My whole body aches, throbbing with unspent heat. Everywhere that Christiana touched me burns even hotter, like brands on my shoulders and stomach. I’d blamed it on riding in the desert, but even after sunset, my head’s still spinning.
This doesn’t make any sense. There’s no way that she—
The only way I keep a straight face is a lifetime of practice, hiding what needs to be hidden. Without control, I’m nothing. Christiana’s scent’s all over me, and every single member of my pack knows it.
They also know she’s human, which is going to make things a lot more complicated.
She hasn’t noticed Alejandra’s eyes flickering over to me, the subtle flare in her nostrils, asking a question without words. Talisa’s curious too, giving a firm tilt of her head back toward the woods: we need to talk.
I suppose we do. Never got anything in my life by backing down.
“Hey, Connor.” His head snaps up at the sound of my voice. Younger wolves are like that, ears always bent for a lesson. “Drag the cooler out and let our guest pick out something to eat. Talisa and I need a moment to catch up.”
Alejandra purses her lips. “And I’m not invited?”
“You can’t follow your girlfriend everywhere,” Royal chimes in. “Healthy boundaries are important.”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s no malice in it. Talisa will tell her everything later, and that’s fine by me. A pack is bound to have plenty of secrets, but we never keep them from each other.
We’re not supposed to, anyway.
Getting out of earshot means a five-minute walk through the woods, just shy of the river pouring downhill toward the lake. Even near the water, with pine sap congealing like amber on dark and fragrant bark, the primal markers of rut and relief from animals passing by, I can still smell Christiana like she’s standing right next to me.
Why? I pull a panel of my vest to my face, breathing in to try to figure out the source, what’s hiding underneath.
It’s a mistake. My entire body lights up with raw instinct, the wolf in my mind snapping alert. I feel my eyes bleed gold, the world sharpening at its edges, and straighten up, letting go of my vest with a growl.
“Allergic to good perfume or something?” Talisa teases.
“Is that what it is?” I mutter, leaning back against the closest pine. “You wanted to talk. I’m listening.”
Listening to Talisa is second nature. We’ve been friends since we were young enough to run around our mothers’ knees, and she’s six months older even if I’m six inches taller. I trust her, look up to her, which is the only reason we didn’t break each other in two when my first change proved I was an alpha and suddenly put me in charge.
It also officially made me my mother’s heir, next in line to rule with an iron fist over the wolves of the Pacific Northwest. Her word is law, enforced by blood, and I’ve never wanted anything to do with it. It’s the worst mix of politics and genetics anyone could ask for, which is why I keep the pack a long way from home. No one’s here to stop us from living how we want.
But to say it gave me a complex around authority might be an understatement.
Talisa raises a brow. “You’re the most coolheaded alpha I know, so there has to be a damn good reason you dragged a human up here without so much as a howl on the wind.”
She’s right. I should have pulled off the road and found somewhere with a phone, but the only thing I could focus on was Christiana’s arms tight around my stomach and the way her fear bled away the moment she touched me.
I breathe in. Her scent washes over me again, soaked through the leather that marks everything I am. There’s certainly perfume, with a cold foundation of alcohol underneath notes of rose and pomegranate, but that doesn’t explain the taste of honey on the back of my tongue, the hint of salt like I’ve run my tongue across her bronze skin. Coolheaded is the last way I’d describe myself right now.
“Micah.” The annoyance on Talisa’s face fades away to concern. She gestures up at my eyes. “You good?”
“Too much adrenaline.” At least, I think so. “I did just ride fifty miles to ditch a cop with a human hanging off the back of my bike.”
“Cops?” Her irritation returns, but it has nothing to do with me. Neither one of us have a high opinion of law enforcement—be it werewolf or human. “What kind of trouble is she in—are you in? I thought you were just going for a spin to clear your head.”
That had certainly been the plan. “She’s a runaway.”
“From what, her parents?” Talisa frowns. “She looks grown to me.”
Christiana is a couple of years younger than me, but unmistakably a full-bodied woman. The way she pushed against my back made that clear enough.
First Wolf take me, why is that what’s weighing on my mind? Sure, I’m into women, but I have a lot of other things to deal with that don’t involve getting intimate.
Talisa’s staring at me again. I clear my throat. “Her ex is some highway patrol meathead who thinks she’s playing hard to get. She was so scared of what he’d do, she blew a tire trying to get away.”
“Shit.” Talisa twists a loc between her fingertips, flicking the dyed end back and forth like a rattler’s tail. “Look, I know we try to shepherd the helpless and all that, but we took on Connor too, and he’s young. There’s a limit to how many people we can babysit, and he’s a wolf. Christiana’s not.”
She certainly isn’t, which is why this scent thing is wearing at me like bone between my teeth. “Connor has a lot more control than he used to. He’s not going to sprout a tail just because there’s a new face around.”
“No, he’s better than that,” Talisa admits, but she doesn’t look happy. “Full moon’s in a week, Micah. We can give Christiana a place to hide out for the next, I don’t know...next few days, tops. Then we’ll have to drop her off at a shelter or something.”
Talisa’s right, but the truth claws at the inside of my stomach, twisting deep in my gut. What had I been thinking, bringing her out here? That’s a heavy enough question, but doesn’t concern me so much as why the thought of letting Christiana go has the wolf in my head pacing with tension.
Without answers, I have to stay focused on the present. “We’ll figure it out. Did I miss anything when I was gone?”
Talisa nods. “Vera stopped by with a box of meds for us to run over to the reservation. P.D. cleaned their last shipment out of anything stronger than an aspirin.”
Badges just can’t help themselves. “Whatever Vera wants, she gets. When’s the run?”
“She asked for tonight, if we could.”
That’s very last minute, but I can’t argue. Some humans die if they miss a single dose of what they need. I owe Vera anyway; if she had reported what happened last month, chances are I would be dead. “Yeah, go ahead. Take Alejandra and Connor.”
Her mouth tenses. “I was going to take Royal.”
“They had third watch last night and Connor has to learn how to ride quiet. I’ll watch Christiana, Royal can sleep.” Even a werewolf can fall off a bike if they’re too tired. “You know Alejandra will drag our boy around by the scruff if he’s not listening.”
“Yeah. One of the many reasons I love her.” Talisa’s teeth flash in a delighted smile. “And good talk. I’m far less invested in busting your ass than I was ten minutes ago.”
A lot of wolves think being alpha means ordering everyone around, but in practice, it’s a lot more about keeping the peace. “Glad to hear it. If you head on back, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Talisa tilts her head, curious. “You have someplace else to be?”
Yes, but in front of her, I have to play it off. “I need to take a piss. Assumed you want to be downwind.”
“Pfft, alphas.” She straightens up, starting to make her way back toward camp. “Always have to be marking your territory.”
The true test of us being best friends is that Talisa has been making that joke for ten years, and I still let it slide. “See you in a minute.”
Once the sound of her boots scraping earth is gone, I take care of business and zip my jeans back up. It’s a short walk to the river from here. I drop to one knee, plunging my hands into the cold water, and it’s a frigid shock even to my system. The desert gets merciless at night, but it suits me well.
I lied to Talisa, which doesn’t help the tension churning in my gut. The plan was never to go right back to camp.
Instead I call to my inner wolf, willing the change. I’ve been able to shift since my fourteenth birthday, taking on whatever shape between human and beast that pleases me. It should be the easiest thing in the world, painless and fluid. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched other wolves transform, but it’s always beautiful.
My blood boils. Every bone in my body splinters, seizes, forces itself back together again. I hold in a roar of pain, but the world around me is drenched in red, dripping and hot. Tension ripples along my jaw, ready to bite deep, to rip and tear as my claws sink through flesh, and he screams, eyes blown with terror, limp in my grasp right before I—
I shove my head in the water and keep it there, ignoring as panicked pressure builds in my lungs, straining for breath. My hands swipe mindlessly at the rocks at the bottom of the river, crushing stones to fine grit until I can finally make a fist again. Blunt, steady, stable.
As the rage bleeds away, I rise up slow, water dripping in cold rivulets down my face and soaking my shirt. Every inhale hurts, but I’m myself again.
Three weeks ago, the pack and I caught a man dragging a woman through the desert. He had done much worse to her before that point, enough for me to smell the blood before we even got close. When I grabbed him, he drew a gun on me, saying to fuck off—he took care of punks like us all the time. Outrage drove me to break one of the oldest laws we have: never show a human your true face.
Anger devoured everything. I had been ready to let him bleed out when I saw the badge hidden on his belt. Exposing what I was put me at risk, but killing a cop would put the pack on the hook, hunted for life. So we’d left him with his phone dialed to 911, and Talisa took the woman he hurt somewhere she’d be safe. It had to be Talisa, because I’d terrified her beyond logic or reason.
Now whenever I try to change, the transformation stalls out. There’s no peace, no relief slipping into my second skin. It’s like being stuck in amber, reliving that moment of rage, over and over and over. The pain I can bear, but the shame chasing after is fit to consume me. I lost control, I put the people I care about in danger, and the one I wanted to save saw nothing but a monster.
I would ask the First Wolf for mercy, but this is my own damn fault. And here I am, trying to play the hero again.
With a growl, I wipe my hands dry on my jeans and stand up. There’s no point in feeling sorry for myself when there’s work to be done, and whether or not it was a good idea, I brought Christiana here. Watching over her is my responsibility and no one else’s.
Connor is arriving with the cooler when I come back, setting it down by the fire with a solid thunk. Christiana leans over to look inside as he tugs back the lid, only to jump a step in surprise. Royal cracks a smile but is too polite to laugh.
“That is the most meat I have ever seen at once in my life,” she mutters, and Alejandra does laugh at that, eyes dark with mirth.
“We hunt local,” I chime in, stepping closer to the fire. Christiana must not have heard me approach, because her pulse rockets before slowing back down. “Tastes a lot better that way. Trust me.”
“If you’re a vegetarian, I’ve got some protein bars in my saddlebags,” Connor says.
“Don’t eat them,” Alejandra interrupts. “They taste like someone filtered kombucha through cardboard.”
Christiana winces. “Meat’s okay. I just usually get it at a drive-through. This is a cook-your-own kind of thing, yeah?”
Usually we don’t cook it whatsoever, but that would be difficult to explain. “I’ll help you. There’s a few tricks when you’re working with an open fire.”
She smiles, and my heart thumps hard against the inside of my chest. Even with ash and char on the air, Christiana’s scent is stronger, warm and welcoming in a way I can’t explain.
I mean, there’s the obvious. A few strands of dark brown hair have fallen out of Christiana’s messy bun, spilling across her brow and cradling her cheek. Warm eyes the color of heartwood linger on mine, but I follow them down the wide bridge of her nose to full lips, shining with a hint of gloss.
She’s beautiful, but I’ve run into plenty of beautiful women before—werewolf and human—yet none of them have ever made me feel so...fixated.
The thought alone stops me cold. Christiana just escaped some bastard stalking her; she certainly doesn’t need my uninvited attention.
“Yeah, uh.” She clears her throat, face warm with heat. Something had made her blush, but I’d missed it. “That would be great.”
Right. Cooking.
I rifle through the duffel full of our camp supplies, digging out some tongs and little stashes of salt and pepper. Talisa sets a makeshift grill of wire mesh over the flames, a remnant from one of her art projects repurposed by necessity. We do our best not to waste anything, especially living on borrowed land.
There’s no table to speak of, but the piece of wood Talisa carved into a cutting board works well enough. I sit down next to Christiana on the log, hands at the ready. “Pick what you like and I’ll prep it for you.”
“Get something with some fat on it, trust me,” Alejandra comments, looking over Connor’s shoulder to select her own cut. “Dry meat is no one’s friend.”
Christiana wavers a bit before picking up the steak, but perseveres long enough to set it across the cutting board. Cute. I season both sides with salt and pepper, adding extra to the edges to make sure it’ll get a proper crust. Royal stokes the fire, encouraging more and more heat until the wood burns white.
“So your club lives out here like this?” Christiana asks. There’s no judgment in her voice, merely curiosity. “Haven’t the park rangers noticed a pack of bikes going up and down the trails every day?”
Pack being the operative word. “Most of them aren’t out here at night, much less this deep in the woods. And they...give us space.”
“Who’d want to fuck with a crew like us, right?” Alejandra laughs, lacing her fingers tight with Talisa’s. “You’ll be safe from whatever brought you here.”
Fear flashes across Christiana’s face, but it’s gone in a blink. “Guess I probably owe everyone else an explanation. Especially since I’m crashing in your spot.”
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” Royal answers, shrugging their shoulders. “We trust Micah. Like, life-and-death kind of trust. She wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t important.”
Guilt seizes my heart and squeezes slow, pulling my whole chest tight. I don’t deserve unconditional loyalty, not anymore.
Rather than let the feeling linger, I throw Christiana’s steak on the fire, arranging the others around the grill so everything can cook evenly. I’m not even hungry, but maybe five pounds of roasting meat will make my nose focus somewhere else.
“It’s my ex-boyfriend,” Christiana says, managing a weak smile. “He kind of...tore up my apartment and chased me down the highway for an hour after we broke up. Shockingly, I’m still not convinced we’re a good fit for each other.”
“Fuck,” Alejandra mutters. “You know, if he’s really that bad—”
I know exactly where she’s going. “We can’t roll him in a sleeping bag and kick the shit out of him. He’s got a badge.”
She hisses in utter distaste. Royal pulls a face too, although Talisa doesn’t bother feigning surprise. Even before last month, there’s not a single wolf here that hasn’t had a run-in with the law, often when we’re trying to be helpful.
Scratch that. Especially when we’re trying to be helpful.
Christiana stares at me, caught between disbelief and shock. “Do you, uh, do that to a lot of other people?”
Alejandra leans back against her hands. “Depends. If we run into a trafficker, sure. People playing militia in the desert. Or drunk chucklefucks who think driving into the rez next door going one-twenty is a good way to entertain themselves.”
“You know, the folks that never seem to get arrested,” Talisa adds.
A firm warning goes a long way. Most of the people we confront have never been scared before, not really. They think they’re untouchable, that they can hurt whoever they want without consequence.
Not around here, they can’t.
“We try to keep people safe,” I say quietly. “Especially the ones who would suffer if they tried to fight back. Sometimes folks need a bit of timely backup.”
“We’re kind of a force multiplier,” Alejandra jokes.
Christiana smiles again, and I divert my eyes back to the fire. It doesn’t take long for dinner to be ready, and even with a guest, everyone falls into their usual jokes and small talk. I listen, like always, mechanically working through each bite. By the time our makeshift plates are clear, the stars are shining glorious and the fire is low enough to sleep by.
“So, awkward question.” Christiana bites her lip. “Where am I crashing?”
Connor’s on his feet in an instant, eager to please. “Oh, we got an extra sleeping bag. Let me find it.”
“Not much in the way of frills, I’m afraid.” I haven’t owned a pillow since I left Seattle. “But it’s warm and pretty soft.”
“I don’t mind.” Christiana stretches both arms over her head, leaning back and exposing the full line of her throat. My mouth goes dry. “It’ll be like a sleepover. I didn’t get enough of those back in high school.”
Talisa shoots me a firm is she serious look, and I shrug. Better that we seem harmless—mostly—than Christiana having any idea of what we truly are. Thankfully, Connor secures the sleeping bag in record time and lays it out on the flattest patch of earth he can find.
“I’m pretty tired, actually.” Reaching back for the band holding her bun together, Christiana works it loose, hair spilling in a dark wave down her shoulders. The spike in her scent is unmistakable, and I still don’t have the first clue what’s gotten into me. She’s human. “Is it okay if I knock out now?”
“Sure thing,” I say.
I have to quit staring at her.
Talisa’s due to make the run in about an hour, although I expect Christiana will be too exhausted to wake up and notice. Royal is in the same state, bedding down on the other side of the fire and falling asleep within seconds.
Eventually, I’m the only one awake by the pit, watching orange sparks flutter like fireflies through the schism of scorched wood. On most nights it’s where I find peace, a home fit together from the in-betweens of nature. I love everyone in the pack more than my own blood, but sometimes I can’t think unless I’m alone.
Except even with the others asleep, I’m not alone, not truly. Royal’s resting easy, but Christiana keeps tossing and turning. Her heart quickens, chasing a dream—or more likely, a nightmare. Then her eyes flutter, still unconscious, body tight as a tripwire. Slender fingers clutch the inside of her sleeping bag, gouging it from within.
I could wake her up, but there’s little chance she’d be able to fall back asleep.
Getting to my feet slow and quiet, I strip off my vest and turn it inside out, exposing the soft lining. It folds with ease, warm from wear, first in halves and then in quarters. The result is a rough, heavy square. Not much of a pillow, but it’s all I have.
The next time Christiana lifts her head and starts to turn, I put the vest underneath in a blur of speed. She settles back against it with a murmur, brow knitting in silent, momentary confusion. With another breath, her body relaxes, heartbeat tumbling down.
There we go.
A lot of bikers I know would rather bite off a hand than give up their cut, but I’m used to slipping my skin. The leather already smells like her, anyway.
Staying quiet, I return to the fire. It hasn’t changed a bit, but I can’t focus on the glow. More than anything, I want to curl up next to Christiana and fall asleep.
What’s happening to me?