The First and The Last

Jesse H Reign

Copyright © 6 Aug 2022 Jesse H Reign

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Book formatting by Jesse H Reign

Cover design by MIBLart

1. One

1

“Do we have the best life, or what?” whooped Jules as he flew through the air on our old tire swing.

His dark hair flew back as he lurched forward and flopped into his eyes when he swung back. His lips were cracked open in a wide, goofy grin that exposed a white flash of teeth. One eyebrow was arched up and the other pinched down. Jules had the kind of eyebrows that didn’t know how to be serious. Even when the rest of his face attempted it, his eyebrows betrayed him. His eyes were hazel, mainly brown with a ring of green in the center. The happier he was, the more they shone. Right then, he must have been feeling pretty happy because his eyes were more alive than most people look in a lifetime.

That was Jules for you. Julius W Blaine, to those that didn’t know him. Those that did know him, knew he preferred Jules. Those that really knew him, knew that the W in his name didn’t stand for a damn thing. He had no middle name. Just an initial. I guess his parents thought it sounded cool, or something.

Middle name or not, Jules was cool. He was the best. We’d been best mates since I could remember and probably even before then. Apparently, our mothers used to put us down for naps in the same crib when we were babies, so it’s hard to know exactly when we became friends. I just know that we did. Jules was six months older than me, which wasn’t important, but he never let me forget it. We’d been thick as thieves all our lives. We had to be. The two of us were the last two wolves born into the Cleary pack. The last of our kind. The youngest members of an aging pack.

We called ourselves wolves but technically we hadn’t had our first shift yet, so at that point in our lives we were kind of human, kind of magick, and in my case, kind of awkward. Like all shifters, we easily passed for human. Sure, we were a bit bigger and stronger than average kids our age and our senses were a little sharper, but none of it was so marked that it aroused suspicion.