Violet Darkwood stepped down from the moving truck her mother—correction, her stepmother—Wynona, drove. The air in Deadwood, South Dakota, felt thin and cold, a stark contrast to the humid climate they'd fled. Violet observed their new house. It was large, built on the edge of the woods, with a gigantic yard that sloped up to a small, isolated hill. A thin, defiant line of border plants was the only thing separating the tame yard from the vast, untamed wilderness beyond.
Violet knew this place was carefully chosen. Wynona hadn't sought a community; she'd sought isolation. A move to a "has-been" town like Deadwood, where real estate costs were equivalent to fast food prices, was a calculated risk. As long as Violet had enough space to run around wildly, Wynona's life—and safety—might be preserved.
After all, Violet had turned into a wolf and ripped out a man's throat right in front of her stepmother.
Wynona was the right kind of unobtrusive good-looking. Dirty blonde hair, an aquiline nose, soft lips, and brown eyes framed by a Caucasian complexion that somehow still gave her an exotic, mixed-race look. Men thought she was devastatingly sexy; women often dismissed her as plain. She had earned enough tips in Lexington to keep their family afloat, affording them simple pleasures like a water park trip every summer and a ski trip every winter. It was a sufficient, if not stellar, life.
That life had imploded during a spring picnic with Stan, Wynona's latest boyfriend, a man who, until that day, had seemed like a decent, financially stable prospect. He was the best-looking, most polite of all her mother's would-be stepfathers, which was why Violet hadn't been wary.
A month ago, Stan tried to rape Violet in the woods. There wasn't a soul to hear her scream. Anger and despair had suffused her entire being. Her vision turned blinding red, and the rage became something visceral, something other.
When she finally woke, Stan was lying dead, his throat savagely torn, his arms mauled into meat paste.
Wynona, though shocked, had handled the gruesome aftermath with chilling efficiency. They trekked to the nearest distant location they could find, called the police, and fabricated a plausible accident scenario involving a large wild animal. Wynona received a fair sum in life insurance compensation—a final, macabre benefit from the man who had ruined their lives—and they immediately packed everything and moved to Deadwood.
Violet sighed, shaking off the memory. The stench of the past clung to her, but this new place offered a potential escape. She began helping with the moving boxes, her eyes scanning the massive property. That's when she saw it: a small, dilapidated cabin tucked away at the base of the hill, practically swallowed by overgrown ivy and shadow. It was perfect.
"What's that?" Violet asked, pointing.
Wynona didn't even turn around. "A relic. Probably rotting. Forget it, Violet. Stick to the house."
"I want it," Violet insisted. She wanted this cabin to be her secret den, a place where the wolf and the girl could coexist without scrutiny.
Her stepmother reluctantly agreed on the condition that Violet cleaned it herself. "It smells like a dumpster fire already, and I won't touch it," Wynona stated flatly.
Violet gritted her teeth and set to the task. The interior was a disaster—dust, dirt, cobwebs, and that rank, musty odor of ancient decay. It took almost an entire, grueling day of scrubbing, sweeping, and hauling out debris, but finally, she could look at the clean, bare structure and feel a profound sense of accomplishment.
The evening sunlight filtered through the newly cleaned glass panes, fracturing the light into a motley of golden beams and deep shadows. The entire space was filled with an otherworldly, fantasy-like glow.
A solarium, she thought. That's what it would be. All she needed was to plant the right kind of climbing roses and sweet-smelling flowers to draw in the bees and butterflies. She could already imagine it: a fairy tale hideaway.
She pictured herself sitting in the corner with a glass of cheap wine, painting fantastical creatures onto canvas while the sunlight danced on her. Better yet, she imagined inviting a boy here. A sweet, handsome boy. Perhaps they would steal a shy kiss in the shadow of the climbing vines, then look up at each other, flushed with silent understanding. Then, in the golden sunlight, hidden from the world among the flowers and bees, they would profess their eternal love. She flushed with pleasure at the purely romantic future she could build in this solitary place.
The tranquility of her daydream was abruptly disturbed by screeching noises coming from outside—the sound of a door being forced open.
"Neil! There might be someone. I heard this place has been let out," a female voice exclaimed, followed by a nervous laugh.
"Makes it all the more fun, doesn't it?" a male voice answered back languidly.
Violet froze. The voice. Deep, resonant, and impossibly smooth. For the first time, Violet understood what people meant when they said a voice could make you wet. The voice was damn sexy.
Screech!… Scree!
They were fiddling with the door, the sound of splintering wood grating on her ears.
Shikes! Violet cursed in her heart. She tiptoed over to the cabinet she had just managed to move and slid behind it before the door could swing fully open.
Why am I hiding? This is my house!
The thought occurred to her half a second too late. The answer was a sad truth rooted deep within her. It had become a habit. She had been raised in an environment of domestic volatility and violence. 'Do not come out till I call you' was the first memory she had of her stepmother. Though she longed to stand up, face the trespassers, and throw them out, she was already hidden.
By the first sound of the door finally giving way, the couple had started kissing.
Violet covered her flaming face first, then her ears, but when the raw, intoxicating pleasure of their proximity coursed through her, she knew there was no way to avoid it. She was a voyeur. A reluctant, accidental voyeur, but a voyeur nonetheless. The intense, untamed energy of their intimate encounter was overwhelming.
The male's grunt was low and possessive, the female's gasp was sharp and urgent. Violet couldn't look, yet she couldn't tear her awareness away. She had hidden, but her senses—the animal part of her she hadn't yet understood—were on full alert. Her ears picked up every rasp of clothing, every wet sound, every ragged breath.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but the sensations only intensified. The smell of pine needles, wet earth, and something primal—musky, metallic, and intensely male—invaded the small space. It was the scent of pure, unadulterated lust.
The energy radiating from the couple—the friction, the heat, the sheer need—was a tidal wave. It didn't just register in her mind; it hammered against her skin, charging her from the inside out. It was a dangerous, alluring thrumming that found a deep, neglected chord within her own body and pulled.
Suddenly, the pleasure was no longer an external observation; it was internal. It was a hot, liquefying wave that started in her belly and surged through her veins, demanding a release she couldn't comprehend.
A low, involuntary growl rumbled in her throat. Her eyes snapped open, and the world was starting to blur at the edges, the shadows seeming to lengthen and writhe. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst through her ribs. This wasn't excitement; this was instinct. This was the animal demanding its right to the chaos.
The voice! The man's voice, now muffled by a kiss and a groan, echoed in her core, igniting a hunger so profound it wiped away all rational thought.
She felt a shudder ripple through her body—not of fear, but of profound, terrifying change. Her limbs elongated, muscles coiling like steel cables. A powerful, desperate need to join, to possess, to mate with that source of sound and heat became the only reality.
The man and woman, caught up in their own fervor, had moved closer to the corner where Violet was hidden. She could feel the vibration of their bodies against the flimsy cabinet.
The raw, intoxicating, pheromonal release from the man was the last straw. It was too much, too close, too perfect. The animal took over. All the control she had fought her entire life to maintain—the control that kept the wolf from emerging—shattered.
Violet let go of the last vestiges of her control, giving in completely to the wolf.
Her world dissolved into a maelstrom of primal instinct and white-hot sensation. There was the smell of wood and musk, the sensation of tearing, the feeling of her skin stretching and breaking as her bones rearranged themselves with dizzying, exquisite speed. The female's startled shriek was immediately muffled by the male's low, rumbling dominance.
What followed was a vicariously primal and beautiful explosion of energy. It was raw, instinctive, and utterly overwhelming—like a lightning storm on the open sea, consuming everything in its path.
That is the last memory she had of being Violet Darkwood.
She woke later, hours later, draped across the earth, the primal scent of pine and something else—something distinctly hers, yet shared—clinging to the air. The man was completely spent, passed out beside her in the grass and soil. He was handsome, even in sleep, his chest rising and falling slowly.
She gathered her clothes silently, thankful for the instinctive grace that had prompted her to remove them before the shift. She dressed quickly, the silence of the cabin now profound and heavy.
She left the man where he was amidst the grass and soil, and walked out of her secret den and over to her house.
Her stepmother was working two shifts today, afternoon and night. Wynona would come back later, thoroughly refreshed, probably having secured the promise of a new, wrong-headed relationship. Violet hoped this time around, Wynona would take care to talk to the guy for at least a minute before falling on his dick and declaring herself his long-lost soulmate.
'But who am I criticizing? I did the same myself but a moment ago,' she thought to herself, the shame a dull, heavy weight.
Right on cue, lightning rumbled outside, the sound cracking the night sky.
With the lightning, Violet came fully to her senses.
She refused to be Wynona. The man in the cabin might be a once-in-a-lifetime, eleven-star lover, but she was not going to be his anything. If there was one thing she learned from her stepmother, it was that there was no such thing as stable love, and men were best enjoyed in limited, controlled time frames.
Yes.
She walked into the kitchen, the adrenaline wearing off, leaving her energized but focused. She opened Google.
'Werewolves, lycans and wolf mysteries' she typed in.
The primal urge to run, to return to the man, was still a dull throb in her muscles, but she fought it, focusing instead on the cold, blue screen.
By the time the sun was thinking of rising, she had ordered enough wolfsbane seeds to create a six-lane patch around their entire house. She needed to understand what she was, and she needed to control it. That wolf, and the sexy voice that summoned it, would stay in the woods. Or Else!