“Caelan, please.” His voice cracks on my name, and the fear in his eyes is so real it makes my blood run cold. “I know this doesn’t make sense. I know I’m asking you to trust someone you barely know. But I need you to get out of this car and come with me right now, or something very bad is going to happen to you.”
I blink at him. My mind is racing, trying to make sense of what’s happening. Last night he was charming and mysterious and a little bit sad. Now he looks like a man being chased by demons, and apparently, those demons have something to do with me.
“How did you know where to find me? How did you know which road I’d be on?”
He opens his mouth to answer, then closes it again and shakes his head.
“I tracked your scent from town,” he explains. “I’ll explain everything else, I promise. I will tell you every single thing you want to know. But not here. Not in the open where anyone could see us. We need to move right now.”
This is insane. This is dangerous. This is exactly the kind of reckless behavior Sera warned me about, exactly the reason she worries when I disappear without telling anyone where I’m going.
But there’s something in his voice that makes me pause.
Against every shred of common sense I possess, I open the car door and step out onto the dusty road.
“Okay,” I relent. “I’m trusting you. But you'd better have a damn good explanation for this.”
Relief floods his face, and he grabs my hand like he’s afraid I’ll change my mind if he doesn’t hold on to me. “Thank you. I swear on my life I’ll tell you everything. But first we need to run.”
“Run where? My car is right here, we can drive wherever you need to go—”
“We can’t take the car. They might be tracking it. They might already know where you are.”
“Who might be tracking it? What the hell is going on?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes a step back and transforms into a wolf.
It happens in the space of a heartbeat. One moment, he’s a man, tall and broad and human; the next, he’s a massive wolf with dark brown fur and amber-gold eyes that I would recognize anywhere.
The wolf looks at me and jerks his head toward the tree line, away from the road and my abandoned car. The message is clear.Transform. Follow me.
I look back at my car sitting in the middle of the road with the driver’s door still hanging open. I think about Sera waiting for my call and about Matriarch Lydia and my parents expecting me at the evening council meeting. I think about all the sensible, responsible choices I should be making right now instead of following a mysterious man into the wilderness.
Then I look at the wolf. He’s already moving toward the trees, glancing back at me with an urgency that borders on desperation. He’s not heading toward Llewelyn territory. He’s not heading back toward Grayhide, either.
He’s running toward the mountains, toward the wild places where no pack holds claim.
Chapter 6 - Patrick
I’ve never hated myself more than I do right now.
We race through the Grayhide scrubland in wolf form with our paws pounding against the dry earth in a rhythm that should feel like freedom but instead feels like flight. My wolf is faster than hers, built for endurance and distance from years of Thornridge training, but I hold back to match her pace. I won’t leave her behind. I won’t let her out of my sight for even a second.
The fear rolling off her coats my tongue with every breath I take. It’s sour and sharp, completely different from the sweet arousal I scented on her last night, and knowing I’m the cause of it makes my wolf whine with distress. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. She doesn’t know why I pulled her away from her car and her life and everything familiar. All she knows is that a man she slept with once is now dragging her into the wilderness without explanation.
I want to tell her everything. I want to stop right here and transform back and spill every secret I’ve been carrying since Bastian stepped out of those trees this morning. But we’re still too close to Grayhide territory, and we’re still within range of Thornridge scouts who might be tracking us. I need to get her somewhere safe before I can explain, somewhere they won’t think to look for us.
The Hysopp border is our best option. The witches who control that territory have no love for Thornridge, and the dense forests will provide cover while we figure out our next move.
My muscles burn as we run, but I push through the discomfort and let my wolf take over the physical demands of the journey. There’s something primal about this state of being,something ancient and powerful that connects me to every wolf who came before me. In this body, my senses are more attuned than any human could imagine. I can smell the rabbit that crossed this path an hour ago. I can hear the heartbeat of a hawk circling overhead. I can feel the vibrations of the earth beneath my paws, telling me stories of the creatures who have traveled this way before.
But right now, the only thing I’m focused on is Caelan.
She runs with surprising grace for someone who’s clearly terrified. Her silver-blonde fur catches what little light filters through the clouds, and her pale blue eyes are fixed on the horizon ahead of us. She hasn’t tried to break away from me yet, nor has she veered off toward Llewelyn territory or back toward her abandoned car. I don’t know if that’s because she trusts me or because she’s too scared to run.
Either way, I’m grateful she’s still beside me.
We run for what feels like hours, but is probably closer to forty minutes. The landscape gradually changes around us, transitioning from desert scrub to sparse woodland to the thick, fog-shrouded forest that marks the edge of Hysopp territory. The trees here are ancient; their trunks are wider than I am tall, and the canopy above us blocks out most of the sky. Moss dangles from the branches like curtains, and the air smells of damp earth.
