They were wolves. Wolves.

As in alien shape-shifting wolves. Jude got light-headed with the knowledge, the world spinning a little from everything she had seen and learned over the course of the last day. One minute, they’d been men and the next … wolves.

This couldn’t possibly be real. Maybe she had finally reached that stress point where the mind broke and went insane. Or maybe her body was still lying next to her ship, bleeding out while her mind hallucinated about super-hot, shape-shifting wolfmen.

She almost preferred those two options over her current reality, because her present reality had huge fucking mosquito things the size of her fist that left massive welts on the bare patches of skin showing through her tattered flight suit.

Hours passed. The sun hung brightly in the sky above them, or at least Jude assumed so based on the slivers of light cutting through the canopy. Down here, everything green surrounded her, tinting her vision and shading her from the blazing sun. In the jungle, it was almost cool. She worried about the coming night and how low the temperatures would plummet.

She worried about a shit ton of things while she waited, biting her cheek to keep from demanding answers from her captors—or saviors. She still hadn’t decided on what side of that line they landed.

Did her ship’s locator work? Did Warren’s family know he had died, that it had happened because of her distraction? How would her sister, Linnea, fare on the space station alone without Jude to look after her? Could she find a way to get comms back to the station? She also found herself worrying about Swanson and Ivers, who Swanson kept tending to with a grim face. And dammit, she worried about that fool Gerrit’s shoulder. He should have at least wrapped it before heading into the jungle like a stubborn asshole.

She’d nodded off into a partial state of rest, half awake and half asleep, when Gerrit appeared through the leaves. She jumped and blinked quickly to clear her vision.

He didn’t spare her a glance as he crouched beside Ivers.

“How is he?” he asked Swanson.

Swanson ran a hand covered in dried blood through his hair. “I hear his blood slowing.” He peeled up Ivers’s tight shirt to reveal a distended and slightly discolored belly. “He’s bleeding on the inside.”

As Jude watched, Gerrit cocked his head and leaned closer to Ivers, as if he was listening, as if they honestly could hear the wounded man’s heartbeat. Perhaps alien shape-shifting wolves had excellent hearing.

Yep, definitely going insane.

Then Gerrit sniffed the air, and Jude had had enough. “You’re not really wolves, are you? Like, seriously? And stop sniffing at him like that. It’s creepy as shit. I know you can’t really smell his blood.”

Gerrit glanced back at her, his face blank. “We’re called Vilkas, and yes, our second forms are wolves. I can smell his blood. I can hear his heart. And I know he’s dying.”

Jude sucked in a breath as Gerrit turned back to Swanson, ignoring her as her mind reeled from his matter-of-fact declaration of being a freaking werewolf alien.

They leaned over Ivers and spoke in low voices.

Jude didn’t try to eavesdrop. She knew what it felt like to tend to a dying comrade. They were probably saying something along the lines of keeping Ivers comfortable, though he was unconscious and would probably never wake up again. Not without medical assistance very, very soon. And Jude got the impression they were far from help of any kind.

Swanson went on watch after consulting with Gerrit. He folded into the vegetation almost as quietly as Gerrit had.

Sexy, ninja-like, shape-shifting wolfmen aliens.

Gerrit sat beside Ivers, his hand on the man’s arm. His eyes drifted closed, but Jude could tell he wasn’t sleeping. His posture stayed alert and his breathing shallow. Even still, Jude jumped when he spoke. “How’s your shoulder?”

She flexed the joint and grimaced at the stiffness. It hurt, but hell, she’d been bitten. She would be more concerned if it didn’t hurt. Her back was sore, but she could manage. Whatever medicine they had put on her wounds worked wonders. “I’m fine, but I need a radio.”

Without opening his eyes, he said, “I need half my army here and a doctor who can save Ivers’s life. Do you see any of those around?”

“You have an army?”

At the skepticism in her voice, he opened his eyes and stared blankly at her. “I’m Gerrit, son of Kaveh, and Alpha to Clan Vilka. Of course I have an army.”

Jude was used to men overstating their status to try to impress her. People said she was pretty with her thick brown hair and brown eyes, long legs, and decent curves. She could tell what it sounded like when someone used their various accomplishments and exaggerated lies to impress her. But Gerrit spoke so flatly, and with such disinterest, that she actually believed him. “You’re the Alpha? Is that like a king?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She’d be fascinated and maybe a little impressed if she wasn’t so damn alone out here. “Well, I still need a radio.”

The silence stretched for so long that Jude was about to press her point further, when Gerrit finally said, “We’re within range of the Hylan base. They disallow all technology in their area. In the interest of peace, we brought no radios. Nothing.”

He spoke the last word sourly, his expression darkening. If they had no radios with them—and Jude believed they didn’t, because if they did, they surely would have radioed for help by now—she would have to stick with them until they returned to wherever they were based, wherever these Vilkas called home.

She would radio the station from there and arrange for extraction.

Until then, she just had to stay alive.

* * *

Swanson returned to the camp at nightfall.

“How is he?” he asked Gerrit.

“He hasn’t woken up.”

Swanson nodded as if he’d expected as much. His eyes did a slow examination of Gerrit’s shoulder, but he didn’t ask his Alpha about it.

Jude thought that wise, judging by Gerrit’s tight-jawed expression.

“What’s the plan? We sneak out at night?”

“Yes,” Gerrit said. “You will.”

Swanson frowned. So did Jude. She sat up straighter.

“What?” Swanson asked. “Where are you going? If you’re thinking about drawing them away—”

“You’re going alone. Back through the pass and straight to my brother. I’ll stay here. The Draqons will stay with my scent. They won’t follow you. You’ll make it back, and Caj will send help.”

“But you can’t stay here alone.” Swanson sat up straighter, fire in his eyes, and whisper-hissed at his Alpha, “They’ll be flying out for reinforcements as we speak. They know you’re here. By daybreak, they’ll have thirty warriors up there.”

“I’m not staying. I’ll head back to the Hylan base to get the medicines we need. It’s the only way to make this trip not be a complete waste.” His eyes landed on Ivers. “It’s the only way to make any of this worth it.”

“Wait,” Jude said, holding up her hand. “If you two are doing that, what am I doing? I’m not lizard bait, am I?”

“You can choose who you want to go with: Swanson or me.” Gerrit lifted a shoulder like he really didn’t care who she picked. “If you stay with me, we’ll be fighting Draqons again. Swanson will be safer, and when you get to our home, you will be given food and a bed to sleep in and any other medicine you require. You should go with him.”

Jude fought back the rush of panic his words brought on. She did not want to fight one of those things again if she could avoid it. Swanson was the obvious choice with the promise of comfort and maybe even some new clothes, but … “Do the Hylas have radios?”

“No,” Gerrit answered flatly.

“Ships?”

“No.”

Jude scowled. What the hell kind of planet is this?

As she fumed, Swanson lowered his voice and said, “I should stay with you. We have a chance to get back to the Hylan base if we go tonight. We can make decent time if we stick together.”

“Or we might not. But if we split up, you’ll certainly make it back to the mountain, and Caj will send all the help I could possibly need to make it back home. That’s the plan, Swanson. No arguing. All we have left to settle is who’s taking the girl.”

“I’m not a girl. And I’m deciding, asshole.”

Gerrit’s brows raised. “If you were Vilkan, I could have you sequestered for speaking to your Alpha like that.”

“Then good thing I’m not, right?”

Swanson grimaced. “Maybe you should come with me, Jude.”

Jude leaned back against a tree trunk and crossed her arms. “Your base would have a radio for me to use?” she asked Gerrit. From the corner of her eye, she saw Swanson’s gaze dart toward his Alpha, his face too carefully blank. Jude’s eyes narrowed. “You do have radios on this planet, right?”

“We’ll get you home.” But Gerrit had waited too long to answer, and his voice sounded too stiff for Jude’s liking.

What a lying, wolf-freak, piece of shit. They were going to keep her here on this insane planet, and if she went with Swanson back to their home, who knew what would happen to her. He said they’d feed her and treat her well but how could she possibly believe him? She’d probably never get out again.

Her ship—and its locator—was in the opposite direction from the mountain pass Swanson would take tonight. If she stuck with Gerrit, she’d at least be going in the general direction of the crash site. She could run away from him and check to make sure the locator worked and was sending out a signal for the Falconers to use to find her. Then all she had to do was stay by her ship until Commander Gideon sent help. That was it.

Except for the fact that the man—alien—across from her was a wolf and could most likely track her far easier than Jude could slip away.

She would have to work on that. But the promise of her ship’s locator was more than she could resist.

“No offense, Swanson,” she said. She lifted her chin toward Gerrit. “I’ll take my chances with him.”

Gerrit’s brows rose, but he didn’t look up from Ivers. Swanson didn’t seem surprised she’d chosen the larger Alpha Vilka. “No offense taken.” He hesitated then lowered his voice to say, “Watch after him, okay? Don’t let him do anything stupid.”

Across their camp, Gerrit’s expression darkened, and he leaned further into the lengthening shadows. He was impossible to read, but the tenderness in Swanson’s voice shocked Jude.

Swanson waited for her to answer, the earnestness in his gaze coaxing her. “I will.”

He offered her a brief smile. “Thanks.”

They didn’t speak much after that. The shadows stretched and grew as the temperature dipped far too quickly for Jude’s liking. She drew her knees up beneath her chin and huddled into her ragged flight suit, which was constructed to keep a pilot from burning, not freezing.

Falconers don’t shiver. Falconers don’t shiver. Falconers don’t shiver.

But the mantra didn’t help. Neither did the reminder that Falconers didn’t cry. She might have executed the test almost flawlessly, but she’d killed the only other person who’d witnessed it. Warren wasn’t around to pass her. To sign the document that would make her the first ever female Falconer Elite.

And she felt like shit for caring about that when Warren was dead, but she’d fought so hard for the chance to fly and wanted it so badly it was like the taste of ash in her mouth to have lost it.

Just as her teeth began to chatter, Gerrit and Swanson stirred in the darkness. Beneath Gerrit’s watchful eye, Swanson checked his knives and packed up their few belongings. Most of their supplies were scattered on the ground in the mountain pass, beside the dead bodies of the aliens who’d carried them.

Swanson looked up when he finished, all too soon.

Gerrit squinted as if he couldn’t look squarely at his friend when he said, “Be safe. Get back to your mate.”

As if he’d been forcing himself not to think about her, Swanson’s face crumpled. Maybe it was the darkening night around them or the fact she couldn’t feel her fingers thanks to the freezing cold, but Jude’s throat tightened. For a horrible second, she thought she might cry.

She wasn’t the only person who had lost someone today.

The two Vilkas stood and clasped arms. Gerrit clapped Swanson’s shoulder. They exchanged other quieter words not meant for Jude to hear.

The men crouched beside Ivers. As best as they could, they checked his bandages and listened, smelling and not saying anything.

“Get him to his family,” Gerrit said.

With a nod, Swanson gathered Ivers into his arms and lifted the man easily before positioning him over his shoulder. Ivers didn’t stir. “Sir,” Swanson started, his face falling into shadow. “Gerrit …”

“It’s fine, Swanson. Go home.”

“How should I handle Caj? Do you want me to go straight to him or…?”

Gerrit’s jaw flexed. “Find Rayner first. He’ll know what to do, and Caj will listen to him.”

Swanson let loose a shaky breath. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

“Soon,” Gerrit echoed.

Swanson met Jude’s eyes. For some inexplicable reason, she found herself giving him a nod, as if they had something to share, but then they had run from arrows and acid and talons together. It counted for something.

Swanson returned the gesture before slipping into the jungle’s moist clutches.

For a long while, Gerrit stood in the camp, his eyes trained on the darkness where Swanson had vanished. His head tilted at an angle that suggested he was listening too. Occasionally, he’d glance skyward, his nostrils flaring.

Tracking the Draqons, Jude guessed. She found it easy to watch him, with his muscular back puckered with scars and dried blood. He was hot, even if he was mean as could be. Besides, looking at him distracted her from the cold and the darkening night around them.

His back was ramrod straight, his fists clenched.

It must hurt, she thought, to stand so still.

Finally, after what felt like an hour but could have been only five minutes, Gerrit turned back to the camp. He crouched beside the small fire. Without looking through the flames at her, he said, “If you think you can escape back to your ship, you’re wrong. You’ll just get yourself killed.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

He added another log to the fire. “I won’t stop you.”

Her eyes narrowed. He would just let her leave? It seemed like a trap. “If you thought we were going to make it, Swanson would be here.”

“He has a baby.” Gerrit nudged the logs, sending a spray of sparks into the air. “Besides, we’ll make it.”

“So, a kid’s life is more valuable than an Alpha’s?”

He looked up and met her eyes. She saw the unfailing belief in his words as he said, “Of course.”