During the last two weeks on my father's island, I followed a regimented schedule without deviation or objection. Mornings I spent running around in wolf form with Cole and Elena, with their attention drawn more on each other. Then I attended history lessons with Elena, struggling to pay as close of attention as possible given I wanted to pass out asleep. After human form self defense and combat training with Cole in the afternoons, I fired off a few rounds in the range then collapsed into sleep.

And I ate. Boy, how I ate. I was never a red meat fan, but now all I ever thought about was food. So did Lumi, to the point where she decimated the island's deer population.

Otherwise, I slept up to twelve hours at a time. After years of the same Lumi dream every night, I no longer had any. Dreamless sleep in a realm of black nothingness was lovely.

After each exercise session, meal, and round of sleep, Lumi and I both grew stronger. She was quite stubborn and not talkative, but our connection grew each day. I forgot what my life was like without her in my headspace because, for the first time, I wasn't lonely or isolated. I didn't even care about having a mate, but instead treasured my first real friendship.

'Not friends.'

Lumi flexed her snarky sense of humor like a muscle.

I don't care what you say, Lumi. You're my friend.

I never spent time with my father, and not that he said anything, but lacked his usual exertion of criticism. I saw him every few days, although he received progress reports from Cole and Elena. The papers served as a reminder that while they seemed friendly, like the rest of his pack, they worked for him.

Physically, I got better.

"Finally!" I grunted as the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor filled my ears.

Five weeks of training later, the day before we left, I threw Cole down onto his back on the gym mats and pinned him. Realizing that we laid inches apart, panted out hot breaths, and sweat glistened down our foreheads, I pulled back.

Once my nose twitched at the smell of protein bar breath, how disgusted this position made me feel crept in. So I grabbed his shoulders, rolled him belly-down onto the mat, and pinned him again.

"Off, Princess." By the grim expression on the half of his face that I saw, Cole shared the same discomfort with our close proximity.

Or maybe he doesn't like his face mashed into the stinky-feet mats.

"But you have to admit." My hands shackled around his wrists, bent behind his head, I grinned as my knee pressed down into his back. "I got you."

He opted for an excuse, "Must be Elena distracting me."

I released him from the hold, then sat down next to him with a 'humph.' My fingers flicked a few strands off where they stuck to my sweaty face and neck.

"Alright," he relented into the gym mat, then pushed up to a seated position. "Nice defense, but you still have a long way to go."

Cole was right about Elena; those two were inseparable. Any moments they didn't spend with me, they were attached. Their annoying, puppy-eyed obsession discouraged me from the mating process and I retreated into the fictional relationships in my stories. Behaving worse than lovesick teenagers, neither moved or thought without the other knowing. That was my speculation, as I wasn't privy to their minds.

At my father's request, Erik canceled my pack ceremony. The decision spurned mumbles through his pack members and left me confused but without any explanation. I was left to assume that he changed his mind.

Maybe I'm not training hard enough?

'No. Asshole father.'

Lumi's snark had a lot of room for improvements on its timing.

I was extremely shocked when my father summoned me and delivered the news of my immediate departure. Since he gave me a parting gift two weeks' prior, I should've expected it but I didn't expect him to tell me the day before we left.

"Tomorrow?" My eyebrows raised.

"Yes. Gather yourself." His eyes lowered to the platinum necklace which, per his suggestion, had hung around my neck every day since he gave it to me.

"Do I have any say?" The wistfulness in my voice surprised us both. His eyes lifted from the stack of papers he addressed on his desk.

"Zara." He stood up and walked closer. My feet faltered when his palms pressed onto my shoulders. "You are the sole survivor of our family. Our bloodline must be preserved. If you don't choose, then I will."

Great, now I need to pop out litters of puppies.

I dropped my head, absorbing the weight of this responsibility and how I traded one life of isolation for another. Once again, I fell into silence and nodded.

Without a flicker of emotion in his eyes, he dropped his hands. "Goodbye, Zara."

"I can't believe this," I mumbled, my fingers rummaging through my belongings. Other than my laptop and cell phone, I had little possessions that were important to me.

That's beyond sad.

"What are you planning to wear?" Elena asked from within my closet. "You have lots of options."

"Will I be coming back here in between territories?"

"No." The back of her head shook, her voice muffled deep in my shoe collection by the thumping sounds. "But I will arrange for your items to be transferred to the different pack houses."

I didn't care about the clothes. My mind concentrated on the possibility of never coming back here, not even while crossing the territories.

"Not even going from East to West?" I stared at her.

"Not according to the travel itinerary Cole and I received, but they change all the time. So, what do you want to wear? Pick to impress the different pack houses."

"Pack houses," I mumbled and my shoulders rounded at having to impress people I'd never met. "Choose whatever you think is nice for whatever location."

"Watch the judgmental pack comments, Zara. What do you think this is?" She waved her arms around, tapping the tips of her fingers into my closet walls.

My eyes widened because the fact I was in a pack house hadn't occurred to me.

This compound is home, in an isolating, imprisoning kind of way.

"I don't know, home?" I shrugged, then realized what her words implied. "Wait, you mean... everyone here is a... wolf?"

I couldn't believe that realization hadn't occurred to me sooner.

How have I spent my whole life here and not seen? My father must be running an air-tight operation.

"Almost everyone. Anna is the pack doctor, she cares for White Moon's physical well-being. The security guards are our protectors, our warriors. Even in the library, us historians capture and preserve the pack history for future generations. Your father is the Alpha of our pack, and exerts control over the other four Alpha's territories. And Baron and Erik, the guardes, well, now you know."

"How many werewolves are under my father's control?" I stuffed my phone and laptop into a small bag and sat on my bed.

"Approximately fourteen hundred." My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open so fast that my jaw unhinged. "Three hundred within the Central territory. The North is the smallest pack, with around a hundred and fifty, about two-fifty in the East, three hundred in the West, and four hundred in the South."

"Four hundred in the South," I mumbled the last five words. "Enough -"

"Enough that they could overtake your father, yes," she answered as her hands pulled down separate shirts and skirts from their hung up positions. "But your father's warriors are the best. You've had some of their training. The majority of the wolves in your father's pack are warriors."

"So, for strategic purposes..." Clearing my dry throat, constriction squeezed my chest. My rebellious decision to visit the South last was made in poor haste. "My father..."

"Would choose one of the southern alphas," she finished. "Who are quite fetching, I've heard. But they all are, they have to be. They're future alphas."

Since her tone had grown quiet, I turned to Elena with narrowed eyes. Since her arrival here, I regarded her not as someone within my father's pack who worked for him, but as a friend.

Or, at the least, a confidant.

She never withheld any information available at her fingertips, and I respected that. But she must have had a deliberate purpose, and I was curious what that meant for our relationship. Particularly, since she'd found her mate, her motivation to leave with us was unclear.

"Elena... What is your job?" I asked, which she should've responded to in a simple, straight-forward manner.

She didn't offer a simple answer.

"Right now, my job is to help you. Teaching you our history..." While her hands busied in my closet, she refused to look at me. My frown deepened, tension collapsed my stomach with an inward clench, and micro vibrations of a growl formed in the back of my throat at the idea she withheld something.

What isn't she telling me?

"And?" I pressed.

Dipping her head down, she responded in the most quiet voice,"...And... recording history." Even with her muttering, I heard every word though, as if she spoke right in my ear instead of mumbling from across the room.

"What history?" 

Looking over her shoulder, her eyes met mine and her cheeks flushed pink. "Yours."

"Mine?" The word spat out from my lips like a bad taste and I sunk down into my bed. The family history book already summarized me up.

Surviving.

"I'm no one, I've done nothing." My ego felt like a prodded bruise as I admitted those words, but my confession was necessary. Other than shifting into a pretty white wolf, I still held nothing of discernible significance.

I sensed Lumi's discomfort with that sentiment, but she didn't argue against my opinion. She couldn't, because she also knew what I thought was true. My insignificant reality was sad, and unfortunate for me, but nonetheless true.

"Not yet, Zara," was all Elena offered.

My lips tugged up at the corners and I summarized her position, "So, you're a historian."

"I'm also here to help you sort things out, to find your mate," she added for clarification. "Which is why it's important that we select the right clothing, to make a good first impression."

"So, you're part historical librarian, part wolf therapist." She giggled at me, shook her head, and directed her attention back to my closet.

"Now, each of the territories is hosting a special welcoming event during the month we visit. The North is having a competition, the West an outdoor festival, the East a reaping ceremony, and the South -" she hesitated.

"Yeah?" My fingers picked at a nondescript piece of lint on my comforter.

"- Is having a ball." I raised my eyes. My dancing skills were definitely worse than my fighting.

"Since the South will be your last territorial visit, it will be at the end of the month. A celebration to announce your mate selection."

"About that..." I folded my arms over my chest. "Why do I get to choose? Did you choose Cole?"

"No, the Moon Goddess chooses our mates." Elena shook her head, kneeling down and folding the piles she pulled down from hangers with hand-over-hand movements. "She will choose one for you, that is the strongest mate bond. That will be the mate that Lumi wants."

"So then why all this? Why parade me around, to four selections?" At this point, Lumi had a better judgment on mates than me.

'True.'

"You're... different." Elena shifted where she sat and paused with a sweater half-folded in her hands. She set it aside, palmed her thighs, and stood. "Here, I found this in the library."

Coming out of my closet, her slender fingers pulled a book off my dresser. With deft fingers, she opened it, flipped through a bunch of pages, then walked over to me and pointed at a passage for me to read.

"The white wolf is the rarest, only appearing in female form. She is the most powerful Luna, with the ability to communicate with the Moon Goddess and exert control over alphas, including selection of her own mate. A white wolf must mate with a black wolf to ensure proper balance flows within society."

'Keep reading.'

Lumi pushed for more but I sucked the right corner of my mouth into my cheek.

'To me.'

My eyes scanned over the rest of the page.

     The white wolf is the only female wolf capable of marking her mate. Her mark is said to increase the power and stamina of her mate. But if a white wolf marks an untrue mate, then the mark is fatal.

As a frown tensed my forehead, I asked Lumi for clarification.

Fatal?

'To male... Not us.'

"So... I have the power to choose my own mate," I asked Elena. Relief washed away the heaviness in my chest as she nodded confirmation. That was the first appealing piece of information since our 'So... you're a werewolf' conversation.

And the power to destroy one.

'Good.'

Waves of Lumi's confidence surged through my body.

"You have the power to reject the Moon Goddess' choice for you and make your own selection," Elena clarified. "No one knows if a secondary bond is as strong, but possible. Your mother did it."

"Suppose that's good." I closed the book and handed it back to her before one word jogged my attention. "Wait, my mother?"

"Yes." She nodded. "Your father was not your mother's natural mate."

My lips parted as I absorbed the weight of information that simple phrase contained.

My mother chose her mate.

My mother chose my father.

My father was capable of love?

I couldn't picture my father as a loving, committed mate.

That part of him must have died with her.

Yet, he had given me her necklace, a small token of appreciation but from him the gesture was infinite.

Hugging the book into her chest, Elena reiterated what my mother's choice implied in my situation, "You can make the same choice as she did, if you want."

Closing my eyes, I wished that my mother had explained this to me because it felt worse than a normal puberty talk. The order of which territory to view was the first real decision I made and had only used the basis of Elena's rationale.

"But everyone knows that you can choose..." She set the book back on the dresser, and headed back into my closet. "Including -"

"Including the future alphas." My heart sank as I finished her thought. "And their families."

"Yes." Her lips pulled into a gentle smile, her eyes focusing on mine. "They will be quite persuasive."

"Lovely." Realizing why my father insisted on my self defense training, I appreciated his unspoken justification.

Why does it also feel like I'm a worm dangling on a hook?

A tremble shook my shoulders, which I rounded and hugged my knees into my chest.

"So, that is another reason Cole and I are going. To provide you with support."

At her words, my cheeks relaxed and lips pulled up into a smile. Without realizing what she'd said, Elena confirmed my decision to push my father. I never had anyone advocate for my best interests... like a friend.

Silently, I released my knees and swept my feet off the bed. Walking over to Elena, I extended my arms and enveloped her into a hug. Her spine stiffened at first, my emotional action catching her off-guard, but I heard the smile in her sigh as she relaxed, her warm, palms pressed into my back, and hugged me.

"Thank you, Elena," I whispered into her shoulder.

Despite six weeks of absorbing, learning, and growing, I left the only place known to me as home with more questions than answers. These enclosed walls offered me security and a sense of home, both of which tugged my heart with uncertainty. The island's edges offered basic protection, sheltering me away from the real world.

A small shudder went through my body as I watched as the view of the mansion, the gleaming white exterior standing out from the backdrop of the forest, disappeared. Cognizant that, once I stepped outside the perimeter walls and left this island, I left a part of myself that would never return.

If I were ever to return, then I wasn't sure how much of the person who left now would make that return journey. A part of me had no desire to ever return and, if I did, then I would be here to burn the entire house to the ground.

Lumi seemed to share some of my sentiments.

'Good riddance.'

My father offered me no emotion, embrace, or advice. He wasn't present when I left. He'd given his goodbye to me earlier. Given a dark shadow over an upper floor window, he could've watched as I climbed into one of his pack's black Escalades.

A gentle wind kissed my cheeks, warmed by a midday sun. My fingers clasped the necklace he had given me as I hoped that I drew a fraction of the strength that I was told my mother possessed.

My eyes diverted from the tinted car window and caught Elena's rounded over frame, her eyes engrossed in a book. As she was whenever she held any book, she ignored the familiar surroundings of the island that blurred around us.

"What are you reading, Elena?" I asked, earning me a crooked grin and the paperback tossed at me.

I turned the hardcover over in my fingers, and mentally read off the binding, The Art of Seductive Persuasion, Vol 5. by Luna Rashida.

"But you have a mate," I scrunched my nose up at the subject matter.

One of these days I will be able to give her a different look.

"It's not for me." The corners of her lips quirked up and a distinctive flicker appeared in her eyes.

As I settled back into the soft, supple leather seat behind me, I shook my head and groaned. Closing my eyes, I slipped my earbuds into my ears and settled in for the long trip north.

A/N: That's it for PART1! Her father's a peach, huh? She had a lot of information to learn, I wonder how much was true? All those books were from her father's library, hmm...

If you've read this far, then big thanks!! Hope you're up for the journey with Zara to the Northern Territory, to meet her first potential mate and taste of freedom out from under her father.