Finding Grace

By J. A. O'Donoghue

Grace Canten is a wolf shifter who has been hiding from her past for the last five years, and is happy with her life in McCall, Idaho with her pit bull, Dorian, for companionship. When the new guy working at the mechanic shop next door decides he's interested in her, she has to decide if she's ready to let go of who she use to be. Ramsey Gable is a wolf shifter as well, and takes Grace to meet his pack, the Plains pack, who has moved to McCall from Texas after losing their alpha male, also Ramsey's father, during an attack from the Sladaim wolf pack, the pack Grace is from and is hiding from. Grace finds out that her father is the one who killed Ramsey's father, and confesses her secret to Ramsey after he proposes marriage. They fight, and Grace runs again.

Ramsey's mother, who is the female alpha, convinces her to come back, and Grace and Ramsey pick their romance back up, strengthened by their fight. They learn that the Sladaims are on the move, killing anyone in their way, and are heading straight for them. Grace decides that it times for the nearby weaker wolf shifter packs to work together and stop the Sladaims once in for all. She uses her story to gain the trust of four nearby packs, and they meet together to work as a team for the first time. Grace creates a system so that no pack has to fight alone again, and she and Ramsey become engaged and become the alphas of Plains pack and lead the five packs to victory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. A. O'Donoghue
• Release date: Oct 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311205834

J. A. O'Donoghue

J. A. O'Donoghue lives in Kentucky with her husband, her father, their two cats-Barry and Leia, and their pit bull/boxer mix-Gremlin. She adores the pit bull breed, and she and Gremlin enjoy watching Pit Bulls and Paroles on Animal Planet together. She also fights for Mental Health Rights, and receives treatment for Depression and Anxiety. She writes paranormal YA romance novellas and novels. She is currently working on The Lost and Found series and the In The Night series. Dragon's Flame, book one of the In The Night series will be out in Spring of 2017, and Lost, book three of The Lost and Found is planned to be out Fall of 2017. Other hobbies she enjoys are reading, knitting and crocheting, and is proud to be a fan of Doctor Who, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, and The Originals.

Book preview

DEDICATION

For my husband, Sean.

You stood by me in my darkest time, and yet still loved me enough to give me my dream.

For Gremlin, my first pit bull.

In Memory of Cooper, whose love inspired Dorian, and whose life inspired me.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank Mara Miller for helping me with formatting...and helping with edits...and for listening to me whine about editing!

I also want to thank Leah and Stephanie for their help with proofreading and editing, and for helping me with my semi-colon issue!

I also want to thank my husband for letting me be lazy and type all the time, and for distracting our puppy!

An old Cherokee told his grandson, "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, & truth.

The boy thought about it, and asked, Grandfather, which wolf wins?

The old man quietly replied, The one you feed.

-Author unknown.

ONE

Grace

Four A.M. always comes too soon.

It’s getting out of bed that is the hardest part. I moan as the alarm goes off and reach over to hit the snooze button. Instead I end up hitting Dorian, who is already awake and ready to start the day.

The problem with five year old pit bulls is that they still have the heart of a puppy-which is a problem when you are not a morning person. He tries to play as I try to get out of the bed, which ends with him being shoved off the bed meanly and me stumbling over him as I look for the light switch.

I let Dorian out to use the bathroom and eat a quick bowl of cereal as I get the coffee going. Then I get dressed in my uniform and go through my bathroom routine as the mild roasted coffee is brewing, which I pack to go with some chocolate creamer as I grab the lunch bag I packed last night. I fill Dorian’s food bowl and let him back in as I head out, giving him a goodbye kiss and pet on the head before shutting the door on his butt. I take a long gulp of coffee as I head across the street to the restaurant I work at, enjoying the warm spring morning.

Even though I’ve only been an opener for the last couple of years, I can do it in my sleep. As soon as the clock on the register strikes five A.M., I go through the same routine:  Clock in, get the decaf coffee brewing, put chairs down, brew pot one of the regular coffee, fill front ice bin, fill creamer containers, put out drive thru donation boxes, brew the last pot of coffee, pull out the plastic-ware box and jelly box, and, if there’s time, stock. If my backline opening partner isn’t chatty, I can get it done in about fifteen minutes.

This is not how I plan to spend my life. Working fast food is not my dream job, but it’s an easy job, a job that makes me invisible, with its uniforms and sameness, where people don’t consider you a person anymore. The smell of grease covers the smell of my shame, which has faded since I gave up my wolf.

Today looks like it is going to be an easy day. I’m the drive thru expediter, which means all I do is make drinks, bag and hand people their food and drinks, and then watch them drive away. I am also enjoying not having to take the orders of the mechanics from next door. They’re loud, annoying, and obnoxious, and everyone here hates them; even the guys, who don’t have worry about being hit on or leered at. They also have a shifter, or what humans would call a werewolf, working there, though so far he hasn’t said anything to me. I am hoping all the work I’ve done to cover my scent is working and that he hasn’t even noticed what I am.

The scent that we have is strong, made that way to help share information to one another, like pack affiliations, or lack of, or for when we’re searching for our potential mates. The humans don’t seem to notice it, or they just consider it stink. Even without him, I have not completely escaped the wolf world. Occasionally another lone wolf will come into the restaurant.

At first I, would panic, but usually they didn't say a word, just ordered, got their food, and left. Maybe all they could tell was that I was a shifter and that I was a loner like them; a shifter who has chosen not to live with a pack. It’s not common, but it happens. If they were part of a pack, their leader would have probably approached me and introduced themselves and offered an introduction to their pack.

It’s a peaceful day, or as peaceful as a fast food job can be. Customer drama is low, we don’t run out of important items, nothing breaks down, and none of my co-workers have a fit, so all in all it’s a good day. When it’s time to go home, I clock out, relish the feeling of freedom, and then grab my things from my locker.

I don’t live far from where I work; even though I have a car I let my energy out by walking home, since I no longer run in the woods as a wolf. I also go running in my human form with Dorian in the evening, when everyone is either inside for the night or trying not to be seen. I live alone with Dorian in a cheap, but well-kept studio apartment. At this point I can afford better, but I’m content where I am, and I know that someday I might need all the money I’ve saved up.

I open the door and am greeted by my excited brindle pit bull, though he is more excited about a bathroom break than seeing me. I let him out to relieve himself, and once he’s back inside I get ready for my shower, and promise him a walk later. The choice to have a dog was simple. I am alone so that I can protect myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely, and dogs are considered man’s best friend. Plus, it makes more sense for me to smell like dog if I have a dog. It also helps that since we both have canine DNA, I can somewhat communicate with him. That is how I can let him out and know he won’t run off; I am his alpha.

I take off the clothes that keep me invisible, feeling like myself for the first time today. I shower, washing off the smell of unhealthy food while drowning myself in scented shampoo and body wash, which helps to hide my natural scent. Fake gardenia smells better than old French fries or wet dog. I’m starting to suspect that my scent is fading, that not shifting anymore has had the effect I have been hoping for, but I have to be careful. Dorian’s scent helps to mask my fading musk as well.

It’s not my family that I’m afraid of, or at least not completely. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I was never considered a concern. They had already sent me away for most of my life, so I know they don’t want me back. They call themselves the Sladaim, which means ravage, and are considered one of the most strong and bloodthirsty packs in the States, so chances are good they’ve already forgotten about me. It’s everyone else. It’s someone finding out who I am, who I belonged to, who I never was, but will always be haunted by.

I was never there for the massacres. I had been left at a fire station as a baby because I had been born early and sickly, so I was seen as just a burden. I learned later that they had figured even if I did grow up healthy enough to have a normal life, I would have never been as strong as them. I would be a weakness, someone to always have to keep an eye on. So I was sent away, and I flourished.

I learned so much about humans, about their kindness and joyfulness. I had also learned about how strong they could be, and that even though they were technically weaker, they were so much like us. They loved and hated like we did, healed and killed like we did. To be honest, the only real difference between us is that they don't have a wolf side, along with the heightened senses we had developed, which seems to support the theory that we are just the next step in evolution. But even with our advances, we still have the same emotions they do, the same greed and selfishness, and we still feel the need to fight instead of love.

When I graduated high school, I hunted for my pack, ready to be a part of my family. I had forgiven them, and was so hopeful that they would be happy to see me, to see how I had grown, to see how strong I was, and to share my experiences with them. Instead I learned a hard truth.

My pack wasn’t interested in being a warm and loving family. Instead, they enjoyed ripping apart anyone in their way. In the short time I spent there, I learned the names of just some of the packs they had murdered, destroyed. They were more interested in money and territory than peace and pacts. Humans were a disease, and packs soft enough to share territory with them were considered an infection.

My vision of family had been shattered. I changed my name, packed only my documents and money, strapped them to me, and ran in my wolf form; leaving everything I had, everything I was, and everything I had hoped for, behind.

Dorian and I eat a simple dinner of chicken parmesan and noodles; the dog eats just as well as I do. After our food settles, I get dressed in my running clothes, needing to feel my muscles work and release the tension of the day. It would never replace running in my fur in fields and meadows, but it helps, and it keeps me in shape. Dorian knows what time it is and is already by the door. I put on his harness and leash, lock the door, and we walk to the sidewalk, getting warmed up before we take off.

Tonight seems different for some reason. Something in the air smells different. Not bad, not familiar, but different enough to make me curious

Five years ago. Five years of being human, and only human. Five years of washing away the scent of murder, the scent of wolf. Five years of reinventing who I was, of being afraid that one day, someone would find out who I was, who I had been born to, and punish me for something I wasn’t even a part of..

Ramsey

I hate car trips. I’ve had car sickness issues for as long as I can remember, which has become a running joke, since dogs are supposed to love riding in cars. If I could travel only in my fur, I would.

Of course, then I would have no way to move all my stuff. But then again, we’ve moved so much in the last ten years, I don’t have much left to move, just a box or two of clothes and personal items. I don’t even have furniture, because I buy it used when we get where we’re going, and then sell it when we leave so that we don’t leave a huge paper trail with a U-Haul. But I need to be there for my mom; for when she gets scared at a gas station, or has a nightmare in the hotel room. Or when she just needs me to drive for a while.

My mother is an amazing woman; she fought hard when our pack was attacked. I watched my father die in her arms, and then watched her push back the pain and take over the Plains pack, or what was left of it. For ten years we’ve been working to put our pack back together; to find somewhere where all of us can finally come together and be a whole pack again, or as whole as we can be.

So being a little car sick is not a good excuse to just leave her on her own, because she deserves so much better than that. My little sister, Beth, is already at the new set up. We had sent her ahead of us while we stayed with the Whitefish pack in Montana to get all the paperwork done and made sure everything was settled.

We have always been a peaceful pack. We had had an amazing set up in Plains, Texas-a huge piece of land we had all built on and a community farm that we all helped care for and shared from. It had been a place where we could run in our fur and have no fear. We also had traded with the local humans, socialized with them, and had gone to middle school, high school, and college with them, once we were old enough to control our shifting.

While our members are taught to treat humans as equals, that is not a widespread belief. Because of the theory of us being the next step in human evolution, there are packs who believe that humans are made to serve or die, like the one who attacked us. They are consumed with greed and bloodlust, killing for territory, taking out anyone, shifter or human, in their way. Bloodthirsty and ruthless, they slaughtered our pack for nothing but territory, kind of like we did with the Native Americans.

I know we are finally close when the houses and roads start disappearing. A dirt road here and there is the only hint that someone lives out here, and still we keep going. We hit a dead end, and somewhere a gravel road appears, tucked between two trees. We turn onto it and bump along, finally finding what looks like a bed and breakfast type place, made to house several families. Behind it were a couple more, smaller, houses, and a few more still being built. It’s our first real settlement without dad.

As we pull in, Beth runs out to meet us, followed by a few familiar faces. Even better, some of them are members we didn’t know had come back. Beth waits until we turn off the truck and get out, and then she embraces us, me more carefully because my face is apparently green. Mom holds her own, quickly going into alpha mode and asks for updates, catching up as everyone greets her. When Beth