Outside the window, the sky has gone gray before sunrise. The clock on the nightstand reads 4:47.
I ease my arm out from under her shoulders. She makes a small, protesting hum, and her hand slides across my chest, searching for the warmth I’m taking with me. My ribs do something painful. For one breath, I press my palm against her back, for two, and then I roll her gently onto the pillow.
Settling, her hair falls across her cheek. She doesn’t wake.
Time to move.
I pull on running shorts and a tee from the chair by the window. The floorboards in the hall creak under my feet. Out of habit, I stop at Ethan’s door, push it wider, and look in. He’s a small lump under his blanket, one fist curled around ChuChu’s worn ear, mouth open. The door clicks shut behind me without a sound.
The patio is wet with dew. Those two garden chairs sit where Miranda and I sat the night she drank my beer, telling me she used to be the life of the party. My gaze lingers for a second too long before I keep walking.
The lawn ends at the tree line. Past the tree line, I’m invisible. Inside it, with the sliding doors facing this stretch of grass, I’m not. If Miranda wakes early and looks out, she’ll catch me. So I don’t shift here.
Deeper into the woods I go. Past the first ridge, then the second. The mansion shrinks behind me until it’s a pale outline between trunks. There’s a particular pine I use for this, thick bark with a low branch. My shorts and shirt I hang carefully over the branch, set my shoes underneath, and then I let the change come.
The shift moves through me in a hard wave. Bones reset, muscle reshapes, that brief flare of pain feels like a tax for putting it off too long. Then I’m on four legs, breathing in the cold mountain air, running.
The wolf knows this ground. I take the slope hard, paws striking dirt and root, lungs burning in the cold. The burn is what I came for. I want the noise in my head drowned out by something physical, anything physical, because that din has been getting worse for three days, and I’m running out of ways to quiet it.
Higher up the rise I push. The ground is soft under my pads, while the pines have gone still.
I gave her my grandmother’s ring.
Why?
I’m too impulsive where she’s concerned. I could have bought a ring, an expensive one, but having her tied to me like this, even if it’s fake, makes me want to do more.
I push myself further, straining my muscles, desperate to outrun these thoughts and desires. I want her adorned in thebest of the best. I want the world to know she’s mine. My wolf is in complete agreement, but common sense wars within me.
Ever since she signed those contracts, a small part of me is desperate to find a loophole to keep her in my life. Maybe, just maybe if I hold my wolf back, I don’t have to give her a mating mark. I can turn this arrangement into something real. If Coach sees how attached Ethan is to her, he might agree to actually allow this relationship.
My wolf purrs in agreement.
My paws hit the dirt, and the bond hums under everything. Low and constant, growing louder by the day. I keep circling back to what would happen if I just let it. If I stopped fighting the pull and let myself have her properly. I picture days that end with her in my bed because she wants to be there. Mornings like this one without the guilt clawing at my throat. Her safety could be guaranteed. I could keep my mouth off the place on her neck where the mark would go so the Council would have no grounds to act. Relationships between shifters and humans get tolerated only if the alpha approves it. I’ve never heard of one, but if Coach has already approved this in the eyes of the pack and the Council, maybe he doesn’t have to retract it.
So in theory I could make this work.
I stop on the ridge, chest heaving, wolf breath fogging the air, finally letting myself look at it directly.
A relationship without the mark. It will always be incomplete, my wolf will be desperate and unhappy, but that’s the only other alternative. The other option is I let her go, live without her.
Sitting on my haunches, I close my eyes.
When I married Vanessa, she had pursued me for a long time. She was beautiful, and I was enchanted. I didn’t realize the woman who existed behind that beautiful mask was ugly to the core. My wolf never wanted to give her the mark, andshe always fought with me over it. I tried, but my wolf refused. To compensate her, I let her live the extravagant lifestyle she enjoyed.
Our animals are sharp and intelligent. They understand more than our human sides do. And my wolf probably recognized what she was before I ever could. It didn’t want to tie itself down with her. But with Miranda, it is salivating to mark her, to make her ours in every way.
I huff, pawing at the ground.
I can’t make that mistake.
My brother thought he could circumvent the Council and the Accord. That if he gave his mate the mark, they would have no choice. And now they’re both gone.
All I have to do is avoid giving her the mark.
I start running again. The sun is rising by the time I turn back, my muscles feeling the strain of the past hour. Back at the pine, the shift comes again. I’ve just pulled on my pants when the wind shifts.
Miranda’s scent reaches me, and I lift my head, alarmed. Shirt in hand, I walk over to the tree line and look around. That’s when I see her, standing at the edge of an old oak tree, looking down at something. I stare at her, emotions twisting inside me.
