; more paw prints; and a large crescent moon in the center of his back, which seems to overlook the rest of his tattoos. The amount of tattoos that an Alpha has indicates how powerful he is.

  At that moment, Akar came out of the house, and I watched as he crossed over to the fire pit that Thane and I were now sitting in front of. His shirt was off, his muscles rippling, as he began lighting it. I eyed his tattoos. I wouldn’t mention it willingly to my pack, but they kind of made me feel intimidated. Most werewolves would be very proud to know that their Alpha is so strong and powerful, but…I really didn’t trust Akar.

  What worried me even more was that his father, Orkos, hadn’t been a very trustworthy werewolf. Orkos had betrayed his own half-brother, Joe McKinley—who happened to be the grandfather of Samara McKinley, the female Alpha of Kyana’s pack, the Tala—all for the sake of becoming more powerful than him. It was disappointing, and, ultimately, Orkos had gotten himself killed when he came face to face in a fight against Joe.

  It only made sense that Akar’s tattoos were so extensive, even though he was still pretty young to have so many. Joe was the most powerful werewolf to ever have existed, and Samara was the only female Alpha in the world because she shared his bloodline. Odd things happened in that bloodline—things that other werewolves have a hard time believing at first, because they are so rare. Since Joe McKinley was Akar’s half-uncle, some of Joe’s powerful werewolf blood had to be coursing through his veins. At least, that was my theory, and while it was probably a good thing—a great thing, even—I also knew that some of Orkos’ blood ran through Akar, too. He was his father, after all.

  I just hoped Akar was more trustworthy than his father had been.

  Once Akar had made the transformation into his wolf form, the members of our pack formed a circle in front of the fire. I glanced at each of them.

  Akar had very broad shoulders and stood higher than the rest of us, another one of the signs of what a powerful Alpha he was. He had the same white, silky fur that Thane and I both had. While most werewolves throughout the world had gray, black, or reddish fur, our werewolf ancestors originated from Alaska, one of the few places where Arctic wolves were once common. That’s where our white fur came from.

  When he was in his wolf form, Akar had eyes that were a beautiful shade of gold. They were the lightest, brightest eyes of any of our pack members—a major difference from the black shade my own eyes had always appeared when I stared at my own reflection in the water back in Alaska.

  Even though our eye color typically changes when we’re in our wolf forms, Thane’s eyes always stay the same. Regardless of whether he was in his human form or his wolf form, he had those same honey brown eyes. It was one of the things that I’d come to appreciate about him since we’d made the transformation into werewolves. It sometimes felt like the other members in our pack were constantly changing, almost as though there were two sides to everyone. Sort of like Akar—when he was in his human form, his eyes were very dark, but when he was in his wolf form, they were so light.

  Thane’s eyes had always been a constant—which was comforting.

  I looked around the fire at the rest of our pack. The other members of our pack didn’t have the same white fur we had, since none of them had descended from Alaska. Chance and Hunter both had gray coats and light brown eyes, with a similar build. The only way I was able to tell them apart was by their ears; while the tips of Chance’s ears were black, Hunter’s ears were completely gray.

  Ashton sort of stood out while he was in his wolf form, since he looked nothing like Akar, Thane, and me, and he was also very different from Chance and Hunter, too. His fur was a beautiful mix of both gray and reddish brown, with streaks of black and even white mixed in. His tail was entirely black, while his paws, chest, and neck were completely white. His eyes, meanwhile, were the color of amber.

  Back home, all of the girls had thought he was the sexiest guy in the pack—both in his human form and in his wolf form. Most of them had been really disappointed that Ashton hadn’t been their mate. Even though I’d always thought of him as a brother, I wasn’t sure that I could blame them for thinking that way. There was no denying that he was an attractive guy, as well as a beautiful—and unique-looking—wolf.

  Ashton’s looks weren’t the only thing about him that girls were attracted to, either. He had a heart of gold, and he was more sensitive than any other werewolf guy I’d ever met. I caught him writing poetry in the dirt once; it was a short, sweet poem about a girl, Lucia, from the pack, who found out she was mated to Elijah a week later. Even though Ashton always acted like it didn’t bother him, I knew that he’d been more than a little disappointed at the time.

  Akar resumed his place at the center of our circle. He glanced over at each of us and spoke, interrupting my thoughts. Werewolf language was a little confusing to explain. We didn’t need to move our mouths to speak, and humans couldn’t hear us. All we had to do was think about communicating with nearby wolves, and any wolf around could hear us.

  We could also keep the thoughts we had while we were in our wolf forms private, too, if we wanted. In that case, the only ones who would be able to hear them were our mates and our Alphas—but only if we opened our minds so that they could access what we were thinking. I always made a point of blocking Akar from my thoughts when he was nearby so that wouldn’t happen.

  “The reason I called a pack meeting with all of you tonight is because there are some things that we must discuss,” Akar said, even though he didn’t actually say the words aloud. We were still able to hear them anyway, though. “Now, as all of you know, I wanted to come here to be closer to Kyana. But I’ve also thought about it for a long time, and I’ve decided that it’s important for us to build up a chapter of the Koto that’s stronger and more powerful than the old pack. Of course, I never wanted to mention this back home, mostly because I didn’t want to make anyone feel less than worthy.”

  He paused for a moment before explaining, “Now, please doesn’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m saying there’s something wrong with our Alaskan pack, but it’s not as strong as I know we could be. It’s not necessary for that pack to be powerful, though. The Savia pack is the only other pack in all of Alaska, and we all know they’re nothing to worry about. They’re all talk, as long as the Tala pack stays far away. Here, though, there are so many packs that could become a potential threat to us in the future, so we must be strong enough to defend ourselves against them when the time comes.”

  A sinking feeling filled my stomach. Was Akar becoming power hungry already, just like his father? I tried to shake the thought away almost as quickly as it came to me, but it was just no use. I knew the thought was going to plague me, even though I was probably just being paranoid.

  “I understand that you’re probably wondering how I hope to achieve this powerful pack. You’re probably worried that we need to go around biting humans just to turn them into werewolves so they can be a part of our pack,” Akar went on. “But there isn’t going to be any of that. Like the Alaskan chapter of the Koto pack, I discourage you from biting any humans, unless it’s to save their life. It’s unethical and, more importantly, humans can’t be trusted. They don’t like to keep secrets, unless it’s for their own reasons. I don’t want to risk exposing us—or werewolves, in general—t
o the whole world. So, I’ve found and communicated with a nearby pack who’s agreed to join forces with us, as long as we want them.”

  “You have?” Ashton questioned, rising to all fours, but then sitting back down. His dark tail hit against the ground as he wagged it excitedly. “But how? Packs rarely ever want to join forces with other packs—especially not strange ones.”

  “Who are you calling strange?” Chance asked with a growl. “I’m not strange.”

  “He means foreign. Get educated, genius,” Hunter answered with an eye roll.

  “You’re right about that,” Akar directed his reply towards Ashton, ignoring Chance and Hunter. “However, this pack is much different from any of the other packs you’ve ever heard about. I know that what I’m about to tell you next is going to frighten you, but please don’t be alarmed.”

  I stared at Akar, nervous to hear whatever it was that he had to say next. A part of me was worried he would say that the reason this pack had agreed to join forces with us so easily had something to do with black fighting. It was a form of fighting which involved the use of black magic. It was the darkest, most evil form of fighting that there was—as well as the most deadly.

  If we joined forces with another pack that used black fighting, I wasn’t sure that I would feel okay with staying here anymore. I would probably end up going back to Alaska or venture off on my own, without a pack. I didn’t want to take part in something so horrible.

  “This new pack—they’re called the Shondi—doesn’t have an Alpha at the moment,” Akar explained. “They recently lost their soon-to-be Alpha, Vinny.”

  “Did Vinny leave?” Hunter asked.

  “He left?” Chance questioned. “Where’d he go?”

  Akar shook his head. “He didn’t leave. He was killed.”

  “Then, why don’t they just have a new Alpha?” Hunter questioned. “I thought that when an Alpha dies, fate automatically chooses another one of the pack members to be Alpha…unless the pack was conquered by an outsider.”

  Hunter was right. Those were two of the most well-known rules about how an Alpha was chosen after one died. Werewolves didn’t just die from natural causes, since we were immortals. In most cases, Alphas die because they are killed. When an Alpha is killed, the werewolf who killed him automatically becomes Alpha. It didn’t matter if the wolf was from a different pack or the same pack, either.

  It was pretty rare for an Alpha’s own pack members to kill him, though. Most werewolves aren’t as strong as their Alpha, so it would be fairly difficult for them to kill him, unless they shot him with a silver bullet. It was only possible for a werewolf to be killed by a bullet while he or she was in human form. In my dad’s case, the human had fired the gun just as he was making the transition to human, and, had the bullet hit him a second earlier, he would have lived.

  While a werewolf is in wolf form, the only way for us to die is during an attack. There are two ways this can happen: the first is by piercing the heart, a method of killing that is so difficult, only the most skilled fighters are able to accomplish it; the second technique—the one that was more commonly used—is by sinking your teeth into the other wolf’s throat, constricting the airway and stopping them from breathing. Even though the second method is the easier of the two methods, it was still difficult for someone of lesser strength to accomplish it.

  Normally, Alphas from other packs are the ones who conquer other Alphas. Since the wolf who killed an Alpha would take his place as the new rightful leader of that pack, it was a method that some packs used when they wanted to expand their members. Some packs traveled all over the country trying to conquer packs, just to build up the strongest pack that they could.

  “You’re right. An Alpha is usually assigned by fate, unless he’s been conquered. In that scenario, fate would automatically choose the one who conquered the Alpha to be the next in line,” Akar agreed. “But this situation is a bit different. You know how, in very rare situations, a pack doesn’t have an Alpha to start with? And, when that happens, the pack sometimes has a placeholder—someone who acts as Alpha until the real Alpha takes his place?” He didn’t give anyone time to answer before continuing. “Well, the Shondi pack never got a placeholder, so no Alpha has ever been assigned to the pack. However, they suspected all along that Vinny was going to be their rightful Alpha. He came from a strong line of Shondi Alphas. His father is Alpha of the Shondi adult pack, and his great-great-grandfather before him. But they never got the chance to see if Vinny would ever become Alpha or not, because he was murdered before he even made the transition into a werewolf.”

  “So, it’s possible that Vinny never may have become Alpha,” Thane noted.

  “That’s correct.”

  “But how did they kill him? I thought that werewolves were immortal, even before they made the change,” Thane protested.

  “I was talking to Kyana, and there’s this guy on her pack. His name is Colby Jackson, and the guy’s a genius. He knows everything there is to know about werewolf history. Anyway, he says one study conducted many years ago found that in a high percent of cases—I forget the exact number—werewolves are immortal before they’ve made the change. But, there’s still a rare, though not impossible, chance that a werewolf could be killed the same way as any ordinary human could be before they’ve made the change,” Akar explained. “And there’s also the chance that Vinny might not have been a werewolf at all.”

  Not everyone who was born to werewolf parents became werewolves. It was possible for the werewolf gene to skip some generations or family members, even though it was rare for that to happen when the family line was known to be a powerful one. So, while it was unlikely that Vinny wouldn’t have been a werewolf since his father was one of, at least, two Alphas in the family, it wasn’t unheard of for that to happen, either.

  “Now, the question here isn’t whether or not Vinny died,” Akar went on. “We know, for sure, that he died. What I’m more interested in knowing is who killed him…and I think I have a pretty good idea of who it was.”

  I narrowed my wolf eyes at him. “What are you saying, exactly? That you think one of the members of the Shondi pack killed their Alpha…before he ever got the chance to be Alpha?”

  Akar met my gaze with his golden eyes. “That is exactly what I think happened. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. One of them must have felt threatened by his position as Alpha and wanted the same thing for themselves.”

  “But if that’s what happened, wouldn’t that person actually be Alpha?” Ashton questioned.

  “Not necessarily. Crazier things have happened. There’s also the chance that Vinny wasn’t meant to be Alpha at all. None of this is really that important.” Akar stared at each of us, but his gaze lingered on me. “I want you all to keep your eyes open. If you think you figure out who did it, you can let me know, and we will act accordingly. I don’t want to start a witch hunt before you even meet them, but we need to be careful.”

  Pulling his eyes away from me, he rose to his paws and began to walk around the circle we were arranged in. His tail swayed back and forth as he walked. “Now, I can understand why this might make you hesitate about us joining forces with the Shondi pack. There’s a risk that one of these new members is a greedy, power-hungry, cold-blooded killer.”

  There was no better way to describe the worry that had instantly filled my mind about this other pack. The only thing I could think about was why Akar would want us to join forces with a new pack in which one of them, or maybe even more than one of them, had already killed their own Alpha. Didn’t he think that if they’d done it to Vinny, they’d probably have the same fate planned for him?

  “I don’t believe you need to worry about their intentions,” Akar continued. “Even though I am convinced that one of these guys must have killed Vinny, I think they’re going to be on their best behavior in the future. They know now that it’s pointless to kill their Alpha if it’s just because they want to be Alpha themselves. It got them n
owhere the first time around, so it’s unlikely that would change if they killed a second time. Fate clearly doesn’t want whoever committed this murder to be in charge. But, since I know it’s going to be difficult for all of you to trust them, I’m going to do something different than usual. This may come as a shock to you, since I rarely do things the democratic way around here, but I’m going to let all of you have a say in this. We’re going to take a vote.”

  As he went to stand back at his place in the center of the circle, Akar glanced over at each of us with a sense of urgency in his eyes. “Before you make your decision, though, there’s something very important I want you to keep in mind. I think it would be the best thing for our pack to join forces with the Shondi because they are, by far, the most powerful pack for miles around, even without the direction of an Alpha. We could go the traditional route and try to look for loners who are willing to join our pack, but it would take months or even years to build a strong enough pack. It’s so archaic to do things that way. Things will go so much quicker if we just join forces with an already-established pack. I promise you that doing things this way will be the best thing for our pack.”

  He stared at us for a few moments in silence. I assumed he was trying to give us time to process everything he’d just told us.

  I personally didn’t need any time to process it, though. My mind was already made up; I was going to vote against this. It seemed like a bad idea—a horrible idea, even. I hadn’t even gotten to meet the Shondi yet, and I was pretty sure that I didn’t really want to. I doubted that I would ever be able to fully trust them. I wasn’t sure why Akar trusted them as much as he seemed to, either.

  A tiny voice in the back of my head told me that maybe it was because he didn’t care if they were worthy of his trust or not. It seemed like the only thing he really cared about was forming the most powerful pack possible.