Chapter One
Marcus
The rising sun hits my eyelid like an electric shock, and I sit up fast enough to make my head spin.
“What the actual fuck?”
My throat is raw, my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my lips are cracked and dry. Squinting one-eyed against the glare, I try to figure out where in the world I am. What day. What month. What geographic region.
I got nothing.
Well, not nothing. The ground beneath me is covered in a mix of rocks, downed branches, and some shrubby groundcover with prickly leaves. The air smells dry, which isn’t an actual scent. Whatever. The sun is already warm enough to make it plain that the day will be hot.
I don’t figure out I’m naked until I shift my weight and some of the local fauna rubs my ’nads like rough sandpaper.
“Shit.” Being naked sucks, but at least now things make more sense.
The moon must have been full last night, and I must have shifted.
I inhale more deeply, my eye watering. Herbs, not pine. Sage. Something more pungent.
Those scents ground me. I’m not in the Northwest. Los Angeles, not Seattle. I blink away moisture. Even though I’ve been in LA for months now, my spirit thinks I’m home.
As I wake up, my memory comes back online.
Yesterday me, David, Cliffe, and Abby had hiked into the Cucamonga Wilderness, as steep and wild an area as you’re likely to find.
We’d set up camp in a remote—and highly unauthorized—spot, with every intention of letting our wolves run as soon as the moon rose.
Living in a city like LA is a challenge for a werewolf. Hell, it’s a challenge for anyone, but in our case, bending the rules can be a necessity.
The sun’s high enough to warm my chest. Might even relax me if I could remember how I ended up all on my own.
I scan the area around me. No trail and no other signs of human habitation.
Worse, no pack. There’s the usual low hum that says they’re still alive, but none of them are close enough to scent.
This is just fucking weird. I interlace my fingers behind my neck, like I’m hoping a good stretch will help me figure out what’s going on.
You came because I called you.
The words drive all the air from my lungs.
“Wait. Who the hell . . .” I spin around. Alone. No one in the vicinity. The words echo in my mind, though, louder than my pounding heart.
Someone said something.
“Where are you?” I shout, like that’s going to encourage whoever spoke to come out from wherever they’re hiding.
Nothing.
A bird squawks. Breeze rattles the grass. The words fade into memory. “That was weird,” I mutter, making another, slower spin. I inhale, sorting through the mix of scents.
No human.
No wolf.
Nothing.
Okay, maybe I’m imagining things. I’m totally not.
Still, I don’t have a better explanation.
Meanwhile, the air has dried my tongue to leather.
I need water, blood, something. I scan the area without a lot of hope.
If there’s a happy stream nearby, it’s keeping its burbles on the down low.
So are the voices that should be calling my name, though I have to believe my cousins and their friend will come looking when they realize I’m missing.
Or will they? How much would they really care about a one-eyed wolf with a history of bad behavior?
I squelch that thought. David and I are cool, or close enough. Although my allegiance technically rolls up through the Collins pack hierarchy, for all practical purposes, David is my alpha.
He’s my cousin, and he was my best friend until I fucked things up.
Anyway.
I scramble to my feet, sick of feeling sorry for myself. I’ve spent way too much time doing that lately. I don’t have my phone, ergo no map, and my memory of the area’s geography is sketchy at best. The mountains are east of the city, so I turn to put the rising sun at my back.
I’m in a relatively flat area covered with clumps of grass and sage and the occasional scrubby evergreen. Hills rise up on all sides of me. Hell, not hills—mountains.
We’ll hike in and shift at moonrise. It’ll be cool.
Yeah, next time Abby comes up with a crazy idea, I’ll tell her to fuck right off. Unless . . .
My mind falls down a wormhole it has no business exploring.
What if this was all a plot to get rid of you? What if they waited till you’d shifted, then David’s wolf chased you off, and that’s why you woke up alone?
And what if they figured you wouldn’t wake up at all?
I blink, sort of appalled that the only moisture my body can conjure is in my eye.
Okay, that’s enough. I can’t just stand here naked.
I need a plan. Yes, my wolf can cover a fair distance in a night, except for whatever reason, last night’s memories are in a black box.
I truly don’t know where he came from, where he was going, or what split him off from the others.
Despite what the disembodied voice said.
Damn it. Enough with the paranoia. “Start walking, dude. The only way out is through.”
No one answers me. I take about three steps and come down on something sharp.
“Fuck.” Hopping on one foot, I pick a random piece of broken glass out of my other heel.
There’s only a little blood and really, where there’s glass, there must have been people at some point.
I decide it’s a sign that I’m headed in the right direction and, ignoring the sting, keep walking.
I’ve gone maybe a mile, picking my way over the rough terrain and looking for anything approximating a trail, when I come across an unexpected scent. Wolf, but not David or the others.
Slowing to a stop, I take a deeper breath, mouth open to catch every nuance. The scent is rich, and dark, and I adjust my route to follow it.
In a city as big as LA, there’s gotta be more than one pack, and it’s logical that my cousins and I weren’t the only ones who wanted to take advantage of the full moon last night to run in the wild.
Strange wolves aren’t always friendly, but I’m naked in the middle of hell-if-I-know-where, so I’m willing to take a chance.
The scent leads me uphill, where the shrubby groundcover gives way to taller pines.
I’ve gone another half a mile or so, the scent growing stronger, when a flash of bright green slows me down.
Could be a tent. I drop to my knees so I don’t give a stranger a clear view.
Doesn’t do me much good. A sharp snap jerks me around.
Some six feet behind me is a giant.
Wolf.
He’s on two legs—thank fuck—and he’s holding the twig he snapped like he’s trying to make a point. See? You could be dead and you never would have heard me coming.
I shift around and settle on my knees, doing my best to keep my private parts private without actually covering my junk with my hand. He tilts his head, his heated gaze posing a question, and for a second I think he’s going to pull out his dick and ask me to suck it.
And in the next second I realize I would be happy to. “Or I would,” I mumble, “except my mouth is so damn dry it’d probably hurt.”
“What was that?” He drops the stick, keeping his distance.
“Nothing.” I don’t move, either. My heel hurts and there’s a stone or something jabbing my knee.
Those are secondary issues. The man—the wolf—in front of me has the vast majority of my attention.
He has to be seven feet tall, with broad, strong shoulders and dark, shoulder-length hair shot with grey.
His high cheekbones and hooded eyes are as intimidating as his size, and if it weren’t for that momentary flash of heat, I’d be scared outta my mind.
As it is, I’m pretty damn intimidated.
“It’s not so often a man wanders into my camp wearing only what the Good Lord gave him.”
His voice is as rough as the rest of him. Yeah, I have no idea how to respond to that kind of opening. Do I tell him what really happened and risk bringing the wrath of whoever this is down on David and the rest? I don’t want to.
“Last night got a little out of hand.” His nod is a clear invitation to keep talking, so I do. “It was a full moon, you know?”
Another nod, this one accompanied by a brisk wave of his hand.
“I don’t know what happened,” I blurt out. No details, dumbass. “When I woke up this morning, I was alone.”
“Unfortunate.” His expression goes thoughtful and he takes a deliberate inhale. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
“We should still clean the wound. There’s a blanket in my tent. Call me when you’ve covered yourself. I’ll wait here until you do.”
I blink, my eye watering like mad. “You’re joking, right?”
He tilts his head the other direction like some oversized German Shepherd. “Go, little wolf.” He points in the direction of the tent. “No harm will come to you in my camp.”
“That’s what they all say,” I mutter, getting to my feet anyway. Turning my back on him is hard, especially since he was able to sneak up on me in the first place. I do it, though, because I don’t have much choice.
He might be a wolf, but he’s also human, and a human will take the path of least resistance every time. Logically, if he meant to kill me, he would have already done it. So.
I enter the small clearing where my new friend has set up his tent.
The front awning and rain fly are green, too bright to be very old, and the walls are a combination of grey fabric and mesh.
The surrounding setup—fire pit, sturdy folding chair, and, ffs, a basket of yarn with what might be the beginnings of a scarf on it—looks a lot older. Lived in. Antique, even.
A cooler and a couple of small trunks that must contain his supplies are on one side of the tent.
I unzip the tent door and sure enough, there’s a blanket folded on the end of a thick mattress.
I can’t stop myself from poking at the mattress when I pick the blanket up, and no, it’s not filled with air.
It’s thick, cotton batting or something.
Who hauls something that heavy to . . . wherever we are?