** Ryder’s POV **


    I wake up with a jolt. The weather forecast said there may be some light rain, but this sounds torrential. Paige sleeps peacefully tucked against my side,pletely unbothered by the rain that pounds the tent. I can hear her soft breathing and the steady beat of her heart in her chest.


    Wait… how can I hear her heart?


    A shooting pain travels up my spine. It’s like nothing I have ever felt before. It’s intense and causes a fine sheen of sweat to cover my skin. Did I sleep with a stone digging into my spine?


    I gently shift Paige, not wanting to wake her, but I need to move, to stretch out my spine because this pain is getting unbearable. I unzip the door slowly and crawl from the tent with a barely contained whimper, grabbing my bundle of clothes and my boots.


    The pain eases as I stand straight, and I almost sag in relief. The rain that sounded so heavy inside the tent was nothing more than a light shower. It feels so good against my skin that feels like it’s on fire. Do I have a fever? What great timing. Happy 18th birthday to me. I pull my boxer shorts on and cram my feet into my boots, deciding to try and walk it off.


    The further I walk from the tent, the stranger things get. The earthy scent of the woods is overwhelming. I can distinguish each individual scent. The damp soil, crisp pine needles, blooming wildflowers in the distance. I hear a nearby stream and head towards it. I can hear it as if it’s right in front of me as the water gurgles over rocks. Each droplet echoes in my ears, each ripple amplified.


    Something is wrong. Everything is too loud. It’s all too much.


    What the hell is happening?


    I drop to my knees as my spine seems to set on fire. A deep, searing twist that ws through my stomach and tears up my chest. I bite back a groan, my whole body seizing. My hands shake uncontrobly, my palms sweating despite the cool night air.


    “Sh*t,” I breathe as the pain slowly subsides.


    I need to get home, to get to a hospital. I feel like I’m dying.


    I push up to my feet<b>, </b>ignoring my bundle of clothes. Dressing is the least of my worries right now.


    The second I take a step, my knees give out. I hit the ground with a cry of pain. My hands dig into the dirt, trying to hold on to something. My vision blurs, then snaps into focus with such force almost throw up.


    I curl in on myself, whimpering like a small child. My skin feels too tight. My muscles twitch, seizing under my skin like they are fighting against my bones. Heat radiates from my chest outward, burn that makes my whole body tremble.


    My fingers… hell, they feel like they are breaking. I look at them, and my hands are changing. The bones shifting, bulging, snapping into shapes they shouldn’t be. My nails stretch into ck curved ws. I open my mouth to scream, but whates out is a strangled, guttural sound. A half growl, half sob.


    This is my end. I am being torn apart from the inside out. This is my punishment for being so short–tempered. I finally got a Laste of happiness only to have it ripped from me in the most agon sing death.


    I conjure up the image of Paige, naked beneath me, as we made log. Let that be thest thing I see.


    I hope she doesn’t find me like this. Mangled in a grotesque pile of skin and broken bones.


    Next, my face aches and I feel it morphing My Jaw cracks with anonising snap. My teeth pulse with pain as they seem to grow impossibly big. Then I feel something push through my skin. I look at my arms and see patches of tur erupt. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. I am only pain as every part of me shifts and rebuilds need to find help, but all I can do is thrash in the dirt like a dying animal.


    Pain roars through my spine as it arches backwards, my bones popping in a horrible chain reaction.


    My legs bend at impossible angles, reversed at the knee, my feet… mo, my paws, dig into the earth. My skin is gone, hidden under thick, coarse fur. The air is thick with scents, sounds, and sensations I’ve never known. I can hear everything. I can smell the deer miles away, the blood rushing through my veins.


    The pain finally ebbs away as I look at the world through new eyes


    I am still me, but trapped in this body that doesn’t belong to me. I ook down at my ws, raise my snout to the moon, and something inside me howls.


    It’s not power I feel though. It’s fear.


    What the hell am I?


    I take onest look towards the tent where Paige still sleeps. Even from this distance, I can hear her soft snores. I need to get away from her. I don’t know what I’m capable of, what this new body can do to my delicate little female. So I do the only thing I can. I run home.


    I wake up covered in sweat. The same nightmare haunts my dreams every night. The night I shifted for the first time and had to leave the only person who I ever loved behind. It wasn’t just my body that changed that night. It was my entire world.


    I toss the covers back and run a hand over my face. Just once, I’d like to sleep peacefully and wake up feeling refreshed. Forcing myself out of bed, I strip off my soaked bedsheets and stagger to the shower.


    How long will I be stuck in this cycle? Madly in love with a woman can never see again.


    Why can’t I be like my brother? He’s so carefree and charming. Which means he can charm just about anyone to bed with him, including Remy. He thinks I don’t know, but I’ve known for years, and I’m not against it. Just as long as they both know it has to end the moment either of them finds their mate.


    I need to find a casual hook–up that I can tolerate the touch of. The thought of kissing them has repulsed me every time I’ve tried. All I can think of is her… Paige. My first, and apparently, only love. I’d think she was my mate if she weren’t human.


    It’s been six long years of seeing her pretty face whenever I close my eyes. Six years of mourning for her and the life we could have had. Six years of hating what I am because it means I can’t be with her.


    Six years, ten months, one week and two days, to be exact.


    The best night of my life was also the worst one. There is so much about that night that I wish I could change, and so much I wish I could repeat.


    Paige was the sweetest, prettiest girl in college. With her big blue eyes, highlighted by a smattering of freckles over her cheekbones and nose, and her short auburn hair that made her look like a little pixie. She made me feel seen and wanted. She calmed the rage within me with her angelic voice. Made my heart skip a beat every time she blessed me with one of those dreamy smiles, or looked at me with those sparkling eyes.


    Making love to her had been monumental. Nothing has ever topped that feeling. Not so much the act of it because it was our first time, but the emotion and the aftermath. I had never felt moreplete than when she hadid naked in my arms, skin on skin, as we absorbed our new rtionship status.


    If I had known they would be myst moments with her, I might have done things ditterently. I might have found the courage to whisper the words that sat on the tip of my tongue, desperate to be heard.


    I love


    you.


    I still do. Time and distance have done nothing to change that, no matter how much I try to pretend it has. I still can’t even bear to utter her name out loud. It will break me if I do.


    Paige is my drug, my addiction, and my kryptonite. Just one tastes all it took for me to be hooked, and if I take more, it would be the end of me and maybe her too.


    All packs disapprove of wolves and humans dating. Not because we are ipatible, we can procreate, and on the extremely rare asion that a human is a wolf’s fated mate, the human can even take on some of our supernatural abilities when we give


    them the mating bite, or so I’ve heard.


    There is just too much risk when ites to humans, though. Dating them almost always turns out messy. We either have to hide our true identities, which we can’t keep up long without them suspecting we are cheating, or up to something nefarious when we disappear for nights at a time to shift and rum with our pack. Or we tell them and when we break up, they break our trust and use it against us. Notifying the authorities and telling anyone who will listen.


    This is how the hunters came to be. Humans with their hearts broken and pride hurt when their werewolf lover finds their fated mate and dumps them. Fuelled by vengeance, they formed the first group. Ever since, they have actively recruited new hunters, and each generation has be more skilled, more vicious, and more capable of tracking us.


    So now we live in small towns like this, hiding in the woods on the outskirts. It’s not ideal, but it works as long as we keep our numbers small and stick to small, sleepy towns and viges.


    “Rye, we need to talk,” Callen says through the mind link as I get out of the shower.


    “What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask. A million things run through my mind. If he slept with the humanst night, I’m going to kick his ass <i>in </i>


    next week.


    “Nothing’s wrong. Can we go to town for lunch today? Just me and you?” he asks.


    “Sure. Are you okay?”


    “I’m fine,” he reassures.


    A few hourster, we stroll into town. Callen is definitely up to something. He is acting shifty and looking over his shoulder every few minutes.


    “Okay, just tell me what is going on,” I demand, refusing to walk any further until he exins.


    Callen pulls his vibrating phone from his pocket and looks at the screen with a grin. I look to see who is calling him and my heart seizes in my chest when I see the name on the screen.


    Paige.


    No, I must be imagining it. There’s no way. It can’t be her, not my Paige.


    “What the hell, bro!” Callen shouts as the phone turns into mangled metal and broken ss in my hand.


    I don’t even remember taking it from him.


    The wind shifts and with ites a sweet, intoxicating scent. “Mine,” my wolf grumbles.


    “Ryder?” Her sweet voice haunts me.


    “Calm down, Rye. It’s okay,” Callen says as my wolf threatens to break tree right here in the middle of town.


    I pant as I fight the urge to shift


    Then I catch sight of her, even more beautiful now. Paige Wilson, he girl of my dreams. My mate. My knees buckle as the


    realisation dawns on ine.


    What have I done?


    Chapter <b>10 </b>