Chapter 1

I WAKE UP TO an earthy smell rising headily into my nostrils, and the cool, prickly feel of grass blades cushioning my nak*d body. At first, I think I’m dreaming, but as my heavy eyelids slowly break apart I realize the warm slivers of light crisscrossing my skin are the sun’s rays beaming down through the tree branches above me.

A few black dots move through the blue sky, followed by the caw of a crow. My sight is blurry, my eyes glazed over by moisture and a very fine amount of sentience.

I smell blood. A lot of blood. And it’s so potent, almost chemical. I taste it in my mouth, lingering heavily on my tongue in a thick, briny layer of copper and salt and bile.

Gross.

I doubt I’ll ever get used to this.

The realization hits me in this moment and I jerk my body upward, my eyes popping open wide. Where the hell am I and what exactly did I eat last night?

Oh God, please let it have been animal, or better yet, something already dead from the grocery store. Yeah, that’s not likely. The image of me busting into Finch’s Grocery in full-fledged werewolf form and tearing my way straight to the meat aisle makes me laugh a little. But the humor of the moment quickly fades and I’m back to pulling the pieces of my mind together.

My sight comes into focus; the view of the mountain covered by fog and thick clouds only looks like a backdrop. It’s too far away to seem absolutely real. I’m surrounded by trees and grass and soil. The sunlight glistens on the tiny stream of water out ahead and on a spider’s web dangling precariously between the branches of a low-lining tree. Everything is deep green and full of life.

I really am nak*d…

Instinct causes my arms to come up across my chest, covering what I can of my br**sts. I pull my legs toward me, closing them tight and letting my knees fall to the side. I should be cold, but I’m not. My body temperature is very warm, but not uncomfortably. In fact, I feel better than I have ever felt. Last night was only my second time shifting and much in the way after the first time, my body feels new and revived, as if I have been reborn. But this time, I feel even better than the first. I wonder if it might feel better each time. Something tells me that it will, that each transformation is destined to make me stronger.

I hear everything. The song of early morning birds and the water moving in that seemingly calm stream are amplified in my ears. I hear the heartbeats of animals and the soft padding of movement on the forest bed all around me. I even hear insects burrowing through the earth and the wispy fluttering of butterfly wings that no human would ever be able to hear. The butterfly lands on a leaf nearby and I watch it for a long time before it feels strong enough to flutter away toward the small sunlit clearing out ahead.

The scent of pine trees and maple trees and wildflowers is so strong that I feel like it could easily intoxicate me.

The insistent smell of blood raises the hairs on my arms.

Finally, I look down at my nak*d body, allowing my mind to grasp the true measure of the situation. Fresh blood is moist in my hair, weighing it down and sticking to the skin on my chest and arms. Blood is smeared down the length of my ribs and across my left leg. My hands are absolutely covered in crimson, darker underneath the bed of all ten fingernails. I can only imagine how my face looks. I feel it all around my mouth, the blood, and along my cheek toward my ear where it’s already starting to dry and crust.

I visibly shudder at the thought of what, or who I might have killed last night, what or who I might have…eaten.

My heart is heavy with remorse and guilt. I can live with killing an animal—though I don’t particularly like the thought of that either—but I could never forgive myself for killing a human being.

How did I get out here?

Panic envelops me from the inside out. The last thing I remember was being in the basement with Isaac at my side. I remember several days of hell and pain and burning and delusions. I remember Isaac’s face, looking down at me with tortured, loving eyes as he swabbed the cold, wet cloth across my forehead and my face and my neck and my chest.

I remember seducing him.

And he never hesitated to give in to me. Never. He wanted me as badly as I wanted him.

But he was supposed to keep me restrained down there. I wasn’t supposed to be able to get out. I vaguely recall when he unlocked the shackles around my wrists and ankles on the night of the full moon so that there would be minimal damage to my body as I transformed. So that my transformation wouldn’t rip the shackles completely from the old dank stone wall, but I wasn’t supposed to break free from the basement.

I’m not supposed to be out here.

Where is Isaac?

I crawl across the forest bed just a few feet until I realize that I don’t need to crawl at all. My legs feel strong and powerful. I rise to my feet, pressing my palm against the nearest towering tree and look all around me, searching for any sign of Isaac, while at the same time trying to hide my nak*dness with my hands and my moist, dark hair. Maybe he hasn’t awoken yet. He could be around here anywhere, asleep in the high grass in the clearing, or under any one of a thousand trees.

And I still have no idea where I am. I sense that I know which direction to follow that will take me home and that I could never really be lost, but I still don’t know where here is.

I’ve never seen that mountain in the background this close before.

Wow…I have to be far away from Hallowell. Somewhere north.

My panic levels are rising higher. I’m completely nak*d, covered in blood and dirt and my hair is a tangled rat’s nest. I don’t need a mirror to know that I look like a crazed girl, even like some psycho backwoods cannibal straight out of a Rob Zombie film. My animal instinct tells me I can find my way home, sure, but that doesn’t mean no one will see me on the way there and call the police to pick me up. How would I explain that one to Uncle Carl and Aunt Bev?

“Isaac?” I say just above a whisper. If anyone out here hears me, I only want it to be him. “Isaac!” I whisper harshly, looking all around me in every direction.

I step softly over the debris in the forest bed and practically tiptoe around tree after tree, using each one as a shield and avoiding going anywhere near that small clearing which has nothing to shield my nak*dness.

But then it hits me: with these new animal senses, it should be nearly effortless to hear his footsteps, no matter how quietly through the woods. I should be able to detect his heartbeat, hear the blood pumping through his veins. I should be able to hear his thoughts, smell his toothpaste and the natural scent of his skin.

I stop behind another tree and shut my eyes, trying to take it all in, to block out the obvious and let my senses guide me to something farther away. I inhale deeply of the cool, morning air and open my ears to the sounds that had lain buried underneath everything else so close to me.

Isaac taught me how to control my thoughts and how to block out the uninvited intrusion of others, but I still have a lot to learn. The time he spent teaching me was all devoted to this; because of a traitor, a Praverian gone Dark that lives among us. There wasn’t time to teach me much about how to block out the things around me, to tame the voices that I hear or to turn the volume down on all of the noise. I don’t yet know how to do these things to full capacity. Unlike him, I can’t just do it. I have to concentrate. I have to focus. And it’s not easy.

I hear something rustling far off in the distance behind me and I hold my breath for a moment to keep it from drowning out the sound. With my eyes still closed, I take a step backward and then turn around. I listen closely and hear it again. Something is moving on the ground, the distinct sound of leaves shuffling underneath movement is heavy and localized to the same spot. I hear a heartbeat but I can’t tell if it’s human. I try to reach out to Isaac telepathically, but I get no response.

Hunched over slightly, still trying to cover my nak*dness, I pick up my pace and move quickly through the forest in the direction of the noise. My human instinct compels me to watch my footing, to step over sharp twigs and small branches and rocks that may shred my feet, but my animal instinct is what helps me to actually avoid these things. As my pace quickens I realize how easily I miss everything without even thinking about it. And when I start to run, I begin to leap over objects that somehow my animal mind knows are out in front of me before my human mind is aware of it.

As the noise gets closer I slow down. But I’m confused because I’m having trouble blocking out the noises all around me to be able to focus solely on it. Trickling water somewhere to my left is so magnified that I feel like an insect next to a waterfall. The birds flying overhead sound as though they have enormous wingspans flapping with heavy force. Everything is amplified times ten and I can’t block any of it out. I press my hands against my ears and don’t even notice that I’m walking backwards.

I fall over something and when I land in an upright sitting position my back is pressed against something firm and warm. Blood seeps from underneath my butt and my thighs, and my hands are planted in a mound of disgusting, squishy, rubbery entrails.

My breath catches and my arms come up quickly and I practically slip on the entrails as I try to pull my body out of the cavity of the carcass.

I finally get away and stumble backward, falling yet again, but this time against the cleaner ground a couple feet away. The dead moose’s elongated head lays haphazardly, the long, grayish tongue lolled out of its opened mouth. Its giant antlers are still in-tact, jutting up from its massive head, but its stomach has been completely torn apart. The ribcage shows through underneath the ravaged fur; most of the ribs have been broken and some lie in the pile of innards spilling out from the body and onto the ground.

Bile rises up in my throat.

I pick myself up, bracing a hand against a small tree and cup the other over my mouth and nose in an attempt to cover the smell. Flies and maggots are already starting to gather, but this is a fresh kill. It was my kill. I know because as I gaze across at the endless depths of its glazed-over black eyes, I glimpse little pieces of memory from when I took it down last night. I try to block it out, but when I shut my eyes, the blackness only gives way to a more vivid visual.

A branch snapping behind me and the sound of a low, guttural growl is what pulls my head out of the hunting visual.

I turn around briskly at the waist. A large black bear is making its way toward me about a hundred feet through the trees, probably attracted here by the scent of my kill.

I suck in a sharp breath and start to panic, until I see another figure coming in behind it.

It’s Isaac. Isaac!

I want to be happy and relieved, but why is he walking so slowly? He clearly sees the bear and I sense that he knows I’m standing here even though it’s possible that from his angle my body might be obscured by the forest. Surely he knows. But why hasn’t he started running to help me?

The bear draws closer and my body locks up out of fear. I don’t want to run. They always tell you never to run when you come face to face with a bear. But everything in me is screaming at me to run. I keep looking to and from Isaac and the bear, expecting him to pounce on it from behind any second now, but instead, Isaac falls back and keeps a still position near a tree, letting its massive trunk partially conceal his nak*d form. My heart is hammering against my ribcage. I’m hunched over slightly with my knees bent and hands out in front of me, arms bent at the elbows. Instinct now tells me to be ready to fight. Wait…fight a bear? This is insane.