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S pring is an ugly season.

I don’t care who claimed otherwise.

Poets could wax poetic about renewal, songwriters could croon about fresh starts, and artists could paint it in shades of soft pinks and gentle greens, but facts were facts.

And fact: Barren County at the end of March was ugly as fuck.

The trees look skeletal. Their branches are gnarled and reaching out like desperate hands toward a sky that refused them.

What little life dared to sprout came in the form of spindly buds, pale and fragile, barely clinging to their limbs like nervous debutantes.

The ground is a battlefield of slush and mud, deep enough to suck the boots off an unwary traveler.

And the weather?

The weather is an absolute fucking nightmare.

One minute, the wind cuts like a knife, slashing through my jacket with an almost sentient cruelty. The next, the sun is bursting through the clouds, searing everything in sight with a humid, oppressive heat.

It’s as if Mother Nature herself can’t decide whether to freeze us or bake us alive.

Hot flashes , I think with a smirk, though I keep that observation to myself.

There are too many women on the ranch who’d take offense. Perimenopause jokes are an acquired taste, and I’ve enough trouble keeping the peace.

But it isn’t just the landscape making my skin itch. The air itself just feels wrong .

Thick.

Charged.

Like the moment before a storm breaks.

The scent of wet earth mingles with something else, something sharp and metallic that has nothing to do with the land.

I roll my shoulders, resisting the urge to turn around.

Something is coming.

It’s stalking me. And that isn’t a guess. It isn’t paranoia.

I feel it as clear as the sun shining through all the gray clouds above me.

The sensation slithers along my spine, cold and insidious, curling around the nape of my neck like unseen fingers.

My Bull snorts, stomping the ground inside that metaphysical plane where he waits.

I know they are watching. I feel the quiet, appraising scrutiny of the Crew from the barn, or out in the fields, wherever they may be, just watching to see what happens next.

They can’t know what it’s like.

What it feels like to be hunted by something you can’t control.

This presence? This force?

It’s a hunger.

Not just a stalker.

Not just a watcher.

It’s more.

The wind shifts, threading through skies with a sigh—low, almost intimate.

A whisper of movement flashes just beyond the limits of my sight.

It weaves through the bare branches like a voice just out of reach, a presence pressing against the edges of my senses.

I go still, my breath slow, controlled.

The air has weight now.

Thick. Heavy.

I feel stretched thin. This thing keeps pressing down on me with merciless intent.

Time.

That is what I’m feeling. Time marching by.

And I am running out of it.

A ruthless, unseen force bearing down on me like a hunter looming over its prey, a predator toying with the inevitable.

The Rut is coming.

The thought sent a dark, primal heat through my veins, twisting with something ugly and desperate.

A warning. A curse. A reminder.

And then came the memories.

They didn’t creep in like ghosts—they crashed into me, sharp and relentless, dragging me under.

My stepfather’s hard, unforgiving gaze.

The crisp snap of a hundred-dollar bill as he shoved it into my palm. The weight of the suitcase in my hand, its handle biting into my fingers.

“We don’t need no freaks here, boy.”

His voice, rough as gravel. Disgust curling his lip.

“You just go on now. And stay gone.”

My mother, standing beside him, tears streaming down her face.

Silent. Helpless.

She didn’t stop him.

Didn’t fight for me.

And I had been too damn proud to beg.

I left.

I had no choice.

That was ten years ago, but it still felt like yesterday.

And now—now I feel the past and the present circling each other like wolves closing in.

My blood pulses thickly in my veins and my teeth are on edge.

Why now when I finally found something worthwhile?

I want to roar at all the stupid luck or lack thereof.

The Rut.

A curse.

A force of nature.

An unstoppable, primal drive that could turn even the strongest of men into mindless beasts.

It isn’t just heat .

Not just lust .

It is a full-bodied, all-consuming hunger. One that drowns out reason, obliterates control, and leaves only the need.

The Rut is an intense hormonal surge that could wreak havoc, tear lives apart and leave devastation in its wake.

Take my birth, for example.

I wasn’t born from love.

I wasn’t even born from choice.

I am what happens when the Rut takes control.

My sire was a Bull Shifter who lost himself to the beast within.

Derek O’Malley was a weak-willed, pitiful excuse for a man.

He let the Rut claim him, body and mind, until nothing else existed beyond the demand to breed.

My mother didn’t stand a chance. She was human.

Mortal. Fragile. Unknowing of the world beyond normals.

She was no match for him. He was a creature of raw strength and reckless impulse, caught in the thrall of the Rut when he stumbled upon her one fateful night.

A haze of hormones, magic, instinct, and booze sealed my fate before I even drew breath.

He left her with nothing but a bad memory steeped in shadows, a body marked by something not quite human, and a child that was never meant to exist.

A child who was different.

A child with a bloodline she could not even begin to comprehend.

A child who should have never been born.

And yet, here I am.

I learned the truth young.

That the Rut isn’t just dangerous. It’s a lifetime sentence for anyone caught in its path.

And for someone like me? For someone with the same blood, the same beast lurking just beneath the surface?

It is the one thing I fear more than anything else in this world.

Because one day, it would come for me.

One day, I’d feel that pull.

The raw, vicious hunger clawing up from the depths of my soul, stripping me of reason, tearing away the last pieces of my humanity.

And when that day came, would I be strong enough to resist it?

Or would I become the very thing I hated?

Would I become him ?

No! My Bull bellows in response, so loudly inside me I almost fall to my knees.

I fucking refuse to believe that’s my fate.

I won’t be shackled to some primal curse, doomed to repeat the same damn mistakes as the man who left me nothing but a name I don’t claim and a bloodline I want no part of.

I’ve spent my life running.

Not just from my past, but from the thing inside me—the thing that wants. The beast that stirs in my blood, whispering in a language older than words.

Urging.

Pushing.

That most basic, biological instinct to breed, to carry on the species, to claim and take and own.

I refuse.

I won’t be like him. I won’t let the Rut turn me into something I can’t control, something I can’t live with when the dust settles and the hunger fades.

I’ve been running from it all my life.

I chase distractions.

I bury the gaping void my so-called parents carved into me when they turned their backs. When they made it clear that I was nothing more than a mistake.

That’s part of why I came here— to Barren County.

To a place where no one knows my name, where my past can’t find me.

Where I can work myself to exhaustion, burn off the restless energy always twisting inside me.

A wanted ad for ranch hands in New fucking Jersey, of all places?

Yeah, it sounded like a joke at the time.

But something about that ad— Max’s cousin printing it on his behalf, knowing full well his greenhorn relative had no clue how to run a place like this —clicked for me.

Like destiny.

Not the kind wrapped in prophecy or fate. No, nothing so grand.

But something small. A choice. A door cracking open when every other one had slammed in my face.

And honestly? Good on Max’s cousin.

Because looking out for family, making sure someone had his back, that means something, right?

I respect the hell out of that.

Must be a Jersey Devil thing. Hell if I knew.

The only family I had threw me out of the trailer we called home the second I was legally old enough to fend for myself.

And I’ve been fending for myself ever since.

Sometimes found family is better than the one you were born to.

And lately, I’m thinking whoever said that first had it right.

The Motley Crewd Ranch isn’t like other places I’ve lived and worked.

Things are different here, and I’m trying not to fuck it up.

But it’s hard for me.

Especially now with everyone pairing up.

See, my Bull is a fucking monster.

And he feels it calling to him. The Rut.

Like a fool, I’ve been going through women like water looking for someone to save me.

Stupid, I know.

But desperation does stupid things to people.

I came here, to the Motley Crewd Ranch, as a last chancer.

I figured the Alpha could put me down before I lost myself.

But then everyone started pairing up. Finding their mates and shit.

Everyone but me and Zeke, but that scary motherfucker would likely always be alone.

Still, it gave me hope. And it was right to do that.

Because against all odds, I actually found her.

My mate.

God, I guess I really am dumb.

I exhale slowly, tasting the air, still not believing what I’d known since the Valentine’s Day Rodeo.

I have a fated mate. Me. A rough and tumble fuck up of a Shifter, and of course, she is perfect.

She is beautiful and soft.

I called her Pixie the first time I talked to her.

But that was dumb, and she was right to scoff at me.

Arliss Deniro is no Pixie.

She’s a goddamn queen.

Far too good for the likes of me.

And, of course, she doesn’t want me. Don’t want a goddamn thing to do with a loser nobody like me.

She’s got my fucking number, alright.

Boy, does she ever.

And good on her, too.

She knows I’m a no-good fuck up.

That’s why I’m outside on a chilly Saturday morning working and not snuggled under the covers with her.

I don’t deserve to be.

I’m trying to be good about it. To respect her wishes and stay away.

No matter how hard my Bull kicks and stomps, tearing at my insides.

Goddamn beast is merciless in his attacks.

He wants her bad.

So fucking bad.

It’s been three weeks, and I’ve managed not to talk to her again.

But yeah, I hunted her down to her job in town at the local shithole bar.

She’s a bartender, and sometimes she works as a waitress there, too.

Shame fills me as I think it’s likely where she’s heard about me and my man-whoring ways.

Fuck.

I never even had a chance, did I?

My Bull rears up and stomps and I swear I feel it in my gut.

Sorrow and regret are bitter pills to swallow this early, and on an empty stomach, too.

But my spine’s been tingling all damn day, and I can tell something is coming, slinking all the way into Barren County.

It’s drawing close now.

Too fucking close.

I’m trying to respect Arliss’ wishes. To leave her alone.

But I have a sinking feeling whatever is coming, it’s looking for me.

And my fated mate just might be the only thing that can save me.