Henry had never known the bitter taste of hatred as he did now, not even while living on the streets of Portland. He staggered through the woods, branches and brambles tearing at his flesh and clothes. Ripped pieces of his shirt served as bandages on his badly cut feet, destroyed from a week of running barefoot. Henry looked behind him, craning his sore neck. He thought this must be how all prey felt when it was being hunted down. Tired, sore, hopeless, and paranoid. He’d never imagined it possible, but somehow he’d become the prey. He was being hunted. Henry smacked his dry, cracked lips together. His tongue felt wooden and stiff in his mouth, and if his body had been capable of eliciting a single tear drop, he would have relished the wetness sliding down his cheek, but all his tears had tried up days ago.

Henry felt the sting of sadness and despair despite his inability to cry, but he also felt the keen burn of anger and betrayal. He continued to push through the brush, disrupting the natural harmony of life. His hunter wasn’t just anyone. His pursuers were his own family. His friends and pack members were the ones running him ragged. Henry had feared the day when the Coastal Maine Werewolves learned his secret. It had been hard enough to work his way up from the streets, through the upper class of southern Maine’s rich and prestigious. He had earned his place among them, along with his title and the responsibility of being the Alpha of the pack by the age of thirty-six. Life had finally been comfortable and complete. Until one week ago.

Henry didn’t like to think about the moment his pack had come to him with their faces frozen in disbelief and horror. How could they judge him as a monstrosity? They were all monsters by definition. He had thought they would be more understanding, less hypocritical. As upset as it made him, Henry couldn’t focus on the throbbing ache of remembered pain for very long, as intense waves of physical pain radiated throughout his entire body.

Henry stopped and bent over. One of his toenails had caught on a blackberry bush that had grown low to the ground. The thorns had torn into his skin and ripped the nail clean off. It would grow back in a few days, provided he could find food and water, and replenish his strength. What he found unsettling was that this injury hurt the worst. He felt like it was a perfect metaphor for his life right now. He had been ripped clean off and cast aside. He could never go back to his cape house, surrounded by beautiful coastal views of waves, sunsets, and beautiful people. He’d be killed on sight. He could never again sample the fine dining and wine of the seaside restaurants or surround himself with the company of refined people. He’d thought he had been surrounded by a new, chosen family, but he found that he missed the implicit trust and understanding of the street urchins and the homeless community back in Portland. They had understood his need for change. They had needed things themselves, albeit vastly different things. But at least they had understood and accepted him. His supposed werewolf family hadn’t understood at all. A fight had broken out, Henry being chased out from his own home. He hadn’t been given time to explain or to pack any of his things. His own staff had even turned against him. He’d been ripped away from home like a scab and he felt the rawness of it all bleeding from his heart and soul.

A loud rushing sound filled Henry’s ear and he felt as though he might pass out. It muted the sound of the birds and the animals scurrying in the undergrowth. Black spots filled his vision as he staggered, smashing his shoulder into a tree before stumbling and falling to the ground. Leaves and twigs flew up into the air around him as he rolled, bouncing off of rocks and stumps. His descent down the embankment was not graceful. The pain barely registered, as his body was already battered from a week’s worth of abuse in the elements. Henry’s descent ended with a violent splash into the river. He hadn’t been aware he was even near water. The pine, maple and oak trees had grown thick, woven together by saplings and dense fir trees. The water explained the rushing in his ears.

The jolt and shock of the frigid water sharpened his brain with alacrity as his body, desperate for liquid, went sponge-like. Even as his lungs filled with water and his mind told him to start swimming for the surface, a feeling of relief and elation settled over him. Henry’s last thought before the darkness of his own mind and the river engulfed him was that at least he wasn’t going to die of dehydration. He was no stranger to the feeling of longing for something so much that it felt as if his soul was parched with the need for it. It was funny how that thirst hadn’t been a physical one until just this week. For the entirety of his life up until now, it had been his soul in need of replenishment. Replenishment he didn’t think he would ever find.