Chapter 1 Chapter 01

A motorcycle snarled somewhere behind me, and I found myself pressing tighter against the storefronts, letting the dark eat me whole as I made my way home. The oversized jacket swallowing my frame, the pants hanging loose off my hips, the beanie mashed down over my hair together they usually sold the illusion that I was just another guy cutting through the neighborhood, at least to anyone glancing at my back. Grease was still ground into the creases of my knuckles despite the ten minutes I'd spent scrubbing at the shop sink before I clocked out.

That transmission could rot. sully should've been the one flat on his back under the car, would've been if his stomach hadn't outgrown his ability to fit beneath a chassis without the lift. The man loved his six-pack more than he loved actually doing the job he got paid for, which meant I was the one breathing exhaust and rust flakes at damn near ten at night.

The drive shaft bolts had corroded themselves solid, and with no room to angle the torch underneath, coaxing them loose had eaten twice the time it should have. Naturally the car needed to roll out first thing in the morning, so late was the only option on the table. I despised late. Always had.

Sally offered to drive me. I'd have taken my chances walking through open flame first. Handing my safety over to somebody else's steering wasn't a habit I kept, not for sully, not for anybody breathing. Some people would slap a label on those trust issues, control freak, pick your poison. I preferred pragmatism. I was the only name on the list of people I trusted with my own neck, and every disaster I'd ever walked myself into only backed up the math.

Traffic kept crawling by on the main road, engines droning in my ears, and I could tell without even trying that one of those cars was overdue for an oil change. Busy streets at night set my teeth on edge regardless of too many headlights, too many strangers and when one car eased its speed near me, my pulse took off like it had somewhere urgent to be. It rolled on eventually, disappearing around the corner, but the dread it kicked loose in my chest stuck around long after the taillights vanished.

I ducked off the main drag onto a side street, close enough to home now that I could practically taste it and then a scent hit me like a wall, freezing my feet mid-stride.

Shifter.

Every part of me went rigid. My eyes raked the darkness ahead, found nothing right away, so I inched forward, checking every recess and gap wide enough to swallow a person whole. That's when I caught them and a cluster of shapes gathered near the far mouth of the alley. My heart just stopped, full stop, like someone had reached in and squeezed it silent.

Had they already caught wind of me?

I threw myself sideways, shoulder cracking against brick hard enough to bruise, the instant I saw a head start to turn my way. I dropped behind a dumpster before I could find out whether I'd been made. I'd gone too deep into the alley to retreat now without lighting myself up like a flare. Eventually I'd have no choice but to move, and the second I did, they'd spot me or catch my scent first and know precisely what kind of trouble had wandered into their business.

Everything in me wanted to bolt, to be sick right there on the pavement, to do something besides crouch frozen behind trash. But moving was exactly what would get me caught. Chase instinct didn't care whether the thing running was human, animal, or somewhere in between spook a predator and it gives chase, every time, no exceptions I'd ever witnessed. The man could bury the beast under skin and manners, cage it the way I caged mine, but it was always right there, just beneath the surface, waiting for an excuse.

Getting caught meant one outcome. Dragged back onto pack land, forced to kneel to people who'd never once cared what I actually wanted. Male shifters didn't concern themselves with female consent, not in any pack I'd had the misfortune of knowing. Decide I belonged to one of them as a mate, and my say in the matter would count for exactly nothing.

I didn't resent the ones who wanted that life a mate, pups, the whole picture. Just wasn't a future I could stomach for myself. Not after watching what my own pack did to the people who raised me. The thought of binding myself to anyone that way, of bringing children into that same poison, turned my stomach inside out. Not for the first time, I found myself wishing, uselessly, that I'd been born without the wolf at all. I checked in on her anyway, the version of her locked behind bars somewhere in my skull. She snapped her teeth at me through the metaphysical cage, snarling for freedom I had no way of granting her, not in a city, not while staying hidden was the only thing standing between me and everything I was running from.

I'd fought too hard, too long, to let it slip now. Whatever staying buried cost me, I'd pay it without blinking. But surviving whatever came next meant knowing the shape of the threat, first numbers, positioning, who I'd actually be up against. I shoved every last strand of white-blonde hair beneath my beanie, dragged it low enough to shadow half my face, and made myself breathe before I moved another inch. Slowly, I leaned around the dumpster's edge, careful not to dwell too long on whatever was pooling wet against the concrete beneath my boots. The metal had been red once, best I could guess beneath the rust, the graffiti, and however many years of weather had stripped it bare.

Six of them total, clustered together. Shifters, mostly, laced with the sharper, thinner scent of a human or two assuming I could trust my nose over the stench of week-old garbage and dried piss thick enough to choke on. My focus is locked on humans specifically. They couldn't stay still, practically vibrating on their feet as they passed something off into waiting shifter hands.