Page 1 of Run Free

Gage

Chapter 1

I shivered, praying death would take me in the night. I couldn’t go on much longer. One month since I’d been captured, and each day I grew weaker. I could barely pick my head up off the floor of the cold steel cage that encapsulated me. I couldn’t remember my last meal, and my will to live was lost days prior.

I cursed myself for the predicament I was in. I was a wolf shifter and had been bested by a mere human.

Most wolf shifters ran in packs like our animal brothers and sisters. I had learned at a young age that you could never count on a pack. Others would only let you down. I was sixteen the first time I shifted, and I’d taken off that night and never looked back. I was a free wolf and it was the only way I ever wanted to live.

The bitch of it all was that while I prided myself on living free, I was going to die in captivity. It made me rethink every decision I’d made in life.

One month ago, I thought I had it all. I never stayed in one place for long, picking up random jobs along the way whenever I was low on cash, but staying only long enough to save up what I needed to move on. If times got tough, I’d take to the woods in my fur and eat off the land. Food was always plentiful, and I never feared starving, until now.

So how the hell did I end up stuck in this shithole?

I’d been running across the desert for days, heading southwest after a stint in Memphis. I carried a small bag in my mouth with a change of clothes, my wallet, and whatever cash I had. I’d been in my fur for two weeks straight, crossing through some of the flattest, most boring sections of the country I’d ever seen, but there was a band playing down in Austin, Texas that I was hellbent on seeing, and that was the fastest route I could afford to get there. I never travelled by car, bus, or train, and there was no way in hell I was getting in some tin can in the sky. I was happy to just walk or run.

As I crossed the state line into Oklahoma and turned south, I stopped for the night. I didn’t know at the time it would be my last night of freedom.

Clara

Chapter 2

I groaned when my phone rang at three in the morning. It was my work line, and only used for emergencies.

“Hello,” I said in a deep, sleep-laden voice.

“Clara, it’s Jacob. We have a situation. A plane will pick you up in one hour.”

“Where?” I asked.

“I’ll fill you in personally during the flight.”

I sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. “You’re coming into the field for this? How big are we talking?”

“It’s big. I’ll see you in an hour,” he said before the line went dead.

This is what I got for working with humans. They weren’t just humans, though; the Verndari were supposed to be protectors of my kind. I had been approached by Jacob Winthrop shortly after I graduated college and offered the job of a lifetime. He headed up a program that specialized in natural disasters and large-scale animal abuse cases. He made me sign a confidentiality agreement before we could even discuss the details of the job and once I’d heard what his group was doing, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.

For the last six years I’d been living my dream, traveling the world, and rescuing animals. On occasion we’d stumble across a shifter, too. It was everything I’d ever wanted, but lately the job had been weighing on me. Dread replaced the adrenaline I used to feel every time that phone rang.

Seeing my brother and two of my sisters find their mates and settle down was making me reevaluate what I wanted in life. I was about to turn thirty, and that felt like a huge milestone to me. There was so much more I wanted to do in my life.

My body protested as I rolled out of bed and jumped into the shower. I kept the water on the cool side to help me wake up and made a cup of coffee the second I got out. I used to love sugar and flavored creamers in it, but now straight black, the stronger, the better, was the most practical way for me to take it.

As he knew I would be, I arrived at precisely four-fifty, parked my car and walked towards the plane that was already awaiting my arrival.

Jacob was sitting inside as I stowed my bag in its usual compartment and took a seat next to him. It wasn’t long before the captain checked on us, closed the hatch, and prepared for takeoff.

I finally turned to Jacob. “Now what is this all about? And why are you here?”

“Clara, you know I oversee every mission.”

“Yes, but why are you actually here? It must be something big to drag you personally out of bed at this hour.”

Jacob nodded sadly. “I’m afraid that’s a real possibility. There’s a zoo down in a small town north of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We got word they were dealing in exotic species. Clara, there’s a strong possibility we’ll find some shifters there.”

“Some?” I gulped.

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