Chapter 1
Purgatory was not Nicole Haught’s first choice after graduating from the police academy. In the beginning, she would have taken any offer from any big city, but certain…circumstances pushed her into accepting a job in the small country town in the absolute middle of nowhere.
Unfortunately, turning into a giant, four-legged wolf and craving raw meat once a month meant that city life just wasn’t for her. She’d been all set to accept a position in Calgary when something happened that would change her life forever.
Nicole had been dating a woman named Shae, who seemed like the picture of normality. She was a fourth-year med student that Nicole met at a bar one night where she and her fellow police cadets were celebrating the beginning of a holiday break.
The two of them had got to talking and really hit it off and eventually started dating. It was the first real relationship Nicole had been in since high school and to say she was infatuated would be an understatement. In fact, they were so in love that they were planning on eloping in Vegas once Nicole graduated.
Yet, their plans never came to fruition because Shae had forgotten to mention that she moonlighted as a werewolf hunter.
That’s right, Nicole’s doctor girlfriend hunted blood-thirsty beasts with glowing yellow eyes in her free time, something that the other woman had failed to mention for the entire year they’d been dating.
Well, the secret came out when one of the wolf packs that Shae had killed members of managed to track her down. Coincidentally, or maybe not, Nicole and Shae just so happened to be on a weekend road trip when something solid collided with the car, sending it spiraling into a cluster of trees on the side of the small, deserted road.
“Nicole!”
The first thing she registered was the smell of burning rubber and the stinging pain from the airbag going off and hitting her face. Next, was that the car was on its side and her seat belt was holding her in place with it’s constricting grip.
“Nicole! Look at me!”
Looking to her left, she finally took stock of Shae in the driver’s seat, blood dripping down her face from a gash above her eyebrow. “Shae?” she asked, groggily.
Shae was already unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching for something in the glove compartment. “We have to have to get out of here right now.”
“What do you mean?” Nicole clutched her aching head, “We need to call the police.”
“The police can’t help us, Nicole.” Shae undid Nicole’s seatbelt without any notice, supporting her girlfriend’s weight as gravity caused her to drop. She pushed her up and out of the flipped vehicle before reaching back in for what she’d grabbed from the glove box.
“Shae, why do you have a gun?” Nicole’s training was kicking in, “Do you even have a permit for that?”
“Now’s really not the time, babe,” was her girlfriend’s clipped response. “If you want to stay alive, then you need to do exactly what I tell you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, what—”
Nicole’s words were cut off by a low sound coming from the bushes to their left, her blood running cold at the sound. Several pairs of unblinking yellow eyes were watching them from the darkness. Shae quickly turned her gun in their direction and fired off a warning shot.
“I don’t know who you think you’re messing with, but obviously you don’t know who I am,” she shouted at the trees. “If you don’t leave now, I’ll put one right between your eyes!”
Whatever she expected, Nicole wasn’t prepared for the things that stepped out of the shadows. First of all, they were huge. There were three of them and they had to be at least seven feet tall, much bigger than whatever she’d imagined. Secondly, their teeth, which were bared and dripping with saliva, looked as sharp as anything.
They were the biggest wolves that Nicole had ever seen. Yet, besides their massive size, something in their eyes, something almost human, made her think that they weren’t just the run-of-the-mill wolves. There was an intelligence there that you wouldn’t see in a normal animal.
Shae fired off another shot, striking the one furthest to the right and causing it to howl in pain. Nicole thought they could hear its skin sizzling which she thought was unusual. But she didn’t have much time to think because its friends charged as soon as their fallen comrade when down.
Several more shots went off, but none of them hit their marks. Briefly, Nicole heard Shae let out a string of panicked curses as she fumbled with her weapon.
She was too slow, Nicole thought, putting her arms up in front of her face as if that would save her as the wolves closed the distance between them in a couple of large bounds. It was the only thing she could think of doing at that moment, her brain short-circuiting at the fear coursing through her veins. The last thing she saw were those horrible yellow eyes.
Burning pain ripped through Nicole’s leg as one of the beasts latched onto her thigh, dragging her from the road and into the brush.
“Nicole!” she could barely hear Shae’s scream. It sounded muted as if she were underwater.
A massive clawed paw pressed down against her chest, definitely cracking a few ribs and making it difficult to breathe. Nicole watched in immense pain as the wolf standing over her looked up and straight ahead, presumably at Shae, before raking its claws down her chest and eliciting an otherworldly scream from her mouth.
Then, as soon as it started, it was over. Suddenly, the weight on her chest disappeared and with one last terrifying howl, the monster stepped away from her and melted back into the shadows. Its friends followed although Nicole was in too much pain to even take note of what was happening around her.
All she could think was it burned.
“No, no, no.” Shae was suddenly at her side, hands hovering over her body, but not touching. “I’m so sorry, Nicole.”
Blinking through her tears, Nicole blindly reached for Shae’s hand.
“Shae,” she gasped, “help me.”
But Shae didn’t grab her hand, “I’m sorry, Nicole,” she repeated, “but there’s nothing I can do for you. It’s too late.”
Nicole didn’t understand what she meant by that, but she did register the ruffling of clothes as Shae stepped away from her and began walking away. She tried weakly calling out, yet there was no answer. Shae had left her on the side of the road, bleeding out and seemingly dying after being attacked by mutant wolves.
Despite her entire body being in unimaginable pain, Nicole could still feel her heart-shattering.
Why? She thought as she closed her eyes, the darkness calling out to her and welcoming her into its cold embrace. Nicole just let it take her. She was tired and didn’t have the energy to fight it any longer.
After that, Nicole woke up in the hospital. A passerby had come across her and called an ambulance. They’d assumed she was mauled by a bear but couldn’t understand how or why Shae’s car had ended up smashed against the trees. Still, they didn’t press her for answers when she burst into tears and spiraled into a panic attack.
She didn’t want to relive the moment and although the doctors didn’t know what actually happened, they weren’t keen to push her anymore.
Her wounds healed remarkably fast, the claw and bite marks turning into scars in a little more than a week. Soon, she felt stronger than ever before and despite their initial shock, the doctors had no reason to keep her there. So, they released her back into the real world.
Nicole was out of the academy for a couple of weeks under mandatory rest and spent the time working out and studying for the final exam. She didn’t try and contact Shae, but she did find out that the other woman had disappeared the same night as the attack. Nicole called her work and Shae’s boss had told her that the woman had relocated somewhere else but that he didn’t know where.
It wasn’t until the night of the full moon that Nicole really understood the gravity of what had happened that night. She’d been feeling off all day and as soon as the moon had risen in the sky it was clear why.
In a painful transformation, consisting of bones breaking, shifting, and reforming, she suddenly had paws. Not only that, but she was covered in fur and all of her senses seemed to be dialed up to ten.
Nicole was hit with the animalistic urge to hunt and kill and tear apart, but the fear of what she’d become had kept her cowering in the corner of her bedroom until it was morning and she was back to normal.
That’s how Nicole found out she was a werewolf.
Before the next full moon, she’d researched everything she could find on lycanthropy and drove out to the middle of nowhere in order to prevent herself from hurting anyone. She’d tried chaining herself up to a tree, but the wolf wanted to be free. So, she’d spent the night bounding through the woods on all fours and fighting the monster’s basic instincts to kill anything that moved.
In a couple of months, Nicole had found some semblance of control over her…wild side. If she let it be free on the full moon, then she could mostly control it for the rest of the month. She discovered that she could shift at will—not that she really wanted to. Finding somewhere to ‘wolf out’ as she’d taken to referring to the process as wasn’t easily done in the city—and that the animalistic mind didn’t fight her for control.
By then, she was graduating from the academy and she’d received an offer from Randy Nedley, the sheriff of the Purgatory Sheriff’s Department, a town that Nicole didn’t even know existed.
At first, she’d been tempted to turn it down because it wasn’t what she wanted, but after some research into the small town, it was perfect for her little situation. Nicole could get used to the small-town life if it meant she could do what she loved: protecting the innocent. So, she accepted the offer and two weeks later had packed up her tiny apartment for the move.
That’s how she found herself staring at the ‘Welcome to Purgatory’ as she drove past it.
This is it, she thought to herself, we can do this.
Little did Nicole know that her entire life was about to change more than she could have ever thought possible.
By the time Nicole had unloaded the last box into her new apartment, the sun was slowly sinking in the sky. She’d dropped by the police department to officially meet Sheriff Nedley and fill out some last-minute paperwork. He’d given Nicole her uniform and she’d left with a promise to return in three days for her first shift.
“What do you think CJ?” She turned to the fluffy orange cat lounging on the sofa that had come with the apartment. “Do you think it’s time for a little tour around the town?”
Unsurprisingly, green eyes blinked back at her, unimpressed. Nicole had gotten her cat, Calamity Jane, several summers ago after volunteering at an animal shelter. She’d instantly fallen in love with the orange feline and adopted her that very same day.
Fortunately, after she became a werewolf, the cat’s attitude towards her hadn’t changed in the slightest. Other animals tended to give her a large berth—dogs were especially submissive around her, so she considered herself lucky that her relationship with her cat was still the same. Calamity Jane was the only family Nicole had anymore.
With one last glance at her cat, Nicole left through the front door, got into her car, and drove down one of the only roads leading out of town. She’d grabbed a travel map from the station in order to find a secluded enough area to do her thing. So, she followed the lines on the map until it led her to an old hunting trail off the side of the main road.
Nicole parked her car far enough into the trees that it wouldn’t be seen by any passing drivers and got out of her car.
Stripping out of her clothes, she let the frigid autumn air hit her bare skin before letting the change take her. Instead of the pain that came with the full moon, this one was much faster, coming and going with a surge of heat.
One moment, she was standing on two legs, naked as the day she was born. In the next, Nicole was covered in vibrant ginger fur and sporting a dangerous set of teeth that could rip flesh from bone with one quick snap.
Nicole inhaled deeply, letting the new scents of her surroundings hit her senses. She smelled the usual crispness of the forest and the different musty scents of the animals that called it home, but there was something else.
Something mustier and familiar that Nicole couldn’t quite place, yet she wasn’t super concerned about. She chalked it up to being in a new place. It wasn’t unusual for different places to have different smells. Although she hadn’t been exposed to this particular scent before, there were a lot of things Nicole didn’t know due to only running around one forest as a giant wolf.
Purgatory was practically all woods and fields, so there was plenty of space for Nicole to explore, and so she did.
In a flash, Nicole was off, bounding through the brush, muscular legs pumping and propelling herself forward. Her claws dug into the ground with every step, spraying the air with dirt as she picked up speed.
Although she would give anything not to be burdened by this curse, Nicole couldn’t help but fall in love with the feeling of the wind blowing through her fur. It was the ultimate freedom for both the woman and the animal inside of her.
During her run, she avoided the occasional farm to the best of her ability. Since it was almost completely dark, she didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing her from a distance.
It was when she was passing a property far out from town that something stopped her in her tracks. There was a loud bang, signaling the slamming of a door and she watched as a woman stalked out onto the front porch and down the steps of the house.
“I’m not doing this with you today, Champ!”
The first thing Nicole could think was wow, she looks like an angel.
The woman had long, brown hair that fell around her face in soft waves. She was on the shorter side with a slender figure. From what Nicole could see at that distance, was that she was very beautiful. She wondered what color her eyes were.
She could tell that the woman was angry, especially from the way her arms were wildly gesturing to emphasize whatever she was saying. Normally, Nicole would’ve moved on, leaving the woman to whatever it was that was happening, but something kept her rooted in place.
Crouching down in the tall grass, Nicole took notice of a man—she guessed his name was Champ—following the woman out like a kicked puppy, slinking behind her, and reaching out a hand to seemingly placate her. But the woman wasn’t having it, slapping his hand away and pointing at the souped-up truck that was parked in the gravel, her voice too low for even Nicole’s super senses to pick up from that distance.
With one last exchange of words, the man stomped off to the truck. It roared to life and he sped off the property, through the gates and down the road that led back to town. But Nicole’s eyes didn’t follow him.
Instead, her gaze remained locked on the woman who was now leaning up against the porch railing, shoulders shaking. Nicole could tell she was sobbing silently, and something pulled inside of her at the thought. Yet, she stayed where she was, watching for a few more minutes before the woman turned and went back inside.
Nicole pulled herself away from the fence at the far end of the property and back in the direction she had come. She’d been out for long enough and she wanted to get an early start the next morning trying to learn the ins and outs of Purgatory before her job at the station started.
Still, as she went to bed that night, she couldn’t stop thinking about brown hair and what it’d be like to run her fingers through it.