---

The pull was always there. That’s the lie I’ve told for five years. At first, I told it mainly to myself. I imagined it. It was just an echo of the memories of all the horrible things I’ve seen and done. Of course it should affect me. It’s only natural. Then, I lied to the others in all the subtle ways you do when you want people to stop asking questions.

Are you all right? You know we’re here for you, man. We all feel it too.

Except they were all lying too. They didn’t feel the pull, not like I did. To them, it was something fleeting, like a distant sound, a buzzing. They were drawn to it, of course. And they were right to be afraid. Because, behind that pull is the thing they’re all scared of.

The Alpha. Able Valent.

He controls every wolf shifter in Kentucky except for us. The others, Liam, Mac, Gunnar, even Jagger...they think they know what that means. If Able ever gets ahold of them and subjugates them, they’ll lose their free will. They won’t be able to eat, drink, mate, or shift unless the Alpha allows it. They won’t be able to protect the women they love. Hell, Jagger already found that out. His mate, Keara, was dead. We told him it’s not his fault. We were the ones who kept him from going to her because it would have put us all at risk. She got caught by the Pack over a year ago. The deep, hard truth is that it was his fault. Keara was his to protect. He never should have claimed a mate while Able Valent still draws breath. None of them should.

Because the pull of Able Valent and the Pack will always be stronger. It’s still in me. And that’s the lie I tell them now too.

I’m fine. I just need some time to myself to sort it all out.

So, for the past six months, I’ve found ways to stay away from the caves beneath Mammoth Forest. If they see me too much, if they look too closely, they’re bound to see my shame. I am not strong enough to escape the pull. On my darkest days, I think maybe I don’t even want to. Maybe giving in to Able and rejoining the Pack will take away the pain and guilt I’ve buried for five long years. Maybe leaving the Pack is what made me feel those things in the first place. Maybe I’m all the things Able said I was and more.

A killer. A monster. His greatest creation.

---

I stood in a clearing, ten yards away from the secret entrance to the hidden caves. Two miles to the east of us, hundreds of tourists pass by us every day. Just a few feet of dirt and rock separates the world they think they know from the one that’s real. The Mammoth Forest shifters are different. We are Alphas. We are the secret Able Valent wants to hide from the rest of the Pack. He told them we’re all dead or we’re mad, our minds twisted by bad genes. I think it’s the lie he needs to tell himself as well. But, he’s remained Alpha longer than any shifter in history. No one knows exactly how old he is, but the shifters of Kentucky have been under his control for two solid generations.

Breathe in. Breathe out. As the pink bands of dawn blazed to new orange, I dug my bare toes into the earth and tried again. Meditating was Molly’s idea. She’s always been able to see things about me the others miss. She’s human but a shifter’s mate. Liam’s.

I bent my knees and held my chin up. With each breath, I tried to draw the earth’s energy into my feet. With each exhale, I tried to push it back into the ground. When you put it into words like that, it really does sound stupid. I don’t know if it helped at all, but at least I didn’t feel like killing anyone today. So, there was that.

Stretching my arms above my head, I let out one last, slow exhale. My fingers tingled and my connection to the ground broke.

The pull was still there, buzzing at the base of my skull. I pushed against it, filling my mind with a thousand other things. It was early summer, but not too early to think about the winter food stores.

With Gunnar back, the Pack patrols would probably lean on the nearby towns even harder. Somebody had to have seen something. They knew we had help from non-shifters all throughout the state. They brought food, medical supplies, provided safe houses. Some of them did it out of the kindness of their hearts and the knowledge that the Alpha’s dictatorship wasn’t a natural or good force in the world. Some did it because they had loved ones who’d been hurt by the Pack. Their daughters, sisters, even their mothers had been marked by Pack wolves against their will as breeding stock or…worse. We saved the ones we could. Some we even helped over the border into Ohio or Tennessee. But, for every small victory, every dent we made in the Alpha’s control, he would come back harder, increase the patrols, round up more innocent people, and pit neighbor against neighbor.

We were losing.

That was the other secret I could not say out loud. The others still had hope. I lived in the truth.

I sank to the ground, squatting. Digging my fingers into the soft, cool earth, I could feel its energy flowing through me. Molly would have a field day if I ever dared to admit it to her. She’d be insufferable after that. Her sweet face and ready smile lit the dark places of my heart most days. Her love had saved Liam and given him something powerful to fight for. Only I knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

My inner wolf rumbled below the surface. Ever since the Battle of Birch Haven, I hadn’t let him out much. The pull from the Pack was strongest when I gave in to my baser nature. Able’s voice still reached me sometimes, and I didn’t know if it was real or just a flashback to my years in his service.

Strike. Kill. It’s what you were meant to do, Payne. The emptiness will go away if you do. I’ll take it from you.

And so I would kill for him. That was another lie I told Liam and the others. They’d heard rumors, of course. But they never knew the scope of it. There was a number I kept in my head. Years ago, I recited it to myself in a nightly prayer. Now, I wouldn’t utter it for fear of giving it back the power it once had. It was there though, simmering just below my skin along with my wolf.

Seven. I’d killed seven men in Able Valent’s control.

“There you are,” Mac’s voice broke the silence. Old habits die hard, and I whirled on him, my vision flashing bright as my wolf’s eyes flared. He would see them as green. Not so very long ago, they were blood red.

Slowly, I rose, letting the earth’s energy seep back into the ground. Liam and Gunnar came behind Mac. Mac and Liam were half-brothers sharing the same mother. To those who first met them, they looked like twins. There were subtle differences between them though. Mac had a harder look to his green eyes. When he was in his wolf, they would flash silver where Liam’s were gold. Liam came easier to joy, his resting face always a half-smile. For Mac, he’d gained and lost so much more. The Pack had taken his sister, Lena. For years, he’d lived with the guilt and horror of not knowing what happened to her. We got her back for him though.

I’d only seen her from a distance. She’d suffered under the Pack for years, and I couldn’t face my own guilt for whatever part I’d played in making that easier for them.

Gunnar came through the trees and stood at Liam’s right shoulder. He stared at me with his ice blue eyes, a tremor running through his jaw. We’d almost lost him too. How he’d survived six months in a Pack-controlled POW camp I had yet to understand. I’d avoided him since he’d come back. He noticed.

“Well,” I said. “This can’t be good. All three of you?”

Liam’s easy smile did nothing to lighten my mood. They knew me too well. We’d fought shoulder to shoulder against the Pack for years. Each of us ready to die for the other. I still bore the scars of Birch Haven on my back. I’d do it again though, a thousand times over. That place had been one of the Alpha’s strongholds and where he held most of the women he’d kidnapped. They were free now along with Mac’s sister and his new mate, Eve.

“You’re not an easy man to get ahold of these days,” Liam said. “You keep finding ways to get gone.”

We’d had this conversation a dozen times or more. They’d given me space to lick my wounds. Now, it appeared my time was up. I bristled with unease as Gunnar and Liam shot looks at each other. Whatever they had to say to me, it had been preplanned. I wondered how they’d decided who would be the lead man. Had they drawn straws? Had a pissing contest? Had they argued which one of them was the closest to me and had the best chance of getting me to listen?

The answer to that question was none of them. I had different connections to each of them, but I’d always kept a distance. It was just that lately, I needed even more.

“Listen,” Liam said. “We need to talk. Things are tense enough with the threat of Jagger going rogue on us.”

“I’m not Jagger,” I said, my tone falling flat. I meant it simply, but the moment the words spilled from me, I realized how true they rang. I wasn’t Jagger. I wasn’t any of them. Mac, Liam, Gunnar, they all had mates. They had a reason to hope that I never would. Even Jagger. Sure, he’d lost Keara, but at least he had her in the first place. These men no longer knew what it was to live truly alone. And I liked it that way. The silence inside my head and heart was so much better than the alternative.

“Payne,” Gunnar started. I held up a hand to stop him.

“Save it,” I said. “And quit worrying about me. I’m fine.”

“You’re fine? Really?” Gunnar threw up his hands. “Tell me again how you’re not just like Jagger? Because right now I don’t see it. I see the two of you as just shades of the same color.”

“I,” I said, taking a step toward him. “Am. Not. Jagger. That dude’s got a death wish. We all know it.”

Just last month, Jagger had run off alone on a suicide mission to find Gunnar after he’d been captured by the Pack. He didn’t discuss it with anyone. He didn’t even tell us he was going. He just left in the middle of the night hellbent on saving Gunnar or dying trying. Probably both. He hadn’t died though. Miraculously, he’d killed every guard in that prison and brought three beta POWs back with him. Gunnar never needed rescuing. None of us did. That’s what these men, my brothers in arms, didn’t quite understand.

“Fine,” Mac said. “Jagger’s a different kind of problem. And maybe his little kamikaze field trip got some shit out of his system for a while. But, I need you to take a blood oath right now that you’re not planning to do the same.”

I reared back like Mac had slugged me in the gut. Where the hell was this coming from? Three nights ago, we’d all decided my next mission. I was the only one capable of doing it. Mac’s mate Eve was weeks away from delivering his baby. He couldn’t leave her. Liam had Molly and as our main doctor; she was too valuable to the group. Gunnar had spent the last six months behind enemy lines. He needed time to sort that out and stay close to his new mate, Jett. And she was in the middle of training the women in our camp how to fight. Really fight. It fell to me to seek out the weapons they’d need for that.

“I know what my mission is,” I said. “I don’t need to take a blood oath.”

“Really?” Mac said, getting in my face. “Every day, you’re slipping further and further away. We all see it. And I get it, Payne. I was there at Birch Haven, right by your side. I saw what it did to you when the Pack got close. We all felt the pull.”

Hard laughter bubbled up from my chest. It was in me to tell him they had no idea what I felt. They knew nothing. “I already took a blood oath.” I thumped my chest. I stood shirtless, and my black drawstring pants hung low on my hips. I placed my hand over my heart, tracing the borders of the tattoo I bore. We’d gotten this ink together to prove our loyalty to each other and our cause. A wolf’s head with two great wings unfurled behind it, daggers crossed beneath. It also marked me as a traitor to the Pack forever.

“Payne, man. Listen,” Mac said. He put a hand on my arm. His green eyes turned silver as his wolf simmered to the surface. “I know what we agreed. I know what we’re asking of you.”

It was simple really. We had intel about a group of northern shifters who might have Wolfkiller bullets. Gunnar’s mate Jett had been given some when she made her own escape from Birch Haven years ago. My job was to cross the Ohio border and head to Michigan to try and find them.

“My head’s clear,” I lied.

“I know it is,” Mac said, locking eyes with me. “But there’s something else I need. And it can’t wait.”

Liam and Gunnar closed in beside him. My heart hammered out a warning. Shaking my head, I backed away.

“Payne,” Mac said, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. It could only mean one thing. “My sister, Lena. I need you to take her with you. I need you to get her the hell out of Kentucky once and for all.”

“No,” I said, my voice turning to stone. “No way. She’s safer here in the caves.”

I was full of shit and all three of them knew it. What they couldn’t know is what scared me. Lena’s years of pain and suffering as a captive of the Pack had been partly my fault. Men like me who served the Alpha made it possible. Since Birch Haven, I couldn’t even bring myself to be in the same room with her. Guilt and fear bled through me. No. No.

“She’s suffocating here in the caves,” Mac said. “Little by little, every day I feel like I’m losing her all over again. She needs to feel safe. The only way that will happen if she’s free of the Pack reach forever. I don’t know if the Wild Lake wolves up in Michigan will take her in, but they owe us one. It’s a gut feeling and a chance I’m willing to take.”

“Then you take it. Don’t put this on me.” Mac pleaded with me with his eyes. He couldn’t take her over the border and we both knew why. He couldn’t leave his pregnant mate. Even Lena had to understand that.

My gaze went from Mac’s to Liam’s to Gunnar’s. Their hard stares felt like stakes driving into my heart. “Payne, please,” Mac said. “I’m begging you. Do this for me. Do this for my sister. You’re the only one who can.”

I bit back the truth swirling through my heart. It was too much. Too hard. I thought Mac had believed the lies I told, but now I knew he hadn’t. As he stared at me with pain in his eyes, I knew he could see my truth.