Welcome to Raising the Runt, my first novel in four years. This was a joint effort between myself and Juno King, who is a full co-author on this work. Juno and I have been writing and worldbuilding for fun for two years now and we've developed some interesting ideas - but this one felt so strong that I wanted to adapt it into a full novel.

I'll be posting one chapter per day, I hope you'll join me on the journey.

Thank you, Juno. We worked hard on this and I'm proud of it.

Chapter One

Tori

His blood on my fist felt good, almost enough to excuse the disgust I felt in this form, the brute - Spike had insulted me one too many times today and I wasn't going to take it. Three satisfying hits in a row landed square on his mouth.

"Shut." Strikes punctuated each word. "The." His blood was hot, the edges of my vision a haze in that very same color. "Fuck." Anger had been harder to control these past few months, and this motherfucker wasn't helping. "Uh- "

My last word was cut short as he shifted, growing larger than me. I felt his fingers on my throat before he threw me off of him. Spike's brute was an ugly fucker, and the blood gushing from his mouth didn't help. His nose was smashed flat and crooked in this form, his eyes somewhere between green and brown, but muddy, not in a pretty way.

"Fuck you, runt!" He spat blood on the ground and I shifted again, going for the dire form, much more wolf - but he changed faster, his teeth around my neck, pinning me to the ground after intercepting my lunge.

This was likely the end of the fight, but I had gotten some good hits in for a change.

He always won if we went on long enough - I could only ever win through surprise. With one last bit of pride, I growled. I wasn’t ready to yield. His jaws tightened around my throat, until my growl became a sputter and a whimper.

A sound rang out, a sharp sound that we knew well. As Spike released me, as his sandy brown bulk - a wolf too large to be a wolf - shambled out of the way, I saw the snow white bitch walking down the stairs, changing shape as fluidly as she walked. One step was the sleek white wolf, the next was the distorted, fanged mass of violence, the transformation ending with the mean bitch that called the shots.

Russet red hair, muscle from head to toe, and a smug look behind her yellow eyes. It was impossible to tell what race of human Alpha was - her skin was a dark, rough brown and I had no way of knowing whether that was by birth or from days on end in the sun. I knew my color was darker than it had been before, in a life that seemed so far away now.

My eyes wandered up the scars that crisscrossed her body, over her small breasts and up the thick neck to her sharp jaw, fixating on the newest batch of scars that crossed her stomach like she had been disemboweled. The ones she had gotten that night a year ago, the night of the bonfire. I had never learned what made those scars, she wouldn’t say. Or why they were as black as the sky on a moonless night. I settled on her face, on the nose that had been broken more times than I could guess.

The change hurt, I had no idea how the others managed to do it so quickly, so easily. It felt like trying to force my whole body into a space it didn't fit into, whether I was getting bigger or smaller. Bones cracked, skin stretched, and I felt every bit of it.

She was standing over me before I had even regained my feet. “So, runt.” The brute’s voice was always deeper, gritty somehow. I had only heard her human-form voice once or twice, I couldn’t recall it. “Got a couple hits in, more than I expected. Knew you’d lose though. What made you rage this time?”

Back in human form, I was fighting to keep from showing the human need for modesty. I had already lost the war against the blush in my cheeks, they were already a bright red from Fang and Spike's laughter. Forcing myself to step purposefully, I crouched to scoop up my discarded clothes. The change left them behind rather than destroying them, something about the Gift of the Wolfmother or something stupid, but it happened every time.

My composure was shattered when Spike, dabbing a rag against his split lip, spoke. “Runt just thinks she’s a wolf when she’s really a cuddly dog.” Fang just chuckled, the asshole.

"Shut up!" I screamed back at them. I hated being the runt. It chafed. I owed them for taking me away from my old life, but hated the way they treated me. Well, the way Spike treated me and no one else would stop him. I felt more like family with them than I had the humans that had been my "parents", that much was certain. Even Spike, the ugly fuck. Hastily, I tugged my baggy shirt on and pulled my cargo shorts up - I'd given up all semblance of fashion over the years, it didn't make sense when I might need to put the clothes back on quickly.

I missed makeup some days though.

Alpha didn't look amused, though she never did. There was some solace in that, that she wasn’t mocking me with them.

I looked up at Alpha, towering over me, that dark red-brown hair falling loosely around her shoulders. "I’m not a fucking dog, and I can find my wolf just fine and Spike needs to shut his stupid fucking mouth. I'm sick of being the butt of every fucking joke."

“You’re slow.” Alpha’s eyes never left mine, those unforgiving yellow eyes. “You can barely find your wolf. When you understand, it comes faster. It hurts less. You are just becoming yourself. Until you understand that, you’re not going to be able to reach your beast form. You won’t win. Do better.”

She was so frustrating. That's what I was trying to do. She always said the same thing, like it was so fucking easy - becoming myself - this was myself... well no, myself had skinny jeans and brushed hair, but that didn't seem to be possible while living with these animals. Possibly never again. It was hard to say if I missed me.

The beast form, though - I wanted it. If I could reach it, Spike and Fang would never tease me again or I’d just tear the heads from their shoulders.

I wouldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t, even though I was mad. This was my pack, my family... my first real family. Alpha had saved me so many times from so many things over the past four years. Including myself.

Casually, she turned her back to me, signaling that I wasn’t a threat at all after staring me down like that. It wasn’t helping my blush. "You want to stop being the butt of the jokes?" She strode to the kitchen with a confidence I didn’t think I’d ever feel, grabbing a bottle - probably a beer - from the fridge and “opening” it by snapping the neck off with her thumb. "Make them stop."

"You make them stop. You're in charge. Tell them to lay off!" I threw up my hands in frustration - I knew that wasn't the right answer, the right way, but I was smaller than everyone and Alpha expected more of me than she did the two idiot boys.

A fear tore through me as she closed the distance from the kitchen to the living room in three long, fast steps and my feet left the ground, my shirt a tangled bunch around her fist. Alpha was probably 6’5” in her brute, more than a foot taller than me. The stench of hops attacked me as she growled in my face.

"You're right. I am in charge. And I'm telling you to make them stop." Again, her eyes bored into mine. My instincts were screaming at me to break the eye contact.. and I gave in. The floor came at me fast, a casual toss, more insult. "Gain some pride and stop begging the Alpha to fight your battles for you, runt."

I saw red in that moment, catching myself on the arm of the couch and keeping my feet. I hated that she wouldn't use my name. I hated that none of them would use my name. And again, I followed some wild instinct, my balled fist flying quickly and driving into Alpha’s ribs.

"My name is Tori. Just because your name doesn't make any fucking sense doesn't mean you should ignore mine." I was the only one who clung to my human name - Fang and Spike had discarded theirs for stupid names, though Alpha's name was the dumbest - it was something like the fart of a proud wolf on a snowbank or some stupid shit. But I had learned to not call Spike by Geoff anymore. I healed fast, but I had been limping for a week after the thrashing he gave me. "And I'm not begging you, it's your fucking job."

I was impressed with myself as she took a step backwards. The satisfaction was extremely short-lived, however. The space between us gave her room to step forward and plant a kick square between my tits. The impact was on my right hip as I landed, as I slid across the polished hardwood floor from the force, stopping only when I hit the wall near the boys.

"Don't swing if you can't back it up.” Alpha didn’t raise her voice, she didn’t need to. “Your failure in understanding my name shows how far away you are with your other half. Wolves communicate in thinking and feeling, in Wolftongue. You are still having trouble with this when you are the wolf. My job isn't to stop bullies from picking on you, runt. My job is to make sure the pack is strong. If you can't beat Spike, how do you think you're going to fare against another pack, or worse?" Not that she’d explain what worse was. She never did, despite the fact that she’d been talking about it more lately than she had before, after she got those new scars. I looked up at her through the messy, dirty brown hair that fell over my face. "Gonna complain to that alpha that their goons are picking on you?"

I didn't get back up right away. I laid there, fighting tears at the laughter of my pack brothers.

"It's not my fault that I'm smaller!" I slammed a fist against the floor, not raising my head - if I got up now, it would just be challenging Alpha again. And the more I pushed, the harder Alpha would be on me. She wasn't above thrashing me. I had put us in danger once, I had accidentally led a group of humans to our hideout... we had killed them, we had found a new home, and then three wolves had beaten the shit out of me and left me chained to a wall for days.

"Humans are the dominant predator on the world," Alpha growled. "They didn't get that because they were the biggest. They got that because they had the smarts to take it. Size is an excuse." A fresh round of snickering came from Spike, and I was torn between feeling vindicated and angry when the beer bottle smashed against his head, flung from across the room. The gross smell of cheap beer was everywhere as the stuff splashed Spike, the wall, the floor, thankfully very little landing on me. "And you. Runt got some hits off on you. Good for her. Bad for you."

I was surprised she even bothered to recognize it. Did that count as a compliment? Spike stammered, staggering and wiping his face, a meaty hand pressed against his shorn head. “She only did because I didn’t expect her to attack just because I called her a name.”

"You shouldn't have been dumb enough to let your guard drop while you were taunting her. You need to do better too."

Fang burst into full blown laughter while Spike swore, holding his head. I took the opportunity to stand up and go the other direction. If Alpha was throwing bottles, she'd want me to go into town. I headed over to the fridge, checking to see what I needed to get.

Our beloved leader had literally been raised by wolves, but she had picked up quite the addiction to beer along the way.

And we didn't have a car, which meant I'd end up carrying my clothes in a backpack in my mouth for the ten mile run into town, again. Being the runt sucked. I'd probably have to clean up the bottle shards, too. I had to do basically all of the fetching and cleaning because I wasn't strong enough to make one of the others do it.

My mind went back to the other pack we had run into a few weeks and several hundred miles ago - they had a pet human, and he did all the cleaning. They didn't trust him to go into town and fetch things - they kept him on a leash and he was pack property.

If we got a human, I wouldn't have to do everything myself anymore.

"I'm not cleaning that up." I decided to pitch the idea as I closed the door. "I think we should get a human, like Fiona's pack has."

Tensing, I prepared myself to dodge whatever was thrown at me. Alpha had already told me she was sick of me talking about Fiona’s pack and how Fiona did things and how they didn’t pick on the smallest pack member. After four years of traveling with Alpha, it was the first pack we had ever spent time with, usually we avoided other wolves. To my surprise, nothing was flying at my head.

"You might actually have a good idea there." Alpha looked off in the distance for a moment, lost in thought. "Maybe I'll have Fang go find one later. I want you to go into town. The usual. Beer and snacks. There's cash and a backpack upstairs. Use the cash if you have to. Better if you didn't."

I knew it.

"Good idea, Alpha. I'm glad you thought of us getting a human." Spike grinned at me, making eye contact while he gave Alpha the credit for my idea. And I didn't like the look in his eye. "I'll get us a pretty one. It's not like Runt could do it."

Spike was laughing his ass off now, even as he finished toweling off the beer with a pillow from the couch.

I fired off the best retort I could think of. "Fuck you, Spike."

He snarled back instantly. "I don't fuck puppies. Or errand girls."

Now it was my turn to throw something. I grabbed the first thing I could - a marble rolling pin off the counter, flinging it with more strength than I ever could have managed before the pack found me. It flew past Spike, bursting through drywall and embedding itself near Fang’s head - it would have really hurt if I had better aim. The glare he shot me in return could only be described as hot death.

One moment, Spike was there with the top of his bald head turning red from his anger, the next moment there was a scraggly, wiry brown wolf charging me. He leapt, I flinched… but he never connected. Instead, he was there, hanging midair by the scruff of his neck, in Alpha’s grip. She didn’t look angry, just… well, like she always did. Kind of disdainful.

"This is a nice den. I don't want it trashed halfway through the winter. If you want to fight, go outside. Fang will get us a human, later."

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and stepped out of the way as Alpha headed back into the kitchen area. Spike’s beat-up human form, naked now - they were pretty much always naked, and I was tired of seeing their dicks flop around - was pulling himself up off the ground after being tossed.

“Leave the hunting to me, runt.” Fang, on the far side of the room, pulled the rolling pin from the wall, setting it on the coffee table. I was so mad at him. The shaggy bastard never took my side in anything. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

I slammed my palms down on a table, angry again. I got angry so easily, so quickly. "I can get a better human that you can! You can't even pass for human anymore, you smelly fucking mutt."

Before Fang could retort, Alpha chimed in. "Looking human is what the runt is good for." She managed to actually pop the top off the beer without breaking the bottle this time, the sound of it hitting the floor was not lost on me. "I doubt you have what it takes to get a good one. Go get supplies and leave the hunting to those who know how to do it."

She was taking his side, of course. I had been part of this pack for four years, longer than Spike, but he wasn’t the runt. "Well I'm not going tonight. I'll go tomorrow." One thing I had learned living with them was that wolves didn't ask, we told. And if someone disagreed, you fought. So if you wanted someone to do something or to not do something... you had to be ready to fight for it. Which meant I was staying out of Alpha's reach as I defied her. "Maybe if you actually drink those instead of throwing them, they'll last longer."

I kept my eye on her as I spoke, ready to move if she decided to come for me.

She met my eyes, coolly. "Don't want to work? Then you can sleep outside. The box said it's snow tonight, I can smell it in the clouds. Maybe more time without human comfort is what you need."

It was honestly gentler than I had expected from her. But I didn't doubt for a second that she'd throw me out and chain me up a dozen times if she decided that was best.

I had still been cooped up less with them than my life before - at least here the rules were clear. And the chains were almost voluntary. Almost. I could shift to shed them, but the sound of the chain hitting the ground would alert someone and I’d just get smacked around and chained again.

"Fine. I'm going. Beer and snacks."

Fang leveled a stone look at me. "Good pup." I flipped him off in return.