Prologue

If there was something Isabelle knew more than anything it was the damning fact that humans hate her kind. It was not because they had done anything to deserve it - at least not that she knew of, it was just the simple fact that they were different. Humans are pretty uncomfortable with people they deemed different especially if the people in question have the ability to shapeshift. Some humans are barely tolerable of the knowledge of her kind while others actively come after them. Isabelle thought they were lucky folks in Appleberry belonged in the latter category. 

Isabelle saw the way the shopkeeper watched them as if they were a band of thieves or something equally worse. Her brother, Xavier waited for the human to check out their purchases and he quickly counted the dollar bills, placed them on the counter, and gestured for the rest of them to leave. Isabelle followed her brother, Hallec; his beta, and three others outside the massive grocery store, and couldn’t help glancing back one more time at the older man behind the counter. The glare of hatred in his old eyes was palpable. She sighed. Xavier held the door open for her and she thanked him with a smile as she walked outside. 

“Ignore him, Belle,” Xavier advised. “Do you need anything else?” He asked. “It’s going to be a while before we come back to town,” he warned. 

“We have bought everything on the list,” Isabelle replied with a thankful glance at him. He nodded. 

They had come to town for their monthly shopping and just like always her brother made sure she got everything she needed for her personal needs. Every single one of them was carrying at least five white grocery bags. 

As the guys went up the back of the beat-up truck to place the purchases in the cargo bed, a middle-aged woman walked up to Belle and spit on the floor in front of her. She gasped, startling backwards.

Xavier came to stand between her and the other woman, not sparing the brunette a glance, he relieved Isabelle of her shopping bags and gestured for her to go to the passenger side of the truck in the front aisle. Isabelle swallowed, nodded, and lowered her gaze.

“We don’t want your kind in our town!” the woman yelled angrily, drawing attention from passersby. 

“Go get laid, old bat!” the man Xavier had hired to convey them out of town spoke from behind the wheel. 

“You should be ashamed of yourself! Driving these abominations around. You are going straight to hell!”

“At least I will be going rich, what’s your excuse, huh?!” the man bated, laughing loudly. 

"They eat babies, you moron!" 

Isabelle stopped with the intent to correct the woman but Xavier gave her a look to silence her. She sighed.

"If that was true, they would be doing us all a great deal of favour if they eat all of yours. It's scary to have your crazy ass procreating. Leave them alone. You are the abomination," the driver replied. Isabelle tried not to laugh. Maybe not all humans hate them after all. 

She settled in the passenger seat and turned to look back, watching as her brother and the other guys climbed up the back of the truck. 

“You okay in there?” Xavier called out.

“Yes,” Isabelle replied.

“Good,” he said and she heard him pat the metal roof as an indication for the driver to move. Xavier didn’t know how to drive - none of them did, and neither did they own a vehicle. Xavier normally makes arrangements for a truck to get them at least outside town and close to the town wildlife reserve. and from there they find their way back home.

Isabelle breathed a sigh of relief when the truck moved and they left the town. Appleberry was the closest to their island and as a result, they do more of their shopping there. 

The ride back was peaceful for about a meter away from town when two trucks veered out from a T-junction to the lonely road and started to tail them. 

Isabelle watched from the side mirror and saw that the vehicles made no attempt to get in front of them and just lined behind them as if they were escorts. 

She turned around and saw Xavier looking at her through the glass shield demarcating the back of the front compartment. He held her gaze intently and the message in them was quite clear --- there was going to be trouble. 

When they got to a bend, the truck that was right behind them suddenly sped up to stay in line with them.

“What the fuck! Go on!” their driver yelled. Isabelle tensed up and her heart began to beat faster.

The trucks were big and new. It looked like it was customized with massive tires and tinted side glass. The man behind the wheel wore a dark shade with a face cap that was pulled down almost to his eyebrows. And the one beside him, sitting on the passenger seat, wore just a dark shade. He was blonde and Isabelle could see he was a big guy.  She glanced back at her brother and saw the dark scowl on his face. 

‘Damn it! Can’t we just have this one day of peace?!’ Isabelle thought. 

“Hey! What are you doing?! Get a move on! Damn it!” their driver called out again and the men didn’t even act as if they heard him. 

Isabelle heard Xavier curse as they reached a bend and two more similar trucks came facing them. 

“What the hell!” The driver cursed in bewilderment. The blonde from the truck beside them slowly raised his hand with a sardonic smile on his face now, and Isabelle saw him holding a gun. Before Xavier yelled for her to take cover, she already burrowed down on her seat, holding on tightly to the door frame. 

A deafening blast sounded and blood sprayed all over the front aisle. The man in the other truck had shot their driver in the head. Brain cells scattered all over the seat and the windshield and a lot of them got on her dress. Isabelle swallowed a scream. With a loud screech, the truck went off the road into the woods framing the tarred road, skidding dangerously down the slope with the driver slumped on the steering wheel. 

“Hold on, Belle!” Isabelle heard Xavier calling out. The truck didn’t stop until it hit a big tree, jolting Isabelle forward. She almost hit her head but the seatbelt held her back. The windscreen spiderwebbed and caved in. Smoke billowed from the crushed hood and a hissing sound filled the air. The side door to her seat was pulled out and Xavier deftly cut off the seat belt holding her still to help her out. 

“Get the supplies and go ahead of us,” Xavier was saying to the other Weres.

“But Alpha there are more of them, you will have a better chance of scaring them off if we stay to help,” Marric protested, a young, fit Were with black, braided hair that reached below his shoulders. His black eyes were filled with worry. 

“Marric is right, Alpha, let's stay and help,” another one of the Weres, Pete, interjected, sounding more angry than scared.

“We can hide the supplies somewhere close by and come back to help, Alpha,” Arden urged. 

“I don’t want us to lose our supplies. We need them, and I also want you to take Belle with you. Hallec and I will stay and distract them. It looked like they had a lot of firepowers and we might be at a disadvantage. We don’t know who they are or what they want. They don’t seem to want us dead or they would have shot us instead. We need to act fast. The idea is for them not to catch all of us together,” Xavier explained.

“I’m not leaving you alone to face a bunch of humans with guns!” Isabelle said in a whispered horror. 

“I won’t be alone, Hallec will be with me, Belle. We don’t have time to argue or vote. You guys need to go now!” Xavier urged. 

“But—” Isabelle started to argue and stopped when they heard the sound of dry leaves crushing under booted feet getting close, she gave a curt nod. Xavier pulled her into a tight hug and then stepped back from her. Hallec gave her an intense look and she wished she could hug him too. She nodded at him instead and he gave her a ghost of a smile. His deep blue eyes were clouded with emotions. He turned away and she rushed away with Marric, Pete, and Arden. 

They were about half a kilometre away when gunshots rented the air and then a howl. Isabelle jerked to a stop. Pain tore through her chest as if she had been shot and she knew then that Xavier was in danger. 

“I have to go back,” was all the warning she gave the other Pack members before she turned around and bolted back, retracing her steps. After a while, she heard the crutching of dirt underfoot behind her and knew the other guys had followed her. 

“Come out or we are going to shoot this one in the head," Isabelle heard one of the humans say, and she crouched down to peer out from behind a large tree. 

Hallec was held down with a booted foot on his chest. His white shirt was bloodied. Isabelle held her hand to her mouth to silence her gasp. Xavier was nowhere in sight. And she counted three humans already lying dead in the open clearing. She didn't know how many humans were there in total but five stood about heavily armed with the one holding Hallec down. 

Isabelle saw in a flash as a familiar white fur werewolf dashed out from the side, grabbed two humans and rushed back into hiding, using their bodies as shields. The last three opened fire on him. She could smell Xavier's blood and knew he was hurt. The one holding Hallec down shoots him on the shoulder making him cry out. 

"I have more men coming in and can do this all day. And your friend will die a slow painful death," the blonde called out angrily. 

'What can we do, Belle?' Arden asked via mind link. 

“To hell with these humans,” Pete raged and dashed away into the woods and before Isabelle could stop him he had shapeshifted into a Lycan. He howled and leapt at one of the humans, the other aimed a rifle and fired, making Pete jerk back once and then swiftly swiped his right hand forward, clawing the entire face out. The human bellowed loudly. Arden joined the fight, then Marric and then there was chaos. 

Isabelle trained her eyes on Hallec, waiting for the man holding him at gunpoint to be distracted. And then she saw Xavier rush against the man in his human form. Knocking him off his feet. 

Isabelle dashed out from her hiding spot and ran to help Hallec out of the open field. Xavier’s beta weighed about 200 pounds but with her wolf giving her extraordinary strength she was able to pull him to safety while she watched her brother’s back making sure no one sneaked up on him unexpectedly.  

“Are you alright?!” Isabelle asked Hallec as soon she had him sitting up against a tree about a few miles away from the fighting area. Hallec grunted hard then nodded. His handsome face concocted with pain. 

“I need a minute then I can help Xavier,” he said. 

“Stay here, let me see what’s going on,” Isabelle replied.

“No. Stay, here. They want . . . you . . . You must—” Hallec said with effort while taking a quick breath. He seemed in great agitation. Isabelle’s attention was divided though, her mind was on Xavier --- alone out there with armed humans.

Isabelle pressed a kiss to his forehead and rushed back to help her brother. She heard Hallec calling to come back, but she ignored him. She wondered why they keep forgetting she was an alpha too and as strong as her brother. 

When she got back to the scene she came to an abrupt halt. More humans were on the field now, she even spotted a familiar face amongst them, some man from Appleberry who was fond of spreading lies about their kind. Marric, Pete, and Arden were lying lifeless on the grass. Pete’s head had been separated from his body and was about a few inches from his body. The blonde human seemed severely wounded and could barely stand. He held a strangely shaped machete in his hand now and about eight other humans held Xavier down. 

“No!” Isabelle screamed, distracting the blonde from cutting off her brother’s head. Using the momentous lapse to shapeshift into a werewolf. Gunshots blazed, darting at her. She weaved through, dodging the bullets until she got to the eight men. She first backhanded the blonde male, making him fall back on the grass with a pain-filled groan, the machete skidded away from his grasp.

Isabelle stabbed her claws into one human’s stomach, opening his bowel, and used the other to slice the throat of the other while using the bodies as shields. The fear in her caused an adrenaline surge that was extraordinary. 

In what seemed like a blink of an eye, she took down the eight men holding down her twin brother and only paused when Xavier was visible enough for her to see that he was drenched in blood but still alive.

Relief washed over her. They had lost their parents in similar circumstances when humans appointed themselves as their executioners just for being different, but they were young then, they weren’t defenceless pups anymore.

She scooped him up with effort and felt a tearing pain shot through her from the back of her shoulder. She didn’t bother to look back. Dashing towards the area she took Hallec with an amazing speed superior to the humans, she was able to evade them. By the time she got there, Xavier's breathing was stronger but still weak.   

Isabelle's eyes grew blurry with tears, and her heart ached with the very thought of losing her twin. She imagined if the bullets could affect Xavier this strongly then they weren't using regular bullets. 

When she got to the tree she left Hallec she found he was no longer there. She put her brother down and then saw him prowl out from a side shrub in his wolf form. 

“Protect him!” Isabelle ordered. “I will distract them!”

“Belle, No!” Hallec cried in a guttural tone, but she was already running off. 

“Belle!” Xavier called out weakly. 

She ignored the two of them, knowing if her brother and his beta were going to survive, she must lure the enemies away from their trail.