Chapter One

 

Otto Thorne held his breath as he peered into the semi-darkness. The most visible thing out there was the glint of moonlight on guns—guns held by men who would have been more than happy to shoot and kill Otto, if only they knew he was standing in the shadows of the trees. But they didn’t know, at least for the moment. There were no guarantees that Otto would not be found, but he didn’t panic. He took every moment as it came, and hoped for the best.

That was the only way he could survive as a wolf shifter living in Gilt Hollow, where the specter of death and torture always haunted him. The full humans who ruled here took any opportunity to oppress and dehumanize shifters. And Otto and his ragtag “resistance” gang took every opportunity to undercut the Gilt Hollow humans’ attempts to oppress them. Tonight, Otto and his shifter friend, Leo, were planning to sneak food over to Bear Hollow, where most of the shifters lived. If they were caught, they faced the death penalty. But Otto didn’t plan on being caught.

He glanced over at Leo, who was watching the Gilt Hollow soldiers with a scowl on his face. Leo was perhaps the most easygoing guy Otto had ever met, but even he had no patience for Gilt Hollow’s tyranny. And why would he? All of the full humans in Gilt Hollow acted like shifters were nothing more than animals.

Otto looked from Leo to the two large carts of food hidden in the trees behind them. The shifters in Bear Hollow desperately needed that food. The winter had been long and harsh, and Otto and the rest of the resistance group hadn’t been able to sneak food to the Bear Hollow shifters as often as they would have liked. Ever since Zora Severson, the daughter of one of Gilt Hollow’s most famous nobles, had publicly stood up for shifters and then, shockingly, moved to Bear Hollow herself, the Gilt Hollow soldiers had been patrolling much more frequently than they used to. That had made sneaking food to Bear Hollow a challenge. Many nights, Otto and his friends had been forced to give up on their attempts to move food across their secret tunnel. The soldier patrols had been too heavy and frequent, and none of the shifters wanted to take even the slightest chance that the soldiers would catch them and discover the location of the tunnel. If the tunnel was discovered, it would be closed, and the Bear Hollow shifters would starve.

And so, Otto stood in the darkness, holding his breath and praying that the soldiers patrolling in front of him would move on quickly. He could see the well-hidden entrance to the tunnel from here—so close and yet so far away. If only these soldiers would be on their way, Otto and Leo could make a break for the tunnel and close its door behind them. Then, they would be safely on their way to Bear Hollow, where dozens of hungry shifters were waiting for them.

The soldiers ambled along, peering into the dark trees as though they could actually see into the forest. The moon was not particularly bright tonight, so the thickness of the trees provided especially good cover.

Just keep moving. Just keep moving. Otto willed the soldiers to be on their way. And it looked like he was going to be lucky tonight: they passed him and Leo at a slow but steady pace. A few more minutes, and they’d be far enough away for the pair of shifters to make a break for the tunnel with the food.

But then, everything went to shit.

A small animal, perhaps a rabbit or a small raccoon, had crept up in the brush behind Otto and Leo. And just when the Gilt Hollow soldiers were nearly past the two shifters’ hiding spot, that cursed animal stepped on a twig. The twig snapped, the sound of it unnaturally loud in the otherwise quiet forest. The soldiers paused, then turned toward where Otto and Leo were hiding.

“Who’s there?” one of them yelled.

Otto looked down to see that the animal had indeed been a raccoon. The little masked bandit looked up at Otto innocently, as though nothing had happened. Otto held his breath, cursing his bad luck as he turned back to watch the soldiers. No one’s here. Just turn around and keep moving. For a moment, it looked like the soldiers might actually do just that. But then, that blasted raccoon stepped on another twig. Otto rolled his eyes heavenward, and a fresh stream of curses ran through his mind. Where had this damned raccoon come from? It was the dead of winter, and the forest was covered in snow. Shouldn’t that thing be hibernating or something? Did raccoons hibernate? Otto wasn’t sure, but he figured that the raccoons living near Gilt Hollow probably didn’t have much need to hibernate. The excess of food thrown out by the Gilt Hollow citizens every day could easily feed an army of raccoons. But of course, instead of raiding the trash, this blasted raccoon had to come creeping up on Otto and Leo and their meager supply of food.

The soldiers were already starting to creep toward where Otto and Leo hid, their guns pointed at the trees. Otto felt his heart pounding in his chest as a mixture of adrenaline and frustration filled him. The soldiers weren’t going to give up and walk away now. The shifters’ cover had been blown.

“We have to run,” Leo said in a soft hiss of a whisper. “We need to draw them away from the food.”

Otto gritted his teeth together. Leo was right, but it still pained Otto to leave behind these stores of food. The food had probably been what attracted the raccoon, and that raccoon was going to have a feast once Otto and Leo were gone. It couldn’t be helped, though. Better to lose a bit of food to a greedy raccoon than to allow Gilt Hollow soldiers to discover that the shifters were sneaking food around.

“Alright,” Otto whispered to Leo. “Let’s do this then. Try not to get yourself shot.”

Leo grinned at Otto. “You do the same.”

In the next instant, Leo and Otto both let out long, loud roars as they burst forth from the trees. They began running down the primitive forest trail the guards had been walking on, already shifting as they ran. Their clothes tore away from their bodies as they began to shift into their animal forms. Leo morphed into a giant bear with dark brown fur, and Otto became a wolf with silver-gray fur that shimmered in the small bit of moonlight that shone between cracks in the clouds that had gathered. Otto was glad for his thick fur. The air was cold, and the snow beneath his paws was packed hard like ice, but his wolf easily handled the winter weather and terrain.

Behind him, shots rang out. The Gilt Hollow guards yelled, warning Leo and Otto to stop or die. But Leo and Otto only ran faster. These guards could never catch them while they were in animal form, and the night was too dim for the guards to have gotten a good look at Otto’s and Leo’s faces. As long as the two shifters avoided the spray of bullets the guards were sending after them now, everything would be fine.

Of course, avoiding bullets wasn’t exactly Otto’s favorite pastime. He winced as bullet after bullet whizzed past his ears, and hoped that the guards’ wouldn’t get lucky enough to hit him or Leo. The guards’ aim was poor, but they were shooting off quite a few bullets. If Leo and Otto didn’t get out of range of their guns soon, odds were good one or both of the shifters would be hit.

Seconds later, Leo let out a roar of pain and stumbled. His giant bear form made a loud crunching sound as it fell on the icy snow, and Otto slowed down to turn and look at Leo in despair. Quickly assessing the situation, Otto could tell that Leo’s back right leg had been hit. A painful wound, no doubt, but not a fatal one. But if Leo didn’t get up and keep moving, things would get fatal. The soldiers would kill him if they caught him. And, worse than that, once the Gilt Hollow soldiers realized who Leo was—a shifter guard working for House Severson—everyone in Gilt Hollow would grow even more suspicious than they already were. The Gilt Hollow citizens feared a shifter resistance force, but right now they had no solid proof that one existed. A shifter guard caught running away from Gilt Hollow soldiers would fuel the rumors. The Gilt Hollow citizens would all ask themselves why a shifter would run, unless he had something to hide.

Otto roared at Leo, and swatted at the bear with his wolf paw. Leo understood the meaning of the roar, even though Otto couldn’t actually talk while in wolf form.

Get up and run through the pain. We cannot let them catch us.

With a grunt, Leo stood and found his running legs again. The two shifters had a new problem, though. Now that Leo’s leg was bleeding, it was leaving a nice, clear trail in the snow for the soldiers to follow. The two shifters had to get to the river, where they could run without leaving a trail. Leo seemed to realize this even before Otto did, because he was already turning toward the nearby Golden Claw River.

The river was covered with floating blocks of ice right now, but it wasn’t completely frozen over. It never was, even in the coldest of winters. The steady, strong flow of the river kept it from turning into a giant ice cube, a fact for which Otto felt extremely grateful right now. The flowing water would hide a blood trail that solid ice would not.

Otto winced as he splashed into the water behind Leo. The water was about as cold as it could be without turning into solid ice. Even thick wolf fur couldn’t completely keep out the chill, and Otto let out a low roar of pain. He would have to muscle through this, though. Getting caught or killed was not an option. It simply wasn’t.

Mercifully, the guards seemed to be falling behind now. The bullets flying after them had slowed, and eventually stopped. The shouts of the guards grew more distant, until they faded away completely. Still, Otto and Leo kept running down the shallow portion of the river for several more minutes. Finally, Leo groaned and growled, telling Otto that he could go no further. Otto slowed, and nodded his giant wolf head. They had gone far enough.

The soldiers had given up, at least for the moment. Otto and Leo had led them far away from the food stores and the tunnel, evading disaster for one more night. Otto hoped they had evaded disaster, at least. Leo was limping horribly, and had no doubt lost a great deal of blood. As the two shifters climbed out of the river, Otto knew they had to get over to Bear Hollow tonight, even if there was no food left to bring with them. Leo needed medical attention, and he couldn’t go to any of the Gilt Hollow doctors with a gunshot wound. That would be a dead giveaway that Leo had been one of the shifters being chased by Gilt Hollow soldiers tonight.

Otto looked around for something to help stop the bleeding on Leo’s legs, but there wasn’t much around here other than pine trees and rocks. They would have to hobble back to the tunnel and hobble across to Bear Hollow, and Leo would just have to tough it out until they got there. If Otto had to, he would carry Leo. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do it.

After all, toughing it out was all Otto had ever known. It’s how he had managed to survive this long as a shifter in Gilt Hollow. It’s why he was frequently crowned champion in the Shifter Games Arena, even though he could care less about winning the stupid Shifter Games.

Otto couldn’t help but be tough. He couldn’t help but act like a warrior. And tonight, that toughness would serve him well. He was going to get his friend to Bear Hollow and to a doctor, even if he had to carry that giant bear of a man every step of the way.

The shifters of the resistance stuck together. No man would ever be left behind.