I awoke beside Aiden who had shifted in his sleep. His knot had gone down and slipped out of me and I found myself little spooning with him on the couch, his thick, black, rock-star hair draped over my shoulders.

It was like waking up in Heaven, and I didn’t want to move. But I heard my cell phone vibrate on the floor where I’d left my pants and when I looked out the windows and saw the sun barely risen above the horizon, I realized it was super early.

Slowly, I managed to get out of Aiden’s embrace and slip off the couch to the floor to grab my phone.

Seven missed calls from Chuck.

Uh oh…

He was probably just worried about me from last night, but it was probably best to give him a call back. I looked outside and saw the frost on the ground and slid back into my clothes before stepping outside.

The winter’s chill was harsh against my skin and the sun was bright against the snow. Shielding my eyes, I returned Chuck’s call. He answered after the first ring.

“Billy! Fuck, man. Where the fuck are you!?”

He sounded panicked.

“I’m at Aiden’s house—”

“Aiden? Who the fuck is Aiden?” He was frantic. “Look, never mind that. You’ve got to get back here now, dude.”

“What!? Why? What is it!?”

Chuck was a pretty levelheaded guy and not one to get emotional, so hearing him like this had me on edge.

“It’s Marcellus,” he told me. “He found out about last night and how I got you out of the house. He found the pheromone blockers and he—”

Chuck’s voice cut off and I heard him yelp in pain as someone hit him. Then I heard another voice in my ear.

“Hello, Billy.” It was a voice I could never mistake for anyone else. Deep, growly and filled with a lethal control and restraint. “You’ve been a bad boy, haven’t you?”

“M-Marcellus,” I replied, my lips quivering. This was bad.

“You and Chuck here disappoint me,” he mused. I could just picture him in one of his signature black pinstriped suits, standing over Chuck’s body as he lay sprawled across the floor, grinning into the phone with that fierce smile on his face.

“Don’t hurt him,” I said into the phone.

“I won’t,” Marcellus replied. “Well – not any more than I already have. But you have to do something for me, Billy. You have to come home to daddy. Now.”

“Marcellus—”

“Don’t make me angry, Billy,” he said, cutting me off. “I don’t like to get angry, especially not first thing in the morning. Tell me where you are, and we’ll send a car. And don’t get that alpha of yours involved in this – unless you want him dead.”

I turned around and peered through the window in the door at Aiden asleep on the couch and felt my heart sink. Marcellus wasn’t one to make idle threats. If he said he would harm Aiden, he meant it, and he was putting all the pressure on me.

“Where are you, Billy?” he asked.

“I don’t know!” I exclaimed. And that wasn’t a lie. I had no idea. We’d driven off into the night and I wasn’t paying attention. We could be anywhere!

“Don’t lie to me, Billy,” he replied.

“I’m not lying!” I stammered. “It was dark! I really don’t know!”

“Listen to me,” he told me. “I know you disabled location tracking on the app I installed on your phone. Enable it and we will send a car to your location.”

I couldn’t speak. My lips were frozen as I stared out across the snow. Last night had been pure magic, and a future had opened up before me. But now, the rest of my life looked like the barren white vista in front of me, and a chill ran through my bones.

“Billy,” Marcellus cooed in my ear.

“Okay, Marcellus,” I told him, stepping off the porch and walking down the driveway toward the road. “I’ll turn it on now.”

“That’s a good boy.”

Passing Billy’s motorcycle, I hung up the phone and enabled location tracking on the app Marcellus had installed on my phone. My phone felt like a foreign invader in my hand as I held it, knowing the GPS signal it was now emitting would lead Marcellus and his goons right to me.

I started to weigh my options.

I could just throw the phone and run back to Aiden. After last night, I was sure he’d take me away from here, far from Marcellus’s clutches, but what would that mean for Chuck?

Marcellus was a man of his word, and I couldn’t do that to him. Chuck was my friend, and I couldn’t just abandon him like that.

Time seemed to creep by as I stood there at the side of the road, feeling the cold winter wind on my face. Soon, I heard the roar of an engine. They were here.

The black sedan rolled up beside me and the passenger window came down to reveal one of Marcellus’s suited thugs.

“Bonjour, baby,” he mocked me as the back door opened.

Maybe Aiden could find me. He was an alpha and he knew my scent. He could track me! But as the second goon tugged me inside, I realized that would be impossible.

He sprayed me with pheromone blocker, the same bottle Chuck and I had used to make our escape. If that wasn’t irony for you.

Before the door closed behind me, I heard the door to the house open and turned in time to see Aiden rushing off the porch, shirtless, sprinting through the snow toward me.

“Aiden!” I shouted out of reflex, but I knew it was too late.

Marcellus’s goon slammed the door shut behind me and the driver revved the engine and we peeled away from him and down the road.

I spun around in my seat and looked out the rear window as Aiden shifted, his jeans bursting off him as he transformed into a beautiful wolf with a patchwork of white and black fur.

He was fast but not as fast as the car. Our driver chuckled.

“Persistent son of a bitch.”

The car accelerated, climbing past thirty miles an hour, then forty, then fifty. A tear fell from my eye as I watched Aiden fighting to keep up. I could only imagine what he was feeling as he watched us pull away.

I’d never see him again, and he’d never know why I left him.

Find me. I spoke the words inside me, knowing it wasn’t possible for him to hear. But I said them anyway. Find me, Aiden. Find me and make me yours again.