Whether due to stupidity or just bad luck, I completely screwed myself tonight. Things were going sowellhere. I had a job that didn’t suck too badly. I had a place to sleep. I even sort of had people I could call friends or at least acquaintances, though they could never know the real me.
And now…all that’s gone.
Again.
I sit on the edge of my bed, shoulders slumped, holding one strap of my backpack with loose fingers. Chicago is the first place I’ve stayed for more than a couple months. I thought that maybe this could be my home, that afterfour fucking yearsI’d run long enough, far enough, and I could finallystop.
But it’s never going to end, not really, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. I’m exhausted on every level—physically, mentally, emotionally—and the future stretching out before me looks nothing but bleak.
What’s the point of any of this?
I release the strap of my backpack and bury my face in my hands. The life I have now is somehow more painful than anything my uncle and his cronies did to me back in that clearing. If they wanted me to suffer, they certainly got their wish.
Maybe I should have just told Remy the truth. He seemed nice enough and maybe…
No.
That’s how I got into this mess, by thinking things could be different. I can’t change what I am and that means I’ll never have a pack, a family, a home… Funnily enough, I didn’t even realize how much I wanted those things until the option to have them was taken away from me.
I cast a glance at my half-packed bag. Things will be okay—theyhaveto be—but I need a nap and a meal before I can pull myself together enough to hit the road. I flop backward onto the bed, my eyes drifting shut as I allow exhaustion to wash over my body.
Just a twenty-minute power nap…
But I don’t wake until a few hours later when a shifter wraps their hand around my neck.
Four
Keir
Stillhalfasleep,Ireflexively try to push the hand away from my throat, but the shifter above me only tightens their grip. Panic floods my body and I become a wild thing, struggling and kicking to get away. One of my heels lands a hit against a hard chest and the hand around my throat disappears as the shifter lets out a grunt. The lamp on my bedside table falls with a crash and between that and the blackout curtains, my room is plunged into darkness.
Heart racing, I leap to my feet in a fluid move that leaves me crouched by the head of the bed, my fisted hands raised in a defensive position. My nostrils flare with quick breaths as I wait for my eyes to adjust. Tension thrums throughout my body, everything in me preparing for an attack.
An attack that doesn’t come.
I know the other shifter is still here. I can almost sense him.
“Who’s there?” I stammer.
“Keir—”
Too close.
My elbow flies toward the voice with very little input from my brain, and the joint cracks against someone’s face.
“Fuck!” yells the shifter.
The door to my room flies open, letting in the meager light from the hallway which silhouettes a second shifter in the doorway. He’s big—though most people are compared to me—and the sight of the shadowy figure combined with the situation and the disorientating effect of being startled awake sends me into overdrive.
My instincts scream conflicting instructions to my brain—hide, run, fight, run, hide—leaving me frozen in place. A whimper breaks free from my throat and I’m teetering on the edge of an involuntary shift, something that hasn’t happened to me since that night with my uncle.
Someone’s hand lands on the nape of my neck, squeezing gently.
“Shhh… calm down.” There’s the edge of a growl in the voice, but no command. The calming hold, something mothers often use on their pups, does as intended and my body relaxes, all the tensed muscles going limp. “I’m going to let go and you’re going to stay put and talk to us, okay?”
I nod as best I can with the hand still on my neck.
The person releases me and takes two big steps backward, his hands up by his chest in a placating gesture. As he gets closer to the door, the light illuminates his face. Dante. My gaze flies to the second shifter, too large to be Remy, so he must be the second bodyguard from earlier.
