Chapter 1
"Dude, you can't let it bother you." Sali glanced sideways at Ashe as they walked away from school. Three weeks. Three more miserable weeks of school before summer break. Ashe had been taunted (again) by Chad and Jeremy as they drove away from Cloud Chief Combined in Jeremy Booth's new car. Jeremy's parents had given him an early graduation gift and both boys boasted about the shiny, red automobile whenever possible. Granted it wasn't the sports car Jeremy had bragged he'd get, but it was a new car, nonetheless.
The Grand Master had recently approved Mr. and Mrs. Booth's application to adopt Chad Daniels into their family, although it was unheard of for shapeshifters to adopt a werewolf child. Ashe knew it would mean trouble the moment the Grand Master's signature came back on the required paperwork. That meant that somehow, Chad would likely end up with a new car, too.
Ashe and Sali were finishing eighth grade and Ashe would turn fourteen in a few weeks, with Sali's birthday a month after that. Jeremy and Chad had gone back to calling Ashe empty, though everyone knew about the bat. The tiny, insignificant, mostly embarrassing bumblebee bat that was Ashe's alter ego.
"If they knew what else you could do, man," Sali kicked at a stray clump of dirt, sending the offending clod and a trail of brown dust sailing into the field beside the road.
Only a narrow, graveled lane ran through Cloud Chief, enabling the residents to drive to and from scattered rural homes or away from Cloud Chief and onto a nearby county road. No humans knew that Cloud Chief was anything other than a ghost town, hidden away on a western Oklahoma prairie. Ashe's vampire father and Nathan Anderson, Cloud Chief's other vampire resident, helped keep it that way. They were aided in their efforts by concealment spells a traveling witch placed around the community every year.
"Dad says we can't tell anyone about the misting," Ashe grumbled. Ashe could turn to mist in a blink, becoming invisible to everyone. Not only was he undetectable to the werewolves who had keen scenting ability, he could sail right through the smallest of cracks and could somehow travel through solid surfaces if he wanted. It was a bit disorienting if he did that, so he kept it to a minimum.
"Yeah. My dad says the same," Sali kicked at another clump of dirt, but this one disintegrated when he made contact instead of rolling into the field as the last one did. "What do you think you'll get for your birthday?"
"Mom still says no on the cell phone," Ashe had resigned himself to living without any sort of communication technology for another year. He and Sali desperately wanted cell phones. Their parents said fifteen was the magic age for that bit of technology. "I think I might get a new tablet, though."
"Not the same," Sali grumped. "Marco might come home after school's out in Austin," he added. Sali's older brother attended the University of Texas, studying engineering.
"For how long? Is he gonna work for Mr. Winkler again?"
"I think so. Mr. Winkler pays for Marco's classes and gives him extra money for working over the summer with his security company. Wish I could do that." Ashe watched Sali closely. Sali was back to being envious of his older brother, it seemed. William Winkler was a security magnate with a nationwide company that provided armored car services, guards and electronic security for banks and other businesses. Ashe had been quite impressed with the Dallas Packmaster when he'd met him more than a year earlier.
"Come on, Mom pays us for working at Cordell Feed and Seed."
"Yeah. But it's not the same as working security for Mr. Winkler."
Ashe didn't point out that neither he nor Sali had turned fourteen yet—they were much too young to work for Mr. Winkler's company. Sali's werewolf had grown, though. He was quite impressive when he turned, now. Ashe had also grown—he was barely under six feet tall but still quite thin. Aedan, his father, smiled whenever Ashe's mother suggested that he would be as tall as his dad.
"The good news is that we'll be ninth graders next year and Chump and Wormy will be in college," Ashe said, squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. He had sunglasses, but Principal Billings didn't allow anyone to bring personal items to school. The Principal had also suggested uniforms for the students, but there hadn't been enough support from parents for that to be pushed through at a school board meeting.
Ashe had used nicknames for Chad and Jeremy—he was careful to say them only when he was away from the young werewolf and his shapeshifter best friend-turned-brother. Weldon Harper, Grand Master for all werewolves, had approved Chad's adoption after lengthy consideration. Ashe would never forget the circumstances surrounding Chad's mother's death; she'd attempted to kill him, Sali and their mothers after compulsion was laid by Dark Elemaiya.
Ashe often wondered about the Elemaiyan race—he was of the Bright Elemaiya, but still knew next to nothing about that part of his ancestry. When he'd asked his father if there was anything written about them, Aedan immediately directed the conversation to other topics.
"Yeah. They'll have to find someone else to insult at college. I hope it's somebody bigger and badder," Sali muttered, referring to Chad and Jeremy.
"And Mrs. Booth is so nice," Ashe said.