Chapter 15: Silver in the Trees

I shifted at the tree line.

It hurt less than the barn. My wolf knew the way now, and she came up through my bones without being asked.

I ran up the north slope on four silver-gray legs with the rain in my fur.

The mark on my wrist had no place to burn now, so it burned everywhere.

It pulled me left, toward a stand of black spruce above the ridge road.

I smelled him before I saw him.

Blood, wet wool, and under it a bitter tang that made my eyes water.

Silver.

A clearing opened ahead of me.

Ronan was down on one knee in the middle of it, tangled in a net of braided wire.

Where the wire touched his skin it left a blistered line. He had stopped fighting it, because every pull made it worse.

His left shoulder was dark with blood.

Two men in green jackets stood at the far edge of the clearing with rifles at their shoulders.

"Hold still, Alpha," said the nearer one. "This is only to keep you from the yard."

"I'm holding," Ronan said through his teeth. "Is the other one coming?"

"What other one?"

"The one who's about to eat you."

The man turned his head.

I hit him in the chest at a full run.

He went over backward, and the rifle went off into the trees.

I put my forepaws on his ribs and bared my teeth an inch from his face.

He screamed.

The second hunter swung his muzzle toward me.

I didn't think. My wolf jumped from where she stood, and I took the barrel in my jaws and wrenched it sideways.

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