Chapter One
~ Ajag ~
The need to go outside and run under the moonlight was like a persistent itch under my skin. One that constantly ached, but I couldn't scratch. It was irritating to say the least.
The four walls of my self-imposed prison might be closing in on me, but going outside just wasn't possible. No matter how much I wanted to, it couldn't happen. When I left this room, I wouldn't be coming back.
It would happen at some point. I had no other choice.
A howl outside the window of my attic room caught my attention. I shot my baby brother a quick look to make sure he was occupied and then made my way to the window and pulled back the edge of the curtain.
I watched with a sense of relief as the members of the Southern Pacific Pack ran off into the woods. I knew now was the time for Sy and I to make our escape, while everyone was gone. I had been waiting for this moment for the last two weeks, anticipating it.
Escape was our only option.
I didn't care that they said Carlton Brass had been dealt with. Well, I cared. The man was a sadistic ass and needed to be takenout before he reproduced and tainted the world with more of his bloodline.
But he was only part of my nightmare.
Running was still our only option. Staying in one place for more than a few days put a huge target on our backs and endangered the lives of anyone around us, and we'd already been here too long.
I glanced over toward the bed where my little brother was watching cartoons on a tablet someone had given him. Sy was so young, just three years old. Being on the run with a toddler was hard, but leaving him behind was impossible.
It was just me and him and had been for quite awhile now. Sy had barely been out of diapers when our mother was killed. If I hadn't been home from college for a visit and taken Sy to the park, I have no doubt he would have been kidnapped or killed right along with her.
I couldn't allow that to happen, which was why I knew we needed to keep running. I just hated leaving this place. It was the first time in months that I'd been able to take a breath.
I was well enough for us to leave now, and that was one of the things I had been waiting for. After shifting several times over the last couple of weeks, my injuries had completely healed, even the old ones. I had also put on a little weight and built my muscles back up due to everyone feeding me and making sure I had plenty of rest.
Still didn't mean I trusted any of them.
People—human and shifter alike—were self-serving assholes. They acted nice and polite because they had an agenda, not because they were kind. I just hadn't figured out what the agenda was here. There was no explainable reason for this pack to take me and my brother in, feed us and protect us, and then offer us a home.
People didn't do that.
At one time in my life, I had believed in sunshine and rainbows. I took people at face value and trusted way too easily. I had tried to be kind and caring to my fellow man.
I had learned what bullshit that was rather quickly. I had only one person I could count on. Me. And I only had two people I needed to protect and care about. Me and my brother.
Everyone else could go soak their heads in a bucket as far as I was concerned.
Well, maybe not the people here. They could stay around. That didn't mean I trusted them or anything, because I didn't. But they had been nicer than most.
I glanced around the attic room we had been given. We had nothing to take with us because we hadn't brought anything with us. I had a bag of stuff buried in a hole off in the woods, but I could get it on our way off this ranch.
It wouldn't hurt to sneak into the kitchen and grab some food to take with us. I had no idea when I'd be able to get a temporary job to earn some money, which meant no way to buy food.
At this point, I couldn't even afford a match to light a fire if I was able to catch a rabbit in the wild. There would be no roasted meat over an open fire, or even a fire to keep us warm.
I rubbed my hands over my face as the weight of my responsibilities pushed down on me. I felt as if I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I didn't trust these people enough to stay, but leaving didn't seem like a good idea either.
That didn't give me a whole lot of options.
Sy had to be my priority. His safety came before everything else, even my own. There was no one left to fight for him except me. My father was dead, Sy's father was never in the picture to begin with, and our mother had been killed by the very same people chasing us.
They wanted to kill us, too.
Well, they wanted to kill me. I was pretty sure they didn't care about me other than seeing me as a nuisance they needed to get rid of. I didn't know how they figured out that Sy was going to be a dire wolf when he transitioned, but they wanted that power under their control or they wanted him dead.
