I don’t stop. Don’t turn. My boots hit dirt and gravel, and I keep my eyes forward because if I look back, if I see him standing on that porch with his shirt untucked and his mouth swollen from mine, I will either go back or fall apart, and I can’t allow either.
“Brenna, wait—”
Worse than his voice is the other thing. The bond. Fully alive now, pulsing in my chest like a second heartbeat, and through it I can feel him; not just his location but hisintent. He’s coming after me. Not running, not chasing. Walking. The patience of a man who knows the woman he’s following is about to bolt and is trying very hard not to be the reason she does.
Too late.
I cut left past the garden, through the gap in the fence where the post hasn’t been replaced yet, and hit the edge of the forest at a pace just short of running. The ward line hums as I cross it, my own magic recognizing me, letting me pass. Behind me, Merric’s presence grows louder. Closer. A low, insistent pull like a hand wrapped around the base of my spine.
I stop at the first ridge. Yank my boots off. Strip off my shirt, jeans, everything. Leave it in a pile at the base of an oak.
And I shift.
The change takes me fast—faster than it has in months. My wolf has been clawing at the surface since the bunkhouse, since his mouth found my throat and my magic traced his skin. Since the bond blew open like a door torn off its hinges. She wants out. She wants to run. For once, we agree.
Four paws hit the ground, and the world reshapes itself. Scent, sound, the grain of the earth under my paws. The oak canopy overhead, silver-black in the moonlight. The creek to my west, running thin and cold over limestone. And behind me, growing fainter but never disappearing… him. His scent on the wind. His warmth. It’s overwhelming.
I run.
Not toward anything. Away. Up the eastern ridge where the timber grows thick, the ground rises steeply, and the hills fold into each other. I find the old trails by memory—deer paths, game runs, the routes my mother taught me when I was barely old enough to shift. This land knows me. I know it back.
I can feel him standing at the tree where I left my clothes, and I can feel the moment he decides not to follow. The pull goes taut, holds, and then settles into a dull ache. He’s letting me go.
I hate that it hurts. I hate that the further I run, the more my wolf protests. It’s a deep-tissue pain that has nothing to do with muscle or bone and everything to do with the fact that my body has decided it belongs next to his and my mind hasn’t caught up.
I run harder. Up the ridge. Through a stand of hickory where the branches lace overhead, and the moonlight comes through in splinters. Over a creek bed, dry now in the late summer heat, stones smooth under my paws. The world narrows to motion and breath and the rhythm of four legs covering ground.
The memories come whether I want them or not.
We were so goddamn young. Kids playing at being adults in a world that was about to teach us exactly how little we controlled. He was the youngest alpha anyone could remember—Frostbourne handed to him at nineteen after his father’s death, a pack of sixty wolves looking to a boy for direction. I was Ravenclaw’s wild card, the girl with fire in her veins and more power than sense.
We met at a gathering. Neutral territory, a formal pack event where young wolves sized each other up across bonfires and pretended they weren’t looking. He was across the clearing, taller than everyone around him, with that white-blond hair and those serious eyes. When he laughed at something his second said, the sound carried over the noise and landed on me like a hand on my shoulder.
I didn’t approach him. He approached me. Walked over with the directness of a man who hadn’t yet learned that directness could be dangerous and said, “You’re the one with the fire.”
“That’s a hell of a first line,” I said.
“I don’t have lines. I just have observations.”
He smiled. I was lost.
My wolf crests the ridge and stops, breathing hard. Below me, the river valley opens up, moonlit, silver-dark, the ranch a cluster of warm lights in the distance. I can see the bunkhouse. I can’t see him. But I can feel him. Sitting on the porch steps now, waiting. Not with expectation. Just with presence.
I’m here. I’m not leaving. Come back when you’re ready.
That’s what he did then, too. In the beginning. He was patient in a way that made no sense for a young alpha; wolves his age were all posture and challenge, dominance games and territorial displays. Merric just… showed up. Brought me wildflowers that were always the wrong kind because he couldn’t tell the difference between columbine and larkspur. Sat with me while I practiced ward work and never once flinched when the fire got close. Told me about his father’s death with a matter-of-factness that broke my heart, and when I cried for him, he looked at me like nobody had ever done that before.
“You’re crying for my dad,” he said. “You didn’t even know him.”
“I know you. And you lost him. That’s enough.”
He kissed me that night. Gentle. Careful. Like I was something that might burn him if he moved too fast. And I thought:this is it.This is the one my wolf has been waiting for. This is the man I’m going to build a life with.
I was right about the bond. Wrong about everything else.
I lie down on the ridge. Chin on my paws. The night air moves through my fur, and the land hums beneath me; the old magic, the deep magic, the Ravenclaw birthright that runs through this soil. My mother told me the hills remember everything. Every wolf who’s ever lived and loved and died on this ground.
The earth keeps us.
