Feral Northern Shifters 2

reassuring face. “Good news. I heard from my contact. Got a definite arrival time. So don’t worry, we’re going to get this cat to a better place soon. I know you don’t like him locked in this room. It’s getting to you. I can smell your distress.”
Good that Doug had settled upon a reason for Bram’s distress but bad about the contact. “When is the arrival time?”
“Tomorrow.”
Bram blinked. His window of opportunity had shrunk. He had to do everything tonight and he had to do it right. “You said days from now.”
“Yes, I did. Now I say tomorrow. What of it?”
“Nothing, sorry. But. What will they do with him? Once they have him.”
“Enough with the questions.” Doug jerked his head towards the door. “Go. You’re tired and out of sorts. Sleep. I want you to be alert tonight while you watch him, make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Bram clamped down on his desire to know more when he couldn’t afford to make his alpha suspicious with further questions, because Bram needed to be the one who watched Ethan tonight. If Doug had an inkling of his true thoughts, helping Ethan escape would become very, very difficult.
Slipping out the front door, Bram dragged in a lungful of cold air, exhaled and watched the air condense from that breath. The freezing weather braced him as he walked across the compound to his trailer. He shucked his jacket and dutifully ate as much as he could. Tonight was going to be eventful and he needed energy stores. Finally he lay down on his bed, ostensibly to rest, but his restiveness made that a challenge.
He had to be optimistic about his chances of succeeding. Going in with a sense of dread was one thing, and unavoidable, given that he was betraying his pack. But going in sure he was going to fail was asking to fail. For Ethan’s sake, he refused to do that.
Well, he could count himself lucky that he didn’t have to go searching for wire cutters. He’d bought a pair a couple of years ago and hid them under his bed. Though he’d never taken them out, they’d been an odd source of comfort on certain nights. When things got really bad they were his keys to escape, a means of cutting through the fence if life as the omega, the outcast, became unbearable. It hadn’t happened of course. Instead, taking the crumbs of Doug’s social favors had gotten Bram through his worst times.
That was over. He’d never wanted to be feral but alternatives were limited to nonexistent. If he had the self-control to live among humans, he could have chosen to mix with them and keep his human side, but his shifting was too unpredictable. Even now he could feel his wolf seeking to take over. It was always that way during stress, and Bram could imagine how well he’d do shifting in the middle of a city, horrifying humans, perhaps even hurting them.
He let out a long, painful breath. He was going to miss Ethan, which said a lot about Bram’s situation, he knew. Worse, while Doug could be oblivious to many things about Bram, he doubted the alpha was going to overlook the fact that Bram had set the cat free. He might even try to hunt him down. Doug held grudges.
And yet, there was a certain freedom now that he’d decided to do what was right and handing Ethan over to Doug’s contact couldn’t have felt more wrong .
Three hours and no sleep later, Bram walked back to the holding cabin. He passed a few people who ignored him. His sense of doom had lessened as the time to act approached though he felt fatalistic about what was to come. He wasn’t able to carry the wire cutters quite yet. He had to wait till dark, and he’d duck out and get them to cut that escape hole for Ethan, and himself.
Then he could appease his wolf and shift. Despite the fact the moon was only a thin crescent, Bram would welcome turning wolf. His human self felt bone-weary. He needed a reprieve. Life as wolf on the run would be simple, straightforward, and Bram would have no one to answer to. Perhaps that would be enough to compensate for the loneliness that lay ahead of him.
    Ethan roamed. If one can roam a small room in which you are captive.
Don’t think . The thinking was making him crazy. He hadn’t actually been alone while awake for any period of time. That would have been fine if he were either not captive or if he were cat, but the combination of being human and completely at the mercy of these assholes was making him nuts.
His cat was rising within. They wanted him to stay human. Even his human, after so