Page 15 of Shadow Bound

We should be celebrating that we’ve got the rogue population under control, but holy fuck, I’m bored out of my mind.

My wolf is agitated and pacing in my head nonstop, a low constant rumble comes from his chest. I find that my wolf is like a young puppy, without stimulation or activity, he grows destructive. With no prey in sight, he’s antsy and angry at everything.

Never in my life has my wolf not gotten along with Sawyer, but I had to rein him in a few times this week when he’d snapped at my friend.

Sawyer is laid-back and calm, but he also doesn’t miss anything. He knows something is up with my wolf, he hasn’t said anything, but I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. I’ve worked really hard to keep my struggles with my wolf a secret, not wanting to alert my family that there might be a problem. I didn’t want them to worry that I was going to turn rogue.

No, I keep that fear to myself and I find a way to manage my wolf.

Hunting was my medicine and this week my prescription ran out.

My leg bounces on the barstool and I turn my neck, working out the kinks. The endless nights of sleeping in shitty motel beds or in my truck are catching up with my body. Add on the fact that I haven’t been sleeping well, due to dreaming ofher, my body is a wreck.

I’m just a mess right now.

You just need to hunt, and you’ll feel better,I lie to myself.

Sensing someone staring at me, I slowly look around the bar for the source. When I find the source, I feel a twinge of disappointment. I find myself frequently searching her out in crowds, looking for her raven-black hair and icy stare. Much to my annoyance, I’m disappointed every time it’s not her.

Like now, I wish it was her arctic eyes looking at me instead of the dark brown ones. The girl, by all rights, is cute. She’s blonde and curvy. The bright smile on her face makes me believe she’s upbeat and bubbly. I’m sure she’s a nice girl, but I have zero interest in her.

No part of me wants to go over and converse with her. My wolf even lets out an unimpressed noise as he observes her. It would be easy to use her as a distraction, but I don’t want to be that guy that uses a girl because he’s bored. I’ve done it before, more times than I can count, and I left feeling shitty every time.

Instead, I nod my head once in greeting before giving her my back, dismissing her. Either way, I’m a jerk, but at least I’m not using her.

Luckily my phone vibrates, buzzing across the countertop. Sawyer’s name is lit up on the screen. He’s back at the motel searching online reports for a possible lead on rogue cases while I am here drinking away my day. He’s better at the research anyway.

“Please tell me you found something. I need to get out of this shithole town,” I tell him before he has a chance to speak. The bartender gives me a nasty look, clearly not amused by my comment about his home. I shrug my shoulder halfheartedly and mouthsorry, even though I don’t mean it. I grew up in a small town, but goddamn, this one-stoplight town in South Dakota takes the cake. There is one bar in the whole zip code and it doubles as an arcade. It’s honestly just sad.

“I think I found something about an hour south of here—” Sawyer starts to explain, but he’s already sold me. I toss random bills on the counter for my drinks and grab my jacket off the empty seat next to me.

“We’re leaving now. Pack your shit,” I tell him before quickly ending the call. Just the prospect of being able to hunt again already has my wolf feeling better.

* * *

My truck engineroars as we fly down the interstate, Sawyer sits in the passenger seat filling me in on what we’re about to walk into.

“She was left on the side of the road. There was obvious trauma to her throat,” he explains, scrolling down on a report he looks at on his laptop. When Winslow came along, so did her connections. She’s best friends with one of the best hackers in all of the world. Whisper is wanted on every government watch list. While he’s their worst nightmare, he’s been our biggest asset. He’s able to provide us access to a variety of official reports, making hunting rogues that much easier for us.

“What kind of trauma?”

“She had bite marks on her throat,” he explains, turning the screen so I can see the pictures from the autopsy done on the deceased fox shifter. “Her cause of death was listed as exsanguination.”

I briefly pull my eyes away from the road to look at the picture on the screen. My heart hurts for the family of the young girl. She just found herself at the wrong place at the wrong time. With rogue attacks, they’re almost always random. Rogues don’t plan out attacks, they’re completely blinded by their hormone-driven rages, they don’t have the ability to scheme and plot their next move.

The victim more than likely was just in their path.

I look closer at the neck wound. It’s pretty clean for a rogue attack. “Are we sure this was a wolf?”

Sawyer turns the laptop back toward him and shrugs. “No, but are we ever?”

He’s got a point. There are a lot of other things out there that prey on humans. Vampires for one, but they are typically smarter than leaving a trail of victims behind them. From what I’ve heard, they prefer to just go steal from blood banks, or they have a designated human to feed on. There’s a reason they’ve been able to exist for thousands of years without humans finding out about them.

We all have to be smart and discreet. Humans finding out that shifters and other species live amongst them would end in disaster.

Sawyer runs a hand through his dark blond hair. He needs a haircut; his usual crew cut is grown out and sticking up on his head much like mine does. I also note he has dark circles under his eyes, and I feel a pang of guilt. We’ve been gone longer than we planned, and we don’t take breaks. He’s clearly exhausted.

It’s time for him to go home. I’m sure he’s missing his family like hell. He’s always been really close to his mom. Sawyer’s dad died when he was young, and his mom really struggled after the loss of her mate. Losing a mate is so painful and a lot of the time, the surviving mate just withers away. They literally die of a broken heart. Sawyer’s mom fought like hell to stay alive for her son, and I commend her for that. She still struggles with intense episodes of depression. When she’s in one of those moods, her will to live just vanishes. She doesn’t eat or drink water, just lays in bed all day. Sawyer has to stay with her when this happens or else she’ll just wither away.

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