Imprint

chapter one

"We're lost."

"No, we're not. I know exactly where we are."

"We're in the middle of nowhere, Terry."

With a strained huff, Evonne Hawke unbuckled the seatbelt and kicked open the door. The old car wasn't going anywhere anytime soon and there was nothing worse than listening to her parents bickering and arguing as they hovered over an outdated map.

Neither her parents nor her older brother Jonathan glanced up as Evonne stepped further away from the car. The paved road beneath her well-worn sneakers was old and cracked and on either side of her were miles of trees. Her mum wasn't that far off. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere.

A few more steps and Evonne was swallowed by trees. It was getting dark by this time but she didn't fear getting lost, even though this was foreign territory. The headlights from the Toyota would be her beacon back to her family.

Moving houses was stressful enough, but moving towns, and then getting lost on the way to their new home, well, it was rapidly becoming a nightmare, and it had nothing to do with the three hours she just spent crammed into a seat beside her brother.

Evonne took a few more steps before she pulled her phone from the pocket of her oversized hoodie. Watching the screen came to life, Evonne was disheartened to see there was no signal.

God, there better be a decent signal where they were moving. Considering there were apparently large estates and skyscrapers, she doubted the city was as rural as the woods that surrounded the town made it out to be.

Discarding the device back where it came from, Evonne swept her long chestnut hair into a low ponytail and turned back towards the beacon of headlights and family drama. Only, she didn't travel very far before her legs became stiff.

There was already something between her and her beacon back home.

Leaning on its hindlegs, the large wolf reared its snout towards the air. The wolf sniffed the air, its blue eyes landed on the teenager as it sprung forward.

What was it her dad told her about encountering wildlife? Run? Don't run? Play dead? Right now, as the large wolf with pale blonde fur circled her, Evonne couldn't think past the cyclone of sound in her ears. Damn wolf and its damn woods.

The wolf moved with such grace that it seemed unusual for a wild creature. Its paws grazed the soil, barely disturbing the fallen leaves coating the ground like a thick blanket. There was something in its eyes too. Such a pale blue, holding more emotions that Evonne ever saw from her brother. Such humanity . . .

Wait?

Evonne peered through the darkness, her brown eyes following every step the strange wolf took. She didn't have much experience with wild animal, but it did seem much larger than she'd expect from an average wolf.

"Shifter?"

The wolf stilled in its prowl, its head tilting to the side. With amusement in its eyes, the wolf convulsed backwards as it began to shift. Bones shifting, pale pink flesh snapping into place, tail retracting back in its body. In mere seconds, the wolf had vanished, replaced with a girl around the same age as Evonne, sixteen, maybe seventeen, her pale blonde hair blowing wildly in the breeze.

"How'd you know I was a shifter?"

Evonne took a step away. Even though the creature wasn't a wild wolf looking for its next meal, being a supernatural still gave this strange girl a huge advantage over Evonne and her entire family of humans. "Just a guess."

The strange girl made a disapproving sound in the back of her throat. She had to be a werewolf, if Evonne had to guess. Or a shapeshifter, or perhaps a witch. It was impossible to know, but Evonne went with werewolf. "What are you doing here?"