Page 1 of A Pack of Lies and a Big Bad Wolf

Chapter 1

Kieran Holt

The weekend farmers’ market in downtown Cedar Run, Arkansas, is usually my favorite part of the week. Our pack always runs at least a dozen booths and tables, with various pack members selling herbal remedies, magically charged runes, teas, and other magic concoctions. Shifters from all across Arkansas, and surrounding states, come to our market.

The other two packs in town, Frostbane and Moonstone, have their own booths and tables at the market, and there’s always music, food booths, and entertainment. It’s a break from my 24/7 responsibilities as Alpha of the Shadowpine pack. Well, it would be, but today I’m dealing with the annoyance of a female from an out-of-town pack, who apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘no’.

I’m sitting at a table in the large canvas tent that’s set up in the Shadowpine pack’s section, holding a mug of excellent mulled cider that I just bought from a Moonstone family. The Moonstone pack’s specialty is agriculture. I’m looking forward to food, beer, and frivolity. And I’m not going to deal with this today. Olivia Crowley is being a thorn in my paw. She’s called dozens of times over the past few weeks.

Six times today. And now, she’s apparently here in Cedar Run, blowing up our pack secretary’s cell phone. “Tell her I said no.” I scowl at Teresa. “Is that hard to understand? Break it down into words of one syllable for her. Wolf. Say. No.”

I know I’m a hardass, and not particularly pleasant to work for. That’s kind of the brand, though, when you’re the Alpha and you’ve got dozens of family clans in your pack that rely on you for – well, everything.

Teresa gulps. “I will tell her. Again. She’s just very persistent.”

“Oh, brother dear, what seems to be the problem?” My twin sister Amaryllis has just entered the tent, along with our younger sister Rose, and our cousin Bram. Amaryllis and Rose settle into the seats next to me, holding frosty glasses of lemonade. Bram remains standing, his gaze sweeping the tent. Always listening, always watching. He’s the sentinel for our pack, chief of security.

I start to answer and she holds up her hand. “No, no, let me guess. It’s one of your persistent female fans from that last inter-pack gathering you went to, isn’t it? You have no idea how many DMs I’ve been getting from girls who suddenly want to be my best friend because they saw you there.”

“Gross!” Rose yells. She’s seventeen; she thinks everything we do is gross.

“Well, I am pretty adorable,” I say dryly. I take a long swig of cider.

“We are, aren’t we?” Amaryllis grins at me.

“And humble,” Bram snorts, with an amused shake of his head.

“I’m the cute one here.” Rose flips her dark hair out of her face and rakes us with a scornful look. “You’re both too old to be adorable. Way too old. Waaaay too old. ‘Moses autographed your copy of the Bible’ old.”

“I think we get the point,” Amaryllis says with amusement.

“Are you sure? Because I could go on.” Rose narrows her eyes at her.

Rose is just cranky because I told her that no, she can not attend next month’s inter-pack gathering in Colorado, with or without a chaperone. Those gatherings are for business networking, and for hunting for a mate outside of your own pack.

And my sister’s got no interest in business networking.

My little baby sister is not old enough to look for a mate. Ever.

Why? Because I said so.

However, I’m not surprised that women are trying to track me down after last month’s meeting. It’s no secret that the Holt family’s looks, which run to high cheekbones, full lips, and storm-gray eyes, tend to snag attention. Other than the beard, my sisters and I share the same features.

“Anyway, no, it’s not a female fan. It’s Olivia, the older sister of the guy we sent away last month.” I drain half of my mug of cider in one long, sweet-cinnamon swallow.

Amaryllis’ expression grows serious. She is our pack’s strongest healer. Several of our female cousins are also healers; it runs in the female line of our family. Rose is a fair-to-middling healer and an excellent potion apothecary.

“That boy who couldn’t shift?” Amaryllis says. I nod. He’d come to us saying we were his last resort. Our best healers examined him.

Well, most of our best healers – just not my sister. I have strict rules about that. I don’t break them for anyone. She doesn’t work on anyone outside our pack, and even then, if she’s doing more than routine healing, she has to check with me first. I have reasons for that, but it doesn’t matter. I’m the Alpha; what I say goes.

Anyway, our other healers didn’t have a clue what to do. He was an absolute anomaly. Born to a shifter family in Montana, and when puberty hit, and all his friends were having their first shifts…he didn’t. Everyone assumed he was a late bloomer. They kept waiting…and waiting… He’s 18 now. He’s never shifted.

He came to us with all of his and his sister’s savings, because we’re not just shifters, we’re mages. Like all mages, we were born with a unique genetic ability to draw power from the ley lines. Our pack, due to a genetic mutation and also living on a strong confluence of ley lines, has more mages than most. We have truth mages, healers, herb mages who can amplify the healing powers of common herbs, and our Alpha line, including me, tends towards telekinesis.

“Maybe I could have at least examined him.” Amaryllis frowns.

I shake my head. “If you found something that you even thought you might be able to heal, you’d want to do everything you could to fix it, even if it drained you to the point of…well. It would drive you crazy not to do it. We did everything we could,” I tell my sister. She takes a thoughtful sip of lemonade.