I turned and walked away.Each step was harder than the last.The wolf raged against my ribs, demanding I go back, demanding I take what was mine.
I didn’t look back.If I looked back, I wouldn’t leave.
The walk to the car felt endless.Every instinct screamed at me to turn around, to go back to that labyrinth and finish what I’d started.By the time I reached the car, my hands were shaking.
Parsons had the engine running.Smart man.He knew not to ask questions when I climbed into the back seat with a jaw so tight it ached.
I’d almost touched her.
Almost lost control.Almost ruined months of careful planning because a woman smelled like apples and looked at me like I was something dangerous she wanted to taste.
Go back,the wolf demanded.She’s alone.She’s ours.Go back and take her.
I couldn’t.Not yet.Not until I’d broken her properly.
She’d call.She had no choice.The debt was a noose, and I was the only one offering to loosen it.Eventually, pride would bow to desperation.She’d come to me with her head high, pretending she still had options, and I’d show her exactly how few choices she had left.
I’d make her crawl before I was done.Make her beg.Make her understand that everything she loved belonged to me now, including her.
But the wolf wasn’t satisfied with promises.The feral energy coiled tighter with every mile we put between us and that moonlit garden, clawing at my insides like a caged animal.
“Pull over.”My voice came out rough.“The ridge road.You know the spot.”
Parsons didn’t hesitate.He never did.
The ridge road wound up into the mountains behind Paradise Peaks, through dense pine forest that blocked out the moon.We stopped at a familiar overlook, a place I’d used before when the wolf became too much to contain.
“Wait here.”
I climbed out of the car and walked into the darkness.The cold bit at my skin as I stripped.Jacket, shirt, pants.I folded them and left them on a flat rock.Shoes last.Then I stood naked in the night air, letting the chill settle into my bones.
The shift came fast when I called it.
Thirty seconds of agony.Bones cracking, reshaping.Muscles tearing and reknitting in configurations that shouldn’t exist.My face elongated, my hands became paws, and fur rippled across my skin like black water.
Then I was on four legs, and the world became simple.
Scent.Sound.Movement.
I ran.
The forest blurred around me as I tore through the underbrush, my massive black form cutting through the shadows like a blade.Pine needles and frozen earth flew up behind my paws.The cold air burned in my lungs, sharp and clean, stripping away the complicated human thoughts until nothing remained but the primal joy of movement.
Faster,the wolf urged.More.
I gave him what he wanted.Found a deer trail and followed it up the ridge, muscles burning, tongue lolling.At the peak I paused, chest heaving, and lifted my head to the sky.No howl.I wasn’t that careless.But the urge was there, clawing at my throat like a beast.
Somewhere below, in that hotel full of warm bodies and soft beds, she was touching my business card.Wondering.Fearing.
Wanting.
The wolf stirred at the thought, but the edge had been taken off.The run had burned through the worst of the frenzy, replacing it with something calmer.More focused.
I descended the mountain at a lope, following my own scent trail back to the clearing where my clothes waited.The shift back was easier.Faster.Within seconds I stood naked and human again, my breath misting in the cold air.
The drive home would take another forty minutes.Time enough to rebuild my walls.Time enough to remember why I was doing this.
I dressed methodically and walked back to the car.
