Free Walking Wolf Road (Wolf Road Chronicles Book 1) by Brandon M. Herbert

grappled with her. I felt bad; because of me, everyone had to re-establish their place, and Geri just kept getting worked over.
    Fen moved past me to watch them, and I wondered if it made him uncomfortable to see what a freak I really was.
    I dashed over and shoved Loki off Geri, and then danced around on my toes until all three of them jumped up after me. I turned and ran with three werewolves in hot pursuit. My wolf still pounded through my veins, his eyes in mine as I ran a cat’s cradle through the trees until either they fell out of eyeshot or gave up.
    I hid inside the overhanging branches of a big pine while I stopped to catch my breath and give my aching leg a break. I thought I felt the shadows move around me, almost as if they swallowed me, but I wrote it off to my imagination. Fen and Geri ran past my tree and disappeared into the veiling wall of snow, but Loki dragged behind breathing hard.
    She waited until they were out of sight, and then looked around. When she didn’t see anyone, she closed her eyes and raised her hands to the cloudy sky and twirled in circles as the snow fell around her. My breath caught when I saw the smile on her face, stolen in a moment she thought no one else could see.
    She sighed and collected herself, and then took off after Fen and Geri. I shuddered as I stepped out of the pine’s shadowy boughs, like they didn’t want to let me go. The scent of the sap lingered on my clothes as I followed their tracks and considered ambushing Geri again.  
    I rounded a tree, and noticed marks in the snow. I crept over to inspect them; hiking boots like Fen’s walked up, then sort of milled for a while before ba cktracking the way they came. I followed their line and saw the swirls in the snow where Loki had danced, like someone had watched.
    My puzzlement lasted only a second before something hard rammed me in the side. I cried out and rolled through the slush, and then came up facing Fen’s feral grin.
    “C’mon pup, show me what you’ve got.”
    My muscles vibrated with tension, but when the attack came, it was faster than I could have imagined. I lurched back, but slipped on the wet lawn, and Fen’s swipe glanced off my shoulder with a bruising thud, barely buffered by my thick coat. His speed overwhelmed me, and I ducked under his arm only to be tackled into the snow. I took Loki and Geri, but Fen was in a class of his own, and fear bloomed in my gut.
    “C’mon Jimmy, I know you can do better than that…” Fen goaded while he circled me, and knocked me over again when I tried to get up.
    The wolf inside me wanted to stand and fight, wanted to meet him head-on, but something in his posture triggered memories of every bully in my past. The wolf made me faster, made me stronger, but he couldn’t make me forget my childhood. When Fen attacked again I faked right, and pushed off the ground with my hands in the opposite direction. Fen missed me, and it was the opening I needed to slip past him and run.  
    I heard his steps right behind me and somewhere behind, Loki and Geri called after us. Wolf shredded my guts, his disgust and frustration palpable in the thick metallic taste in the back of my throat, but I just wasn’t strong enough to face him. Them. In my mind Fen had become every demon I’d ever had, he was John’s every scorn, every black eye I’d carried home, every bruise and shame I’d endured. Every threat I’d ever run away from; my weakness, my fear, my uncertainty, pursued me in Fen’s shadow, and the gate opened.  
    Blood scalded my veins, so much hotter than shifting energy it bordered on frigid. It spilled out from the dragon’s pit like a black ichor, and rage consumed me.
    Fuck running. I stopped suddenly and turned to face Fen, my eyes burning with fury. I dropped low at the last minute and tripped Fen with his own momentum. My wolf seized the moment, and cast me aside reeling as he pounced on Fen with my body. My human mind couldn’t even process the