(Welcome to the fourth book of the cross-shifter series. This is the intro chapter to the twins' story. It can be read as a stand-alone and is bxb.) 

Darkness was always what he saw when he opened his eyes. It hadn't been such forever, but at least for several months at a time over the last few years. He'd most recently been locked up for killing his new owner and, per the contract, had been returned to his previous one. It was a twisted, sick cycle that had driven him mad years ago. He was a rare animal, and a shifter, as it were. He was worth his weight in gold, according to the auctioneer when he was originally sold. 

He cared little about his situation because it was exactly what it was, and he could do nothing to change it. He sat, day in and out, inside of what he thought was a metal container. It was likely from a semi-truck, used to haul items to and from different places. It only locked from the outside, and there was no way to open it once stuck within.

Every day, the temperature rose and fell with the sun, worsening the smell of his own fecal material that was slowly building up in the corner. The owner's workers were supposed to clean his container with one of those high-pressure hoses once every three or four days, but they were late this week. 

He could move very little with the strong metal chain fastened around his neck, and if he tried, the rusty spikes dug into his skin.

Huffing, Palace settled down in his corner and squinted his eyes open, only to close them a moment later. The ammonia burned terribly, and he had no doubt that they would eventually be damaged beyond repair if he was left to rot within the container for another year or two between sales and returns.

The only positive thing, so far at least, was that he did receive some form of meat at least once a week. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him going. Licking his lips, he gave a quiet growl. He often heard animals sauntering around the outside of his enclosure, but again, he was useless to do anything but defend the space inside. The metal container was his home, and even if it was terribly hot during the day and often too cold at night, and smelled horrible, he would defend it. Because it was his, and no one would take it from him.  

It was some time later, clearly in the early evening because he could feel the temperature dropping and humidity rolling in with the faint sound of thunder in the background, that he began to hear footsteps approaching his container. At first, his ears perked slightly at the sound of several dog's paws tracking through the field that he knew surrounded him. There was no shortage of deer, boar, and other forest dwelling creatures that came by at random times during the night, so he had decided that they had to have come out of the woods to feed while it was safe under the cover of night. 

Granted, he wasn't sure how far away the forest was to his container, but judging from the sound of the animal's feet over the years crunching on leaf litter, then switching to dry or damp grass and weeds, he couldn't have been far. 

Tilting his large head as the dogs got closer, then began baying just outside of his container, Palace snorted and forced his aching eyes open. They had likely come to sell him, again, which would mean another strong dose of tranquilizer, evidently twice that of which is used on a horse, from what he'd heard them say while they were getting the dosage ready outside of his container last time. 

Hunkering down, he allowed his mixture of dark brown feathers and fur to lift along his hackles as a deep, rumbling growl vibrated through the worn metal. The dogs outside immediately started quieting down. A few whimpered before falling completely silent, then most began heading back the way they'd come judging from the sound of their retreating paws. 

Palace could just see them in his mind's eyes, tails tucked running back to their master. He'd bet they got treated far better than he ever would. He wasn't jealous anymore, though. It had been years since he'd seen anything even close to kindness, so he'd hardened himself to the point of being an aggressive murderer... and nothing else. 

When the faint sound of human footsteps met his ears, he shifted his weight to stand on shaky legs. So they are coming to sell me after all. 

As long as they weren't sent inside, he didn't really mind the return of the sound of the baying hounds, but he was curious at their presence. Even when they did come to tranquilize him, they rarely brought more than one or two dogs. The footsteps, also, didn't sound familiar. Several sets of them were getting closer by the second, but they weren't the sound of the sneakers his master's worker's wore, or his master's extremely expensive fancy shoes he heard during the man's rare visits to be sure his health was decent enough for another sale. 

They're wearing boots of some sort. 

When the group of people stopped around his container, his hair and feathers bristled together as he smelled other animals. 

Shapeshifters. 

Not all of them, but he could smell at least one cat shifter, and one was enough. He hated humans in general, but the shifters that had bought him had always been disgusting perverts that tried to make him do far more than he was ever going to let them. He never shifted for anyone, which made it that much more disgusting when they tried to force him to breed. 

Of course, every attempt ended up with the person dead and him being returned back to his master. A few of them had tried to knock him out before doing anything, but they never figured out the dosage, and he woke up almost immediately to put them out of their misery. 

"Something smells off." A deep voice responded from the other side of the locked steel panel in front of him. 

Palace roared and lunged, a rough cough echoing after the snarl as he quickly backed up to keep the spikes in his collar from pushing any further into his skin. They had been embedded off and on for months now, so the damage had already technically been done, but he didn't want to make it any worse if he could keep his temper under control. 

There was a lot of whispered words that Palace couldn't quite hear outside, along with several dogs barking from surprise, but he wasn't focused on any of that. His attention remained squarely on the panel as the giant bolt-lock began to quiver, clearly stuck, like it always tended to be after having not be opened for several days. 

"Be careful, Jamie." Came a voice from behind the panel. 

Crouching, Palace twitched his head back and forth a few times, trying to dislodge the horrible ammonia smell and burning sensation in his nose and eyes so that he could focus. It barely helped, but his vision was beginning to turn red, allowing him to block out most of his surroundings and focus solely on killing what came through that steel panel. 

Unfortunately for the dogs the group of men owned, they were not trained well enough. One, in particular, a hound type, ran right inside. Palace had nothing against the dog personally, but he'd already warned it, and the animal would clearly understand that it was entering somewhere marked as another's territory. 

It was dead in less than two seconds, its body hanging limply from Palace's massive jaws. The sound of guns being cocked and aimed brought his eyes to squint at the slight opening in the giant panel door. When he could faintly see a male with dirty blond hair and blue eyes staring with a semi-automatic pointed at him, Palace snorted. He let the dog's lifeless body slip from his jaws to thunk onto the soiled, dirty floor before his thick paws. 

"What in the world is that...?" A young man, who was also aiming a gun, though shakily, at him asked. 

The first man slowly pulled the door back a few more inches, allowing the faint light of twilight to dust the inside of the container with just enough sun to make the shadows retreat from half of his monstrous form. 

"What?" He mumbled to no one in particular as he just stood there, clearly unable to put together what he was seeing. 

Palace's left ear flicked, his normal gesture for when he was a little confused. He'd thought that this man was a buyer, yet he hadn't been sent a picture? That made no sense. 

"The staff at the house said that there was a shifter kept out here that was massive and dangerous, but I've never seen such a giant wolf." 

Palace snarled and turned, his dirty feathers rustling against his fur in the dim space. The man quickly glanced up toward the sky at the sound, but then dropped his attention back to Palace when he clearly hadn't seen anything. 

"Did  I just hear a bird... in here?" He said, nudging the door open more with his hip, clearly trying to get a better look inside. 

If they were going to knock him out, it was going to happen, so Palace decided not to waste anymore of his energy trying to scare them off. Clearly, it wasn't working. Instead, he let his weight drop heavily back down to the floor, sending a loud echo throughout the container. When he glanced back up at the shifter and saw that he still hadn't moved, Palace leaned down and grabbed the dead dog in his jaws. 

A long time ago he might have been too picky to eat such an animal, but food was a precious commodity now, and he wasn't going to waste the chance to fill his belly. He did keep his ears and eyes focused mostly on the men as he crunched away at flesh and bone alike. Being close to four feet tall and two hundred pounds of muscle, though underweight, Palace was easily able to tear into his meal without issue. 

"Do we have any strong tranquilizers? Probably double the normal dose for something his size, which I'd have to guess to be around one hundred and eighty, if not more." The shifter said, making Palace huff and flick one of his ears. The guy was good at guessing.

"We don't have anything that strong. This was just supposed to be a simple seizure of a few captive animals and a possible small shifter or two." Someone said from out of Palace's line of sight. 

The man standing in the doorway pursed his lips in thought, making Palace bare his teeth and growl as he pushed himself back up onto his weak legs. There was little left of the dog that was edible so he returned his full attention to the trespassers. 

When the man finally decided to act, it wasn't exactly what he'd thought he'd do. He took a step back and offered Palace a small smile. "Guess we'll have to think of something else. Maybe we can get a truck in here to just load up the entire trailer. I'll go make some calls, and get a hold of my brother. Liam and Duff, stand guard please. He's secured by a thick chain, so he shouldn't be able to cause any trouble as long as the door stays sealed and no one tries to bother him." He said before stepping down from the trailer, then slowly forcing the heavy panel door back into place. When the rusty bolt lock creaked into its slot, Palace huffed and slowly lowered himself back down, figuring that he was going to be left alone for at least a little while longer.