Were they making this happen?
Was Tristan torturing her for not being sure she could be his mate? He’d known this could happen. Yet he left her.
She sucked in her breath and gave one last yell that sounded like a stifled yelp. She rolled over onto her stomach and stood up on all fours. She looked around. Everything felt different. The clothes she’d worn were ripped into shreds and spread out on the floor around her. Her skin was covered in white and red fur.
I’m a wolf.
Her head shot upwards. Everything felt incredibly clear. She could smell scents in the room that she’d never noticed before. Tristan. He was everywhere, and he smelled like nighttime and pine trees. Why hadn’t she noticed? Her eyes darted from side to side and she pushed her head down to the floor.
Alone. I am so alone. I have no family. I’m not meant to be alone. I have no pack to love me.
She howled in agony, this time not from physical pain, but loneliness. She needed to get out of this room. It did not belong to her. She did not know these people and they did not love her. They had left her to hurt all by herself. She ran for the door but could not wedge it open with her paw and her snout. No luck. It would not open.
Out. Need to get out.
Only one other way out of the room. She stared out the window and looked down.
Not too far. Two stories. She could make it if she broke through the window. She leapt at it and it gave under her weight. As the glass shattered around her, it cut at her front paws and sides. She howled again as her momentum took her out the window. She hit the ground with a thump and her paws burned. She walked for a moment despite the limp she’d just given herself.
I’m free and I am all alone. Forever.
She ran for the woods in front of her. Every step she took was agony. If she was to be alone, this would be the best place to lose herself.
Chapter Four
Tristan walked towards the main house, or the Institute as the outside world thought of it, and shook his limbs. His brothers followed close behind him, but none of them were in as big a hurry to get back as he was.
It felt awesome to be back in his human body. His limbs felt so loose. Michael droned about plans to finally find their father, but Tristan wasn’t listening. His whole mind was intent on getting back to Ashlee. The pack had taken much longer than he’d expected to bring him out of his wolf body. Eight hours of magic and it had hurt like hell the whole time.
He pulled his tee shirt over his head, his pants already on, and once again thanked the fates that Theo had thought to bring along a change of clothes for him. Tristan needed to court Ashlee, and coming to her completely naked would not be a great way to start.
She’d been raised as a human. She wasn’t going to just accept him because his wolf claimed her. He smiled as he pictured her wandering around his room. What had she thought of his artwork?
“Trip?” Theo clipped and Tristan turned around to see what had happened.
Tristan didn’t see anything amiss. “What?”
“Look.” Theo pointed at the second floor of the house and Tristan’s gaze followed his finger to the shattered window of Tristan’s bedroom. Glass littered the grass below.
His heart fell into his stomach
“Ashlee!” He ran, faster than he ever had on human legs, into the house. Theo was right behind him, and he knew the others would be too. He turned the corner down the long hallway that led to his room, his pulse pounding hard in his ears. The wolf wanted back and tried to force himself into his eyes as the dryness that precipitated the shift from man to wolf started inside of him.
He grabbed the door handle. It was locked. What the hell? He banged on the door.
“Ashlee?”
No answer. He shoved his weight against it.
“Wait.” Theo called as he caught up. “I have keys to all the rooms.” Tristan watched as Theo fumbled with the keys in his hands.
Tristan paced in front of the door. “Come on. Come on.”
“Got it.” Theo barely unlocked the door when it swung open. Tristan thrust his brother aside to get into the room. Empty. His eyes scanned the scene. Glass by the window. Her clothes, ripped, on the floor. Oh God, no.
“Dad?” He spun to Theo, Mike, and Rex who had joined him inside the room. “Did Dad take her?”
“Calm down. “ Mike placed his hand on his shoulder. “Take a deep breath. This is wolf, but not Dad, and not one whose scent I recognize.”
Tristan forced himself to focus. Going off half-crazed would not help find Ashlee.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Mike was right. Wolf. Ashlee had been here. He could smell everywhere she’d gone in the room. He picked up the shreds of her clothes and sniffed. Wolf. There was wolf on her clothes.
Realization staggered Tristan. He took one more deep breath at the fabric in his hands. She’d shifted. Ashlee was the wolf. The magic they’d thrown on him last night had been strong and powerful. Somehow that much magic had made its way to Ashlee and forced her shift. Tristan could feel his blood pressure rise. She’d been alone.
“Not good.” Mike whispered. “She’s shifted all by herself. How could that even happen? It shouldn’t have been able to happen without the pack magic. She’s alone.”
Theo nodded and desperation twisted Tristan’s gut. “You can lose yourself in your wolf the first time if you’re all alone.” Tristan was more than aware of this fact.
Tristan swallowed hard. He rushed to the window, then stuck his head out and inhaled. “She’s got to be terrified, but she went into the woods.”
“She won’t know how to hunt.” Theo stood beside Tristan, Mike on the other side.
Michael nodded. “Some things are instinctual, but we need to get her back. She needs to bond with the pack, become a member, and respond to us. But she barely knows me. I’m not her Alpha yet. Tristan, you’re going to have to go and get her. You’re her mate. She’ll recognize you, whether she realizes it or not.”
Damn it, he’d failed her already. He should have been there, been by her side as she made the change for the first time. Goddamn it. What if he lost her? He’d just found her.
But the possibility of losing her to the wolf forever was grave.
He turned to his brother. “There is still enough time to save her. There has to be.”
Michael nodded. “You have to hurry, Tristan.”
Hell, yeah, he had to hurry. He wouldn’t lose his mate to the wolf without him taking his last breath.
Tristan called the shift to his body. “Get the Aunts. Have them on alert for when I get back with her.”
He completed his shift, as easy for him to do as breathing. His bones cracked, reshaped, and eventually realigned until he was wolf. After so many years of doing it, and six months when he’d been unable to shift back, his canine body was an easy fit for him.
He leapt out the broken window after Ashlee. He would find her and bring her home.
And then he was never letting her go.
He sniffed the ground. Ashlee had come in this direction and she had bled when she’d passed here. Injured?
No, not acceptable.
He raced forward as he followed her scent, each step he took her smell grew stronger. He sniffed the air. Damp earth, moldy leaves, wet vegetation and something else, Ashlee. As a human, Ashlee had smelled like vanilla beans and cinnamon. She still smelled of those things now but her wolf added to her the smell of pine leaves and fur.