I leave the trail and get into even less-traveled woods, the kind of places humans gave up on, reverting to mapping from above. This area is too craggy, too unforgiving, too dangerous for bipeds.
Places like this have the Kind written all over them. My kind in particular.
I keep going until I reach a solid wall of rock. It juts out from the mountainside on an angle, a steep and craggy outcropping. It requires that I shift back and forth between my forms as I climb up it, because neither version of me could do it alone.
At the top, I pause for a moment and look back over the forest, seeing nothing but trees and hills. No hint of habitation in any direction, and there’s a part of me—my ferocious wolf heart—that wants only these wild places. The cold wind on my face, out here in these hills that separate the Rogue Valley from the ocean.
Out here where it smells like freedom.
I take a few deep breaths, then I turn around and move toward the rest of the mountain that heaves up even higher than the ledge I’m on. Before I reach the sheer rock face, I stop. And look down.
And down.
There’s a dizzying ravine cut deep into the mountainside. It has no other exit or entry except from up here. It’s slippery and steep, and only extremely sure-footed wolves can get down there at all. Humans could possibly manage it with rope systems, but they would have to find this place first, and that’s unlikely.
We call thisthe cellfor a good reason.
Down at the bottom of the ravine, some fifty feet below me, is Augie.
I know they feed him once a day, only easily digestible things that he barely touches because his system is in a revolt against food. Moisture collects on the rocks at the bottom, and he licks them when he needs it. Our sentries come here to slide things down to him, check on his overall health, and otherwise let him be.
He doesn’t complain. Mostly, he’s delirious. Maybe he doesn’t know who he is, much less what to complain about.
Augie has been here a little over a month now, and I know Winter wouldn’t like what she saw if she was here. That’s why Ty made it clear that there would be no visiting. Not for a long while yet, if at all.
But to my eye, Winter’s twin is doing about as well as can be expected. He hasn’t died yet, the way so many blood addicts do whenthey’re cut off. Their systems shut down and they can’t come back from it, but Augie is still kicking. He also hasn’t tried to claw his own face off, as I saw one detoxing creature do once.
This isn’t to say he hasn’t hurt himself, but we have ways of healing those sorts of minor wounds. That would go under the heading ofmore things Winter doesn’t need to know about, unless and until Augie survives.
When thinking these things makes me feel disloyal to my friend, I remind myself that she’s not the one who wanted this. She’s not the one who asked us to do this. Augie was the one who declared that he wanted to be clean and that he’d do anything to make it happen.
I sit there, looking at his too-skinny frame curled up in a battered lean-to shelter tucked in against the side of the ravine. He’s wrapped in blankets, eyes closed, but he’s twitching. I remember him way back in school. Growing up, Augie was absurdly beautiful—a blond with those same indigo eyes that have always made Winter so mysterious-looking. He wafted about like some kind of dreamy angel through the notably uncelestial Medford school district, his head forever in the clouds.
It wasn’t a huge surprise that he ended up being one of the classmates we lost to drugs. He was always too otherworldly, and if I know anything, it’s that it takes a thick skin to survive this world. Before and after the Reveal.
I didn’t want to tell Winter that I thought it was highly unlikely that Augie would survive a single week of the harsh cold-turkey detox Ty put him on.
But here he is, still alive more than a month later.
I tell myself it’s a sign. That good things are possible even in the darkest circumstances.
I keep thinking this the following night, as I settle in to watch my brothers win the mates of their choosing.
Tonight there are fewer fights, but all of them are more intense. Some females have already chosen a mate, forgoing the pleasure of watching males fight for them. Each of the remaining unmated women have at least two males vying for their attention, and I’ll admit it—I wonder what that’s like.
I’m sitting on the ledge with Ty, not with my family. I can feel all of his wild heat and leashed power like it’s his scent, winding itself all around me. I have to caution myself not to lean into him—not because I don’t want to or think he wouldn’t welcome it but because this night isn’t about us. Sitting up here means too many people are watching us as it is.
Ty has handed over the fighting to Connor, who has the ability to be charming one minute and a scary badass the next. He’s doing his drill sergeant impression tonight.
“Let’s go, assholes,” Connor barks when two males spend too much time circling each other without making a move. “This isn’t a tea party.”
The males throw themselves at each other, then roll around, snarling.
Beside me, Ty sighs. “Pathetic.”
“Must be nice to have males grappling over you,” I point out, grinning when he slides a dark look my way. “Personally, I wouldn’t know.”
“You wouldn’t like it.” Ty sounds annoyingly sure of himself. Even more than usual, that is.
