Somewhere Within: (A Havenwood Falls High Novella) Read online

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  Written in the Stars (A Havenwood Falls High Novella) by Kallie Ross

  The Kasun wolf pack has always been led by a female alpha, but when Willa Kasun’s mother died to give her life, her father stepped in as leader. Now that she’s about to come of age, the pack will once again be led by a female, as it is meant to be. Except Willa hasn’t shifted yet.

  Less wolf and more cub-dud, Willa has until her next birthday to shift and claim her place as alpha, or she’ll lose it forever. Something her pack mates won’t let her forget. The few supernatural powers that have manifested are her secret and the only hope she has of unleashing her wolf.

  Distractions of life as a junior at Havenwood Falls High provide a needed escape from the pack’s pressure, making Willa feel more like a teenager and less like an alpha every day. Then there’s Tarron Wilde, a sarcastic and striking elf, who makes her wonder if being alpha is really what she wants.

  Her heart yearns for a reality unfamiliar and feared by her pack, while her mind can’t accept being replaced as alpha. The future of her entire pack relies on Willa’s choice—embrace what was written in the stars so long ago or choose to fight for what her heart desires.

  Written in the Stars

  An Excerpt

  On her first day back in the Havenwood Falls High lunchroom, Willa Kasun leaned on the doorframe, watching the human and paranormal students carefully shelve themselves into the right sections, as if it were a grocery store. Vampires hovered around a refrigerated soda machine in the corner that served more than cola. Most humans, unaware of the supernatural community around them, wondered why the bottom left button never worked for them, so they stopped pushing it. Elves basked in the sun at a wall of windows to the left. Shifters huddled with their kind, clustered around tables at the center of the room, where Willa’s wolf-shifter pack made the most noise. And humans, well, they actually outnumbered them all.

  Humans unknowingly fist-bumped shifter athletes, sipped soda with vamps, and made plans to go to the Burger Bar after school with supes. Living a normal life was the point of living in Havenwood Falls, and Willa looked forward to stepping out of the comfort of her pack and into the melting pot of high school. She wondered where she’d fit in. She wasn’t human and she hadn’t shifted. She belonged nowhere and everywhere.

  Havenwood Falls High was the picture of diversity. Every kind, color, and race walked the halls, but pride, fear, and ignorance had a way of keeping most supernaturals with their own species. While popular teen movies about supernaturals missed the mark about much, they nailed their angsty adolescent attitudes, even with nearly half of the population in Havenwood Falls being supernatural. Their ability to shift or exert super-strength didn’t make life any easier, because they hid all the messy magic stuff from the humans who walked the hallways with them.

  Willa heard and felt a growl vibrating from her right, and as she glanced up, she caught the dark eyes of a brooding dragon shifter. He set his tray down as another student, an elf, scooted over for him. But, as a shifter, he should have joined the other dragons three rows back.

  Willa tilted her head, confused.

  The dragon—Bale, if Willa remembered correctly—made himself comfortable with a group of supernaturals who resembled the checkout lane of the grocery more than the aisles—an array of items piled together. Multiple supernatural races had convened, all courteous and reticent, and no one outside their bubble seemed to take notice. Willa certainly hadn’t regarded them in years past.

  “Hey, Will,” Willa’s brother, also named Will, short for William, called.

  Willa rolled her eyes. “Hey, li’l Kase.”

  Growing up with a sheriff for a dad and no mother had Willa acting like another one of the boys in their small community, so she’d often been called “Will.” To keep the confusion to a minimum, though, and because her brother was the mini-me to their father, everyone called Will “li’l Kase.” Half of the nickname fell by the wayside when Kase outgrew his dad. Among the pack that lived in the woods, the Kasun twins had a reputation for being mischievous, and the nicknames helped distinguish between the two when their older brothers wanted to blame one of them for something. A few of the elders had referred to them as the boy version and the girl version.

  “It’s Willa at school. I don’t want you giving your entourage any ideas,” Willa warned her brother.

  He nodded his consent. “I’ll add the a if you subtract the li’l.” He nudged her with his shoulder. “Come sit with me and Ana.”

  Kase had a way of ordering his twin sister around with a smile. He could make a demand sound like a gentlemanly request, just like their dad, Sheriff Ric Kasun. Willa loved her brothers and her alpha father, but there were days her heart ached for her mother.

  “I think I’ll pass.” Willa straightened the hem of her top so that it met the waistline of her skirt. She hated the skimpy cheerleader getup, but until this year, she’d loved cheering for Kase at football games. If only he hadn’t recently hooked up with one of the co-captains, Ana Novak.

  As if Willa’s junior year hadn’t started off badly enough, she had been yanked into the seat next to Ana in history. She didn’t have enough empty brain space to listen to another cheer idea or dreamy remark about her brother.

  “I think I’m going to try something new this year.” To make her choice clear, Willa tucked a piece of black hair behind her ear, making her edgy bob look even more fierce, and shot a smile at her brother. She didn’t wait for him to respond, and turned toward the most supernaturally diverse table in the lunchroom.

  As she approached, Willa recognized a few of the occupants from her earlier classes. Most of them had grown up in the same small town, and with that came rumors and stereotypes. A witch, Scarlet, noticed Willa first. Scarlet’s long red hair swung over her shoulder as she looked back and forth from Willa to the empty seat next to her.

  “Is that seat taken?” Willa asked.

  Scarlet’s lips parted, and one eyebrow pulled up in wonder. “Well, uh—”

  A lean, white-haired guy slid between them. “No, it’s not taken.” He patted the seat and grinned. “Join us. I’m Tarron, and you’re in my history class, right?”

  Willa had seen the freckle-faced guy earlier, but his boyish grin contradicted his broad shoulders and square jaw. Tarron had sat at the back of the classroom, quiet with his pen to paper, not giving any attention to the reunions taking place after the three-month summer break.

  Willa had thought the excitement overrated. She’d seen her pack throughout the summer and run into the other students at the Burger Bar and Coffee Haven, not to mention Paddlefest. The annual summer rafting event on Mathews River had come with extra tourists and drama this year. The pack dared Willa to swim against the river’s current, and while the others used their wolf-strength, she couldn’t dog-paddle five feet without revealing the fact that some of her powers were manifesting. She’d promised her dad she’d keep the development between them. That night, after her brother jumped into the water to pull her out, she felt so humiliated she moved out of her childhood home while her wolf pack enjoyed the bonfire.

  “Hi,” Willa greeted. She maneuvered around Tarron and sat between him and Scarlet, setting her bag in her lap. “And, yes, I think we do have history together, but you two,” she pulled an apple out of her messenger bag and pointed it at a blonde girl with alabaster skin and the young dragon shifter who’d growled a few moments ago, “aren’t in Ms. Bast’s history class?”

  Her apple bounced in the air back to the blonde, before she took a bite. The blonde nodded with the hint of a smile.

  “You’re new, too, aren’t you?” Willa asked after swallowing, but then the blonde’s mouth turned down as she realized her mistake. Willa sensed something supernatural about the new girl, and her cool stare a
nd the scent of blood when she unscrewed her “water” bottle confirmed the stranger was a vampire. Willa set her apple down, wiped her hand on her skirt, then held it out. “I’m sorry. The sort I tend to hang out with don’t pay much attention to manners. I’m Willa Kasun.”

  The blonde’s stony palm slipped into Willa’s warm one. “Hi, I’m Elliot. Well, most people call me Elle.”

  Just as the new girl shook Willa’s hand, the table at the center of the lunchroom burst out into laughter. The Kasun pack’s antics served them well on the football field and in the forest on a moonlit night, but trash talk and arm wrestling in the cafeteria had led to busted tables and busted lips in the past.

  “See what I mean?” Willa joked. “It’s probably my twin doing his impression of the biology teacher.”

  The growling guy leaned in and scanned the area. “So, you’re the shifter girl from the Kasun pack who can’t, you know—” He snarled and cupped his hands above his ears, mimicking a wolf. Willa thought they must all be supes if he felt confident enough to bring up her sort of being a werewolf, but she played it safe anyway.

  “Can’t what?” Willa’s eyes narrowed, and her blood began to boil. She took the pendant hanging from her necklace between her thumb and finger, and slid it back and forth. A calming, methodical motion she’d perfected since she’d received the gift.

  “Bale didn’t mean anything by it.” Tarron leaned in and nudged Willa’s shoulder with his. “Did ya, big guy?”

  Bale shook his head, and she caught a half-smile before a curtain of shoulder-length dark hair fell forward. “Nah.”

  “What Bale meant to ask is, how did you get out of wearing one of those gigantic bows the other cheerleaders are wearing?” Tarron nodded in the direction of Ana and her friend Maria, both giggling at Kase. “Are you sure they’re not the twins?”

  Everyone chuckled, including Willa. Then she caught her brother looking their way.

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