Feral Northern Shifters 2

through the hole and ran a short distance. If nothing else, his shaky hold on his control allowed him to ease into the shift quickly. He embraced the pain, the oblivion that came with the brutal rearrangement of bone and tissue.
It was hard to know how long it took to turn wolf, but the post-shift disorientation passed swiftly. He clambered to his feet, shook himself out, and smelled the cold, the cat, the end of winter. He saw the shapes and shadows more clearly than his human had.
It was time to run, and he did. He even followed Ethan’s trail for a short while. It was so tempting to continue along that path and try to catch up with Ethan and run with him. But that scenario was more dangerous for the cat so Bram veered off. If he was right, Doug’s sense of vengeance would demand that Bram be chased down and punishment meted out. The hunt would be for the omega wolf and revenge, not for the cat.
    Ethan ran. At first it was mindless, simply fleeing the stifling prison that lay behind him, putting distance between himself and the Winter pack, crossing through forests and over farmland. But over the course of the night, he realized that he was instinctively headed in a specific direction—southeast towards the city that had once been his home. A city he hadn’t seen in years.
    It wasn’t till the second day that he began to recognize his surroundings, and at that point, he thought he might be free. He’d expected another hunt, truth be told. He’d even feared some weird betrayal by Bram, who was one fucked-up werewolf if he’d ever met one.
    Perhaps that omega wolf’s tears had been sincere, though Ethan suspected he hadn’t fully understood the cause of Bram’s distress, and likely never would. It was hard for him to process let alone understand this past week. Being locked in that room didn’t allow for much in the way of context or understanding, and he sure as hell wasn’t responsible for Bram.
    Nevertheless, their parting was going to haunt Ethan if he couldn’t do something about it. Bram had sacrificed a part of himself if he’d gone against his alpha, Ethan knew that much.
But the time to worry about Bram, let alone do something about it, was not now. First Ethan needed to be on safer ground. He couldn’t return to his old feral home, where they’d smoked him out. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to return. After being forcibly taken and after living human for a number of days, Ethan was attracted to the city, to humanity, both his and others’. It was a place he had long avoided as cougar, and it had its own sources of danger, no doubt about it. However, there was a certain safety in the city. One could get lost in it; the wolves would not find it easy to track him there.
It felt like the longest flight of his life, and it only lasted two full days. He ran, pushed himself until he was exhausted, and then kept going until he slid into the suburbs that had at one time, in another life, been familiar when he was oh-so-young and optimistic about life.
It was late evening, with enough shadows that his cougar could stay hidden as he navigated something that felt simultaneously familiar and alien.
The snow was melting here, spring on its way, more evident in the city with its multitude of buildings, streets and people. He let his mind flit to Doug and what could have possibly motivated him to imprison a werecat. Ethan didn’t understand it though he wanted to. When his thoughts turned to Bram, he shied away from thinking deeply about the dark wolf.
Do you understand?
Bram’s words, and Ethan had only comprehended that he had to flee immediately or throw away everything Bram had accomplished. So Ethan ran and didn’t look back.
Years before he’d fled and not looked back. But years ago, Lila had been dead. Bram was not.
So Ethan had a phone call to make. Yes, phone numbers changed or went out of service, and Lila’s so-called friendly contact might be nothing of the sort. But Ethan owed Bram this one attempt at getting help.
He eased along the alleys, staying to shadows, going deeper into the city. For Ethan needed to dial a number he’d been given long ago by Lila when she thought someone could help her survive.
Ethan needed to phone a wolf named Trey.

Chapter Ten
    Ethan jingled the stolen coins in his pocket and hoped there were enough. The twenty-four-hour laundromat he’d remembered was still in operation, though dingier than last decade. Fortunately, it continued to harbor abandoned or