Cal is the Alpha female of the young Nightshade pack. She is arranged to be married to Ren on her eighteenth birthday and though she gets along with Ren well enough, she resents the way the adult Guardians and Keepers interfere in her life. She saves Shay's life, putting her own at great risk, and when he appears at her school the next day, at first she does whatever she can to keep him at a distance but despite her efforts, the two become very close and she develops strong feelings for him. She is An's older sister and Bryn's best friend, though the alpha does not share Bryn's taste for dressing up in the least. Though she is fiercely proud and protective of those she cares about, she is also very headstrong and at the beginning of the novel experiences a lot of difficulty accepting the amount of control others have over her life. Ren asks her many times if she is okay with their coming union, and she can't even respond to the question because she has always been told the union was the way it had to be. As a result, when she begins to have feelings for Shay, she alternately threatens the boy and encourages him to pursue her, going so far as to transform him into a Guardian so that he can use his blood to save her life. Throughout the novel, Cal is constantly torn between trying to protect and serve her pack, and trying to protect her own freedoms.
