The first thing I smelled was blood.
The second was smoke.
I broke through the trees behind the pack house and stopped just long enough to see what Graymoor had turned into.
Fighters were spread across the field. Vehicles had been abandoned near the eastern line. Somebody was shouting orders over a radio, and wolves were fighting close enough to the house.
I'd felt something wrong miles out. Something had pulled hard enough that I finally turned around and came home.
Now I knew why.
"What the hell?"
I ran for the house.
I was still human with no shirt and no shoes. What was left of my trousers barely deserved the name. My feet were cut from the woods, and there were scratches down my chest and arms I hadn't bothered looking at.
None of it mattered because the wolf was there.
When I'd shifted, everything had come too fast. The smells, sounds, and instincts.
So I ran. And at first because I couldn't stop, then because I didn't want to.
