The shouts coming from Aldrich Town grew louder. People called her name, others shouted orders, telling each other where to search. They were trying to keep Aldrich happy, to keep him from punishing them.

He’s a monster, a murderer. We all saw what he was doing to Paulina. I should have done something. I should have tried to break her out.

Tears blurred her vision as she started up the incline toward the dark forest. Her chin was the only spot on her body that wasn’t freezing. The blood from the cut was warm as it ran down her neck.

I need to get farther away. I can’t let him find me.

The guard’s shoes were too big. Cara struggled to keep her balance and risked another fall. It was too dangerous. She couldn’t afford any more injuries. Stepping out of the shoes, Cara hugged them against her chest as she continued over the sharp rocks.

She was beginning to lose feeling in her feet. The water was so cold, and the rocks were like sharpened ice cubes. She was almost to the forest. Concentrating on the path in front of her, she pushed aside the pain that was beginning to break through the cold.

Keep moving, keep going.

The horn sounded from the town in three short bursts. Cara hit the ground crawling into the underbrush at the edge of the woods. She looked back toward the town, knowing that the three short bursts meant that there was something outside the walls.

Someone must have seen me.

A guard pointed beyond the mote.

They found the guard.

They hadn’t seen her, but when they came to bury the guard they would discover that someone drug him up onto land from the water. Even if they didn’t figure out he’d been moved, they’d figure out that Cara escaped.

Aldrich will make them look for me. I have to keep moving.

Just as she began to move she saw it. A giant white wolf running over the boulders in her direction. His yellow eyes trained on Cara.

Shit.

Cara pulled out the blade and pointed it at the wolf. It was too big to be just an ordinary wolf. It was one of them.

A shifter.

Anger and hatred hardened the features on her face. They were the reason for the wall, the reason she and everyone else had to agree to be caged. They were prisoners with a man like Aldrich deciding who would live and who would die.

The shifter didn’t slow down. He continued toward her and didn’t stop until he was only a few feet away. The wolf stood just outside her reach. His lips curled back showing her sharp teeth as a growl rumbled from the chest of the beast.

“I will kill you. I’m not afraid of you,” Cara said, ignoring the shaking of the blade in her hand. It was the cold not her fear. She hated the monster too much to have any room for healthy fear. “You stole my freedom.”

His white head turned as he began to pace in a wide circle around Cara. The yellow eyes of the beast were no longer staring into hers. They were running over her body, the head of the wolf lifted smelling the air. He drew closer.

“Not another step,” Cara growled through clenched teeth. The wolf snapped its massive jaws together, the clap of teeth against teeth was like a gun shot. She almost dropped the blade.

The wolf leapt toward her.

Cara swung the blade, catching the beast on the biggest part of his thick, white fur covered front leg. The wolf leapt back, the cry of pain surprising Cara.

It’s true what they say about the silver. The shifters can’t stand to touch it.

A snarl ripped through the air like thunder.

Cara’s legs shook harder. She was scared, there was no denying that now. The wolf snarled and barked at her, his rage clear to see.

This is it.

She held the blade with both hands, pointing the tip toward the enraged shifter.

The wolf came at Cara fast, catching her right arm with his powerful jaws. Cara released the blade with her right hand, taking it into her left.

Pain radiated through her arm, but she was used to pain. It was the sight of the blood and the sharp teeth that made her cry out. The wolf released her arm, his huge head rising. His yellow eyes widened at her.

Cara brought the handle of the blade down hard, catching the wolf on the side of his head. A small yelp of surprise more than pain came out of the beast and he shot away into the forest.

She gripped the weapon and stumbled forward.

I have to get deeper into the woods. Aldrich. He’ll be coming.

 

Darian crouched low, watching in disbelief as the wounded human trudged deeper into the forest.

A woman?

He didn’t know, until she screamed. The stench of the water covered her feminine scent. The way she’d acted determined to pull the body from the water, he’d assumed it had to be a young boy. What he’d taken to be cape was not a cape at all. It was a dress.

I attacked a woman.

The guilt that poured through him was overwhelming. It shouldn’t make a difference. If she was a murderer, then she deserved death just like the other hunters that came after Darian’s pack, his family. It did matter though. She was a weak, human woman. The skin discoloration on her face was proof of abuse. The woman was misused. She was mistreated by her own people.

The betrayal of enduring abuse from her people, her family, it must be what drove her to murder.

She continued walking. As she moved chunks of mud and the filth from the mote began to slide away from the material of her dress. It was a blue nightgown. What he’d mistaken for large clumps of mud, he now recognized were the womanly curves of a female. The rip up the side of the ruined nightgown gave Darian glimpses of long lean legs.

How the hell did I ever think she was male?

She should be too exhausted to continue. The amount of blood she was losing wasn’t extreme, but if the wound went untreated, she would suffer infection.

Darian had to give her credit, she wasn’t crying. Most of the hunters cried when they faced him, especially if they managed to fight him off momentarily as she had.

She spotted him a few times as he followed her. The deep frown and scowl she aimed at him should have made him feel resentful.

It didn’t.

The woman had spirit, and a brave heart.

She walked for hours not stopping to rest, or to find food. Darian couldn’t help but wonder what was driving her so hard to continue. With the sun nearing the highest point in the sky, Darian knew his pack would be coming soon to look for him. He should kill the woman and be done with it. She was heading toward their community. Darian couldn’t allow her to find it.

She stopped walking abruptly. He watched her tilt her head and make a turn toward the west.

The waterfall. Yes, please wash the filth from your body. You smell horrible.

Everclear, was what Darian’s people called the waterfall where the woman with the short golden hair finally stopped. She scanned the forest line startling when she found him watching her.

“What? What do you want?” she demanded. “Let’s fight to the death, or leave me the hell alone,” she challenged. Her hands fisted on her hips as she stared at him.

She is beautiful.

There was no denying it. Covered in filth, and with hacked up hair, a bloody chin, and an angry scowl on her face, she was still beautiful. Her lips were tight as she stared at him. She was not stupid. Darian could see she was afraid of him, but she was facing him.

“Well?” she said again.

Darian smiled inwardly. This human thought to boss him around? Did she take him for a pet?

He lay down in the twigs and leaves several yards away, showing her that he did not intend to leave, but neither was he attacking.

She hissed out a breath, glaring at him even harder than she was before. “You’re going to wait until I’m asleep? Vulnerable? Why?”

Darian gave her no response.

The woman looked down at the bite in her wrist. Her clenched teeth, the only indication of her pain. Indigo blue eyes landed on him again. “Kill me, don’t kill me. I don’t care. I’m washing off.”

She kicked off the shoes and turned her back to him. Reaching beneath the gown she pulled out a cloth pack and dropped it next to the shoes. Next, she stripped away the bra she was wearing while keeping the gown on to shield her body from him. She folded it carefully and set it on the cloth bag.

Her spine stiffened when she stood up. She stared out at the water. He could hear her heart pounding before she stepped into the water. She was still holding the blade as she lifted the dress only high enough to avoid the water.

Inch by inch he watched the dress climb higher up her smooth fair skin. He realized he was holding his breath as his hungry gaze swept over her exposed skin.

She’s so beautiful.

Her breath shook as she exhaled. She looked over her shoulder at him to see if he was watching. The hem of her skirt was just under her ass. Darian didn’t want her to stop. His heart was pounding as he waited for more.

“Forget the shifter. Just do it, Cara,” she spoke quietly to herself but he could hear her as if she were right beside him.

Cara.

Darian’s mind clung to the tiny scrap of information. He knew her name.

The dress slid up over her heart shaped ass.

Darian couldn’t help it. He couldn’t hold the shape of his wolf when the man in him was reacting so physically to Cara. He backed up a few feet as he began to shift back into a human. Darian didn’t want her to stop, he didn’t want the sounds of his bones shifting to disturb her. The white fur of his wolf shed away from his skin as his bones shifted back to their human position.

He couldn’t stop watching her.

The curve of her lower back was every bit as sensual as the rest of her. Darian gulped as the gown was pulled free from her body. The twin curves of the sides of her fair breasts were all he could see from his angle behind her.

He wanted to see more but he held himself still. Already his shaft was hard and pulsing. Darian’s human side was merely reacting to her physical body. He would not stoop so low as to mate with a murderer. He might share a body with the soul of a wolf but Darian was a man and he wasn’t going to allow his body or his wolf to make his mind up for him.

She balled the gown up and tossed it onto the shore without looking in his direction.

Darian found himself wishing she would turn toward him and bare her naked beauty to him.

Ridiculous.

It wasn’t as though Cara was the first naked woman he’d ever seen. Many of his pack were women, he’d seen them all shift. Their nudity was natural. Somehow, this was different.

Cara dipped under the surface, bending her knees. She’d only gone waist deep into the water before she began dipping her body under.

As she rubbed her skin vigorously with her hands and continued to rinse away the filth, Darian straightened with a start. The scent that filled the air, it was the same that woke him from his sleep. It was the same sweet, alluring smell that pulled him from the comfort of his bed and into action.

Darian swallowed hard watching her in disbelief.

He’d heard of fated bonding, but he’d never seen it in his lifetime. This scent, it was as described by the elders of his pack. If a wolf found his predestined mate, his wolf would immediately form an unbreakable bond. They belonged to each other from that day forward.

Cara is my predestined mate?

His wolf confirmed it with a protective growl.

She turned around at the sound. Her wounded arm covered the peaks of her breasts from his view, and her left hand held the blade pointed at him. Her eyes were like steel as she met his gaze.

Look at her, she’s fierce, she’s strong, and she’s a warrior. She’s perfect.