Watching Josh disappear into the forest, swallowed up by the shadows that lingered so thickly beneath the trees, Blake was nearly overcome with a ripping sort of panic. The panic clawed at his soul, ready to keep digging through him until he succumbed entirely. His breath went somewhere else, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever see it again. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up so hard and straight he wondered, for a stupidly long and terrified moment, if he might become a porcupine instead of a wolf the next time he transformed.

He started to follow, pushing through the crowd that was all staring at him.

Someone tapped his shoulder. He whirled around, on the verge of attacking, barely managing to control himself enough to keep from doing exactly that. He didn’t recognize the female wolf standing in front of him and didn’t expect to. Josh probably could have rattled off her full name, her maiden name, who her mate was, and what they both did for a living. He felt almost jealous of the depth of knowledge Josh had of this pack, when he knew so little of his own. What would it be like to be part of a community, to enjoy spending time with the people who surrounded him?

It had taken a disastrously long time for him to realize this, but he did realize he wanted that. To at least try it.

The only thing he knew about the woman who had stopped him was that she was an alpha, which was rare enough on its own.

Explains why she had the balls to stop me when so many of these other guys didn’t.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” the female alpha said. Her eyes glittered as blue as a postcard-perfect sky, and she wore her reddish hair in a very no-nonsense style. Blake thought she looked exactly like a person with a few superiority issues, but he didn’t say that out loud, as much as he wanted to.

“Why?”

“He’s always been kind of touchy.” She shrugged. “It’s best just to leave him alone when he gets like this. He’ll come back on his own.”

Josh would come back on his own? The very same Josh who hadn’t come to these meetings for over two years because he had been “left alone” for getting “like this?” The words were spoken exactly as Blake might expect them to, from a person who either didn’t understand loss or who had somehow managed to muddle through her own life with no support system. It was clear she not only didn’t understand the situation, but she didn’t understand Josh.

Then again, neither do I, right now.

He didn’t say anything that would tell the woman if she was right or not. Instead, he just went back to his seat. He glared at everyone until they stopped staring and went slowly back to doing whatever they had been doing in the first place. However, they went about it with a sense of great unease, and a heavy air of dissatisfaction weighed over the collective pack.

Blake sat there, surrounded by dissatisfaction, and tried to think.

He didn’t think he’d ever gone through depression, himself. There were moments when he was depressed but those moments came and went. When they were gone, they were gone. They didn’t linger. He knew for Josh that sometimes the omega’s thoughts went in circles, spiraling back in on themselves, forming impossible connections that made him doubt himself. He said sometimes it was as if there were other voices inside his head—and there always had been, though not nearly as severely as what occurred after his parents died—that always said the opposite of what he wanted. They focused on the mistakes, told him he was stupid, and doubted him at every turn.

Josh had specified these weren’t actual voices, just his own thoughts getting out of hand. Blake sympathized, though he couldn’t empathize without having gone through the same thing. He figured that didn’t matter so much, as long as he made an effort to understand. So, when the omega suddenly seemed to become upset for no reason, he tried to understand. When Josh did strange things, he tried to understand those things as a result of something that happened in the past. Habits were learned like that.

Understanding was what a person did when they loved someone else.

However, within the past few weeks there had been new behaviors that were just inexplicable. It wasn’t like having his mate suddenly become upset by some bit of memory, or balking at something he wanted to do because his past experiences had shown him it was best not to get his hopes up.

This was different.

This was sudden outbursts of moodiness or anger, which the omega was clearly trying not to show. These outbursts didn’t last long and weren’t severe, though they had been growing in intensity and frequency lately. This was just plain odd behavior, right up to trying to talk in public about whether or not they were going to have kids. It was a sudden, almost obsessive care for his own appearance that had more to do with looking slim than it did with looking good.

Blake couldn’t understand any of it. He didn’t understand how all these things were connected. Yet, he felt somehow that everyone else who was present had figured out something he could never hope to realize on his own.

He looked at the pups, who were playing quietly now after having sensed the serious mood hanging over everything. Some of them looked back at him nervously when they noticed they were being watched. The rest simply ignored him, eager to continue pretending as though nothing was wrong—and pups were very good at that, even better at pretending than Josh.

What Josh saw in the pups, he didn’t know. Perhaps it was just invisible to his eyes.

The minutes dragged by very slowly until finally Ryan stood up. There was no way to miss it when it happened, since everyone was waiting for this moment. “Okay, I’ve been sitting here next to the food smelling it for long enough. It should all be warmed up by now and even if it isn’t, I’m having some. It’s time to eat!”

This should have been met with enthusiastic whoops of delight but there were only a few half hearted cheers in response to the news. No one seemed to really feel hungry.

Ryan clapped his hands together. “In honor of Joshua Silver’s union with his mate, we’ll allow them to eat first. Since Josh isn’t here, that means you’re up, Blake. Grab a plate and dig in.”

Blake stood, but he didn’t head to the food. The smells were turning his stomach. He was the opposite of hungry right now. Besides, Josh asked for Blake to come into the trees to get him once it was time to eat. Not only would it feel wrong to do otherwise, it would also be wrong.

“No. Thanks, but no. I have to get my mate. Everyone else can get started without us.”

As he turned away, he thought he saw approval in Ryan’s eyes. He didn’t much care. He didn’t need some random man to tell him if what he did was right or wrong.

He wouldn’t have listened anyway.

The pups had given Josh a wide berth when he passed by, but they scattered from Blake, racing away from him. He transformed, ignoring them, and took off at a near-run for the trees. Josh’s scent was new and distinct, easy to follow through the minefield of other smells, most of which had the “green” tinge of vegetation. It was cooler and yet more humid beneath the trees. His pelt felt sticky, his fur heavy, weighed down by the presence of the place.

“Josh!” he barked. The sound was quickly swallowed up by undergrowth. There was no reply.

Nervous even though he really shouldn’t have been, Blake continued to follow the scent until he reached the place where it seemed to culminate.

The sharp reek of blood stole through the air.

His heart seemed to cramp and shrivel in his chest. Nose quivering, pelt standing on end, he stayed right where he was and moved only his eyes to locate the source.

There.

On a thorn thicket ahead and slightly to the right, many of the thorns were tipped with blood that was still wet and vibrant. Some had dripped onto the ground, then smeared as if something had walked through it.

Or been dragged.

Other scents registered. Two wolves. An alpha and an omega, both male, both complete strangers. They only smelled of each other, lacking the tinge of many that would mark them out as belonging to a pack. He found a paw print here, a few larger ones there on the grass, slowly disappearing as the springy blades righted their positions. He brushed his whiskers against the prints and almost recoiled at the stench. These wolves smelled as if they walked through garbage on the daily and had never known water. They must have looked filthy, must have been filthy. That was, if Josh had even seen them before they attacked.

The signs of struggle were clear. All the puzzle pieces fell into place for him as he picked his way through it, heart pounding so hard in his chest it seemed as loud as thunder. It had been a short scuffle. If it could be even called a scuffle. The wolves came from opposite directions. The twisting of a fern signaled that Josh turned to face one. An odd spray of dirt and some scraped lines in the earth told him the other wolf came from behind and knocked him against the thorns.

And that was all. They must have knocked him unconscious, though there were no signs of how they had done it, and then they dragged him away, deeper into the trees.

Who they were was something he didn’t know and it didn’t really matter. They had Josh.

And he was going to get Josh back.

The fear disappeared in the next breath he took, and he exhaled pure rage. The forest turned bloody-red before him and he snarled, letting the sound rip out of his mouth and carry as far as it would go. Around him, the world went silent. The mice hushed. The birds quieted. The insects stilled. Everything held its breath in awe of such fury.

Blake threw back his head and howled. It emerged from the snarl and deepened into a growl, which steadily rose in volume and pitch until it was a steady, fierce cry of grief, hate, and revenge. Not even the trees could contain it. He had no doubt the pack at their picnic tables would hear him, not that he had any intention of waiting around to see if they would arrive to help.

He was an alpha, felt more alpha in this moment than he had during any petty acts of vandalism. Purpose flowed through his body, made him aware of the strength in his muscles, like corded wires. His bones were metal. His mind was a sharp and deadly thing, full of animal desire. He was what he had always been meant to be: a killing machine with something to prove.

There would be no regrets at the bloodshed this time, arrest or no arrest, police or no police. These fools had taken what belonged to him. Whatever it took to get Josh back, it would be done.

Lowering his snout to the ground, he found where the mingled trail of scents led away and charged along beside it.