“Micah, your girl’s booking it!” Alejandra shouts.
She saw. Of course she saw.
I snap to standing, the urge to shift building at the base of my spine. “Talisa. Royal. Take Connor off the road and into the sidecar. Alejandra, get the rest of the bikes out of sight.”
The pack stares at me, too frozen to act. The exact same thing happened three weeks ago, right after I ripped that cop to the spine.
“Now!” I roar.
Instinct shatters their paralysis, and the second everyone starts to move, I break into a sprint off the highway. Christiana’s footprints are a jagged line through the rock-studded dirt, but even with a head start, there’s no chance that she’ll be faster than me.
I stop trying to hide from her scent. Instead I breathe deep, drawing Christiana in until there’s nothing else left to throw me off the trail. My blood sparks with heat as I run, calling on the wolf to push past human limits. In seconds, she comes into view on the horizon, trying to climb up the side of a sheer, rocky ledge.
Her heartbeat echoes like thunder in my ears, exploding with panic. Desperation takes Christiana halfway up the side before she drops back down, clawing to get some kind of grip. I slow my pace to a walk, not wanting to startle her even more, but the scrape of my boots sends her clambering up the ledge again, making it to the top this time. Caught on all fours, she gasps for breath, then pushes to her feet on shaking legs.
When Christiana turns to look at me, she whimpers. “Your fucking eyes. There’s no...there’s no way.”
Seeing in the dark is easier while shifted, but she’s terrified, and that’s the last thing I want. I pull the wolf back down, willing away the eager twitch of muscle that wants to slip free. The beast doesn’t rule me, not tonight. “Is that better?”
“Not really.” The words spike high in her throat. “Holy shit.”
It’s tempting to climb up there with her, but I stay at the bottom. She needs the distance. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Connor just had fangs and claws!” Christiana snaps. “And the rest of you, your eyes changed and—don’t tell me it didn’t happen.”
Lying is pointless. “It happened.”
Her knees tremble so much, she has to clench her hands into fists at her side to stay standing. “What are you?”
I’ve failed my pack. Twice in a month now, exposing us to humans that should never know we exist. After swearing to protect them, every one of them, I’m standing in the middle of the desert looking at a woman overwhelmed with fear. Again.
What’s left to hide? I earned this.
“I’m a werewolf,” I say, holding her gaze.
“Bullshit,” she mutters, but her shoulders sink. Acceptance in all but name. “Prove it.”
Out of the question. With the way my wolf reacted at the river, I would kill her. “I just said I wasn’t going to hurt you. Transforming into a seven-foot-tall beast is not how to go about that.”
“You get even taller?”
The fear in Christiana’s voice is displaced by heat rushing up to her face. She’s blushing, and putting two and two together makes me feel so brainless it’s dizzying.
I never considered that she would want me too. Now there’s no chance.
“Yeah,” I admit with a weak smile. “I get taller.”
Her laugh collapses with disbelief. “So like, what? I died in a car crash and this is a hallucination. Or something. Coma dream? Sure.” She pinches herself, hard, and winces. “Ow. Fuck.”
“Christiana, I need you to listen to me.” This is gambling on whatever shred of trust might be left between us, but I have no choice. “You can’t tell anyone about this. Me. The pack. What you saw with Connor.”
“The pack,” she repeats, then shakes her head. “You’re serious.”
“I’m very serious.” The grave is already dug, so there’s no shame in going deeper. “Because the penalty for exposing yourself to a human is execution.”
The only reason I’m not dead now is because Vera and the Hounds haven’t said a word about what I did to the cop. That, and no alpha is in charge of Arizona. This state has been independent for a long time, quietly absorbing castoffs from California and farther north.
It’s why I came here after leaving Seattle. My mother could send a whole squad of enforcers to drag me home, but they wouldn’t have any more authority here than I do. It would take a real fight to force the issue, and no one wants to take responsibility for scratching up the next in line.
Christiana’s eyes widen until they’re drowned in white. “Wait, what? Is there a werewolf government or something?”
“Kind of.” That in particular I’d prefer not to detail. “But please. I need you to promise me that you won’t say anything.”
“I don’t have a choice.” She sniffles, then roughly wipes at her eyes, mascara smearing in black lines. “Where else could I go? My apartment’s trashed, my car is in the middle of nowhere, and my ex put a tracker in my phone!”
My heart craters, regret weighing it down like lead. “I know. And I’m sorry, I know you’re going through hell right now. But Talisa has been through hell too. And Alejandra, and Royal. Breaking a wrist barely even makes the list for Connor.”
Tears spill down Christiana’s face. She doesn’t try to hide them this time. “And what about you?”
Sometimes it feels that way, but I know better. “Call it Purgatory. Which means it’s my job to help everyone down below make their way up. Let me keep you safe. Let me keep everyone safe.”
She goes quiet, teeth worrying at the inside of her lip. “I’ve never felt safe.”
After what Christiana has been through, it’s not hard to understand why. The last thing I want to do is scare her even more, to hurt her when the world’s already backed her into a corner, but the wolf is always with me. I can’t change that.
Christiana’s hands go slack. “I have to sit down. My legs really hurt.”
I nod, and she drops cross-legged onto the top of the rock with a faint moan of relief. Her eyes fall back to me, worry and doubt warring with something else I can’t read.
“Do you...want to come up here?” she asks.
“Sure.” I jump straight up, catching the edge of the exposed stone and hauling myself over the top. Then I find a spot next to her, folding my legs underneath me.
“How did you—” She sighs. “God, this really explains everything. There’s so much about you that didn’t make sense.”
Head in her hands, Christiana buckles. Every sob shakes her from head to toe, and the compulsion to wrap my arms around her, to offer comfort, is so strong that I have to sink my nails into my own palm to resist.
“This is so fucking scary,” she whispers.
There’s no denying that some of her fear is because of me. “Anything I can do to make it better?”
Both hands drop into her lap, exposing wet, red-rimmed eyes. “It’s dumb, but I could really use a hug.”
I can’t refuse. No part of me wants to. “Come here.”
She pushes up onto her knees, enough to turn and fall against me. It’s a total collapse, tears soaking into my cut as Christiana buries her face against my shoulder. With care, I wrap one arm around her back, holding her close as I can without exerting any strength. Every breath I dare to take is focused on the cold night air, no matter how much I want to bury myself in Christiana’s scent.
“Probably not what you expected when you picked a girl up off the side of the road,” she mumbles, words spilling hot near the curve of my neck.
It takes a second to work past the knot of tension in my throat. “Probably not what you expected from some biker in the woods.”
Christiana laughs, and this time, the sound is a little sweeter. “I have so many questions.”
“You can ask.” I run my palm up and down her back, drawing slow and soothing circles. “I’m listening.”
“Is there a full moon thing?” Her body relaxes against me by degrees. “Like, it’s not that far along yet, but Connor...”
“He changed because he’s young. Add in a sudden dose of pain and the need for self-preservation overrides everything else.” Living far away from humans lessens the chances of discovery, although there’s never a guarantee. “But yes, the full moon matters.”
Christiana files that away with a mystified sigh. “So, uh. How strong are you, really?”
Right now, not very. “Compared to other wolves or compared to you?”
“Okay, I’m guessing the answer to both is ‘a lot.’” Slender fingers trace up my shoulder blade. I shudder, and she freezes. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupt, forcing any hesitation out of my voice. “I’m just not used to people touching me.”
Half a lie. Everyone in the pack is close as can be, but except for Talisa and Alejandra, the contact between us is purely platonic.
There isn’t anything platonic about how Christiana’s touch made me feel. Even through leather and cotton, it felt like her fingers traced a raw nerve that led between my thighs. No one’s ever done that to me before, and not for lack of trying.
Her hand stays where it is, not moving an inch. “So is the club some kind of cover? Because you have guns and a lot of money, and that doesn’t come from nowhere.”
Not from nowhere, no. I work my jaw, remembering how to speak. “It’s convenient. The bikes get us around, and the look scares almost everyone off. Except the kind of people we’re willing to fight in the first place. Becoming an outlaw wasn’t a hard transition.”
“Because you’re not part of society anyway, I guess.” Christiana laughs weakly. “But if you can wolf out, why are you packing heat?”
“Alejandra says it gives us the NFW factor.”
She frowns. “What’s that stand for?”
“Not to be Fucked With. The average person sees trouble and looks the other way. Even most cops do, because they’re not used to people that could actually give them a challenge. And we’ve ridden with a few other clubs before, so it seems legitimate. The Satyrs, the Centaurs. Even the East Bay Dragons once.”
That only partially answers her question, but the rest is too painful for me to touch. I don’t want to think about the money, about home. I don’t have any plans to go back anyway, so what does it matter?
Christiana’s eyes widen. “But those clubs are human, right? Or...”
This time I smile. “Far as I could tell, they’re just names. Ours is different for a reason. Do you want to know what it’s actually about?” As long as there are words coming out of my mouth, I can keep control.
“Yeah,” she whispers.
“Back in the 1600s, there was a werewolf named Theiss of Kaltenbrun. He tried to tell humans who we were, to convince them that we existed to protect the world and everything in it. We were hounds of God fighting the Devil at every turn.” Unfortunately, we do a lot less protecting than we used to. “Maybe he thought phrasing it biblically would convince them, but they convicted him of heresy and banished him for life.”
“Oh.” Christiana tenses in my embrace. “That sucks.”
Shortly afterward, he was hunted down by his own kind before they cut off his head. Our secret means everything, more than life itself. We put so many barriers between ourselves and humanity, you would think we didn’t spend most of the time on two legs.
“It does, but I’ve always admired how bold Theiss was. He didn’t want to hide our gifts away.”
The world would be so much different if we weren’t hiding, but after so many wars among ourselves, we don’t have a choice anymore. Werewolves are outnumbered a thousand to one, and humans are more powerful than ever.
She sniffles, but the heavy sobs from before have faded away. “Sorry. I totally drenched your vest.”
“It’s only leather.” And there’s been a lot worse on it than tears. “You feeling any better?”
“Kind of. I’m sitting at about fifty-fifty on the hallucinating idea.” Christiana leans back out of my arms, and I let them fall to each side. No sudden movements. “Is Connor going to be okay?”
“A broken bone is nothing to us. He’ll be a lot more worried about losing control once his head’s cleared up.” No one’s laying a hand on him under my watch. Connor’s barely nineteen. “I know how it might look, but he’s more a danger to himself than he is to you.”
Christiana reaches into her purse, pulling out a tissue to try to wipe away what remains of her makeup. “Micah, why are you doing this for me? I’ve fucked up your life in less than a day without even trying.”
She hasn’t, but I can’t explain why the deepest parts of me—mind, body, and soul—are so sure of that. “Sometimes the Devil is a man with a badge doing whatever he wants. I can’t let him win.”
“Way to make a girl feel special.” Her smile is small, weak with exhaustion. “So what next? The only thing I have left in this mess is a job. I can show up and sling drinks, but after...”
“Where do you work?” I ask.
“Bloody Mary’s. It’s a bar off the 264.”
That’s about a forty-minute ride. “How about this? I can pick you up and drop you off. It’ll let me keep an eye out for Andrew.”
“The only good thing about him being such a jerk is he’s never been there.” A harsh dose of wind whips across the dune, and Christiana fusses to set her hair back in place. “Every time I complained about work, he said I should get a real job.”
A growl brews in my throat, but I hold the sound in until it aches. She misreads my silence, biting her lip.
“Won’t I get in the way?” She gestures out towards the road. “All of you are so close, and I don’t know anything about camping in the woods and—”
That list will go on forever if I don’t intervene. “Christiana.”
Her heartbeat triples, and heat ricochets through my body, drawing every muscle tight until I’m fit to burst with longing. If that’s what happens when I say her name, what would happen if I—
No. Focus.
“I need you to keep my secret, and you need a safe place to stay.” That’s all this is: making a deal and sticking to it. “Fair trade in my book.”
Sunrise is only a few hours away, so I stand up and offer her my hand. Christiana’s fingers slip through mine with ease, grasping tight as she gets to her feet. I let go before I make a mistake, watching out of the corner of my eye while she brushes every bit of sand she can off of her clothes.
“Take it slow,” I warn, and start making my way back down the ledge. It’s an easy jump, but better to stay in arm’s reach.
With a careful shift of limbs, Christiana follows in my footsteps, quickening her pace once we’re on solid ground again. Keeping lockstep with humans is a hard-earned habit, but on a night like this, it’s tempting to run the earth until my lungs beg for mercy.
The bikes are clustered off the road as we approach, but Connor isn’t in the sidecar. He’s sitting with Royal on the shoulder, the distinct scent of dried salt betraying old tears. Talisa and Alejandra pause their conversation when they catch me on the wind, both of them watching Christiana like a cornered rabbit.
Thankfully, she takes it in stride. “Sorry for running off. It’s been a really shitty day.”
Alejandra raises an eyebrow. “Baby, we’re the monsters that go bump in the night. You don’t have to be apologizing to us.”
“I only have one monster in my life,” Christiana insists, with far more force than I expect, “and Micah said she’d keep me safe from him.”
“You’re not gonna tell anybody?” Connor’s voice is wrecked, drawn to a rasp from howls in a human throat, from sobs of primal fear. “I wasn’t thinking. Talisa said slow down and I went for the brake...”
Royal pats him on the back. “We’ll practice emergency stops later.”
“I’m not telling anybody,” Christiana confirms, and there’s no hint of a lie in her voice. “But, um, expect a lot more dumb questions.”
Talisa straddles her bike, flipping the key with a hard click. “Let’s get back to camp, yeah? We’re lucky the road stayed clear.”
Very damn lucky. “Yeah.”
Christiana climbs on behind me without needing any help, then scoots up so she’s flush against my back. Her arms around my stomach are equal parts relief and distraction, soft fingers grasping at the hem of my shirt. It would take so little for them to slip underneath. I’m no stranger to skin hunger, but this—
Shaking my head, I start the ignition. When the engine fires, my boots leave the ground, getting us back on the highway smooth as can be. Christiana is silent the whole way back to the park, and stifles a yawn while following me at the bottom of the hill.
“We’ll have to get you a pillow,” I comment, rolling the bike up the dirt until the campfire comes into view.
“Guess I can’t borrow your vest every time I crash.” Heat tapers up her face. I can sense it, even in the dark. “Thanks for that. For, well, everything.”
She shouldn’t be thanking me. I need to get a handle on myself ASAP.
Christiana makes a beeline to her sleeping bag, and Connor does the same for his. Royal will look out for him, but I need a few minutes to myself. It’s Alejandra’s turn for last watch, so I call her over with a look.
“I have to talk to Vera,” I say quietly. Talisa might hear anyway, but after what happened, I doubt she’d try and stop me. “Keep an eye on Christiana?”
“Is Vera going to explain why a human wants to party with us?” Dark brown eyes dart toward Christiana’s sleeping bag. She’s already unconscious. “I mean, it’s way better than screaming her head off, but I don’t know, Micah.”
I frown. “You don’t know what?”
“What’s gotten into you.” Alejandra takes a step closer, lips right under my ear. “You want to break the rules, I’m cool with that. But be ready for the worst. A lot of humans want us, even they don’t know why. Except it never lasts, because our kinds don’t mix. Not for the long haul, anyway.”
She’s speaking from personal experience. Before Talisa, Alejandra left a long trail of broken hearts behind. No judgment. My past relationships aren’t anything to be proud of either. They were brief, and never satisfied me. Being with someone who wasn’t my true mate felt pointless.
“I’m not doing anything with her,” I answer, voice low. “That’s just asking to be a rebound, isn’t it?”
I want Christiana, but I shouldn’t. Flirting with the idea is setting us both up for misery. Even if this is mutual, even if something is drawing us together, being with me would put a target on her back—and she already has Andrew to worry about.
Alejandra leans back, a knowing smile on her lips. “Well, yeah. Sometimes that’s fun too. Depends on what you want.”
Maybe I don’t have enough experience to compare, but something that transactional sets my teeth on edge. “I’m going up to Vera.”
Her cabin is a short walk through the woods, nestled among the pines and a jagged shear of red rock. Out this far there’s no signs or trail, because this land was never meant to be part of the park in the first place. The government forced this stretch of trees out of Hopi hands decades ago, but Vera has been Warden of this region since before Arizona was torn out of Mexico.
Her door is closed, but I know Vera’s inside, running a brush through her hair. The sound is slow and rhythmic, pausing when I approach. “Come in, Micah.”
There’s no lock on the cabin, but a cold shock ripples down my spine as I pass through the threshold. Werewolf or human, Vera’s power works on everyone. Suffice to say, permission to enter isn’t optional.
Her ranger uniform hangs on a hook beside the door, the gray shirt and badge barely weathered. She doesn’t wear it much. Vera is on her feet, wearing a loose, cognac-colored shirt and jeans worn through at the knees. Every stroke of the brush is from head to hip, working through a wave of black hair until it shines in the light.
“Usually I come calling on you, not the other way around.” She sets the brush aside. “Tea?”
I nod, and she takes two mugs from a wooden nook, setting them on the table between us. Two lobes of greenthread go into Vera’s pot, doused in water before the gas stove flickers to life.
“I imagine this has to do with our new guest.” The water hits a boil much faster than it should, and Vera pours a deep orange tea into each mug. After she sits down, I do the same. “Her scent is covering you.”
Vera is human, technically. Every Warden starts out that way, until they learn the rites that change them forever. I’m not familiar with the details, but I’m not supposed to be. A Warden can’t keep the peace without protection from bad actors. More than one alpha has tried to suss out their weaknesses as leverage, but none of them got far. The oldest packs surrendered their memories of those vulnerabilities long, long ago, and for good reason. As a result, she knows a lot more about me than I do about her.
“Her scent is making me lose my mind,” I mutter. “That shouldn’t happen. It can’t. She’s human. A mating bond is impossible.”
Once I say the words, putting the concept on the table, the weight of it drops on my shoulders, heavy enough to crush me. Is Christiana my mate? Is this forever? Where I grew up, the truth was always instant, an undeniable and unstoppable joy. There wasn’t supposed to be any doubt—or anyone else in the way.
“Micah.” Vera’s mouth quirks into a wry smile. “You’ve rebelled against everything your mother ever taught you, and you still think that’s true?”
I stare at her, uncomprehending. “You’ve never said anything about this before.”
Vera’s smile fades, and she takes a long sip of her tea. She stays silent for so long, I’m not sure if she’s going to answer me at all.
“Your kind is, as a rule, invested...in its isolation.” I’ve never heard her mince words before like this, every syllable measured and cut. “Now, there are oaths that I can’t break, but I won’t let you think that bonding with a human is impossible because of something in your blood. It simply isn’t true.”
“I...” My hands tense around the mug, so tight the ceramic cracks. Not enough for the tea to spill, but a soft drop would shatter it. “Damn it. I didn’t mean to—”
“I can fix it,” Vera says casually, eyes still locked on mine. “You’ve never felt this pull before, have you? It’s brand-new.”
I nod again, but my head’s spinning. The laws of our society are broken and dated, but I never had reason to question something that seemed like simple biology. Sure, werewolves have been physically intimate with humans since time began, but it’s always been said the bond was sacred, ours alone.
“She might be your first, or your only. Don’t worry about that right now.” I’ve never heard Vera speak to me so gently, like I’m something to be cradled. It stings, because I need it. “Tell me what you really came here for.”
If Christiana stays, she’ll be here for the full moon. If I don’t keep a hold of my rage, I could rip her to pieces.
I pull the cash from my pocket and peel off a fair share of it, setting the money next to Vera’s cup. Her gaze turns curious. “Generous. What’s it for?”
“I need something to stop me from changing when the full moon comes,” I say. “Can you do that?”
Her silence is no comfort. We both know what I’m asking for is wrong.
“Nothing wounds deeper than stifling your nature.” Vera takes the money, not bothering to count before slipping it into her pocket. I would never short-change her. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
I take a sip of the tea. It’s cold as ice.