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Damian’s hand on the back of my spine. Damian’s scent in my nostrils. Oh, Damian, my scent match, my destiny. Suddenly, he was all I wanted, with a singularity that focused absolutely everything, my human self and my wolf coming directly into alignment.

Merging.

The shift jerked through me, painful but quick.

I stood in wolf form, panting pained pants, but fully shifted. It was like being in an entirely new world, the reality of the forest from the wolf’s perspective, the reality of heat from this perspective. I could still smell Damian. I still wanted Damian. The wolf didn’t make a distinction between human and wolf forms. I didn’t know if that could happen—sex with one of us in human form and one in animal form. I felt that my wolf would object to it as unnatural and strange, but that with Damian, my scent match, nothing was out of bounds.

The air felt cleaner, and I felt more in tune with myself and my wants. But my heat was more intense.

Every other time that I’d been in wolf form, shifting meant that I could redirect the energy of my heat, turning it from wanting sex to wanting something else—running or hunting or something like that. But with Damian right there, his scent having helped me to shift, I could not find the thread of that.

I just wanted him.

I wanted him to mount me, right now—in human form, in wolf form, I did not care—and take me. And then I wanted his teeth in me. I wanted him to finally claim me as his.

“Leo, run,” said Vincent to me. “Run, now.”

I only stood there, my tongue hanging out, panting away.

“Omega,” said Vincent. “Run.”

A war in me at that. Vincent taking dominance, telling me what to do, accepting the position as my alpha collided with my natural inclination for Damian, and I was not sure what to do with it as it fizzled through me, making me feel dizzy, unable to catch my breath.

But then, somehow, it was as if the collision had burned through all of the feelings of confusion, and I was suddenly in charge of myself in a way that I had not been since the heat began.

I knew what I wanted, and it was not actually to be claimed by Damian. I wanted free of that man. I could not forgive him, and he didn’t even want me!

I took off running.

“No, Damian, what are you doing?” cried Vincent.

The only response was a howl.

I looked back to see that Damian had shifted. He was coming after me.

“For fuck’s sake,” said Vincent, groaning, tugging his shirt over his head.

He shifted too.

I had a head start. I took off through the woods, running as quickly as I could, leaping over felled trees, dodging briar patches and stray limbs, my instinctive animal self using all of its senses to find the easiest path through everything. I ran and ran, feeling alive, feeling whole, feeling my wolf, running past the heat in the way that I always had.

When I looked behind me, though, they were both coming after me.

And they were gaining.

I crested a hill, coming into a clearing in the trees, the sunlight streaming down to kiss my fur.

Damian burst out of the underbrush, right behind me, his wolf streaking towards me.

I whined, my wolf self feeling the push of our connection. I presented for him, turning, moving my tail, giving him access to mount me—

And Vincent tackled Damian and the two rolled over and over in the clearing, snarling at each other.

I stayed and watched them fighting, teeth and claws and growls…

And then I realized Vincent had done this so that I could get free, and I took off again.

I ran.