The animal wanted free, to run and howl to split the night, and he hadn’t ever successfully managed to keep it inside. He could delay it, but the animal spirit in his soul would have its way whether he liked it or that. That was the way it was for every other shifter, living in peace with their animal—but never controlling it.
The only difference between him and other shifters was that their transformations were...better.
The larger creatures burst out of their clothes in snarling fits, and the smaller creatures disappeared beneath a heap of fabric, only to emerge diminutive and fierce—or sweet for the rabbit and mouse shifters. Alpha and omega alike had that dramatism, either overpowering or delicately understated.
Jack never had a transformation like that. Despite being a wolf, he had always been an incredibly small wolf, even for an omega. His transformations left him still trapped inside his own shirt and jeans, the garments hanging onto his back and legs like someone dressed up the family poodle.
Shaking irritably to kick off his pants, he planted his dainty front paws on the fabric of the shirt and jerked his head out, before lifting away his legs. Suddenly freed, he looked down at himself and sighed.
He knew that if he didn’t go let off some steam, he would be stuck like this all damn night and then he really wouldn’t get anything done. Shaking his head so that his perky ears flapped and popped, he turned back to the apartment door that he’d left slightly open. Nosing it open with his muzzle, he pricked his ears and sniffed around. Scents assailed his nostrils, mostly stale, but for one fresh aroma that clogged the hallway. It took a moment for his animal mind to recognize it as his human scent.
No one was around to see him, so he padded softly down the carpeted hallway and headed for the stairs. Sniffing and listening all the way to make sure he didn’t run into any surprises, Jack bounded down so lightly that he hardly made a single sound himself. As an omega, he was supposed to keep his tail down submissively, but now it rose up slightly over his back and wagged with delight. The wolf didn’t care where he was going. It was just glad to be going.
Ducking out the front door was a bit more challenging, as he couldn’t see around the corner and the closed doors shut off his sense of smell and hearing from the outside world, but he took a chance. Someone came inside, and he waited for the door to slowly swing shut. Back and forth, back and forth, it eventually came to a near stop. That was when he lunged forward and thrust his paw in the crack, using his snout and then his shoulder to edge it back open just enough to let him free.
Without even waiting to look around to see if anyone had seen him, Jack took off at a steady lope around the edge of the building where there was a thin strip of greenery between the apartments and the parking lot. The cool, evening-shadowed grass felt good against his pads, but he didn’t stop to enjoy it.
The neighborhood where he rented wasn’t exactly the best or the worst. On the outskirts of a suburb, there were a few houses in desperate need of repair, and all the trees were twisted into horror movie shapes, but there was also a church and a school here as well. Many of the houses were also quite nice, with fenced-in yards to keep out unwanted eyes.
Jack had no interest in any of that. He knew all this stuff from when he lived in Arizona. It was a slightly different setting, with a cool damp wind blowing instead of skin-scraping arid breezes, and there were no cacti, but the basics were all the same. Small families and couples lived here, just starting out or on their way to something better.
His old pack made up most of the town where he lived. Wolf Haven it was called, not surprisingly. The few humans who lived there were completely unaware of anything but the fact that the whole town was very tight knit and looked after their own.
Yeah, right, Jack snorted, and turned his face in the direction of the heart of the city. He had driven through plenty of cities before but had actually gotten out and explored exactly none. This was going to be his first time, and apparently he was meant to do it as an animal.
Setting out, he stuck to shadows and alleyways to keep under cover. Every single one of his senses was strained, picking up every sign of human life before they ever heard anything from him. All the scents were fresh and confusing to his inexperienced nose, but he filed them all away in the back of his mind to focus on at some other point in time. Stale human scent, dogs and cats, birds, plants... They were nothing important.
Eventually, he left the suburb behind and found himself standing at the edge of an alleyway looking out at the rest of the city. Portland was a vast and bright place according to his wolf eyes, great planes of grey reflecting the shadows in the sky as evening neared. The colors of sunset were not far behind, coloring in the unbroken swathes of neutral grey with tentative flashes of muted pink and purple. There were lights everywhere, blinking and solid, vivid and neon.
Jack drank it all in, and then he started to move off down the slope, following the very edge of the road from behind a tangled hedge. Keeping his body low to the ground, he made it all the way to the first true skyscraper as cars passed him by, none the wiser of his presence.
Here I am, he thought happily, standing in the shadow of the looming building. Then, following his nose, he turned to go explore and found a human child staring right at him from across the street. Her skin was dark and her eyes were very large beneath dangling braids.
“Puppy!” she said, tugging on her mother’s skirt.
Jack groaned a little, hating to be mistaken for a dog, but he felt no urge to attack. The child was no threat to him, and he easily could have run away. However, he tilted his head to one side and snorted, looking right at her.
His eyes flew wide as she darted suddenly across the street towards him, barreling out in front of an approaching taxi.
No!
Jack lunged forward, kicking out with his hind legs. Racing as fast as he could, his paws thundering roughly on asphalt, he slammed his broad forehead into the child and knocked her backwards. Throwing himself clear, he felt the hot breath of the passing car ruffle the fur on his haunches.
Meanwhile, beneath him, the little girl was unaware of her near miss. Laughing, she reached up to tangle her hands in his chest fur. Pulling on it, she said, “The puppy likes me!”
“Shauna!” a woman’s voice screamed. In the same instant, a rock struck him on the side. It didn’t hurt, but he leapt away from the child and stared at the mother as she picked up another rock. “That dog tried to maul my kid!”
No, he thought. I saved her! Still, his mouth opened and his tongue lolled out in a guilty expression. Some of the other people standing nearby were also gathering items to throw at him, so he turned tail and ran.
Part of him was disappointed at being treated like such a mangy mutt, doomed to be mistaken for a breed far less majestic than his blood suggested, but he was also almost bursting apart from pride. He saved someone! He had been useful.
Unfortunately, he had a bad feeling that this sighting of him might negatively affect the pack who lived here. They would come looking for the wild animal who unashamedly attacked a child in broad daylight; wolves had ways of finding things, so he knew they would track him down. The best course of action was to go meet them himself and explain his side of things before it became warped by rumors.
Perhaps this was for the best, though. This time of day would be a calm one for any pack.
Nodding slightly, Jack lifted up his head and took a great, deep breath of air. For the most part, all he could smell was gasoline and pollution and frying foods, but then he caught scent of green growing things, a deeper and richer scent than could ever be found in a mere garden.
Turning in the direction of the scent, he caught a glimpse of the mountains overlooking Portland. The pack here lived in Forest Park, an urban forest that hugged the city in an almost protective manner.
I wonder how different they’ll be?
There was only one way to find out.
Chapter 2
Never before had Jack known a
place quite like Portland, where the city met the water on one side and mountains on the other, spilling into each. He had also never been to a park of any kind before, where wilderness sprouted just beyond the nearest skyscrapers. It was a fascinating glimpse of a fractured world, and nothing like he would have ever thought existed.
It was also the reason he decided to come here in the first place, when searching for brand new places to live.
Though he could see and smell the thin spear of mountain range that crashed into the city, it was still quite a trek away, even for a wolf. For an omega wolf, with vastly shorter legs, the distance was that much more imposing. For a moment, Jack contemplated the time it would take to get there, and he wondered if perhaps he should go back to his apartment and try coming here in the morning. After all, he’d left his apartment door open.
Then, a parking lot came into sight and he chased the thought from his mind. That was foolish of him, to give up when he was already almost there. That was omega behavior, lacking the motivation to do anything on his own, and he wasn’t going to stand for that from himself. So, picking up his speed a little bit so that his tail streamed out behind him, Jack crossed the grass to reach the well-kept, human-made meadows around the parking lot. A sign or two crossed his path, but he didn’t bother to try reading them. They were unimportant.
Ducking under a picnic table beneath a partition, Jack sniffed around and tried to get his bearings. A wolf pack would live very deep within the mountains, in a place where no trail crossed. To his reasoning, that meant somewhere further back, closer to the main body of the range.
It would mean he technically would leave Portland.
Hesitation struck him again, but then he shook his head and growled at himself. He was doing this at this specific time for a reason. He couldn’t chicken out like a scared little runt, always needing an alpha to finish what he’d started.
Jack remembered again the way his parents nagged at him to find a mate and how it was the last straw that fully pushed him away. A little shudder of disgust made him ruffle his fur, fluffing it out against the sudden chill that ran through him. He didn’t need anyone to fix his wrongs or compliment what he did right. This was business only.
Hesitant to lose any more time, he struck out towards a gap in the thick trees just beyond the parking lot. Success! A trail opened up there.
Sunset was closing in now, which meant that any hikers would be long gone. All he had to worry about were the rangers, but they had probably seen plenty of wild animals in their day. If they glimpsed him, it wasn’t going to be anything out of the ordinary.
Feeling satisfied with himself and his progress so far, Jack set out on the trail. The ground beneath his feet was soft, damp loam. The grass to either side was rich and sweetly green, obviously tended to by human hands. The trees themselves were a mixture of pine and deciduous, a thick canopy of branches closing in over the top of the trail to cast it all in shadow. His fierce wolf eyes easily pierced the darkness however, meaning that he could see everything in detail, if not color.
Quickly, he came to a crossroads. One path seemed to lead back around the way he’d come while the other turned and began to meander up through a tight slope.
Betting on up being the best way to go, Jack set out once more. He marveled still at how amazingly well-tended this pathway was, obviously swept clean of any natural fallen branches or debris. He scented almost no garbage at all, and the smell of humans blurred into the pleasant earthiness of dirt until it seemed as though one was almost meant for the other. The spiciness of ferns melded nicely with moss and gritty bark.
Suddenly, a squirrel dashed across his path, chattering with distress at its unfortunate move.
Jack drew up, startled, one paw lifted in the air as the little creature pattered across the path and deeper into the forest to his right. His stomach gave a tense little growl, reminding him of the fact that he hadn’t eaten at all since arriving in the state, but he knew better than to hunt on strange land.
Gathering himself again, he continued on and tried to pretend that the gathering dark wasn’t bothering him. If he met any wolves now, he would probably find them out hunting. They would be in full combat mode, and he was just big enough to be a threat to them.
Well, maybe to one of them.
I can’t think about that, he reasoned. Besides, any shapeshifters out here were still human at heart. The animal part of them didn’t mean they were automatically going to be terrible brutes who lashed out at random.
Right?
He really didn’t know.
Living in Wolf Haven all his life, he only knew of the outside world what his parents told him and it hadn’t been much. They wondered why he would ever be curious about the rest of the world when he had it so good right there.
They had very nearly tamed themselves, living in that place.
Out here, it was only the human in him that was afraid. His wolf half had never felt so alive, panting and waving his tail up high over his back when there was no one to snap at it and remind him to drop it in the presence of his betters.
Such was the shame of being an omega, however.
On and on, Jack climbed. At one point, the trail met with a wide, clear stream strewn with picturesque mossy boulders. The path he followed quickly drew away, however, heading up higher and higher. The ground became rockier, and the breeze against his body turned cool.
Suddenly, a twig snapped nearby.
Jerking to a halt again, Jack dropped into a crouch and pricked up his ears, searching for a sign of what could have done that. It was a bigger animal, probably heavier than a rabbit and certainly with bigger feet than a deer, but no scent touched his muzzle. It was downwind of him, meaning that it could smell him, but he couldn’t smell it.
Probably nothing, he thought, and that was when he saw it.
Something huge and hulking slid around the base of a giant oak, shaggy fur gleaming in the last golden rays of sunlight just before the dusk fell. He couldn’t see much of its shape or form, as it was partly obscured by a vast patch of fern and bramble, but it stood to reason that it could only be a wolf. It was perhaps ranging a bit too close to the trails, but he figured the wolves who lived here knew just as well as he did that no humans would be out to bother them.
The shape slid easily and effortlessly through the trees, heading away.
Picking up his head, he let out a low, sharp bark.
The huge wolf gave no sign of having heard and just continued on.
It had to have been an alpha from the immense size of it, and he snorted irritably. Damn alphas, always acting like they were better than anyone else to the point where they wouldn’t come when called. They could have at least stopped, or waited, or something.
Resigning himself to having to deal with more ridiculousness, Jack barked again and set off at a slight run. He made sure to crash through a patch of ferns on his way, to announce his presence even more. His heart started pounding with nervousness in his chest, certain that this was going to end badly.
Then, suddenly, he drew up short. The huge wolf was gone. He couldn’t hear or see it anymore. Confusion clouded his mind as he leapt forward again, racing back and forth across the ground with his nose to the earth, straining to pick up some sort of scent to tell him where the alpha had gone, but all he smelled was the forest and something that was very distinctly not a wolf. He couldn’t identify it. The odor was at once musky and offensive, reeking of animal and yet human.
A shifter of some kind, but none he had ever heard of before. Burying his face deeper in the scattered bed of pine needles where the scent was strongest, Jack wracked his brains for some sort of sign of what this could be. It was quite obviously a larger animal, and it carried the scent of forest in its nature, but it was not a wolf, nor a mountain lion.
Puzzled, he lifted up his head again and in that instant was when a dark shape crashed back through the undergrowth and slammed into him. Hot breath smashed against the fur on the ba
ck of his neck, quickly followed by a pain so fierce it was almost abominable. Shrieking and howling, Jack scrabbled at the forest floor with his paws, feeling a huge weight press down on his spine. Darkness slashed across his vision, and then red began to drip. The scent of his own blood filled his nose.
Whatever attacked him felt like a full-frontal hit from that taxi he’d narrowly avoided earlier! Gasping and barking with alarm, he lashed out with his sharp nails and tried to twist his head around. His fangs gnashed and saliva flew, but the pressure made his bones groan. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could see to get a sign of what this presence was.
Its form blocked out every last bit of the fading light and was warped by the tall black tree trunks behind it.
Great lumbering paws pressed down on his shoulders, trapping his legs beneath his body at awkward angles. Pain surged over him, too great to control or even fathom. The back of his neck was burning, and his body started to spasm.
I’m dying, he thought blearily, almost astonished. I came all this way just to die.
From nowhere came a high-pitched snarl, as loud and fierce as a howl. Jack hardly heard it, although the release of pressure from his neck was so big a blessing he almost wept. As it was, he couldn’t help but to whimper pitifully, rolling over onto his side as two gigantic somethings battled in front of his eyes. One of them was clearly a wolf, while the other...
He didn’t know.
Hurt and bleeding, he was in and out. He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. His eyes closed and then snapped open.
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