Kyra
"Don’t forget your mission,” Victor said.
“I won’t.” She was a little insulted that he felt like he needed to even say that.
He put one of his cold hands on her forearm. “It would be easy to get sucked into their myths.” He sighed. “If you let them, they will fill your head with fairy tales.” Victor was the coven leader, and he was very dramatic. She imagined after five hundred years on earth, that some of the drama would have faded, but so far it had not.
He was high-strung, and he was obsessed with her mission.
Well, originally, it had been his mission. The entire plan had been his idea.
Victor was theatrical, but he was also deadly.
And that was exactly what she wanted. When she’d gotten old enough to help him with the mission, she’d jumped at the chance. It was the perfect opportunity to avenge the death of her parents. She’d been living with Victor and his coven of vampires since she was ten years old, but it would be a stretch to call them her family.
Victor had been her guardian, of a sort, although calling him that was also a stretch. A really big one. He didn't really care what she did or didn’t do, as long as she didn’t stray too far from their current home.
She’d been ready for the mission for years, but he’d put it off, saying she needed more time to immerse herself in the human world. Victor had been human in the 1500s. Since then, he’d only spent enough time with humans to get by. He could pass as someone’s wealthy, eccentric, older cousin from Eastern Europe, but he had very little knowledge of pop culture.
So when she turned twenty, she moved, along with the rest of the coven, to live in Seattle. She attended some college classes and tried to learn as much about humans as she could by fully engaging with their world.
A week ago, she turned twenty-four. Victor had deemed her ready to start the mission.
They had all packed up and moved to Anchorage, Alaska, which would be their new home until the mission was complete.
Victor had purchased the largest home he could find on the outskirts of Anchorage, which he had still deemed “too small.” He was accustomed to living in villas and mansions. Technically, the house he bought was a mansion, but it was also a drafty, wooden, clapboard house near the ocean. Victor had rather staunchly refused to dwell in a cabin. And of course, they had the rest of the coven with them, which included twenty members, besides her and Victor.
She pulled away from him and picked up her bag. They would not be hugging. Victor had never been a fan of physical affection. “I won’t let them convince me of anything. You know me,” she said.
A thin smile formed on his lips. “I do know you. Which is why we’re sending you to complete this task. So many others would fail.”
She would never fail. She was resolute.
She would move into Anchorage and live as a human. That was the plan.
Once she was settled in, then she would casually begin to find ways to meet some of the shifters in the wolf shifter pack that her father had been born into. That pack had once lived farther north, in the Alaska wilderness, far from civilization, but five years earlier, they’d moved to the city.
Why, she had no idea.
A few months ago, when Victor had declared her ready to begin the mission, they’d traveled to the pack land and found it empty and barren. They were gone, vanished. In the area where they’d lived before, she could feel the history in the land, in the air, and in the soil. But those were the only signs that remained of the thriving pack that had once called it home.
What had happened? Were they dead? Without the father’s old pack, the plan was worthless. She had dropped to her knees, putting her hand on the patchy grass.
“Do not fret. We will find another pack,” Victor said.
“No!” She’d hopped to her feet. “It has to be this pack. The one that failed my father. You know that!” She never raised her voice to him, but she couldn't help it. He knew why this pack was the only one. They were not interchangeable.
Victor had pressed his hands together. “Very well. I will see what I can find out.”
After a week of searching, they found that the pack had moved down to Anchorage, every last one of them, which made no sense. The wilderness was a much better place for a pack to thrive. The old area had plenty of wild game and freshwater. But maybe she’d be able to find out why they’d moved soon enough.
Once she knew the shifters, then she’d ask to join their pack.
Once she joined… well. That was when the plan would really begin.
But the plan had to be executed slowly; they all agreed about that.
The coven thought it best that she appear somewhat neutral about belonging to a new pack, and nonchalant if anyone asked if she was looking. She didn't want to come across as desperate to join them – that could easily set off alarm bells.