Calm down! I heard Ryder's voice scream at me, but all I was seeing was a giant pair of chocolate wolf eyes above me as the mixed colored wolf was pinning me down. All I could do was witness what was happening at this point. I don't think I registered what the hell was going on. I snapped my teeth at Ryder, who still growled at me and was maybe twice my size with way more strength. My ears heard past his deep roars and heard Stella whimpering on the ground. I stopped my unmanaged rage against Ryder and looked over at Stella, who was on the ground holding her bleeding arm. Shit, shit, shit, what did I just do!?

Ryder—as a wolf—looked back to Stella and I heard the slightest decrescendo of his growl before he eased off of me just slightly before my wolf took the initiative to escape from beneath him as he pleaded "No, don't—" and I approached Stella. Though my consciousness shifted from that of a girl, the "inner animal" was now an "inner human" and she had found the courage to draw the wolf away from the frightened girl even before Ryder attempted to step between us. The guilt inside me from just hurting someone was enough for me to run away on all fours, without even realizing that I just exploded into a giant wolf.

I'll find you, Ryder promised as I ran without looking back. I ran in the opposite direction of the camp—towards the old horse stables that were emptied and locked up. It was about a two mile walk from Great Hall and I knew we wouldn't be using them, but it didn't matter. I found the territory's fence line and escaped the camp. After almost getting hit by a truck, I was on the side of the interstate panting heavily and trying to take in the world around me.

I could see in the dark. I could hear each pulverized piece of asphalt roll against the road in the wind if I concentrated. My sense of smell was so much that I could still smell marshmallows...or maybe even marshmallows inside a plastic bag dripped with Stella's blood.

I didn't know what to do.

Andrew, can you hear me? I thought out stupidly, but I doubted it did any good. I heard myself whimper out of despair as I wandered an empty and forested area of unmarked land. I doubted that Ryder would find me or if he even wanted to. I knew he imprinted on me when I was a human, but now it was entirely different. I was no longer human.

I immediately assumed the worst, despite my wolf's hope in Ryder. I assumed that he was phased down as his attractive human self, helping and aiding Stella and spilling the secret—nothing about neither his imprint nor me. I assumed...he wouldn't want me now. I was the exact terror that he and his father and his pack feared. He probably hated me out of instinct. Ugh! And to make it worse, I was stuck in this canine form no matter how many times I tried to will myself to change back into the human Ashlynn Everton that everyone preferred—that I preferred.

Suddenly, I heard a snap of a twig and I looked over my furry shoulder to see a light brunette colored wolf standing slightly smaller than Ryder, but had the same caramel eyes of Preston.

Found her, I heard Preston's voice say though my mind as if he was radioing into someone, but other than that, my wolf felt threatened and lunged back as if ready to attack. At first, Preston's stance wasn't threatening at all. He slowly walked in a circle around me and my instincts told me not to trust him one bit. So I followed him with my stance, sure to not trust him to my backside. Calm down, he ordered me with way more harshness than Ryder had been repeating.

Hold on, baby, I'm on my way, I then heard Ryder, but I whimpered once more, knowing that if I was in human form, I would've been choked up in tears with anxiety. He was probably here to apprehend me and kill me for breaking a werewolf law or something. Especially for hurting Stella. It only made me want my unresponsive brother more.

Stop making this harder than it is, Preston scoffed at me even though my eyes stayed locked to his and I started to snarl. Get over yourself.

By then, I was acting off of my wolf's thoughts and actions. My unconscious distaste for Preston would make itself present because I barked at him and he had the one thought to "show me my place" and he pounced on me. My face was knocked to the side at first, with a noticeable scrape to some part of my face that I feared would show if I could ever change back into a human. It only made me angrier. Before I could even gain my balance, he had opened his jaws to bite me and I didn't need to lift a paw before the russet wolf from before was battling bites with Preston. The two wolves fought, allowing me to hear teeth crushing beneath teeth and seeing splatters of disappearing blood, but once Ryder caught his footing onto Preston's chest, he bit his neck and pressed down to knock any remaining air from him.

"You're going to defend her!? She attacked me!" Preston mentally yelled and then Ryder removed his entrapment.

"We're not doing this here," Ryder thought to him and quickly glanced at me while I tried to wipe my face with my shoulder and stand up facing away from him. He looked back at Preston. "You know the rules, so I suggest you get back to camp and help with Stella."

"Also her fault," Preston said, obviously not moving an inch. "And it isn't as if the witch will help if I'm there anyways."

"Let me deal with that then," Ryder replied, stressfully.

"Don't spread yourself too thin...since you seem to have other priorities," he insulted. Ryder growled and stepped up to Preston.

"GO. BACK. TO. CAMP," Ryder suddenly barked with a hollowness that ran through me and wanted to make even me return to camp without hesitation, but I was in a different sort of trouble. Not even a second later, I was hearing Preston run back in the direction of camp.

I was scared to actually interact with Ryder. Who knows what would happen? But when he turned around, I froze.

"Are you okay...?" he asked me first and I had no reply. I might as well give up my soul to my wolf considering it was as if I was watching myself gravitate towards Ryder. I took a couple steps towards him, lost in his deep chocolate eyes which appeared to be very human and familiar to me. "You'll be fine, I promise...I just...I need you to talk to me...are you okay?"

And then, I had reached him and put my head in his furry shoulder and sighed. Maybe a whimper escaped and I could sense Ryder's stiff awkwardness arrive at my movement. As soon as I took a detailed breath in, my entire self had consumed Ryder. My genes had exploded into those of a wolf's, but again, they detonated into many sub-particles that wanted nothing more than to be with Ryder's. I wanted everything to do with him and as my face was close enough to him, I heard his heartbeat and watched as his breaths slowed and I felt the side of his face stroke my shoulder. Then, I licked his face. Yes, I mean licked his face.

From there, everything changed. The animals that we were manifested us and our attraction. He snuggled my shoulder once more before mouthing at my muzzle and I heard a slightly whining noise or maybe a content growl. He nibbled at small places on me while I attempted to groom him, feeling a lower body tingling each time his teeth neared my thick neck. Neither of us thought or said anything because this was the mating process of animals taking place, not us humans. When our animalistic flirting became circling each other with tails in our faces and noses brushing by each other when the circles met, the human side of me was too fatigued to pay attention. Just like before, I felt my human self on the inside and now, I was asleep, dormant to whatever my wolf's desires were. After that point, I didn't know what happened. All I know is that I trusted Ryder.

***

I woke up and immediately realized I was naked beneath an itchy throw blanket. I quickly sat up, clutching the blanket around me. I was in a deserted barn.

"Shit," I commented when I pressed my hand to my head and felt the dizziness. My eyes stung from how bright it was and I could smell nothing but old, stale hay. My body was sore in every way possible and I didn't need any indication of what happened last night. I only hoped that nothing actually happened last night other than me changing. Ryder obviously didn't kill me, but maybe he should have since I had hurt Stella. Ugh.

I looked over and saw my packed bag on the corner in front of a closed sliding-door. I quickly got dressed and as soon as I pulled the shirt on over my head, the side door was being opened and I stumbled backwards.

"Ow," I whined, rubbing the back of my head but it didn't even hurt. When I opened my eyes, fully, my breath was caught and I quickly got up at the sight of my visitor. I even collided into a hug with him.

"Let's get you home," Andrew said within the hug and where his arms coiled around my neck, I realized that there was tender skin there. When he pulled away and grabbed my bag, I reached a hand up and felt...indentions as if someone or something had bit me.

***

Other than heightened senses, I felt only soreness and sickness. But I was still cautious and therefore wary, even on the car ride home with Andrew through the sleeping camp. I actually felt sick more than anything. My body was aching and I knew I had a fever.

"So what happened?" Andrew finally asked me while he put an ice pack on my forehead and sat by my side, on the edge of my bed.

"How'd you know to find me?" I asked him. I didn't want to tell him what happened, because I didn't know how it happened.

"Well, you kept thinking to me and any time I responded, it's like you kept switching frequencies and we were playing phone tag though telepathy," he explained. His eyes lowered to the sheets of the bed. "I could tell you were in distress and I wanted to get in the car to drive near camp, even though apparently you weren't there, but then Ryder called me and told me exactly where to go."

"Ryder called you?" I questioned, waiting for a pull at the sound of his name, but it was so much more than that. My wolf woke up and howled, calling out and yearning for Ryder in sadness. But in contrast to the feeling, I couldn't find a single thought or memory from last night other after turning into a wolf.

"Yeah, it might have been a mistake on his part, but I'm glad he did because now you're here," Andrew said, looking at me again. He began to ease up from the bed, but I grabbed his arm to keep him there.

"What did he say?"

"He..." Andrew began with a sigh. "He said that I needed to pick you up as soon as I could and I needed to be there by the time he called again."

"Oh." He didn't say anything about me turning.

Andrew got up from the bed and began to leave as my eyes wanted to close to get some real sleep, but then he paused.

"You shifted last night, Ash," he finally informed and I couldn't pick up his tone. "I'll let you get your rest for the weekend, but this isn't over. Cassandra needs to get home and we need to figure this out."

"I need Ryder," I suddenly blurted out.

"Well Ryder isn't here," he said.

"Drew—"

"I don't care, Ash," he interrupted. "I told him not to..." he didn't want to reveal that they had talked about changing me, or maybe the fact that now Andrew had a possible escape from his Alpha title. But at what cost? What did this even mean for me and Ryder? "Let me deal with him because trust me, if he thinks he can just do whatever he wants when it comes to you, he has another thing coming."

"He didn't have anything to do with it, Andrew," I said. "I," what was the word? "shifted out of nowhere and he was trying to calm me down and..."

"And?"

"And...that's as far as I know, okay?" I ended.

"Great, so you phase and your wolf takes you over while you're with your goddamn mate and you can't remember anything," he summarized in a hiss. "I can't wait till Cassandra gets home to hear about this one."

"Just call Ryder," I said. "He'll explain everything."

"I'm sure he—"

A loud ringing went off from Andrew's pocket and in a second, he was holding the phone up to his ear.

"What?"

"Is she home?" I could hear Ryder's voice even from across the room. Whoa. I guess now I understood how Andrew could eavesdrop so easily.

"Yeah," Andrew answered, glaring at me.

"Thank you. I...I just couldn't take her home," Ryder sighed and I could sense that he was uneasy about something. "I don't really know what's going on, and I need to talk to my dad before anything else happens—which isn't going to go well."

"There are a lot of things not going to be going well, then," Andrew said, referring to probably chastising and beating Ryder as best as he could.

"Well now there is," Ryder agreed and there was a slight pause. Like before, Andrew was looking straight at me, but I think now he saw that I could hear the conversation and the desire in my eyes that I wanted Ryder here. "Can you just tell her that I'll—"

"Tell her yourself," Andrew said before tossing me the phone and leaving. I immediately held it up to my ear.

"Ash?"

"Ryder."

He sighed of relief or maybe stress. I couldn't tell.

"I'm sorry," he began.

"For what?" I asked. "I should be the sorry one. I'm the one who tried to hurt Stella and Preston."

"I'm not worried about them; I'm worried about you," he told me. "Things are different now...I don't know...I don't know how to say this..."

My heart sank. I knew what was coming next. He would reject the imprinting.

"Just say it." I rolled my eyes and tried to scoff like I didn't care, but if I was apathetic, I wouldn't be feeling tears well up in my eyes.

"After last night...I don't know how...I don't know what the heck is going on with you or me or us right now and I need to figure it out before either of us get hurt." I stayed silent. "You'll get through this, I know you will—it's in your blood," he added. "But I can't be there, Ash. Not now. Not if we're gonna make it."

I found that hard to believe. He seemed to think we could make it while being away from each other, when just this distance was already killing me. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

"You don't think this is hard for me too?" he suddenly asked me angrily and I now knew I had thought aloud to him. "I don't want to be away from you, Ash, but you weren't all there last night and you don't know what we did to each other. It's too dangerous at my position and I want to know what happened."

At least he could remember last night. But maybe, even if he heard that thought, he wouldn't share the details of something I probably did to him. "Your phone is here with me at camp, so I'll get that back to you, but I'll make sure the pack looks out for you while I'm gone," he said and I remembered just one detail about me egging on Preston that made me shudder. "I'll try to contact you if you'll let me..." Why would I want to after you're confusing the shit out of me? "Ash?"

"Yeah...." Was all I could muster without flipping my shit.

"As soon as I figure out what happened...I'll be back," he assured. "I really do care about you. I hope you understand at least that much, even if you grow to hate me...okay?"

I can't ever hate him. I knew that much.

"I care about you too," I replied. I heard him force a light laugh.

"Good," he chuckled. "Then just make sure not to give your brother or Cassandra any more reason to kill me when I get back."

"I'm pretty sure their minds are made up about you," I tried to joke, but we both knew it was true.

"You might be pretty, but I don't think you're sure," he countered and I rolled my eyes at his dorkiness. "Rest up. It's gonna be a long couple of days."

You're telling me.