17-year-old Chloe fears she's a Dud, a child born to two werewolves who can't change into a wolf. If she's still a Dud by the time she reached adulthood, she'll be exiled. In the meantime, she's at the bottom of the pack hierarchy. But Chloe is a natural Alpha, unable to bow her head meekly, and the other teens in her small town pack make her life miserable. While running through the woods, she encounters a feral werewolf with the opposite problem: he's trapped in wolf form. Chloe suspects the feral is her old classmate, Marcus, who everyone believes died along with the rest of his family in a mysterious plane crash last year. Pack lore says that any werewolf that remains in wolf form for more than a few days is dangerous and lost forever. Chloe vows to help Marcus regain his human self because giving up on him would mean admitting possible failure for herself, too. But she must act quickly. Pack law mandates killing ferals.