A second chance powder r.., p.1
A Second Chance (Powder River Pack Book 1), page 1
A Second Chance
Copyright © 2018, Brooke May
Printed in The United States of America.
ISBN 978-1729391174
First Edition
Edited by Editing4Indies
Cover Art by Dark Water Covers
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
All Right Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form of by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write the author.
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To my Dad. If it wasn’t for you, a lot of the things I put into this book wouldn’t have happened.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Note from the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Books by Brooke
Chapter One
Derek
As the son of the third in command of the Powder River werewolf pack in Rocky, Wyoming, the heart of a beast who long ago terrorized all living things beats inside me. I am a bartender most of the time and only shift with my friends—my brothers—during the full moon once a month.
And I know what you are thinking. Werewolf? Does that mean he shifts into a wolf? And the answer you are looking for is a firm no. I’m a monster on the nights when the moon shines its brightest.
Legend has it that the first wolf was more beast than man. He was never meant to be as harmful as he had become, so the creator gifted him a mate to settle his soul. Werewolves—but only the males—only became shrouded in myths over the centuries and were left at that.
No one truly believes in them, and we keep ourselves hidden from the world unless the creator sees fit that we find our mate in one of the millions who are unaware of our existence. We plan on keeping it that way. People of the past were horrified by the first werewolf enough to leave the village in the forest he was thought to live.
And he haunted those woods until the creator gave him a woman who would see past the monster and find the man inside. She was the calm to his storm and brought him peace like no one ever would.
I was the first of my generation to find his mate. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Life can royally blow sometimes. I was a good kid; I respected my mother and revered my father, my grandma, and my alpha. I did well in school and was always kind to everyone, even if they didn’t deserve it.
But none of that was enough to keep my mate.
She still left, and I let her. For that, I carry a pain in my chest from not holding onto my mate. I should have held onto her for dear life, even at our young age. The life I thought I would have after finding her, the life my late father always told me about, was not to be.
Bitterness took over my life, and I rarely smiled, but that is all about to change. I didn’t see any of it coming, which only pisses me off more.
When I was growing up, I was in awe of the love my parents had for one another. I knew that my mom meant everything to my dad. She was kind, sweet, and a wonderful mother. She was unable to have any more children after me, but that didn’t stop them from filling my life with happiness, fond memories, and most of all, love.
I had my friends, so I wasn’t too worried about not having a sibling. My friends were always into something that I usually had to help them get out of. And that was perfect enough for me because my pack was also part of my family. My friends were like cousins—more like brothers to me.
We couldn’t afford a lot of material possessions, so I never asked for anything except my parents’ time. That meant the world to me. My dad taught me how to fish, hunt, track, and skin, among other things. We did everything together. He was my best friend. He might have been stern, but he was fair. I knew even when I was being yelled at, he still loved me.
He also taught me everything I needed to know about being a werewolf and how to look for my mate.
“Every werewolf has someone specially made just for him,” my dad had told me before the tragic accident that claimed both his and my mom’s life. “When you find her, you do anything and everything to love and protect her. She will be your perfect match.”
While all my friends huffed and rolled their eyes when their fathers told them the same thing, I truly believed in his words. I saw the love he and my mom shared. I saw how, no matter what she asked for, he did his best to paint the house, replace the carpet, or save for a whole year just to buy her a necklace that had all our birthstones in it.
I couldn’t wait till I found my mate and shared the same love with her that they had. I wanted what the first werewolf of the legend had; someone just for him. Someone the creator made just for me who could help soothe the beast within and keep me grounded to this world.
I had no desire to run like the first werewolf did in the years before the creator gave him his mate. I didn’t want to be wild and mad with frustrating anger. I wanted someone to love as much as my dad loved my mom.
I met Annabelle Daniels six months after my parents were killed. I was thirteen and struggling with hormone changes, werewolf changes, and my parents’ unexplained death. She wasn’t a new girl, just a year younger than me. Her dark brown hair rivaled the rich earth, and her eyes were the sky on a clear fall day.
Sitting in the lunch room with my friends—Mason, his younger brother, Miles; Brandon; and Roper—I was overwhelmed by the smell of cinnamon and honey when she walked in the room.
My wolf, who had always talked to me, jerked to attention.
Mate.
We were in agreement. Annabelle was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. I had quickly ditched my friends and scrambled to get her attention. She was beautiful but not in the same way as most girls our age. She didn’t care about fashion or makeup. Her beauty was true and pure. I knew, with all my heart, I would love her the best way I could.
Quickly, we became friends, and not long after, we began to date as much as our young age would allow. She loved to be outside with me, and she was the balm I needed after losing my parents. The best things were she didn’t care I was a werewolf and quickly accepted all the knowledge I gave her about my history.
For three years, we were inseparable. Through those years, she tested my nerves, teasing me, but we were always together. We felt we would always be together, even as teenagers. Everyone knew in our small school we were a couple, and no one messed with either of us.
My friends and I were far bigger than the other guys we went to high school with, so none of us were ever messed with, and the guys stayed away from Anna.
And the girls steered clear of me because Anna had no problem putting them in their place for hitting on me. But it wasn’t people our age who would end us.
Her parents, Amos and Darling, were complete opposites and nothing like my parents. Darling was a wonderful, free-spirited woman and mother. She was kind to me and loved the fact her little bird had someone to protect her.
Amos, on the other hand, was horrible. He hated me with a passion and made no attempt to hide it. I never understood it. Hell, I still don’t. He never gave Anna the time of day or even acknowledged her on most days, so I didn’t get why he cared who she was in love with.
Her parents divorced soon after Anna’s sixteenth birthday. And the plans we had made for our future changed. Amos’s bitter ways drove Anna to
make a tough decision and leave with Darling, who was moving back to North Carolina where her family was from.
That day, I experienced the worst feeling in my life; it even trumped losing my parents. It was as though I was losing a piece of me—my heart and any true happiness I had left. In my life, I will never forget running after her mom’s car in the pouring rain, screaming her name.
Weeks later, while falling into a fit of depression, I still hadn’t heard from Anna. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the truth.
She had moved on.
My wolf had screamed at me.
Fight for her. Go after her!
She doesn’t want us.
Those were the last words I heard from my wolf. I haven’t heard him since then. I haven’t felt the connection to my wolf, and when I’m in my beast state, I am unaware of what is happening around me.
Jolting upright in my bed, I clutch at the soaked sheets. My chest is heaving, and I wonder if I will ever catch my breath. My mind never seems to stop spinning after a full moon hunt. No matter how hard I run myself with my pack, when I go to sleep, my mind doesn’t stop. A longing howl at the dream that continual replays in my mind comes out from deep within me.
“ANNABELLE!”
Chapter Two
Annabelle
“ANNABELLE!”
My name rips through my conscience in a disembodied voice that can only belong to one person.
Derek.
Lurching up in my seat, I frantically look around while trying to regain my bearings. There is nothing around me other than the rolling plains to remind me of our location and where we are headed. The warmth of the sun beats down on my face from the roof-free Jeep as we follow a dirt road.
No, that can’t possibly be right. I’m starting to hear his voice again even though I thought I was cured of that a month ago. That’s when I heard him the last time, but now it is back. Even in the heart of Africa, I can still hear him.
I wish I could get a break from this haunting.
Slumping back in my seat, I stare out the window at the plains of Amboseli National Park in Kenya. It’s funny how much this place reminds me of my childhood home.
Ha.
Home is a relative term, but the lush landscape on this spring day reminds me of the rolling plains in Wyoming where I was born and lived until I was sixteen.
This is probably why I keep returning to Kenya. If springtime reminds me of my home state, it is the dry colors that gut me. They are as arid as Wyoming in midsummer. Even the distant view of Mt. Kilimanjaro reminds me of the place I left so long ago.
The only things that keep me from thinking I am back in the States are the animals and the foliage. Elephants walk in the distance while zebras call to one another. Even a tower of giraffes is mixed in.
Home.
Thinking about my first home still stings even though I haven’t been back in ten years. I never wanted to step foot in Fetterman or Rocky, Wyoming, again after my parents divorced. That is, until now. The land calls to me, begging me to return home. But something deeper, something in my soul aches for me to go back.
Ten years …
God, it has been a long time yet it is still so fresh in my mind. I can still recall the devastatingly broken look on Derek’s face as I rode away with my mom as if it was yesterday. It is burned into my memory for all eternity and still breaks a piece of me. He was soaked to the bone, and even though it was raining, I knew he was crying.
Oh, Derek.
And yet again, I have to remind myself it was all a lie.
No, it wasn’t.
Brushing it off, I put away that silly little girl who thought the boy she met and fell in love with wanted her for life. The day we met was the most amazing day of my life …well, at the time. We met in the lunch room at the junior high school in Fetterman. The junior high in Rocky, a smaller town thirty minutes north of Fetterman, was closed for much-needed repairs, forcing students to be bussed to Fetterman to attend school with my classmates and me.
I was walking into the cafeteria with two of my friends when something unexplainable overtook my senses. I could feel it deep within me as if I was being pulled toward something in the room. My twelve-year-old self couldn’t explain it, but as I got older, I learned it was an attraction at an insanely deep level; a rare kind and one that only happens once in your life.
I was sitting with my friends, only half listening to whatever gossip they were interested in. I had never paid enough attention to know what was going on. I usually spent my time looking at magazines like National Geographic or Smithsonian, reading the articles and taking in the amazing pictures I knew what I wanted to do with my life even at that age.
Photography pulled me in, especially photographing animals. The lighting, details, and contrast of the pictures intrigued me.
My nose was deep in one of my magazines while I ate whatever concoction my mom packed for me. She always refused to let me eat anything from the school. If it wasn’t organic and didn’t come from her garden or her grocer, I wasn’t allowed to consume it. Movement from the corner of my eye had drawn my attention up and up and up until my eyes settled on shaggy black hair and the most piercing blue eyes I had ever seen. He was taller and far more muscular than any of the boys I had gone to school with up to that point. He was intimidating, but I wasn’t scared. I was curious.
And his attention was on me.
Me!
I was the tomboy of my friends, and any boys I knew thought of me as one of them. My friends were the pretty ones, but his focus was entirely on me.
After he sat down across from me, he introduced himself, sliding his massive hand across the table. “Hi, I’m Derek Sumerland.”
My voice was dried out and lost even though my heart rate picked up when his words hit me. My mind fumbled screaming in my head for me to say something especially when he touched my hand. He wasn’t focused on my friends, and I felt as though I had hung the moon.
Even my friends, who were boy crazy, were speechless.
Once I was able to form a coherent thought and get it out of my mouth, I grew comfortable with him at an insane rate. After only a short period of time of knowing him, I grew to care deeply for him and couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
He was one of the students from Rocky. That made sense since I had never seen him before at school. As time went on, we grew closer until I realized he was the only one I wanted to spend my life with, or so I thought.
I knew what we had was wonderful. There were times I doubted it, especially when it came to Thea, a girl who was always trying to steal attention from Derek and his friends.
Thea.
My relaxed hands form fists in my lap as an old wound starts to open.
I thought what Derek and I had was real—
“Helloooooo! Spence to Annabelle. Come in, Annabelle!” I’m rattled from my thoughts by my best friend, Spence. “You in there?” Blinking in slow succession, I glance over at him in the driver’s seat.
“I’m here,” I weakly offer. Trying to hide the fact I was thinking about Derek again, I give him my most convincing smile. It’s clear he doesn’t buy it from the way his eyes roll, but he focuses back on his driving.
A six-foot-one blond surfer boy with a tan to match, Spence fits well into the eye candy category. He is my most cherished friend. He’s funny, happy-go-lucky, adventurous, and can keep up with me.
All the girlfriends I had once upon a time threw away our friendships because they were envious of my relationship with Derek, so when I found Spence, I was elated to have a true friend again. I finally let someone outside of my family in when I went to college. I didn’t have a roommate at first but was told I would have one. And to say I was shocked to see a man walk in my door is an understatement.
His boyfriend at the time managed to hack into the college housing and get Spence into the girls’ dorm since he was being hazed in the dorm where he was originally assigned to live.
I love everything about him. He’s my rock when I need to be grounded and my air pump when I need to fly.
“Little bird, where is your head?” He laughs. “Never mind, I think I know where it is or, rather, who it is on. You didn’t hear the phone ring, did you?”
Frowning, I look down at my satellite phone as it lights up from the cup holder. “No?”
