Chapter 2 #2
“Christ,” I growl. “You couldn’t keep it in your pants for one night?”
“There were two of them!” Buff whines.
Only Buff would think Fiona and Veronica look similar. And okay, from the tits down, he’s got a point.
But Fiona is Thorne’s eldest daughter. She’s twenty-five, and somehow looks younger than Veronica, Talon’s youngest at twenty-three.
And yet Buff swears he got “confused.”
Confused? Please.
Because—and forgive me, but fuck me with a pinata stick—one is a brunette and the other is a goddamn blonde. Fiona has eyes the color of amethyst; Veronica’s are straight-up molten amber.
There is nothing similar about them.
Except, apparently, the tits—Buff’s only reliable identification method.
Branches whip at my arms as we tear through the undergrowth, and my lungs burn like I’m inhaling the fire we’ve left behind.
My heart is pumping so fast, I can taste iron.
Behind us, the scent of bloodlust, rage, and bruised egos close in as the alphas’ hunters advance on us.
It all burns hotter than the fireball Froggy created.
We’ve survived a lot by being smart when it counted, fast when it mattered, or just stupidly lucky.
But this?
This is the kind of shit even luck looks at and says, yeah, you’re on your own, buddy.
We’ve spent our whole lives clinging to the edges of other people’s territory, sleeping in abandoned buildings that smelled like mold and piss, or curling up in forest clearings pretending the cold didn’t sting.
We begged packs to take us in, and every time, we got the same look.
Three orphans. Male. Unmated. Too risky.
Some people would call that a compliment.
If three half-starved strays are a threat, maybe that means we’re stronger than we think.
But it never felt like that. Not to us.
To us, every rejection was a neon sign screaming not good enough.
At some point, Buff and Froggy started coping with humor and sex. I coped by pretending I didn’t give a shit. None of us are winning.
A shot cracks through the air.
Bark explodes beside my face, shards of wood slicing past my cheek. Another bullet screams past Froggy’s ear, close enough to stir his fur.
That metallic sting hits my tongue a second later, cold, sharp, unmistakable.
Silver.
My stomach drops. Not good. Not remotely fucking good.
The Eustace pack doesn’t fight clean. They never have. They’re so drunk on their own dominance they think rules are for weaker wolves.
They’ve got more arrogance than brain cells, and believe fear and brute force are the only currencies that matter. And they spend both like they’ll never run out.
Froggy stumbles and snarls, his paws skidding in the dirt. Buff yelps as another bullet slices past his flank, close enough to burn the air around him.
The woods thin. Branches whip away as we burst out of the trees, and suddenly there’s nothing.
A deep, wide ravine stretches below us. It’s big enough to swallow a Boeing 747. Fog drifts like death phantoms through the gap, highlighted by the moonlight—soft, beautiful, but deadly at the same time.
Buff skids so hard mud spits up like bullets. “Ah, J… Jason, man. Tell me you’ve got a plan.”
I measure the distance. My wolf does the math. “I do. Try really damn hard not to die.”
I back up, lungs burning, paws digging furrows into the mud, then I launch myself forward. My legs feel like they’re churning through lava, every muscle screaming, my heart wedged so high in my throat I can taste the panic.
And then I leap.
For one impossible heartbeat, there’s nothing but empty air under me, and wind tearing through my fur.
Weightlessness.
Freedom.
It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
I crash onto the opposite bank and let out a howl that rips raw from my lungs.
Froggy’s voice cracks behind me. “You’re insane!”
“That happens when you’re out of options!” I bark back, lungs burning. “Now move!”
Behind us, snarls rip through the air, low, furious, too close. Angry shouts follow, overlapping like a hunting chorus.
Then I hear the unmistakable click of a chamber reloading.
My spine goes ice-cold. We’re seconds from dying.
I watch Froggy and Buff take the leap. Stones and twigs bounce off me as they land, and then I don’t think.
I just run. The world narrows, like everything is in a minuscule bubble, and I start to think that there’s a possibility that maybe—just maybe—we’ll survive long enough to regret every catastrophic decision that landed us here.
Of all the packs we could’ve pissed off, it had to be the biggest bastard pack on the entire fucking continent. The only one psychotic enough to run with two alphas.
Talon and Thorne Eustace. Twin nightmares in matching skin. They were unhinged, unstoppable, and completely deranged. And backed by an army big enough to level states if they felt like it.
We didn’t just screw up; we picked a fight with the one pack no one survives.
My stomach twists when I think about the size of their pack.
Here’s the pathetic truth I’ll never say to Buff or Froggy, not even with silver melting straight into my veins and prying the truth out of me.
I miss belonging.
Not the rules.
Not the chores.
Not the suffocating “Yes, Alpha” obedience.
Not even the safety—not really.
I miss the feeling of it.
The quiet hum under your skin when you know you’re part of something bigger than your body. The certainty that someone will be there when you fall. That you matter to more than two wolves who are held together by trauma and stubbornness.
I miss the hum of a den at night, the ten, twenty, fifty heartbeats settling at once.
I miss the warmth that comes with it. I miss the smell of home.
The scent of the pine sap on the alpha’s coat, smoked meat from the kitchens, and the damp earth after a storm.
I miss waking up already knowing who had my back without needing to ask or earn it.
I miss being claimed.
We lost that before we even understood what it was.
The virus not only took our mothers, it took our very basic need to be part of our birthright.
They cast us out before we got the chance to learn what ‘home’ meant, but instinct took care of that. If only to torture us.
A memory flashes, bright and sharp. Buff at five years old, clutching his mother’s necklace hanging around his neck—the only thing he had to remember her by—and shaking so hard his teeth chattered while I taught him how to skin a rabbit.
Froggy silently crying at night because he couldn’t remember his mother’s laugh anymore.
Me staring at the moonless night, trying to pretend I wasn’t terrified too.
We should’ve died many times, but we didn’t. And what we have now… it’s not a pack, but it’s something.
Buff, whose heart is bigger than his brain and whose loyalty is stitched into his bones. Froggy, anxious as hell but brave in ways he’ll never see. And me, who somehow became the one they follow, whether they should or not.
We’re feral and stupid.
We’re bonded in ways real packs would never understand.
But still… it isn’t the same. It’s not the real thing.
Some nights, when the adrenaline fades and the forest goes quiet, the ache hits me so hard I could split open from it.
The wanting.
The longing.
The stupid hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s a pack out there we won’t have to beg from, or steal from, or run from.
The wanting is dangerous. Wanting gets wolves killed. So, I swallow it down, bury it deep, and pretend the only thing that matters is getting out alive.
But even as we run, hearts pounding, paws tearing earth, bullets screaming past my skull, I can feel it there.
That hollow space in my chest.
Waiting.
Wanting.
Festering like a wound that never healed.
And, God help me, a small, quiet part of me wonders…
What if this chase, this disaster, this stupid, catastrophic night is the thing I need to change? What if it means instead of feeling like I’m failing or lacking, I step up? What if I can’t?
I need to stop looking through the lens of running away. I need to run to something. Even if right now it’s to safety.
The ground vibrates beneath us. Heavy paws, too many to count, pounding the forest floor in a rhythm that vibrates up my legs. The Eustace pack is closing in. They’re way too close. Their fury hangs dense in the air, sharp and metallic, like blood.
My wolf snarls, urging me to turn, to fight, to make a final stand with teeth bared and throat open. To not go out like a coward.
Not yet.
Not here.
Not like this.
“Left!” I bark through the bond, veering sharply as a bullet snaps past my muzzle. Buff and Froggy follow without hesitation, skidding in the dirt as we leap over a fallen log and vanish into thicker brush.
The forest turns into a tight tunnel. Branches crack. Leaves explode. Paws shred the ground beneath us.
“We’ve almost lost them!” Buff yells.
He’s wrong.
I can smell their rage and bruised pride. Their determination. Eustace wolves don’t lose prey. They hunt until the prey is silent. Until the only sound is victory.
A shadow shifts ahead, and my stomach drops.
“Stop!” I shout.
It’s too late.
A net shoots up from the ground with a metallic snap, catching Buff mid-sprint. He howls as the weighted mesh drags him sideways, rolling him across the forest floor.
“Buff!” Froggy skids toward him, triggering a second trap.
Silver-lined cables whip out from two trees, snapping tight around Froggy’s legs. He hits the dirt hard, snarling and clawing at the wires that sizzle against his fur.
Did they herd us here?
“Hold still!” I lunge toward him.
A huge wolf, bigger than any shifter should be—bigger than me—launches out of the shadows and crushes me into the ground. I snap at him, my claws tearing at the earth, my wolf screaming at me to fight back, to tear the bastard’s throat out and kill him for what they are doing to Buff and Froggie.
But the weight is too much.
The wolf’s jaws clamp down on my shoulder with just enough pressure to warn, but not enough to kill. Yet.
Hot breath hits my ear as he growls a single command. “Shift back.”
I snarl in refusal.
His fangs sink deeper into my shoulder and pain flares, white-hot and electric.
“Shift,” he growls again, his voice vibrating through my bones.
I fight it.
I fight it.
I fucking fight it.
But the hold tightens.
My wolf howls in pain, instincts buckling under the pure dominance of the wolf attacking me.
My body collapses inward, bones cracking as I’m forced back into my human form. I gasp as skin replaces fur. I’m cold and bleeding in the dirt underneath a wolf the size of a damn car.
Leaves crunch nearby, and then I see silver-tipped boots.
Talon and Thorne Eustace step out of the shadows like a matched set of nightmares, their pack fanning out behind them.
Talon’s lip curls. “Well, well. The strays.”
Thorne cracks his knuckles. “And here we were hoping you’d run farther. The chase was starting to get fun.”
Buff and Froggy are both still tangled in silver-mesh netting, panting and shaking from the pain.
I glare up at the twin alphas despite the wolf pinning me down, despite the blood running down my arm, despite every instinct screaming at me to submit or die.
“Go ahead,” I spit. “Take your victory lap.”
Thorne grins. “Who said anything about victory?”
Talon steps forward, crouching down so his face is level with mine. “This?” he says softly. “This is just the beginning.”
The wolf on my back finally lets me go only for two pack enforcers to grab my arms and drag me upright.
We’re surrounded, outnumbered, and captured. And the worst part? I know what happens next with Eustace wolves. And none of it is quick.
Or merciful.