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Dad’s eyes bulged. His face turned purple. No matter how hard I hit Garth and screamed at him, he kept strangling my dad. I scrambled off his back and frantically wrenched open drawers, looking for something, anything, that would make Garth stop. My fingers curled around a meat tenderizer. The paltry utensil wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would ever be enough against the brute strength of the alpha’s son.
I swung the instrument anyway. The tenderizer connected with Garth’s temple. His eyes fluttered back in his head, showing the whites, then he slumped over Dad. I heaved and shoved at his unconscious form until I’d half dragged Dad out from under him.
Dad didn’t move.
He didn’t breathe.
His eyes stared lifeless and bloodshot.
A strangled, anguished sound fled my throat in a sorrowful howl. Garth’s fingers twitched. Fear skittered over my skin.
Run.Dad’s last words to me.Run, Kara, run.
And so I ran.
Chapter Two
One year of running had been long. Scary. Tiring. The constant looking over my shoulder for the evil form of Garth gave me nightmares. But after five years, I’d settled into a pattern. Stay nowhere long. Never use my real name. Always change my appearance. And avoid other wolf shifters, for who knew who Garth had convinced to help him.
I was safer living as a human. Safer pretending I didn’t long to shift into my wolf form and run through the forest.
I wasn’t fooling anyone. I wasn’t safe. I’d never be safe so long as Garth was alive and hunting for me.
With each rise of the Luna cycle, it was harder and harder to ignore the lure to shift under the silvery light of the full moon. I left the sleazy bar connected to the motel I was staying at and ventured into the dark forest. The call of the wild surged inside me. It’d been so long since I’d shifted into my wolf form. So long since I’d experienced the power of a shift and the sensual slide of fur bursting from my skin. The sensation of the ground under my newly formed paws. The intense scent of the forest through the nose of a wolf. The tiny sounds of prey scampering through the leaves and bushes.
I missed being a wolf so much. Yet it was the price to pay for my freedom.
I wouldn’t survive if Garth found me. Sure, he’d keep me alive. He had plans for me. I wasn’t naïve to think killing me was one of them. No, Garth was a monster. Plain and simple. My death wouldn’t satisfy the evil inside him.
A wolf howled in the distance. My skin prickled not in fear, but in excitement. The sound called to the hidden wolf inside me.
It wasn’t Garth. I was familiar with his sneer of a howl.
No, it was another wolf.
The howl called again. Closer.
I couldn’t move, didn’t want to move.
I’d been so long without the company of another wolf. That was the reason. Not the unexpected awareness rolling through my body. My skin itched. Fur rippled beneath the surface. I fought the change and struggled against the draw of the wild.
I turned from the mysterious forest and ran back to my room, opening the door and slamming it shut. I slid the chain across. My hand shook for the first time, not in terror, but I couldn’t go to the wolf whose howl called to me. I wouldn’t risk getting involved with anyone. I wouldn’t take a chance of Garth using someone against me. Put in jeopardy a person I loved by Garth killing them like he had my dad.
My heart was a hard block now. Every person I’d ever loved was dead.
****
Titus
I’d ventured close to White River city on my Luna run tonight. It wasn’t unusual for us wolf shifters to want to head into the city for company, but on nights of the full moon, we preferred the wilds of the forests. The abundance of hunting game from deer to elk, mountain sheep and goats, even bears for those of us foolish enough to take one of those on.
I wasn’t a fool. Sure, a pack of us had taunted one when we were juvenile wolves, but we hadn’t attacked the bear to kill it. It had been more like a teenage lark. Everything had a place in the ecosystem in the wilderness of the White River National Forest. Even us wolf shifters.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I’d left the pack with strict instructions to not follow me. As alpha of the White River pack, they’d heed my demands. I inched closerto the town. The scent of car fumes seared my wolf’s nostrils. I didn’t like being in town in my wolf form, but there was an inner magnetism drawing me to this place tonight.
I spared the gleaming white moon a glance as I padded across the murky parking lot of the dilapidated motel. Old, rusted cars lined the lot, adding to the unkempt look. The peeling red paint on the doors of each room was another sign the place was for people who were desperate, broke, or both.
My nose twitched at a sweet scent drifting from inside one room. I padded closer. The scent of fresh daisies. Like a flowering meadow. I drew the scent in deeper. Female. Wolf.Mine.
