Jett shivered beside me. She was soaked to the bone wearing a thin t-shirt and her black cargo pants. Winter hadn’t completely released its grasp on central Kentucky. It would get below freezing tonight. Her teeth rattled and she drew her legs up, hugging them.

I went to her; acting on instinct, I pulled her against me. Her shivering intensified for a moment before my body heat started to warm her. I wore no shirt, tattered jeans, and had no shoes. I didn’t need any of it. I had hot shifter blood running through my veins. But, another kind of heat poured through me as I kept Jett close. She stiffened, reason and propriety making her want to pull away. But, she couldn’t deny the undercurrent running between us. I needed her close to me. My body craved it. Hers did too.

“L-let me go,” she said.

“You’re going to freeze to death. It’s too dangerous to build a fire. And if you’re not planning on keeping your promise and putting me out of my misery, this seems like the best option to keep you from getting hypothermic.”

She should have killed me. Hell, I’d begged her to. Even now, I could feel the distant pull of the Pack. They would find their way here. Not tonight. Jett was right that they were headed in the other direction. It had been a near miss though. If she knew how close I’d come to just giving over to the pull, she never would have led me to the tunnels.

Jett finally settled against me and her teeth stopped chattering. She felt so good in my arms. Not small or fragile. No. Jett’s arms were toned, her waist trim. She kept her back straight and her chin jutted in defiance. This was as hard for her as it was for me. She didn’t trust shifters. If she’d come from Birch Haven, I knew why. Just the fleeting thought of any of the Pack trying to force themselves on her made my inner wolf rage. My protective instincts flared so hot it got hard to see straight.

I went somewhere else in my mind for a minute. Before I knew what was happening, Jett had slid off the log and stood before me. She was warm for now, but it wouldn’t last long.

“You’re not okay,” she said. “How long has it been? When did they capture you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes. She wasn’t wrong. My head swam and my stomach bubbled. When I tried to focus on a single point, my vision wavered. I’d been so keyed up during our escape, it was only now that my heartbeat started to slow. I’d been cramped up in that cell for so long I hadn’t realized how much strength I’d lost. “What month is it?”

Was it January? That would make two months since they’d captured me. Two months trapped by four walls and chains that wouldn’t let my wolf come out.

Jett squatted down in front of me. She put a light hand on my knee. “It’s the first week of April,” she said.

Her lips were moving but it felt like I was hearing her on a delay. April. Had she said April? That meant it had been almost six months since I’d been taken to Camp Hell. Six months. It was impossible. I hadn’t shifted in six months?

“Gunnar,” she said. “You don’t look well.”

I put a hand out to steady myself. My whole body began to quake. “April,” I repeated. “That can’t be right.”

“How long, Gunnar?” she asked again.

Shaking my head, I tried to rise. I took a step forward then faltered to the side. Jett tried to catch me. She was too small. I took us both down, landing hard on the ground. She got to her knees and put a hand on my cheek. “How long?” she whispered.

“Six months.” I choked the words out. “I think it’s been almost six months.”

“Can you...I mean...how?”

I met her eyes. Hers were wide with fear. My vision went white. I had trouble focusing. “Jett,” I said. “I have to...I can’t…”

“Gunnar, look at me.” She held my face in her hands. “You have to shift. You have to let your wolf out. Is that what you need?”

“It’s too dangerous,” I said. “They can track me.”

“They are miles away. You’re not thinking straight. Look, I don’t know how this works. But, are you sure you’re sensing them properly? If you haven’t been in your wolf in that long, how do you know if you’re instincts aren’t, I don’t know, haywire?”

Haywire. That’s exactly what everything felt like. She was right. God help us both, she was right.

“So shift,” she said. “Maybe it’ll help you, uh, hit the reset button.”

I smiled. It was an odd way to put it, but it made a certain degree of sense. I tried to hold it together, but it wasn’t going to work. The urge to shift burned as strong in my lungs as the need to breathe. I couldn’t keep this up.

Jett sensed it and let go of me. She rose and took a few gingerly steps backward. “It’s okay,” she said. She grabbed her pack off the ground and slid her gun out of it, holding it pointed down and away from me. That was another conversation we needed to have. With what happened to Lowell, that thing clearly wasn’t loaded with normal bullets.

“I can take care of myself,” she said even as her teeth started to chatter again.

“I just need a few minutes, maybe,” I said as the hunger began to rise. My whole body trembled with it. My wolf wanted to tear out of me. “Stay here,” I said. “If anything that isn’t me tries to come through the clearing, shoot it.”

Jett smiled. “So you don’t want me to shoot you anymore?”

She meant it as a joke, but her smile faded quickly. Before I could answer, she turned and walked toward the water. With Jett’s back turned, I slid out of my jeans. Filthy as they were, no sense in ruining them as I didn’t have another pair. My wolf rumbled. I dropped to all fours, eyes on Jett’s back.

I wanted her. More than I wanted to shift, I wanted her. As I reached out, my fingers turned to claws. The shift shuddered through me. It felt like the first time. My limbs were awkward. My muscles tore and bones reknit in searing agony. It wasn’t the seamless change that I’d honed since adolescence. This was ungainly torture. A growl tore from my throat and my fangs cut through my flesh.

Then the world went still. My pulse thundered through me, driving heated blood from the tips of my ears to the pads of my paws. I was the wolf. The wolf was me. Strength that had been torn from me flooded through me once again. A blue moon rose, reflecting off the river before me.

I saw Jett standing in silhouette. My ears pricked at the soft sound of her heated breath. She would shiver again soon. She would need me. My need for her might take hold. For now, I needed to run. Jett turned. Her chin trembled as she stood with her back straight, her hands folded in front of her.

She was afraid of me. She’d never seen a wolf like me before. The wolves of Birch Haven were smaller, weaker. They were betas. The Alpha kept them far away from the women he’d brought there so the lesser shifters would be easier to control.

I was no beta. I was born to be an Alpha, to claim a rightful pack and a mate. Had I been born in another century or another place, I could have taken it. But I was born here, in Kentucky where a ruthless Tyrannus Alpha kept all the shifters under his control. Or he would, if I ever let him catch me.

A howl ripped out of me with enough power to blow Jett’s hair back. The sound rippled through her and I felt her pulse quicken. It meant something. It meant everything. But, for now, I needed something else more.

Turning, I stretched my legs. With each step, strength poured back into them. I sprang up on my haunches and ran up the hill to the deeper part of the woods. My claws ripped into the ground, propelling me forward with each step. My senses sharpened. The scent of wet earth, bark, grass, blood and prey filled my lungs. I would hunt. I would feed. I would reclaim who I was.

I don’t know how long I stayed away. An hour. Maybe two. In the back of my mind, I thought of Jett standing by the water’s edge. The urge to keep on running all the way to the border pulled at me. It would be so foolish. The heaviest concentration of Pack patrols would be there. And I knew they were looking for me.

I tore into the flesh of a snow hare that had the ill luck to cross my path. I would need something bigger soon. For now, just the thrill of the hunt helped restore my soul. I howled at the moon once more.

Then, another heartbeat filled my senses. Not Jett. It was something dangerous. I crouched low, baring my teeth. Part of me hoped the Pack would just come. I welcomed the fight. It was part of my nature too. No sooner had I thought it when the pull started low in my belly. My pulse quickened and my vision wavered.

No. No. Not this. Not now. I heard voices in the distance. At first, I thought they were just beyond a small ridge on the other end of the peninsula. Then, slowly I knew they were coming from inside my own head.

Sir, he’s close. He’s been in dragonsteel for months. He won’t be able to stay out in the open for very long and he’s too far away from the rest of his people.

You don’t know where the rest of his people are. He had help. Gunnar can’t shoot bullets from his eyeballs. Did I imagine the gunshot wound on the guard?

If they were close, they would have found him by now. He’s alone. He’s weak.

With all due respect, sir. I know Gunnar better than anyone. Let me take some men south. We’ll bring him back. I won’t let you down.

You said he grew close to the other men here. I trust you’ll do what needs to be done with them.

Yes, sir. We’ll increase the interrogations with the prisoners we still have. If they know anything, we’ll know it too in a matter of days. Or less.

My heart felt like it might explode. The voices were inside my head. It meant the Pack was far closer than Jett or I thought. The Alpha was talking to Maestro. Maestro told him he knew me better than anyone. For those wolves under Pack control, God help me, he was right.

It would be so much easier if I just went to them. No more fighting. No more pain. I took a faltering step forward, then another. Soon, I was running again.