I don’t want to leave them. Or Old Noreen or the elders who are kind or the males like Fallon who aren’t the worst.
I can’t go back to the cabin, either.
I stop, lean against a tree, and take in my surroundings. The woods are dark, and the night creatures—the bullfrogs by the river and crickets and owls—hush as I stagger through. I’m a predator, and that is such a joke.
I’m weak. Defective. Rejected.
I reach for anger, my plans, my blessings—the handholds I usually cling to when I can’t take it anymore, but there’s nothing there. Only grief and shame and stupid longing.
Mate.
I have no mate.
How far can I run with three good legs?
I let the wolf take my skin, and I whisper, “Go. Go.” The shift is an agony, but I welcome the pain.
I can’t escape what I am, but maybe I can run until it’s nothing more than a speck in the distance.
Maybe there’s a choice I’ve never seen before now.
A way out.
My wolf stumbles forward, too broken to do much more than drag our bad leg behind. And I was wrong. There’s nothing but the same paths I’ve known my whole life, the same river and foothills in the distance, the same boundaries that never, ever change.
2
KILLIAN
I drive my fist into the punching bag. Gael’s holding it. He sways on his toes. I deliver a side-kick dead center. He staggers back a step. Almost got him.
Una Hayes kept her feet at the end. She’s not as weak as she seems. Then again, she can’t be. She went after the alpha female’s daughter in front of the whole pack. And then after she got her ass handed to her, she in essence declared herself the alpha female.
Saying I’m her mate. Holy hell. She’s moon mad.
I puff out a breath and fall into a rhythm. Jab, hook, cross punch, kick. Amuse myself with Gael clinging to the bag to stay upright. Repeat.
I don’t have a mate. It is known. Besides, wolves find their mates when the females go into heat around sixteen or seventeen. Sometimes a little earlier, a little later. But not ten years later.
Una’s close to my age. We rode the bus to the Moon Lake school together back in the day. If we were mates, I would’ve torn those vinyl seats from their moorings to get to her at the first hint of heat. It never happened.
She’s either deluded, or she’s a liar.
Given, it’s a weird lie to tell. Strange time and place to tell it, too. It was never gonna end well for her. She’s never shifted before. Folks figure her wolf is as fucked up as her leg.
She’s always on the outskirts of pack life. Keeps to the lone females. Avoids gatherings except sometimes she shows up at the end of a run for a dip in the lake. She’s got decent tits.
I clumsily adjust my dick with a taped fist, and then I nail the bag. Gael grunts. Sweet. Got him in the gut.
Turns out Una’s wolf is a scrapper who likes to punch above her weight. I sniff and swipe my nose to clear the sweat.
Her animal is a scrawny mutt, gray with no markings and pointed, tucked ears. She lost that fight before Haisley even shifted.
Una’s probably going feral. Lone females lose their minds sooner or later. Something about having no men in their lives—no mate, no father, no uncles or brothers—unbalances them. They start talking to ghosts. Refuse to shave their legs and shit. As far as I know, she’s never gotten dick from any of the pack males—
“Son of a bitch!” Gael shouts as he sails backward through the air, landing on his ass. The bag swings so high it nearly comes off the S-hook. Damn. I put a lot more power behind that one than I intended.
“Should’ve moved with the bag instead of bracing,” I point out.
He flips me off from the mat.
“Well, come on,” I say. “Hop up.”
If he takes this long to get up during a match, I’m putting him back on the maintenance crew.
After playing it up and plucking my nerves, Gael finally springs to his feet, showing off, and resumes his position. I fall back into a pattern. Jab, hook, cross punch. Watch Gael flinch. Kick.
What was I thinking about?
Oh, yeah. Una Hayes has gone nuts. I better pay a visit to Abertha. See if there’s an herb or a spell or something.
Una may be unhinged, and not much more than a mouth to feed, but she’s pack. I’m not gonna exile her to the foothills to die like my dad would’ve done. I don’t know what we’re gonna do with a crazy female, though. This pack doesn’t lock up females anymore. For any reason.
The bag flies again, and this time, Gael soars a good six feet and crashes into a metal beam. My chest rumbles.