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The shift hit me in the parking lot behind the diner, right between the dumpster and my busted Honda. I'd felt it coming all day, that itch crawling under my ribs, but I thought I had time. I thought I could make it back to the motel, lock the door, ride it out like I'd been doing for three years. I was wrong. My knees hit the asphalt and the pain came in waves, bones cracking and reshaping under my skin, and I bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste copper. The moon was full and fat and too damn bright, and I could feel it pulling at something deep inside me, something that wanted out. I'd been choking it down since I left the pack. Since Cain threw me past the border and told me not to come back. But tonight it wasn't listening. Tonight it was done waiting.
My spine arched and I heard myself scream, except it didn't sound like me anymore. It sounded like something else. The wolf was coming and I couldn't stop it. My vision went red at the edges and the smell of old grease and garbage got so sharp it hurt. I could hear everything. The highway a mile out. The couple arguing inside the diner. My own heartbeat slamming against my ribs like it wanted to break through. And under it all, that low growl building in my chest, the one that meant I was about to lose control completely. I dug my nails into the pavement and felt them split and curve into claws. No. Not here. Not in the middle of the city where someone could see. Where someone could call the hunters. I tried to pull it back, tried to shove the wolf down the way I'd learned to do, but it was too strong. The moon was too strong. My skin was on fire and my teeth were splitting through my gums and I knew I was screwed.
Three years. I'd made it three years without shifting. Working double shifts at the diner, sleeping in cheap motels, staying away from anything that smelled like pack or woods or home. I'd buried the wolf so deep I thought maybe it had died. But you can't kill what you are. You can only lie to yourself for so long. And tonight the moon was calling it back, and the wolf was pissed. My clothes tore and I felt the fur push through, red and black and wrong. That's what they'd called me back at Duskridge. Wrong. Cursed. A bad omen. The elders said red wolves only showed up before wars or plagues, that my bloodline was tainted, that I'd bring death to the pack if I stayed. Cain had looked at me with those cold gray eyes and said he didn't have a choice. He had to protect his people. So he dragged me to the border himself and told me to run. I ran. I'd been running ever since.
But now I was shifting in a parking lot and there was nowhere left to run to. The wolf was taking over and I could feel my mind slipping, thoughts scattering like birds. I tried to hold on. Tried to remember my name, my face, the girl I used to be before all this. Lila. My name is Lila Ash. I'm twenty-one. I work at a diner. I'm not a monster. Except the wolf didn't care what I called myself. It smelled the city, the people, the prey. It wanted to hunt. It wanted to run through the streets and taste blood and howl at that fat red moon until something answered back. My body twisted and reformed and I felt the last threads of control snap. No. I pressed my claws into the ground hard enough to crack the asphalt. No no no. But it was too late. The wolf was here.
Then I heard his voice. "Lila." Low and rough and coming from somewhere behind me. I knew that voice. I'd heard it in my nightmares for three years. Cain. I tried to turn but my body wasn't mine anymore. The shift was halfway done and I was stuck between human and wolf, bones grinding, muscles tearing, everything wrong. What the hell was he doing here? He was supposed to be back at Duskridge, two hundred miles north, running his pack and pretending I didn't exist. He wasn't supposed to be standing in a parking lot in the human city, watching me lose my mind. "Lila, look at me." I couldn't. My eyes were burning and my vision was all red and heat and movement. I could smell him though. Pine and smoke and that Alpha scent that used to make me feel safe before everything went to shit. Now it just made me want to run. Or fight. The wolf wasn't sure which.
"Stay back." I wasn't sure if I said it out loud or just thought it. My voice was shredded, half-growl. "I can't—just go—" But he didn't go. I heard his boots on the pavement, slow and steady, like he was walking toward a spooked animal. Which I guess I was. "You're shifting in the open," he said, and his voice was calm, too calm. "You're going to get yourself killed." I wanted to tell him I didn't ask for his help. I wanted to tell him to screw off and leave me alone and let me handle my own mess. But the wolf was clawing its way up my throat and all that came out was a snarl. He stopped a few feet away. I could feel him watching me. Feel his eyes on my back. "How long have you been holding it in?" he asked. "Three years?" None of your business. Except my body was answering for me, shaking and bleeding and barely holding together. Yeah. Three years. "Idiot," he muttered. "You can't suppress a shift that long. Especially not on a blood moon."
A blood moon. That's what this was. I'd been so focused on surviving I hadn't checked the calendar. Blood moons were rare, happened maybe twice a year, and they pulled at wolves harder than anything else. Normal wolves got aggressive. Alphas got territorial. And cursed red wolves like me? We lost our minds. The shift finished in a rush and I was on four legs, panting, my vision sharpening into something too clear and too bright. I could see every crack in the pavement. Every piece of trash. Every shadow. And Cain, standing there in his black jacket and boots, hands loose at his sides, watching me like I was a problem he needed to solve. My wolf didn't like that. It didn't like him standing there all calm and in control while I was falling apart. It wanted to make him hurt. Wanted to sink teeth into his throat and make him remember what he did. I took a step toward him and my lips pulled back from my teeth. He didn't move. "Don't," he said quietly. I took another step. The growl in my chest got louder. He'd thrown me away. He'd called me cursed and dragged me past the border and left me to figure out how to live in the human world alone. And now he was standing here like he had the right to tell me what to do.
"Lila." His voice dropped, went hard. Alpha voice. The kind of voice that made wolves freeze whether they wanted to or not. "Don't make me do this." I lunged. I didn't think about it. The wolf was driving now and it wanted blood. I was fast, faster than I should've been, but Cain was faster. He sidestepped and his hand shot out and grabbed the scruff of my neck, and then he said the one word I couldn't fight. "Down." It wasn't a request. It was a command, soaked in Alpha power, and my wolf dropped like someone had cut its strings. My legs buckled and I hit the pavement hard, belly to the ground, and I hated it. I hated that my body obeyed him before my brain even processed the word. I hated that he still had that kind of power over me. I tried to get up, tried to push back against the command, but my muscles wouldn't move. He was crouched next to me now, one hand still on my neck, his voice low and steady. "Breathe. You're okay. Just breathe." I wasn't okay. Nothing about this was okay. But the wolf was quiet now, pinned under the weight of his command, and I could feel my heartbeat starting to slow. He stayed there, hand on my neck, until the red bled out of my vision and the pain started to fade. "Good," he said softly. "Now shift back."
I couldn't. I'd been holding the wolf down for so long I didn't know how to let it go halfway. I didn't know how to shift back without losing myself completely. My body was shaking and my mind was a mess of panic and rage and something else I didn't want to name. He must've felt it because his grip tightened just a little. "Lila. Shift. Back." The command hit me again and this time my body listened. The wolf pulled inward and my bones started to crack and reshape and I wanted to scream but I didn't have the air. Shifting back always hurt worse than shifting out. It felt like being turned inside out. Like every part of me was being shoved back into a space too small to fit. My fur melted into skin and my claws retracted and my spine straightened and then I was human again, naked and shaking and curled up on the pavement. Cain pulled off his jacket and draped it over me without a word. I didn't thank him. I just lay there, trying to remember how to breathe.
"You should've called me," he said after a minute. I laughed, bitter and sharp. "Yeah. Because you made it real clear you wanted to hear from me." He didn't answer. I forced myself to sit up, pulling his jacket around me. It smelled like him and I hated that it made me feel safer. "Why are you here?" I asked. My voice was raw. "How did you even know where I was?" He stood up, hands in his pockets, looking down at me with an expression I couldn't read. "I've always known where you were." That stopped me cold. "What?" "You think I'd throw you out and not keep tabs?" he said. "You're still Duskridge blood. That makes you my responsibility." Responsibility. Right. Not because he cared. Not because he regretted what he did. Just because I was a liability he needed to monitor. I looked away, jaw tight. "Well, congratulations. You just saw me at my worst. You can go back and report to the elders that the cursed wolf is still cursed."
"I'm not here for the elders," he said. "I'm here because you triggered something tonight." I frowned. "Triggered what?" He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was different. Careful. "When I used the Alpha command on you, something connected. I felt it. You felt it too, didn't you?" I didn't want to answer. Because yeah, I'd felt it. When he'd said "Down," it wasn't just my wolf that had obeyed. It was something deeper. Something that had snapped into place between us like a lock turning. I could still feel it now, faint but there, like a thread pulled tight. "What did you do?" I asked. He shook his head. "I don't know. But we need to figure it out." He held out a hand. I stared at it. Three years ago he'd dragged me to the border and told me not to come back. Now he was standing here, asking me to trust him. I should've told him to go to hell. Should've gotten up and walked away and let him deal with his weird Alpha problem on his own. But the thread was still there, pulling, and I could feel his heartbeat. Not hear it. Feel it. Like it was inside my chest next to mine. What the hell. I took his hand. He pulled me to my feet and the world tilted. I stumbled and he caught me, one arm around my waist, and that's when I realized I could still feel his heartbeat. Steady and strong and too close. Way too close. "Cain—" "I know," he said quietly. He was looking at me like he'd just figured out something bad. Something that couldn't be undone. "I feel it too."