Chapter 17: Arrest Me First

Calla's POV

For five years my legs had belonged to a cell, and now they were mine again.

I went out through the open window of Jasper's room, down the porch roof, and into the dark yard on four feet.

The cold hit my nose first.

Then every smell on the ridge came at me at once: pine, wet stone, the horses in the barn, the woodsmoke from the kitchen chimney.

My wolf did not speak.

She ran.

I ran with her.

I took the north slope in long hard bounds, and my claws tore the frozen turf, and nothing hurt.

No collar burned at my throat.

No guard shouted at me to stop.

I went up the whole length of the Stonegate ridge until the trees fell away and the Bighorns lay white under the moon.

I threw back my head and howled.

It came out of me huge and cracked and wet, five years of it, and it rolled out across the valley.

Another voice answered from behind me.

I turned.

A black wolf stood on the ridge line, broad in the chest, with eyes the color of old gold.

He did not come closer.

He lowered his head and waited.

I trotted up to him and shoved my shoulder into his, hard, and he nipped my ear.

We ran the ridge together until the sky went gray.

When I came down the slope again I was on two legs, naked and shaking, and Jasper's coat was around me before I had finished shifting back.

"You did it," he said into my hair.

"I did it."

"You looked magnificent."

"I was fast."

"You were faster than me." He kissed my temple. "I've never been beaten on that ridge."

I laughed, and I stood there in his arms with my feet in the frost.