I felt okay parting with my given name since I figured neither Chase nor Wolfie would know the first name of the second daughter of an alpha from out of state, but I was careful not to offer a surname, which would have instantly linked me to a pack. Wanting to stay as anonymous as possible, I decided some misdirection was in order to turn the conversation away from a potentially tricky topic, so I shifted my eyes back to Chase. “And his name really is Wolfie?” I parried, hoping Chase would be willing to play along with my obvious attempt to talk about something other than myself.
“Well, Wolf actually,” Chase answered. “But I always figured ‘Wolfie’ made him seem a little more human … .” The alpha in question snorted, which sent a tremor of fear running through me until I realized the wolf was laughing, at which point I started breathing again with a jolt.
“That’s very … literal … of his mother,” I said after a minute. Once my heart rate had slowed back down from the effects of Wolfie’s laugh, I could feel my brow wrinkling as I tried to imagine naming a werewolf “Wolf.” We did tend to gravitate toward nature-oriented names, but this seemed more like the kind of appellation a two-year-old would give his pet.
“Well, it was my mother, actually,” Chase said, turning his attention back to me. “We’re milk brothers.” The old-fashioned term suggested Wolfie had been nursed by Chase’s mother, and probably raised like his brother. It also explained why the less-dominant wolf was able to hold his alpha on a leash, and why the two could communicate without words. Despite myself, I was becoming intrigued by the two werewolves in front of me, but Chase’s next words pushed away my false sense of security.
“So, which pack are you from?” the beta asked, and my jitters returned full force. Without meaning to, I stood, my chair screeching against the pavement as it was abruptly pushed backwards by my motion.
Chase’s words were enough to remind me that I was packless by choice and could easily be drawn back into this or another wolf’s pack, which made my slowed breathing begin to race once again. What would prevent Wolfie from asking around about a twenty-something werewolf named Terra, and what would happen when his words inevitably reached my father’s ears? I would end up right back where I started, and all because I’d been stupid enough to imagine I was simply chatting with two strange werewolves whom I’d met in a bookstore.
All of those thoughts zipped through my mind in the span of time it took to rise from the table, and by then the adrenaline had really kicked in. Fight or flight seemed to be my only options, so I fled.
But I wasn’t far enough away to miss Wolfie admonishing his friend. The wolf’s easy-going demeanor disappeared in an instant as the alpha bared his teeth at Chase, who quickly averted his eyes in submission. If I’d needed any proof that Wolfie was just as overbearing as every other alpha werewolf I’d ever run into, this was it. Not that I’d thought otherwise … well, not for long.
I almost expected there to be other werewolves in the wings, just waiting to rope me back into the pack life from which I’d escaped. Instead, there was just Wolfie’s commanding bark, ordering me to stop. But I wasn’t a member of his pack, and I didn’t have to obey. I ran down the street, and this time I didn’t look back.
Chapter 2
That evening, I reached for my wolf for the first time in years. But she was gone, squashed beneath layers of iron control built during a decade of painstaking effort. So it was up to my human eyes and nose to hunt down signs of the lost toddler.
Well, it was up to my eyes … and to the eyes of a dozen other park rangers spread out across the rapidly chilling woodland. I’d returned from the city in time to put in a few hours of work at the park, and the monotony of desk-sitting abruptly ended when Mr. Carr barreled in to tell us his daughter had wandered away from the family campsite. I’d yet to meet Melony’s mother—she refused to come out of the woods until the little girl was found, but Mrs. Carr did yell her position through the trees when we arrived. In response, we spread out, each taking a vector that started at the campsite and arrowed out into the unknown. And we started to search.
Since then, it had begun to rain. A gentle autumn shower at first, but now the pounding storm was pulling leaves from the trees and was muffling even the sound of my own footsteps. Water was trickling down my spine despite my hooded slicker, and I could just imagine how a two-year-old would feel, cold and scared, lost in the woods. Her father had told us Melony was wearing shorts and a thin t-shirt—she might already be experiencing symptoms of hypothermia.