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But Avery doesn’t cry because he’s strong and brave and wonderful. His lips twitch into a pained-yet-understanding smile, and he says, “I wish you could, too. But you’d better get going, yeah.”

“Sleep,” Sascha insists before he rolls off the bed. He crouches to kiss Avery one more time, then unfolds a light blanket to cover him with. Avery doesn’t seem tired at all, but it makes Sascha feel better to go through the motions.

Shifting again is not a good idea. It’s an activelybadidea, what with how tired Sascha already is and how he’ll have to shift back in order to drive. He’d have no problems leaving his own car, but he can’t abandon Petra’s.

Still, Sascha doesn’t want to swim as a biped, and he doesn’t want to climb the fence afterward either, so he breathes a worn sigh and shifts as he slips into the water, then begins to sluggishly paddle.

Sascha doesn’t remember getting back to the car, but he does so successfully, robotically dressing in the spare clothes he keeps in the back. He even gets the engine started and drives out of his usual hiding place, easing Petra’s car onto the road and heading in what the most primal part of him knows is the direction of his home, despite that same primal part screaming about leaving his boyfriend behind.

As his awareness of Avery fades, Sascha’s awareness of everything else fades alongside it until the car stops moving. Or maybe it just stops moving in a way that’s under his control. There’s an impact—a very not-good one that makes Sascha’s neck and chest scream, but he doesn’t know what to make of it.

He parks the car, which wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

He gets out of the car.

He takes several heavy steps, no longer knowing where home is: Before him, or behind.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

Avery

Three days pass without any word from Sascha.

The first day, Avery received a text from Petra telling him Sascha had crashed her car due to a vertigo episode. She also informed him that Sascha’s phone was taken away by his dad like he’s some unruly teenager, but that she’d keep Avery updated on Sascha’s healing.

It wasn’t that bad, she’d written, seeming completely blasé about the fact that Avery’s boyfriend was so exhausted from tending to him that he got into a fucking car accident. Hit a goddamn tree when he could have been safe at home instead. Could’ve died. The only person in the world who loves Avery, wrapped around a fucking tree trunk.

But he didn’t die, and is healing quickly from the crash. Mostly bruises, Petra said, sending him a few pictures of Sascha’s bare chest, painted purple and yellow from the airbag impact. No trace of the bite marks Avery covered him with before they’d left the hotel a day earlier. The memory had felt like so far in the past, when it’d only been a little over twenty-four hours.

Now, it feels like the hotel was an eternity away, and Avery has run out of the food rations Sascha bought for him. Sascha had left his emergency credit card so Avery could buy whatever he needed, but that would require getting to a store, and Avery has been too scared to leave the cave.

Last night, while trying to charge his phone with the solar battery, it sustained some water damage that quickly infiltrated through its shattered screen. The device had already been on rocky ground after his time in the drainage ditch. Avery prayed that leaving it alone would dry it enough to turn back on, but it didn’t.

While Avery doesn’t want Sascha to leave his safe bed in his safe house where he’s recovering from injuries sustained while protecting Avery, being alone in a cave for three days is starting to get to him. If Petra texts him any further updates, he won’t see them, nor will he be able to answer any calls if Sascha gets his phone back. Because Saschawouldcall—a text wouldn’t be enough. The thought of hearing his voice is almost enough to make Avery smile, but his stomach is a heavy, hollow pit that’s keeping him from feeling much other than emptiness. Werecreature bodies weren’t built to survive on so few calories, and Avery hasn’t had any in… he doesn’t know how long it’s been anymore, not without his phone to track the hours.

By nightfall, desperation sets in.

Avery doesn’t know where to go and doesn’t have a car, and if he even partially transforms, things could get ugly really fast. He could lose control and shift fully. Not to mention the Madisons, along with any Wilderness wolves lurking on Madison land, would know Avery’s scent immediately because it was all over Sascha when he was dragged away from Avery on Dennings Farm.

The memory gives Avery nightmares. Even when he’s not asleep, the sight of the stocky woman choking Sascha outplays over and over again behind his eyelids. Trapped behind a wall thick with wolves and werecreatures, there was no way Avery could have reached him.

So Avery had run, only to feel deeply suspicious when no one followed on his heels—not even Beryl.

By now, Avery’s choices have dwindled. He needs to get off Madison pack lands to find food, but even without the wards immediately giving him away when he hops the fence, he’s certain there will be enforcers patrolling the perimeter. He might be spotted before he can reach the road. It’s not likely they’d let him escape as easily as Celeste’s wolves did. Would they kill him on the spot, or capture him, drag him to their alpha, and execute him in front of Sascha to make a point?

Avery stuffs a water-resistant backpack with everything he can fit. Sascha also bought waterproof storage envelopes much more secure than the layered freezer bags Avery used to get his phone and wallet into the cave unscathed. Not that it made a big difference for the phone, but he packs it anyway, in case his SIM card can be salvaged.

Once packed, Avery takes the raft and its weak little oar, paddling until he can stagger onto the sloping shore. He ties off the raft and mechanically climbs the fence, wheezing under the backpack’s weight. Not a good sign for basic survival supplies to tire out a whole werecreature. The ursine is unnervingly dormant within him.

Once on the other side of the fence, he stares through trees he has no idea how to navigate. Avery is so fucking tired of not knowing where he is or where to go.

A few steps toward the road, an abrupt yank stops Avery in his tracks.

It feels as if there’s thorns wrapped around his heart, and they tighten when he attempts walking again, only easing when he shifts differently. Suddenly the ursine rouses,wasting no time unleashing a bellow that makes Avery’s eyes ache. There’s something tugging him away from the road, deeper into Madison territory. The ursine demands Avery follow that trail, filling him with a familiar sensation. Exactly how he felt when he had no choice but to leave his boyfriend in the grasp of an unknown threat.

Is this punishment for that abandonment? Does Sascha need him?