Chapter 4 - Linnea

I'm full of nervous energy, pacing up and down the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. After reading through the information about the procedure a few times, I finally messaged the doctor back and told him I was in. I know it's my only option.

There are stories of shifters who try to complete the procedure, who end up in chronic pain, or who just lose their sanity altogether, but at this point, it's worth the risk. I think back to when I was a kid, hearing my parents whisper about someone they knew trying to defect and how they'd ended up jumping off a bridge when they could no longer bond with a pack.

I think about my dad, sitting at the kitchen table, his hands wrapped around a steaming mug as he said, "Not everyone is cut out to be a lone wolf."

The doctor is sending someone to get me tonight. I can only bring the essentials, and I have every candle and incense in my house lit to try and disguise what's left of my scent. I doused every room and every surface with bleach. Hopefully, by the time Varun realizes I've deserted, none of my original scents will be left, and they'll have no way to track me or figure out what I did.

Once you break ties with your pack and become a "lone wolf" without allegiance to a new pack, there's nothing protecting you from their vengeance. So if I leave, I have to make sure Varun can never find me, or I'll become the perfect example of what happens to anyone who tries to leave.

Luckily, besides his brief interest in my accounting services, I don't think Varun is that interested in me. From the time he became the pack leader and started working his way through the female shifters, something always put him off from me. I don't know whether it's the shape of my body or the fact that I can't shift, but either way, I'm grateful for it.

I know I need to stay calm and avoid working up a sweat, but my anxiety builds at the thought of what I'm about to do. If either of my parents were still around, they'd be horrified. Every time I think of them, the grief comes back in full force. I lost so much in such a short amount of time—my chance for a mate, my Alpha, my parents.

Two months after Aris left, the day after graduation, my parents were in a fatal car accident. They were coming home from a fishing trip, probably singing together in the front seat. Typically, shifters survive your average car crash. But this was two eighteen-wheelers colliding, then spinning into my dad's 2007 Prius. They never stood a chance. The paramedics told me they died on impact.

I stop in front of a photo of them on the mantle, running my thumb over the frame. They're smiling, looking up from chairs around a campfire. Like most shifters, they loved being in nature and took long, remote vacations so they could shift freely and stretch their muscles. I only saw them in their shifted forms once, when I was kid, and according to my dad, I cried so hard they had to take me home. After that, my inability to shift wasn't surprising.

I glance at my mom in the picture, holding me, just a little bundle in her arms. When I was little, she used to sing an old shifter folksong to me as a lullaby. And there's no need to run from the big, bad wolf.

My parents were pack traditionalists through and through—they would never understand the idea of deserting your people.

To them, the pack was everything, and they always talked about my duty to support my pack brothers and sisters. But they never experienced what it's like to have a crooked alpha, to fear for your safety every day, to watch others in the pack be abused and disposed of. My parents had the luxury of a sane, sensible pack leader in Aris's grandfather and then Aris's dad.

My heart squeezes at the thought of Aris, as it always does. For a brief moment, a swell of nausea rolls through me at the thought of severing that connection, but I push it away. The universe chose Aris and me to be mates, but Aris rejected me. He made it clear it was never going to happen. Even if I can never have another mate, that's still better than the never-ending torture of waiting for one who doesn't want me.

A hard, pounding knock rattles the door, nearly jostling it off its hinges and I jump so hard I hit my knee against the coffee table. I glance at the clock. The guy is twenty-five minutes early. My backpack, with my fake documents and preparations, is on my back, the only thing I'm taking with me.

I glance at the door, then back at the clock. Another resounding knock reverberates through the house, and a deep voice shouts something on the other side.

It could be the guy I'm waiting for, but something deep in my gut tells me that's not the case. Before I can waste another second, I race down the hall, get on my hands and knees, and raise the floorboard under my bed, sliding the backpack inside. By the time I replace the rug and start coming down the hallway, the door splinters, flying apart and landing in pieces on the living room floor.

Standing in the doorway is one of Varun's lackeys, breathing heavily with the exertion it took to blast my door into shrapnel.

"Hey!" I call, indignant. I wasn't planning on coming back and was just going to hire a realtor to sell my family home, but something about the destruction of my property still makes me angry.

"Hey, yourself," he growls, "I was knocking. Didn't you hear?"

A sadistic smile curves over his face, and I can't help the shudder that works up my spine. Just because Varun isn't interested in me doesn't mean nobody is, and so far, as alpha, he's done nothing to stop the abuse and assault on different female shifters in the pack.

"What do you want?" I say, trying to sound as brave as I can. There's no way they could know what I was planning—right? I used an encrypted email. Every part of the process was so careful and intentional. How could Varun possibly know? "I already filed Varun's taxes. And the business. It's taken care of."

"We both know that's not why I'm here," the shifter says, stepping fully into my house. After a moment, he screws up his nose, then coughs hard. "Fuck, this place is a cesspool of smells. Like… Bleach? And why all these fucking candles?"

I shrug, enjoying the fact that all the smells are probably burning his nose. "Doesn't bother me."

His eyes narrow, and he stalks forward, his arm clamping hard around my bicep. My hands fly up to it immediately, trying to pry it off, but it's like pushing against concrete.

"Funny," he says, starting to drag me out, glancing down at my attempts to free myself. Now, the panic is full-throttle. Varun has never cared about me before and has let me do what I want on the outskirts of town. The only reason he'd be sending for me is if he knows what I'm planning. So why doesn't it seem like his lackey knows what's going on?

A burst of adrenaline sparks through me, and I dig in my heels, using one hand to hit him in the lower back, near the kidney, as hard as I can. I think it's more from surprise than from genuine pain, but he releases me, and I stumble back, trying to make a run for the back door.

There's no way I can outrun him. I know that. As someone who can't even shift, my natural physical abilities are similar to that of a human. But I have to try and get away, give myself the best possible chance for survival. I won't let him take me without a fight.

Unbidden, my mind races back to high school, to the torture I used to go through with Aris and his buddies. Though they were always pushing me, pinching my sides, Aris never laid a hand on me. His attacks were all verbal, and they were much worse than the bra-snapping and hair-pulling. Right now, I almost wish it were Aris tracking me down. At least I know he wouldn't hurt me.

When I hear the shifter's heavy steps behind me in the hallway, I turn, grab a nearby vase, and crash it over his head as hard as I can. It splinters and ricochets, bouncing off the floor and walls, a piece of it wedging into my hand. I cry out in pain but use the delay to my advantage, bolting toward the laundry room and back door of the house.

The shifter growls loudly, more in frustration than from his wounds, and continues barreling after me. I'm so close that I can see the moonlight glinting off the trees in the backyard. Two more steps, and I can slam the door in his face, maybe make it to my car—

My hand is wrapping around the doorknob when two arms circle around my waist, yanking me back so hard my neck stings, and I taste blood from where I've bitten my tongue.

"Let's go," the shifter says, hefting me up over his shoulder. "I don't have time for this fucking nonsense. You're lucky the boss wants you unharmed."

Moments later, my hands are tied, and I'm tossed into the backseat of a large SUV, bouncing once on the cold leather. I use my feet to push into a sitting position as the shifter climbs into the driver's seat. I can see a trickle of blood tracing down behind his right ear, where a piece of glass is lodged, and I feel a small victory that I've managed to strike back, even if it's mostly futile.

He presses the gas, revving fast and braking hard as we make our way through town. Without a seatbelt and with no hands to stabilize myself, I jostle around, hitting the side of my head painfully against the window. I see streetlights pass by in a blur through the window and wonder what Varun is going to do to me.

I've never heard of anyone else deserting the pack in the way I planned, but I have seen Varun punish a girl for spilling a drink on him, forcing her to chug the rest of the bottle, then get on her hands and knees, licking up what had spilled. The memory makes me sick, and my body shakes at the idea of going back to that bar.

Finally, the SUV swings violently into a spot outside the bar, and the lackey circles around, opening the door and catching me as I fall out. He hefts me over his shoulder again, and I close my eyes to keep from getting sick.

I feel him push through a door, then I feel us pushing through the people in the bar. My cheeks are warm, feeling the humiliation of what's happening now and also what's about to happen. There's nothing to stop Varun from doing whatever he wants.

At last, I'm set on my feet, and to my surprise, the shifter reaches behind me, grabbing the ties and undoing the rope around my hands. I immediately bring them around the front of my body, rubbing at my wrists, and open my eyes, sure I'm going to see Varun pointing a gun at me, or some terrible torture contraption.

Instead, I see Aris Cadell, fire and fury in his eyes so bright that I feel seared clean through when he looks at me. Our eyes lock, and every cell in my body seems to relax. The low, thrumming headache that seems to be constantly in the back of my mind calms, and for the first time in a long time, I feel mentally clear. It's as though my organs and bones are saying finally.

"Aris," I gasp, without meaning to, and I can tell from the look on his face that he feels it too—the mating bond that never got a chance to develop because he left right after it established itself between us.

I don't know what I was expecting, but clearly, he still wants nothing to do with me. Instead of striding toward me, taking me in his arms, and fulfilling the undeniable urge I've had for years now, his eyes cut to Varun, something cold and unforgiving glinting there.

"What the fuck is this?"