She would never tire of the aroma of the early morning fresh air, or the blooming spring flowers.

Mother nature at her best.

Daniella Harper smiled as best she could in her wolf form. She trotted back towards the fence that separated her backyard from the open land of the Tennessee State National Forest.

She reached the stairs of her back porch before slowly morphing back into her human form. The warm rays of the sun felt amazing against her naked skin. She was lucky that she didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing her in all her glory; her neighbors on each side of her home were about a half a mile down the road each way.

And that was how she liked it.

She walked into her back door, directly into her kitchen, and went over to the fridge to pull out a chilled bottle of water. A good long run always left her parched. She grabbed her smartphone and hit the app that controlled her music, blasting it through the surround sound speakers throughout her home. She danced her way to her room and grabbed a towel so she could jump into the shower.

Twenty minutes later, she reappeared from her shower feeling refreshed. She threw on jeans and an oversized T-shirt that she tied in a knot at the base of her back. Another one of her favorite songs began to play as she grabbed her laptop and cell phone, and danced her way into the living room.

“Hello…it’s me,” she sang along, plopping down onto her couch. She booted up her computer when the old ringtone ringer of her phone cut the song short, signifying an incoming call.

“Aw, come on,” she whined out loud, laughing at herself. But once she saw who was calling, her smile grew even wider. “What’s up, BFF?” she answered.

“Hey, Dani,” a familiar voice greeted her.

Hope Foster had been her best friend since they were six years old. They met at the beginning of first grade, and were inseparable while growing up. Hope and her family were human, and never treated Daniella, a shifter, any different.

Humans were well aware of the existence of shifters, and both species tried to live in peace with one another. Shifters preferred to live near the outskirts of towns and cities, or even out in the country to be near the open land in order to have safe places to run in their animal forms.

Of course, there were those anti-shifter groups that protested and rallied against shifters on the platform that shifters were a danger to the public, and should be made to register and live on reservations, away from humans. The pro-shifter groups argued that like humans, there were good and bad shifters. These groups felt that shifters should have the same treatment and rights as humans.

The Fosters’ had always accepted Daniella, as if she were their second child. Growing up, she probably spent more time in their home than she did her own.

“How the hell are you, Hope?” she asked, logging into her job’s website to fill out a few reports for work. She was a social worker for the local county children and family services in the shifter division. She needed to finish filling out her reports from her home visits that she did yesterday.

Hope’s deep sigh reached Dani’s ears and grabbed her wolf’s attention. Something wasn’t right. “Dani, it’s Mom.”

“What?” she almost screeched. Her heart pounded hard in her chest as she thought of the wonderful woman who was like a second mother to her. “Is she okay?”

Thoughts raced through her mind at the possibility that something was wrong with Mrs. Foster. She didn’t think she would be able to handle it.

“She found a lump in her left breast a couple of weeks ago,” Hope said, her voice sounding strained.

Her usual high-pitched, jolly voice was now dull, and almost lifeless. Dani’s wolf whined, scratching at her from the inside, sensing that their best friend was in pain.

“Oh my God,” she breathed into the phone. She squeezed her eyes shut. This could not be happening. “What is going on?”

“They did a mammogram, and it came back abnormal. There was a dense mass, and they suggested an ultrasound guided biopsy.”

“Why didn’t anyone call me sooner?” Dani whispered into the phone. Her vision blurred from tears that threatened to fall, and worry filled her chest, as she had already lost her parents tragically in a car accident. She couldn’t lose Mrs. Foster too. She sat her laptop down on the coffee table and perched on the edge of the couch to listen.

“She didn’t want anyone to know,” Hope said, a small sniffle escaping. “She said she thought it would turn out to be nothing, and she didn’t want to worry anyone. But it’s been downhill since the mammogram.”

“Did she have the biopsy yet? What did it say?”

“Yes, she had it,” Hope paused again. Dani could hear her blow her nose before she came back to the phone. “It’s cancer, and the mass is big enough that they want to try some chemo, or some type of drugs first before considering surgery. It has been a blur to me ever since we sat in the doctor’s office when he explained everything.”

“I’m coming home,” Dani said without hesitation. She had been gone for too long from their small town of Wakefield, Ohio.

“You said you could never come back—”

“It doesn’t matter. You are my family, and I must come home. I have to see her,” she whispered into the phone. It was true. After her parents’ died her senior year of high school, it was the Foster family who took her in so that she could finish out her last year of high school.

When she was twelve years old, her parents entered into an agreement with the alpha for her to mate with his son. She never got it out of them why the alpha wanted her for his son. They only insisted that it was an honor for her to be chosen for the future alpha of their pack, and with her as the alpha’s mate, she could help turn their pack around. This had been the only thing that her and her parents had ever disagreed about. She begged and pleaded for them to break the arrangement, but they refused, stating that the arrangement was already made. There was nothing they could do to change it.

After graduating from high school, she packed her things and left Wakefield. She ran away, scared of what her future held as the mate of the future alpha. She didn’t care about the agreement that that the alpha and her parents had. Her parents had died, and she refused to uphold that agreement.

Evan Torres, the alpha that made the mating arrangement with her parents, was a cruel, heartless man that was known in the Midwest as Crazy Torres. Junior, the alpha’s son, was quickly following in his father’s footsteps, and Dani refused to be mated to such an evil wolf.

Her life would have been a living hell if she had mated with Junior. He tormented her as a child, and she refused to spend her entire life with him. The Torres family had been in charge of the Blood Moon pack for generations, and drove the pack into the ground.

The Blood Moons were once a thriving pack, and had once held a reputation of being one of the strongest packs in the Midwest, but under the reign of the Torres family, the Blood Moons barely garnered respect.

Once she ran, she had always had to look over her shoulder for fear that Junior would show up and drag her back to Wakefield, which would have been his right in the eyes of shifter law. They had been promised to each other since she was twelve, and he was fourteen years old. The human laws upheld most of the Lycan laws, so whenever Junior decided to come for her, the human police would have no jurisdiction.

She knew that Junior had his wolves had been watching her. She always had a creepy sensation that someone’s eyes were on her. Her wolf was always on the defense, never knowing if someone would jump out of the shadows to grab her and drag her back to Junior. She was always moving, trying to get away from Junior and his wolves, but no matter where she went, they would somehow find her.

About a year ago, she no longer had the sensation that someone was watching her, and the fear of being discovered vanished. One morning she woke up and just felt…free. She didn’t know what was different, but she had taken advantage of it. She had even went out and bought her dream house, and had finally begun to live life.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “I’ll be just fine.”