If I see you again, I’ll kill you myself.
Solstice “Sunny” Kittridge hadn’t had someone tell her directly they wanted her dead in her entire life, but less than an hour ago, she’d heard those words from Dario Hawke, the new alpha of the jaguar prowl that had been her home since she was seven years old.
The new alpha’s voice echoed in her skull like a broken record.The last hour was a blur of shock and humiliation.Her hastily packed bag sat beside her, half-zipped, its contents spilling onto the floor.The only thing she could hear besides Dario’s voice was the crunch of gravel under her tires as she fled Shadow Rock, hidden in the thick Tennessee wilderness, her life collapsing behind her.
Gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white, she ignored the heart-pounding grief and fury, and focused on the old, winding road that cut through the forest like a scar.She was leaving behind everything she’d known and found comfort in, and heading toward what she could only describe as a sliver of hope.
Hope that there was actually a group of shifters who lived and worked at a safari park in New Jersey that her adopted mom Sera had whispered to her about as she hugged her goodbye for the last time.
The Amazing Adventures Safari Park.
She thought it was strange that a group of shifters would be so out in the open around humans, when the prowl had stayed as far removed as possible, utilizing an abandoned campground for their home.But if the shifters could manage to live and work around humans without discovery, then maybe they’d take her in.
If they didn’t, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.She didn’t have enough cash on hand to do much of anything except get herself to New Jersey, some seven hundred miles away from the thick forest that had been her home.
Since her parents were taken from her that night in a terror-filled nightmare that had haunted her for years.
Was there hope in New Jersey?Real hope?
She wasn’t sure.
But there wasn’t anything for her in Shadow Rock anymore.She wasn’t allowed to contact anyone from the prowl—not her adopted mom, Sera, or her best friend, Fallon.Exile meant she might as well be dead to them, a ghost sent off into the beyond where they couldn’t reach her under threat of punishment.
It was a hell of a way to start a day.
She glanced once in the rearview as she headed toward the highway, her heart cracking a little bit more, and then she ground her teeth together and focused on the road ahead.
No tears right now.She’d cry later, maybe after she was out of Tennessee.
She was too numb for tears.
* * *
The morning had started out normal enough.She’d been up at five, not quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but something close to that.After trudging to the kitchen of the home she shared with Sera and her daughter, Fallon, for her first cup of coffee, she showered and dressed for the day.Sera worked for the jaguar prowl as a caretaker, focusing on cooking for the high-ranked males who weren’t mated.Fallon and Sunny had helped her put meals together since they were old enough, and while Sunny didn’t consider herself a great cook, she loved to plate food and make it look pretty—even if the males didn’t care one way or the other.And she could wield a knife and cut produce like nobody’s business.
She’d been scrambling an enormous bowl of eggs for omelets while Fallon yawned and cooked bacon on the next burner, the two considering driving to one of the larger cities near their hidden campground to watch a movie or get a drink that night, when their phones pinged with an alert from the new alpha, Dario.He’d pulled a coup on former alpha Francis after he’d grown sick and been unable to perform his duties.Dario had been his second-in-command.While Francis didn’t particularly care for Sunny one way or the other, Dario had never liked her.
He'd called her a half-breed and a waste of space because she’d been unable to shift.Not enough of her father’s tiger DNA to counteract her mother’s human DNA.She could feel her tigress a little when she got emotional, but the beast was as much a figment of her imagination as her imaginary friend, Mrs.Lady, when she was little.
The notification from Dario was simple:Mandatory all-prowl meeting at six a.m.Those not in attendance will be punished severely.
“What is that about?”Fallon asked, wiping a splatter of bacon grease off her hand.
“No clue,” Sera said.“He’s probably going to lay down some new laws and flex his muscles.I was out harvesting onions from the garden last night and heard some of the enforcers talking about Alpha Francis and his mate being kicked out.”
“That seems harsh,” Sunny said.“He’s ill.”
Sera shrugged, brushing a lock of dark blond hair from her eyes.“Life in the prowl can be brutal.We’ve got fifteen minutes; let’s clean up and we’ll cook when we get back.”
Sunny finished her coffee and put the eggs in the fridge, then took off her apron and hung it on the hook by the back door.
The trio walked through the prowl’s territory to the alpha’s home, where Dario—a thirty-something asshole who had yet to find a female to mate him—stood with his newly appointed high-ranked males, the most brutal of the prowl’s enforcers.The prowl was small with only nineteen members now that the former alpha and his mate were gone.
When the prowl had gathered, Dario looked across the small crowd and then his gaze landed on Sunny’s.A chill wove down her spine at the harsh look.
“We must protect the prowl at all costs,” Dario said with a loud voice.“And that begins with rooting out what doesn’t belong.Solstice Kittridge, I exile you.”
Sunny’s heart fell into her stomach.Had she heard that right?
