I got careless. I should have sensed him standing there. Maybe I had. Maybe there’d been some small part of me that noticed the change in the wind or the strong, male scent emanating from him. Once I’d turned and focused my attention on him outright, his scent overpowered me.

Strong. Almost feral. Powerful.

His eyes glinted silver and his inner wolf stirred. He would be a giant if he shifted. Somehow, I could almost see his wolf superimposed with the man standing in front of me. Gray with silver streaks, lush fur and keen, penetrating blue eyes.

A low growl emanated from his core. No one but another wolf should have been able to hear it. But, I did. Setting my woven basket down, I straightened my shoulders and walked up to him.

“Who are you?” he asked me again.

How could he not know? Was he just trying to unsettle me? He’d already done that just by being here. I felt pressure between my shoulder blades and the hair at the back of my neck stood on end.

I looked closer. I’d never seen him before. I would have remembered. Dark, thick hair, slicked back. It hung past his ears, just brushing his shoulders. He was bare-chested with defined abs, carved in granite. My fingers brimmed with the urge to touch the dusting of dark curls that covered his pecs and led a trail all the way down.

“Don’t you know?” I asked.

He didn’t. He honest to God didn’t. Even if my own senses hadn’t screamed the answer, his mere presence in front of me told me the most important thing about him. He wasn’t a member of the Pack. He was an intruder.

“Rowan!” Aunt Grace’s hollar came from further away than the first one. She was looking for me in the wrong place.

The intruder’s lip curled in a little half-smile. Oh, yes. He was dangerous. But, not Pack. Which meant he was either foolish, or he had some kind of death wish. The Pack patrols would head this way soon.

“You’re...you’re not…” He reached for me. His eyes misted and his fingers trembled a bit as they hovered in the air in front of my face. Heat speared from my heart straight down to my toes. I took a step back and he dropped his hand.

Whatever unsettled him, he recovered from it quickly. His wolf eyes flashed silver and his brow furrowed. When I reached for him, he stopped me by grabbing my wrist. He held me in an iron grip as he searched my face for answers I couldn’t believe he didn’t already possess.

“Rowan,” he whispered. “Rowan. Rowan what?”

Good question, I wanted to say. Instead, I said nothing. Leaves rustled behind him. The patrols were coming. How the hell did he not realize that? By the intensity of his gaze, I knew why. Whatever else this man was, he was flat out thunderstruck by the likes of me.

“Do you know what this place is?” he asked, still gripping my wrist. His fingers seared my skin. My heart thumped a wild pace and sweat beaded my brow.

“Do you?”

“Heartland,” he answered.

“I live here,” I said, recovering my bravado. “What’s your business?”

His lips parted but he didn’t speak. He was still trying to puzzle out what I was. His unbreaking scrutiny raised every alarm bell inside of me. To hell with this.

I jerked my wrist out of his grasp. His eyes widened with shock at the strength I showed. I’d only just begun.

I let out a breath and with it, my own inner beast churned. I let her out just a little. This was the part Aunt Grace didn’t fully understand. I was in control. No trembling. No double vision. I didn’t feel faint or breathless. Whatever happened to me now, I owned this.

My vision blurred for just an instant before it brightened. I knew he saw the flash in my own eyes. My heart beat double time as I let primal energy flow through me. I took a bold step toward him, leaving only a few inches of space between us. The ends of his hair lifted, but his gaze held steady.

Bending at the knees, I took a ready stance in front of him. If he charged me, he still outweighed me by a good seventy pounds. If he shifted, he’d be twice as strong. But, he wouldn’t be faster.

I let out a growl, fully expecting his knees to buckle. I’d perfected this, bringing down at least a dozen Pack patrols without them even knowing what happened. Geordie’s loss of bladder control the other day had been the least of it.

I waited and held my ground. Any second now. He’d shift. His wolf would whine, side-step and double back the way he came at top speed.

But, nothing happened.

He kept his posture straight, his silver eyes locked with mine. His lips curled back in a snarl, but he didn’t shift. Why didn’t he shift? Instead, his power shot toward me in a wall of heat. His defenses went up. I saw the hairs bristle along his shoulders. His wolf was there, simmering below the surface, but he stayed fully in control of it.

My legs started to give out. My breath left me in a whoosh and I almost dropped. With lightning quick reflexes, he shot out a hand and caught my elbow.

“Rowan,” he said.

I jerked away. “Don’t touch me.” I couldn’t stand it if he did. His fingers burned through me.

“Are you okay? What was that? You’re...you’re like...but…” He shook his head as if that would stop his shocked stammer.

“You should go,” I said, gasping. “This is no place for someone like you.”

“Someone like me? What do you know about it?”

I didn’t. That’s the truth. This man was unlike any I’d ever encountered. The strength emanating from him was more powerful than anything I’d felt except for…No. That wasn’t possible. This was Heartland. Even he knew that.

Deep, gruff voices reached my ears. His pricked and he dropped low, finally able to sense the Pack patrols closing in. I realized with fresh horror that I was the reason he hadn’t picked up on it before. He’d been so focused on me that he missed the sounds and scent of the others. And now, he might pay for it with his life.

“Who’s out there?” I recognized one of the voices as belonging to Clayton Sampson. He was one of the Chief Alpha’s most trusted guards. He was usually brought in to train the others. Clayton was also one of the meanest sons of bitches I’d ever encountered. I’d watched him tear the heads off a few of Valent’s other guards when he didn’t feel they were doing their jobs well. If he caught this guy’s scent, there’s no telling what might happen.

“Stay here,” I said. I hiked up my skirt and vaulted up the hill past him.

“What?” he turned, eyes wide. I rounded on him.

“Stay low. Don’t do anything that’ll draw even more attention to yourself. That is...if you want to live or even just walk out of here with all your limbs still attached. When they start to move off, then run like hell and don’t look back.”

He stared at me open-mouthed, but his predatory nature reflected back at me in the glimmer of his wolf eyes. He understood.

“Hey!” I yelled, running as fast as I could as east as I could. My skirt tore on a branch, ripping it in two all the way up to my thigh. Dammit. That would take an afternoon to mend.

I tripped over another clump of gnarled branches; landing on my palms, I scraped the skin.

My chest tightened as two Pack members drew near. Two pairs of wolf eyes glinted gold as they got to me. The air grew thick and my nerves ignited. Danger. Run. But, I stayed right where I was.

Sweat poured between my shoulder blades and dripped down my nose. My hair clung to my forehead and I stayed low to the ground, my legs sprawled out behind me.

“Who the hell is that?” one of the shifters asked the others. Thank God, it wasn’t Clayton. He must have moved off to the west. I knew one of these men as Teague. He was newer and more timid, preferring to stick to the fence line near Able’s house. The other I’d never seen before. He was small and slight with a grayish pallor to his skin. A new recruit. He couldn’t be more than maybe sixteen years old. Fresh off the truck. That would work to my advantage.

If I closed my eyes and held my breath, I swear I could hear the intruder’s heartbeat down in the clearing. If I could, how the hell couldn’t the patrol? If he tried to run now, it would be worse. Like it or not, it appeared I was the one line of defense he had. Later, I’d have to figure out why it mattered to me. I just knew on a cellular level it did. Clayton would use the others and make an example out of him.

I moaned and rolled to my side. The pain was real. Blood trickled down my wrist. I’d impaled the heel of my hand on the sharp point of one of the branches. It would heal quickly, but bleed a lot before that.

I let my jaw hang slack and my vision go out of focus. Even so, I could sense their positions with absolute precision. One quick movement, and I could have them both on their backs. But, then what? I’d have the advantage of surprise, but I’d be no match for Clayton and the other two shifters the instant these boys sent out a distress call. I could buy my new acquaintance time and distraction, that was all. If he was smart, he’d take that gift and do what I said. Run like hell and never look back.

Teague grabbed me by the shoulder and flipped me to my back. I held my hands in front of my face, shielding it. I let out an animal whimper and refused to make eye contact with him.

“Oh, shit,” Teague said. “It’s just Rowan.”

“Rowan?” the new kid asked. “What the hell’s wrong with her? She’s...she seems...what the fuck is she?”

Teague clucked his tongue. “Don’t get near her, Dugger. She’s a freak, is what she is.” Teague wiped his hand on his jeans as if touching me would expose him to the kind of freak he thought I was. Rage boiled through me, but I kept my breathing even.

“Get up, Rowan,” Teague said. “I heard the old lady calling for you. Better get on home before you get into trouble.”

I snarled at him and flipped over, squatting in front of them. I knew they saw what they wanted to. Wild girl. Not right in the head. I fed the illusion by letting a thin line of drool slide from my mouth.

“Jesus,” Dugger said. “But what is she?”

His eyes darted over me, trying to sort out what his instincts told him. Not quite human. Not quite shifter. I was other and therefore a threat. His bigotry showed in his narrowing eyes and the curl of his lips. I snapped my jaw at him, not able to help myself.

I underestimated Dugger’s bigotry. He lashed out, backhanding me across the cheek. The blow stunned me. I pitched sideways and bit the inside of my mouth. Blood mixed with saliva and ran in a stream from my lip to the ground.

I closed my eyes. Let out a breath. One heartbeat. Two. I let the wild thing out just a little more. I felt a little heat behind my eyes and knew as I turned, Dugger and Teague saw them flash silver. With each slow breath, my true nature spooled out of me. It wrapped around their senses in snaking tendrils. They knew it, and yet they’d never seen it. They were weak at their core. I was strong.

Dugger couldn’t handle it. Just like Geordie, his knees buckled and he took a staggering step forward. Teague was a little bit stronger. Still, he swayed sideways, caught in mid-shift as his wolf struggled to get out.

They were mine. I owned them. The chaos swirling inside them made them vulnerable.

Teague completed his shift. His black wolf was alarmingly thin. I could see every rib through his fur. But, his yellow eyes were sharp. He bared his fangs and lunged at me. I deflected him easily, pushing him back with my forearm.

Dugger recovered enough to come at me. I would have thrown him off too, but never got the chance.

Two more shifters burst through the trees. Clayton and Pollick. Clayton surveyed the scene in an instant. He shifted in mid-stride, his gray wolf larger than the others. When he got near me, his instincts short-circuited just like Teague’s and Dugger’s had. It would have bought me plenty of time. I could have pushed them all back.

But, as I lay on the ground, my arm still protecting my face, a silver avalanche descended, knocking Clayton back. He looked just like I imagined. Twice as big as any of the Alpha’s patrols. That meant something, I just didn’t know what. His sleek body arched through the air, tail high. His massive paws landed with a sickening thud against Clayton’s back. Cracking bones echoed off the trees.

Pollick and Dugger’s wolves reacted in unison. They lunged at the silver wolf. Pollick, the stronger of the two, tore into the silver wolf’s back, leaving a gaping wound. But, the silver wolf didn’t even flinch. He turned on Pollick and lunged at him. Dugger, Teague and now Clayton rebounded. They sank their claws into the silver wolf’s neck. Blood poured out of the wound.

He might have taken them anyway. He was so much bigger. So much stronger. But, I knew time was not on his side. At any moment, Clayton would have the presence of mind to call out to the Alpha and the rest of the Pack. Why he hadn’t already I couldn’t fathom. But, he didn’t. And that gave me the advantage I needed.

I let out an ear-splitting howl. Dugger, Clayton, Teague and Pollick whined, side-stepped and dropped low to the ground. I vaulted to my feet and put my hand on the silver wolf’s shoulder.

“Run!” I screamed. His wide, silver eyes took me in. His wounds weren’t fatal, but he’d lost a lot of blood. He took one faltering step and I knew I’d have to take matters into my own hands. So, I did it literally.

Though I didn’t seem to have the same power over him as the shifter patrol, the silver wolf shifted. He rose on two legs. In human form, his wounds looked even more grave. His ear hung loose and rivers of blood poured down his chest. I got my arms around his waist and pulled him deeper into the woods.

The patrol was stunned, but they wouldn’t be for long. There was only one place to go and it might not be safe.

“Shit,” I said under my breath. My new companion staggered but stayed on his feet. I draped his arm over my shoulder and ran for all I was worth.