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T he dusty road that lay ahead of me was just another in a long line of endless paths I’d taken to nowhere permanent.

Each step stirred up the grit beneath my boots, clouds of dust swirling like memories I couldn’t shake.

Moonlit nights. Pack runs. All the howling. The snarling. The screaming. And the bloodshed.

I lifted the rucksack onto my shoulder and started walking down the darkened street. There were no cars or trucks. No people. No moon to light the way.

Hell, I couldn’t even pick up the sound of a field mouse anywhere in the vicinity.

It was like every living thing in a hundred mile radius had simply stopped. Like they were all waiting for me to go just so they could start living again.

It felt oddly fitting. After all, I was no stranger to being alone. I was a constant traveler. My route was a map of roads that led to nowhere.

My Wolf snarled and snapped, scratching the shit out of my insides, a visceral reminder of the chaos I carried within.

I had been banished yet again from another Pack. Their judgment was swift, as it was brutal.

What could I say?

My beast had a mind of its own, and it didn’t relish having to listen to idiots and their outdated traditions.

I was restless. So was my Wolf.

That dissatisfaction was as relentless as hunger. Like I was a wild thing always yearning for peace and freedom in a world of structured chaos.

I had to keep my inner animal constantly caged just to get along. But sometimes, the Wolf slipped free.

Packs had hierarchies and pecking orders, and not all of them adhered to the old standard of bowing to the mightiest of the bunch.

Modern Packs acted more like mini kingdoms where titles were inherited rather than earned. Not all of them. But the ones I’d been involved with in Arizona, Nevada, and now, Texas, sure seemed to think that was the way to do things.

My Wolf did not agree.

Neither did I.

Grrr.

I could still hear the Alpha’s voice, thick with arrogance, cutting through the air like a knife.

Banishment.

Again.

My Wolf had growled when that white-haired fool announced my fate earlier this evening. It was an instinctual warning, but they hadn’t listened. And that was their mistake.

“You don’t belong here, loser. How could you even think you did? Look at you, a worthless, untamed beast. You’re an animal,” the Alpha’s son, Flint, had said, raising his arms wide as he beckoned others to join with his taunting.

After that, there was no holding my Wolf back, and now the Alpha’s heir would bear the mark of my disdain forever. It took me ten minutes of scrubbing to get his skin out from under my nails once my claws had retracted.

The Winter Falls Pack had gotten off easy tonight. But I doubted they saw it that way. Halfway through my change, I’d been able to pull back.

The Wolfman shape was not easy to hold, but I wrestled with myself and in the end, I succeeded. Of course, the monster in me was something worse, something darker than others I’d come across.

Other Shifters seemed to live in harmony with their animal counterparts. Others still seemed to experience no disconnect between the animal and the human.

But me? Or should I say, we?

We were all about the disconnect.

My Wolf was separate from me in thoughts, feelings, and instinct. When I slipped into my fur, it was always a risk. Oh, I was constantly battling Demon for control. That was the name I gave my beast.

My human name was Emmet. But Demon, he was autonomous. An independent creature who lived on instinct and primal urges.

I tried to rein in my disdain for Flint and the Winter Falls Pack in general, but my Wolf simply would not adhere to their rules. He hated the slithering little runt pretending to be king.

Flint Winters was a bully, plain and simple. Always tearing into the weaker ones, young or old. No one stepped up to stop him. His father sure as fuck didn’t.

As I trudged down the road, the sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows that danced along the dirt.

Each footfall felt heavier than the last, a reminder of the weight of rejection and the pain of isolation.

My Wolf and I shared a singular disdain for these self-proclaimed monarchs, our spirits entwined in a bond of rebellion.

When I saw Flint try to force his attentions on one of the younger females, I’d had enough. I approached one of the Enforcers, demanding he do something.

I knew it couldn’t be me. Demon was a monster. My Wolf wouldn’t know when to stop. He just wanted to kill.

So, I suggested to this Enforcer, one who I thought had a good head on his shoulders, that he challenge the Pack’s future leader. End the suffering and right the wrongs being done to their own members.

To say I was surprised at his response would be an understatement. The Enforcer, a Wolf named Colin, reported my proposition to Flint, who told his Alpha father and demanded I be dealt with.

They tried. I would give them that. I spit on the ground, my saliva no longer tainted red with blood.

Fighting eight to one was hardly fair, but it took that many to hold me down when the Alpha read his verdict.

So yeah. I was booted out on my ass and given a label that was sure to keep me out of any other Packs I tried to get into. It was the Alpha’s revenge.

Broken.

That was what he’d called me, and it was what he told every Pack with spots open from here to Canada.

See, it only mattered because a lone Wolf was a dangerous thing. Going rogue would mean the end of me, and hating myself as I did, I still did not want to die.

Not yet, anyway.

My days were numbered. I knew that, but I didn’t want to call it quits so soon. There was more to do. More to see. More to experience.

Demon was not going to get the best of me.

God, I hated my Wolf.

Some Shifters embraced their animal selves, but not me. How could I when all he wanted was to destroy?

I fought my change for as long as I could. And when it was no good, when I just had to allow him in, those were the worst moments. The darkest.

During my transformation, the world shifted. The air thickened with the scent of pine and earth, colors sharpening, sounds amplifying. My already heightened senses exploded into overdrive.

Demon was a true predator. Untamed and unrestrained.

Oh, it was exhilarating at times. But it was also jarring.

I lived with constant fear, knowing if I let Demon in, I would lose myself entirely.

The line between who I was and what he was would blur until my humanity just fell away. My Wolf's hunger rose inside me at the very thought, making my stomach twist and my entire body shudder.

Fucking monster just couldn’t let me be. He’d rather go down fighting than take a chill pill and allow me to settle.

I might hate the Pack that just let me go, but their Alpha wasn’t wrong.

I was a broken Wolf.

And no one wanted a broken Wolf amongst their own.