By the time the change finishes, he’s no longer keeping pace.
He is setting it.
Massive, fast, and controlled in a way that makes the violence of it worse somehow, because none of this is accidental. Every movement lands with precision, claws biting into the forest floor, muscles coiling and releasing with brutal efficiency as he runs.
A wolf.
No.
Not just a wolf.
Something older, larger, built from the same rules but pushed further than nature ever intended.
My body reacts before my thoughts can catch up, and something slams into me like a tidal wave, like my instincts know exactly what this is and my brain is still scrambling to catch the fuck up. I have a deep connection to him that I cannot control.
It isn’t hunger. I know what hunger feels like by now, because I’ve been living inside it for days. This is different. This feels like instinct grabbing me by the throat before my brain can catch up. Like something missing just slammed into place so hard I feel the impact in my bones.
I glance at him.
He’s already looking at me.
Gold eyes, mid-run, locked on mine for one fraction of a second with an expression I can’t read at this speed, and then we’re both looking forward again, and the deer is close and the moment is gone.
But the echo of it doesn’t go anywhere.
Heat flares low in my chest, sharper now.
But we run.
No words.
No need.
Two predators cutting through the dark, moving toward the same point with a shared certainty that settles deep in my bones, and the alignment of it, the sheer, undeniable rightness of running beside him like this, sends a warmth through me that has nothing to do with the cold night air.
The deer is close. I can feel its heartbeat stuttering with fear, can smell the hot musk of its panic, can hear the desperate scramble of hooves on frozen earth as it cuts hard between two ancient pines, and I cut with it, perfectly matched, reaching, reaching—
And then Rogue comes from the left at the exact same moment I come from the right.
We crash into each other at full supernatural speed, his shoulder slamming into mine, and the impact throws us both sideways. I hit a tree trunk with enough force to crack the bark, and the deer, the beautiful terrified deer and its perfect drumming heartbeat, tears away into the darkness and is gone.
The silence that follows is enormous.
I straighten, slowly. Fury is building in my chest with every second it takes me to register what just happened. The hunger that had been channeled, focused, aimed like an arrow at a target, now has nowhere to go. It turns and finds the nearest available body, which is Rogue, standing three feet away in the dark, breathing hard, now in human form, looking not at all apologetic about the collision that cost us everything.
“You cut across me,” I snap, though the words come out very quiet and controlled. In my experience, the most dangerous sounds are the quiet ones.
He raises an eyebrow. “I had the angle.”
“You didnothave the angle.Ihad the angle. I’ve been tracking that deer for ten minutes, and you came in from the left like a raging fucking bull. You blew it, furball.” My voice is climbing, the control cracking at the seams. The hunger roars up through the crack like smoke through a gap. “I almost had him. I was right there!”
“Your approach was too high. You would have overshot.”
“I would not have overshot. I was perfectly positioned, and now he’s gone because you think you know everything, and clearly you don’t know enough to stay in your lane when someone else has already—”
“Charlie.” His voice holds steady, but the strain underneath it is unmistakable.
“Don’t‘Charlie’me, I’m furious with you right now—”
