I hear them behind me now. Heavy boots. Human breathing.
"Target is moving west!" A voice crackles over a radio. "It’s fast! Moving at forty miles per hour!"
"Take the shot if you have it!"
A crack echoes—a rifle shot. A bullet tears through the leaves to my left.
I push harder.
I lead them into the sinkhole territory, where the ground is treacherous. I hear a splash and a curse as a Hunter goes waist-deep in the muck.
Clumsy.
I reach the edge of the sinkhole. It’s a wide, gaping mouth in the earth, filled with black water and razor-grass.
I skid to a halt, digging my claws into the soft bank. I turn.
The drone dips low, hovering twenty feet above the water, its red eye searching. It thinks I’ve gone to ground.
I crouch, muscles coiling like steel springs. I calculate the distance. The wind speed. The angle.
The drone buzzes closer. Fifteen feet. Ten.
Now.
I launch myself into the air.
I hit the apex of the jump, gravity momentarily suspended. My jaws snap shut around the plastic casing.
Crunch.
Plastic shatters. Metal crumples against my teeth. The taste of lithium battery acid bursts in my mouth.
I fall back to the earth, landing heavily on all fours, spitting the wreckage into the mud.
The Hunters break through the brush twenty yards back. They stop, staring at the massive black wolf standing over the broken drone, eyes glowing gold in the dark.
"Contact lost!" one screams, backing up. "It’s the Alpha! Fall back!"
I let out a roar that shakes the trees, a sound of pure, unadulterated dominance. They scramble backward, tripping over themselves to get away.
I watch them go. Then I turn back toward the cabin.
By the time I get back, the storm has broken fully. The rain is coming down in blinding sheets.
I shifted back a mile out. It hurts worse than the turn. I’m naked, dragging my clothes in a bundle.
I stop at the edge of the clearing. The cabin sits on its pylons, dark and silent.
I pace.
I walk the length of the clearing, then turn and walk back. The water runs off my hair, soaking my skin, but the fire inside me is burning too hot to notice.
Mate.
I said it out loud. I gave the truth power. And now the Pack knows. The clock is ticking faster now.
I stop under the cabin. I listen.
