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“It’s dark.I need…just take the horses back, okay?I need a break.”
“Yeah, sure.Of course.You want company?”
I shook my head.“I’ll be back soon.”
“I know you will,” Micah said.“Love you, brother.”
Great, now I felt worse.Micah was so damned nice.Flint was only a year younger than me, and we’d grown up competing for everything.Most of our interactions were antagonistic, and we both liked it that way.Micah had come along much later, after my sister Ruby.He’d been just a baby when Dad and Ruby died.His sweet, kind nature had been a huge comfort to my mother, and he’d never really grown out of it.
It wasn’t his fault that his easy charm and easy life made me jealous.
I could apologize later.For now, I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of the simple leather bracelet around my wrist.It was holding my heartstone, a chunk of unpolished citrine, against my skin.It had been agitated all afternoon.When I finally pushed my attention into it, it flared with life.
There was only a sliver of moon in the sky, but the night around me grew brighter as my vision sharpened.It hurt—it always hurts—but it’s a good pain, like the first stretch in the morning.My hips angled back as my spine realigned and my ribs expanded.My fingers thickened, shortened, and sprouted thick black fur.My groan of pain became a growl as I dropped to all fours, feeling my jaw elongate and thick, sharp teeth fill my mouth.
I shuddered, settling into my new skin.And breathed deeply for the first time in hours.
When I opened my eyes, they were the eyes of a wolf.
Micah was still watching, but all the complications of our relationship had disappeared.Jealousy, guilt, inadequacy—wolves didn’t feel those things.He was simply my brotherwolf, reaching out to stroke a hand down my back.The horses knickered softly as the wind changed, and I knew I needed to get away from them before they spooked.I nuzzled my head into Micah’s hip, then ran off into the night.
Being a wolf is always simpler.My senses were more powerful, and they overwhelmed any attempt at rational thought.I could taste the grass, smell the wind, see the passage of time as the stars wheeled overhead.And I could feel the emotion that lay beneath all my caution and caginess and denial.
Joy.
I had found my mate.
The human part of me would have been listing caveats, excuses, tests to be certain.The human part of me had been trying to talk myself out of what I felt since we’d left Missoula.But the wolf in me knew the truth and didn’t care about all the reasons it could never work.The wolf in me was bursting with gratitude that she existed, and that I’d found her.
I ran and ran, enjoying the flood of delight that made the ground roll away under my feet.I didn’t let myself deny it.I’d have to be a human again soon enough.
I smelled them before I saw them—a wolf pack, resting nearby before the night’s hunt.I slowed and changed course to stay downwind.Long ago, when Twisted Pines was founded, shifters ran with wolf packs.After all, they were our cousins.But as Montana got more settled, farmers and ranchers killed off any wolf they saw because they threatened livestock.We couldn’t protect them all.
Under the former Alpha, Victoria, shifters actually hunted and killed the wolves because they didn’t want the competition for food.My mother put a stop to that, but they haven’t trusted us again.Their lives are short, but their collective memory is long.I didn’t want to scare them, so I reluctantly turned toward the village.
Legend says that in the early days of Twisted Pines, shifters could share minds with the wolves and other animals the way we can with each other.I wished I could tell the wolves that we meant them no harm, and that they would be protected as long as they were on our land.But it’s been a long time since someone in our clan could mindshare like that.
The communication barrier between Edie and I was just as high.She’d never understand what it is to be one of us.Besides, I couldn’t ask her to leave her fancy position in Baltimore to live with me in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.She’d never make it through the winter.Other shifters had human mates, but they were usually someone who had grown up nearby or chosen to live here.
Edie hadn’t chosen any of this.
And I had responsibilities: to my home, to my family, to my work.To the wolf inside me, who needed room to run.I could no more live in her world than she could in mine.I wished to the stars above that we hadn’t touched, even though that brush of fingers had been the most thrilling sensation of my life.
She would never know, I told myself.She’d go back to Baltimore and find someone else and occasionally dream of the man she met in Montana.I didn’t have to see her again to buy her house.I’d given her the contact information for a realtor I knew in Missoula.If she sold to us, our representatives could handle everything.She would never know what could have been.
I, on the other hand, would always know what I’d given up.
A shifter could deny their mate.A fated connection didn’t eliminate all the problems that drove couples apart, and there were plenty of people who, for one reason or another, were not with their fated mates.It wouldn’t kill me to lose her.I could still lead a fulfilling life with a suitable partner, one who understood what it meant to be the child of an Alpha.One who could step into that role, if the need ever arose.
Edie was not that partner.
Just as my joy had been simple and clear as a wolf, my grief was heavy and dark.I had found her.And I’d have to let her go.
