Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
I was an eclectic mixture of my parents—I had my father’s curly red hair and my mother’s smooth light brown skin with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose. My eyes were chocolate brown with gold rings around the outer iris, which my father always used to say made me special.
“Those rings mean you’ve got royal blood running through your veins, girly!” he’d always tell me. “You know you’ve got the blood of the First Alpha, don’t you? You’ll probably grow up to be an Omega.”
My mom would always tell him to hush.
“There’s not a damn thing royal about being half redneck,” she’d say. She said those words with laughter in her voice in the beginning but as I grew older and their marriage got rockier, her amusement was replaced with bitterness and regret. She never believed in my father’s idea of his family’s special status—she thought he had crazy ideas that didn’t make any sense.
In retrospect, I had to agree with her. Because now some of that craziness had bled into my own life. And it was my own damn fault for coming back to this horrible little town in the first place.
Wolverton isn’t anything to boast about—it’s basically a wide spot in the road in rural Georgia. It has one elementary school, one middle school and one high school—I suffered through all three.
Even before I was orphaned, I didn’t exactly fit it. I was too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids—which meant I did my best to disappear into books. I was the girl who always sat in the corner reading during recess, the one who was picked last for kickball, the one who was teased for looking like a “freak” because my appearance didn’t fit in with the norms of the town.
And yet I had come back here. How stupid could I be?
Forget Women’s Studies—I ought to get my PhD in Women Making Poor Life Decisions, I thought fiercely, looking around the packed van I was being transported in. I was about to be fighting for my life in a few minutes, once it got dark and they sent us all out in the field. A dicey situation and I had no weapons or even any way to defend myself with my hands cuffed together as they were.
What the hell was I going to do?
Mentally, I ran down the list of poor choices that had brought me to this spot. First, deciding to come looking for the lost great aunt I hoped I still had. Second, deciding to stop into the local watering hole, The Depot, for half a glass of wine and some of their “famous wings” for old time’s sake before I left.
The few good memories I had of the town had happened at The Depot—a rickety, barn-like building that had been painted a fierce salmon pink with turquoise trim.
Inside it was your typical bar atmosphere with honky-tonk and Southern rock being played over the scratchy speakers and the click of pool balls in the background. I thought I might see a few familiar faces from high school and I did—Josie Myers was waiting tables now. Quite a step down from being the Head Cheerleader and Queen Bee of all of Wolverton High, the snarky part of my brain commented.
I tried to push that thought to the back of my mind. Josie had been a bitch to me in high school, but I liked to think I was mature enough to put that behind me. And she probably couldn’t help the situation she was in. Had I stayed in Wolverton, I probably would have wound up in the exact same boat myself. This stagnant little town sucks people in like a black hole, especially the ones that buy into the local folklore of being “special” and “different.”
Anyway, the sweet heat habanero hot wings were as delicious as I remembered and I was getting ready to go when I noticed a man staring at me from across the bar. His nose was wrinkled and he was sniffing the air, almost like he was trying to catch my scent.
I’m not going to lie—that freaked me out. Especially considering the beliefs some of the locals espoused. I paid my bill and got the hell out of there, intent on heading back North, where I belonged.
I was almost to the town line—I could even see the “Wolverton, population 9,000, Welcomes you!” sign, when a police car came out of nowhere with the siren on and the lights flashing.
And here’s where I really screwed up—I shouldn’t have stopped and pulled over. I should have put my foot down and gotten the hell out of there. Yes, even if it meant some kind of police chase, I should have at least tried.
But that’s not how we’re socialized, is it? We’re taught to respect authority and anyway, I thought maybe my rental car had a taillight out or something. The officer would probably just give me a warning and let me go.