Page 31 of Anders (The Sunburst Pack #2)

A dart whizzed past her ear, embedding itself in a tree trunk. Another grazed her arm, tearing the fabric of her sleeve but failing to penetrate skin. The pain in her neck intensified with each step, the device seemingly responding to her proximity to Chimera personnel.

Operatives will apprehend and secure Asset E5 , the cold voice in her mind commanded. Compliance required .

No, Etta gasped, forcing herself to keep running even as part of her mind urged her to stop, to surrender.

The third operative appeared suddenly in her path, his tranquilizer gun aimed directly at her chest. Etta reacted without thinking, her own stolen weapon coming up as she pulled the trigger.

The operative dropped with a strangled cry, the dart meant for her now protruding from his shoulder. The drug designed for shifter physiology would work even faster on a human.

Horror washed through Etta as she stared at the fallen man. She’d never hurt anyone before—not that she could remember. The violence of her action, necessary as it had been, left her shaking.

If she’d been holding a rifle that shot bullets rather than tranquilizer darts, would she have acted as swiftly?

She knew the answer to that question was yes.

What am I becoming? she wondered, the thought tinged with fear. What if there’s nothing left of me when this is over?

The sound of pursuit pushed her onward, away from the incapacitated operative.

Asset E5’s analytical training rapidly calculated the most efficient escape route, while Eliana’s wolf instincts sought shelter, safety, pack.

As she continued moving, Etta found herself stumbling more frequently, her coordination deteriorating as the device continued its damage. Her vision blurred at the edges, and her heart beat with a disturbing irregularity. Dr. Mercer’s warning echoed in her mind: system failure. Death.

A canyon appeared before her unexpectedly—a jagged wound in the earth, its depths cast in shadow. Along its rim, Etta spotted a small natural cave formed by overhanging rock and years of erosion.

Defensible. Hidden.

Perfect.

She crawled inside, her body finally surrendering to exhaustion. The small space reminded her of something—a memory hovering just beyond reach. Something important about caves and safety and wolves.

As Etta curled into herself, shivers racked her body despite the lingering warmth of the day. Fever, probably. Another sign of her body’s rebellion against years of chemical control.

The mate bond flickered like a faltering candle flame, sometimes burning bright enough for her to feel Anders searching for her, sometimes disappearing completely.

As much as she’d originally intended to evade him, to protect the Sunburst Pack by running, Etta now clung to the mate bond desperately when it appeared, trying to project her location through their connection, unsure if anything was getting through.

Dreams came in violent bursts, more memory than fantasy. Her parents’ deaths. The laboratory. Children crying in sterile rooms, their natural wolves suppressed until they forgot what they were. Scientists with cold eyes and colder hands, molding her into something new, something obedient.

Asset E5 .

But also Eliana Thornwood. Daughter of Alexander and Katherine. Born to the Silverleaf Pack under a full moon, marked for greatness by the alpha himself.

The two identities warred within her fevered mind—Etta the journalist, constructed through careful psychological programming, and Eliana the wolf shifter, her true self, buried but never fully erased.

I don’t know who I am anymore, she whispered, tears tracking silently down her cheeks.

You are Anders’s mate. His partner. And he will find you .

The words resonated in her soul, igniting something that felt like hope.

The bond was strong. And that meant he was close, right?

So close .

But as the day continued, Etta’s condition worsened.

The device at her neck had begun to burn, the skin around it inflamed and tender to the touch.

Her shifts became more frequent and uncontrollable—claws extending and retracting, teeth lengthening into fangs only to recede minutes later, patches of white fur sprouting and disappearing across her skin.

Her body was tearing itself apart, caught between forms as the suppression chemicals finally surrendered their hold. With those barriers crumbling, her wolf was emerging chaotically.

Another memory surfaced, this one clearer than the others.

Her father in his magnificent wolf form, silver-gray and powerful, demonstrating the shift for her five-year-old self. Her mother, graceful and strong beside him .

The key, her mother’s voice explained, is to embrace it. Don’t fight the change. Your wolf is not separate from you—it is you. The two sides of one whole.

Her father shifted back to human form, kneeling beside her. The Silverleaf Pack has a saying: ‘Two natures, one heart.’ Remember that, Eliana. Your human mind and your wolf instincts are, not enemies to be conquered, but partners to be balanced.

Two natures, one heart, Etta repeated aloud.

She’d been fighting the shift, terrified of losing herself, of the wolf taking over completely. But what if that fear was exactly what was causing the chaotic transformation? What if the answer wasn’t to resist but to embrace?

The device at her neck gave another vicious pulse, as if sensing her intentions. Pain exploded through her nervous system, momentarily blinding her. When her vision cleared, Etta made her decision.

No more running. No more hiding—not from Chimera, not from the pack.

Not from herself.

With trembling hands, she reached for the device, fingers tracing its outline beneath her skin. It was hot to the touch, burning as it malfunctioned.

I am Eliana Thornwood, she said aloud, her voice growing stronger with each word. Daughter of the Silverleaf Pack. Mate to Anders Hamilton.

The pain intensified, but she breathed through it, focusing on the mate bond, on the pull toward Anders.

I reclaim myself, she continued, the wolf inside her responding to the declaration. My body. My mind. My choice.

Something shifted inside her, a realignment so profound it seemed to alter her at a cellular level.

The programming that had controlled her for so long frayed and snapped like rotted thread, powerless against the force of her will.

Etta—now also Eliana—threw her head back and howled, the sound more wolf than human. The shift, when it came, was excruciating but clean—a complete transformation rather than the partial changes that had plagued her for days.

Bones cracked and re-formed.

Muscles stretched and realigned.

Fur, pure white like her mother’s, sprouted across her body.

The scrubs she’d escaped in tore and fell away as she dropped to all fours, completing the change to her wolf form for the first time since childhood.

The device at her neck gave one final, desperate pulse, then went silent as her body rejected the foreign technology. It remained embedded in her flesh, its control circuits burned out by the very transformation it had been designed to prevent.

Eliana stood on four paws, her white coat gleaming in the moonlight that filtered into the cave. Her senses, already enhanced in her partially shifted state, exploded into new awareness—scents, sounds, sensations flooding her with information.

And strongest of all, the mate bond, a blazing thread of connection leading directly to Anders.

She took one step forward, then another, testing this new form that was both strange and achingly familiar. Her movements were clumsy at first, her muscles remembering patterns dormant for decades. But with each step, the wolf’s grace returned, her body remembering what her mind had forgotten.

Eliana made her way to the cave entrance, her white muzzle lifted to scent the air. Anders was close, his pine-and-earth smell carried to her on the breeze.

She managed three more steps before her legs buckled, the toll of the transformation too much for her weakened body.

The white wolf collapsed just outside the cave, a soft whine escaping her throat as her consciousness began to fade.

The last thing Eliana registered was the sound of running footsteps, the flare of the mate bond burning bright as a star, and Anders’s voice—both in her mind and in her ears—calling for her.

I’ve found you, he said, dropping to his knees beside her fallen wolf form.

Her eyes met his for one moment of perfect recognition before sliding closed.