Sadie

We bolted down the hallway, darting through the sparse crowd in the dark, cavernous space.

“This way!”

Navin shouted, twisting to his right and running down a smaller corridor.

We followed him easily, practically nipping at his heels to get him to run faster. If the sound of stomping boots was to be believed, my uncles stayed in their human forms even as my father howled behind us. We zigzagged through the labyrinth of tunnels, each one getting darker and smaller. Our panting breaths echoed off the sandstone along with the heavy stomp of our boots. The ceiling sloped down, lower and lower, until we had to crouch.

My father and uncles kept right on our tails.

“Grab the rope!”

Navin called, and I lifted my head from my crouch to see the open tunnel ended in nothing but air, a lean rope hanging down in front of it.

“Shit,”

Maez growled as Navin leapt, grabbing the rope and hooking it around his hands and feet.

He quickly rappelled downward and Maez jumped, grabbing the rope above him. My stomach lurched, but the feeling of my uncle’s hand reaching for the back of my neck made my skin prickle. I couldn’t go with my father and uncles. I couldn’t turn and face the life they had planned for me. And so I leapt.

The rope burned into my palms as I grabbed it. My legs flailed in the open air before I could finally loop them around. Far, far below was the sand-covered ground. A fissure in the rock ahead peeked into the sunshine and I could spy Galen den’ Mora still sat under the shade.

Could we make it to the wagon before the Wolves followed?

I slid down the rope, grimacing as my palms burned against the scratchy rope. I watched as Navin and then Maez hit the sand. Maez immediately pulled out her sword and shouted, “Let go, !”

I hesitated for a split second, and she barked, “Jump, damn it!”

I let go, free-falling as she sliced the counterweight rope where it was tied down. As I fell, the rope that had once been in my hands slipped free, shooting upward. I collapsed onto the sand in a heap and quickly rolled back up to stare at the cavern from where we emerged.

We’d descended even farther than I had imagined, the adrenaline making the drop quick. I stared up at my father’s human face as he scowled at the loose rope. There’d be no following us down this way. But they could double back and still get us.

“Go!”

I shouted, dusting myself off as I stood and started running toward the crevice in the rock.

“!”

my father bellowed, making my muscles tense with traitorous fear. “I will find you! You will redeem us!”

We reached the fissure in the rock and raced out into the beating sunshine. I fled, running for my freedom as the scorching sun zapped my energy. My father’s and uncles’ shouts chased after me every burning step, long after I could actually hear them. The stretch of sand was farther from the wagon here, and my stomach soured as my running quickly turned to fast walking. I thought I might collapse if I didn’t get cool. How quickly the sun exhausted us here.

Bile rose up my throat and I vomited nothing but stomach acid onto the sand. I was vaguely aware of hands urging me forward as my leathers cooked me.

When I hit the shade of the back steps, I nearly collapsed onto them.

“Breathe. Breathe,”

Navin said through his own panting breaths.

“We have to go! Now!”

I shouted, trying to frantically stand and my legs giving out from under me. A strange panic gripped me. I felt hot and cold all at once, my vision spotting with black.

Navin caught me easily and lowered me back to the steps. “You need to get inside,”

he said. “Take these bloody leathers off and cool down before you make yourself sick.”

“My father—”

“Your father will be trapped in those tunnels for a very long time,”

Navin assured me. “The barman will see to it they don’t follow us. ?”

I felt a tap at my cheek. I blinked with unseeing eyes, barely able to hear over the ringing in my ears. Is this what heat sickness felt like? Could it come on so quick? Or was this purely from panic?

Navin ordered something to Maez that I couldn’t quite comprehend. “On it,”

she said, darting to the front of the wagon.

“, take a deep breath for me.”

“I . . .”

My torso swayed and my head lolled back.

Navin let out a growl that sounded impressively lupine as he caught me, hoisting me up with his long, lithe arms. He carried me into the belly of Galen den’ Mora and dropped me onto the couch. His hands swiftly worked over me, first yanking off my boots and chucking them toward the door.

“Esh! Wool socks?”

he asked incredulously as he peeled them off my feet and tossed them aside. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

The cool air swirled around my feet. I placed a hand to my clammy forehead and realized my whole body was shaking, my heart still pounding like I was running full tilt. Navin’s hands lifted to my trousers and unbuckled my belt.

“Wh—”

I tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness and nausea came over me. I was able to snatch a clay vase from the shelf just before my empty stomach rebelled again and I began hurling into the pot.

I barely noticed as Navin yanked my linen trousers off and discarded them. “Seriously?”

he snapped, and I was certain he was staring at my skintight fighting leathers underneath and belts of weapons banded around my thighs.

The wagon rocked and swayed, the wheels turning and rattling over the sand dunes. We were moving again? Everything felt distant, like a strange dream. Was Maez driving the oxen?

Navin unlaced my shirt, revealing the leather vest underneath, and he groaned his frustration again. His hands hovered above my chest, about to unbuckle the vest and lay me bare to him when Maez stumbled back through the kitchen. “I’ve got it from here,”

she said, climbing down the steps and shoving Navin out of the way. A wet washcloth landed on my forehead. “You go make those oxen move faster.”

Navin lingered over me for a second. He was blurry and out of focus, but I could see the concern and hesitation in his eyes.

“Go, Navin,”

Maez snapped, pointing at the curtain. “She needs to shift. So if you don’t want to get eaten, go sit out front with the oxen.”

“Shift.”

He echoed the word as if he’d forgotten what I was. Maybe he wanted me to be human so badly that he’d forced my Wolf nature from his mind.

In truth, in my panic, I’d forgotten the power of shifting, too. Navin gave me one last quick glance and hustled back toward the front of the wagon, yanking the velvet curtain closed behind him as he went.

Maez snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Okay, Sads, let’s go. Wolf time.”

“I can’t shift in a fucking wagon,”

I snarled, my Wolf already pulling to the surface, desperate to heal me.

“I won’t let you break anything . . . or eat anyone if that’s what you’re so worried about,”

Maez said as she unbuckled my vest so I wouldn’t shred it with the change. “This is just a quick shift, just like we’ve trained for. Heal and then return.”

I took another breath, my pulse still far too fast, my ears still ringing. I nodded and screwed my eyes shut. My Wolf was all too eager to emerge, the survival instinct kicking in. I felt the heightening pain as my muscles twisted, my bones crunched, and then with a pop, there was nothing but sweet relief.

I stood on all four paws, my silver tail swishing. I still panted from the heat, but my heart had slowed and my breathing was steadier. My sight and hearing were perfect once more. I heard every whine of the wagon wheel, every snorting breath of the oxen, every hummed note of Navin at the front of the wagon. I smelled the sunshine baking off the sand and the sweat-slicked socks now discarded around my paws. I stretched, padding back and forth along the couch, shaking the vestiges of clothing off.

“Feels better, doesn’t it?”

Maez said with a smirk, folding her arms across her chest.

I snapped at her, not liking this human form so close in my space. I heard the whoosh of her blood in her veins, smelled her earthen musk and minty soap she used to bathe across her skin, my eyes honed to all her vulnerable flesh. I was trained to never view humans as prey . . . but with one so close, it was hard to control the hunting instinct. My mind was still foggy, my judgment not as clear as it normally would be. It felt like teetering on a dream. I prowled a step closer and sniffed Maez’s skin.

“Don’t you bite at me, bitch,”

Maez growled, asserting more Wolf into her voice. Only then did my judgment snap back into place. I recognized that she wasn’t in fact human and pulled back. “Good. Now shift back before you piss on the couch.”

I bared my teeth at her again. I was about to will the change when the curtain pulled back with Navin saying, “Did y—”

He froze, staring at me. Time stood still. This wasn’t the quiet meditative stillness of before. Now, the way he looked at me was so charged I could feel it buzzing through the air. I could smell his fear wafting off him like a too strong perfume.

“Navin, get the fuck out of here,”

Maez said, leaping toward the curtain.

But he didn’t. Instead, Navin’s eyes hooked with mine. I saw it all there: the concoction of shock and fear. My lip curled in a low growl.

“,”

Maez warned, stepping in between me and the human.

Navin stumbled back, pulling the curtain again.

In a blink, I shifted and crumpled onto the couch, wincing at the sharp pain of the sudden change. And not just the physical one. It felt like a tearing that Navin would no longer be able to deny what I was. Not with the truth of it staring him in the face. My body was healed but my soul was a jumbled knot of warring emotions. He’d seen me. Seen me in my rawest, truest form. Seen the beast that I am.

And he’d been paralyzed with fear.