Page 13 of Gavin

The females led her away from the clearing and deeper into the woods. Sadie rubbed her chest as they stopped to strip and shift.

“Are you okay? You keep rubbing your chest and your eyes are flashing red,” Harper asked.

“I don’t know, I feel weird.” She looked around, wondering if there was somethingotherin the woods that was making her feel strangely. A boogey man or someone who didn’t belong.

“Weird good or weird bad?” Brooke asked.

“When is weird good?” Harper asked.

“I’m okay. I just have a strange feeling in my chest. My wolf is acting up.”

“Probably because you’re new here and it’s all unfamiliar. Once you shift, I bet your wolf feels right at home,” Harper said.

The females shifted first into what Sadie had always thought of as classic timber wolf colors, soft grays, browns, and whites. When Sadie had set her folded clothes at the base of a big pine tree, she had a momentary rush of sadness. She looked up at the full moon. Her mom would be hunting right now, chasing bunnies and other small game with her friends and communing with the pack.

It would be better for Sadie to stay gone, to not ever think about going back. Not only because Alpha Holloway was an ass and would certainly punish her for leaving even if he was probably also glad she was gone, but because she’d never really belonged there, never quite fit in.

She wasn’t sure she fit in here either.

But her wolf was ready to try anything for a chance at a normal life. To find a place where no one cared what color her fur was.

She let herself go into her shift, letting out a low, grumbling sigh as she stretched and her claws dug into the ground. Her tail whipped back and forth a few times and she lifted her muzzle to look up at the dark sky.

Brooke and Harper yipped a challenge to follow, and Sadie raced off into the night with them.

As the trees whipped by her, she had the strangest urge to change course. Her wolf howled in her head, demanding she follow that urge, so she did.

She didn’t know where she was going as she hung a left and raced off, she was just following her heart to wherever it would lead.

Chapter

Six

Victor Hawthorne settled into his perch on the outskirts of the wolf pack territory in Northern Ohio, where he’d been hanging out since before the sun set. He’d come to Ohio a few weeks ago because it was a unique location within the States that had multiple shifter groups near each other. Generally, shifter groups claimed an area—usually a town—and no other shifter groups would come anywhere near them.

He'd heard there was a large wolf pack in Columbus a few hours south of Cleveland, and it was the only shifter group who called that area its territory.

Like their natural counterparts, the shifter groups tended to be territorial and not set up their territory anywhere near others.

Except in Cleveland.

And since Victor was very interested in shifters, he’d decided to come to Northern Ohio to see for himself.

Because he had some clients waiting for his next big score.

A unique shifter.

Victor had grown up in a wealthy family of big game hunters, but he’d quickly grown bored of traditional prey. In his twenties he discovered shifters and became obsessed with hunting beastswho were more than mere animals, particularly those who could turn into unique and rare animals.

Over the years, Victor perfected his hunting skills and became renowned in the underground world of elite hunters. With clients who were not only wealthy but morally bankrupt, he hunted for the rarest and most unique shifters for their collections. Sometimes, the clients wanted the shifters alive to be kept caged as exotic pets, but usually the unique shifters were killed, stuffed, and mounted like trophies in a display of power and wealth.

In the distance, Victor heard the howl of a wolf and after years of learning about his prey, he knew that it was the alpha male calling his people to the hunt.

He wasn’t hunting for anything in particular tonight. He was scouting this pack to see if there were any unique wolves among their kind.

There was one wolf he wouldn’t mess with, no matter how unique and rare she was: the packlygisa. She was some kind of mystical cross between a witch and a wolf, protective of the pack in a way that meant anyone who crossed their borders with bad intentions would be cut down immediately. Hence Victor hanging out on the outskirts with military grade night vision googles. But…if there was a unique wolf among the pack, he’d track and capture them and sell them to the highest bidder.

Pulling the night vision goggles down, he adjusted the sight and scanned the area. He heard the distant call of the pack howling as they headed off to hunt.

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