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He shivered. Goddamn it was cold in here.

He raced downstairs. Nick was sitting in the dark by one of the windows. He turned his head toward the sound of Morgan’s rushing feet on the stairs.

“Did Terry come down here?”

Nick got to his feet. “No. Isn’t he up there?”

Fuck. Morgan ran back upstairs. Maybe his mate had just walked  into the bathroom for a minute and Morgan was being an idiot. He  really hoped that was the case.

It wasn’t. Morgan no longer cared about conserving power in case

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the owner were to find out that someone had come to his house. He

turned on all the lights upstairs and called out for his mate. He even

looked under the beds and in the closets. Just in case.

“His scent is still strong. If he left, it wasn’t very long ago,” Nick

said.

“How the hell did he get out?” Morgan snapped.

“Why would he want to leave at all?” Nick asked.

Morgan hated the hint of accusation in the other man’s voice. He  wasn’t even going to contemplate that idea that Terry had wanted to  leave Morgan on purpose.

“He’s still wild. That doesn’t go away in a day,” he said, annoyed  with the other man. “His animal side probably took over, and he was  scared and confused and left.”

“His human mind was still in enough control to sneak out the  window,” Nick said, moving toward the only window in the bedroom  that Morgan and Terry had been sharing.

“What?”

Morgan followed his friend, and only then was he able to notice the slight breeze of freezing air coming through the bottom of the window pane.

Terry had opened the window, let himself out, and then shut it again as silently as he could, but it hadn’t shut all the way. That was why it was so cold in here. Not because there was no heat in the house, but because of the freezing air from outside getting into the

room.

“We have to find him before he gets far,” Nick said, turning away

from the window.

“If he’s found by other wild werewolves or picked up by

hunters…”

Morgan was glad that Nick didn’t finish that sentence. He could hardly think about what those people would do to his mate if they got ahold of him.

He looked out the window. The snow was still coming down in

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thick, cotton-ball-sized flakes, but visibility had definitely improved.

They were going to have to shift into their wolf forms to be able  to travel at all out there, not to mention track which direction Terry  had gone off in.

“Right. Let’s go.”

* * * *

Terry couldn’t run. The snow was piled too high for that, and his hind legs and front paws were practically killing him from the strain on his body it took for him to push through that much snow. He had to keep making these awkward jumps just to press on.

He could smell them. Smell his friends. He needed to get to them.  He had to save them.

Suddenly, Terry came to a stop, his ears perking up sharply on top

of his head.

Voices. Human voices come from just down that dark path. At least in the summer it was probably a path. Right now it was just another tall stretch of untouched snow that the trees all made room

for.

The voices were coming from down that way, and so was the

scent of his friends.

Charlie, Jay, and Alecia. They were down there.

Terry growled low in his throat, instincts taking command of his mind and body that had previously never been there before. The instinct to attack and defend was the most prominent of what he felt.

He pressed on, making new tracks as he slowly traveled down the snowy path. Closer to the end, he ducked into the safety of the heavy pines, counting on them to hide him while he searched for the members of his pack that had been stolen.

The clearing was lit, thanks in part to a large fire, and even shoveled enough to keep the tents from being buried under the snow.  One of the shovels was propped up against a birch tree on the other

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side of the clearing. It looked as though this space would need  shoveling again soon.

There were loud complaints coming from the inside of the largest  tent in the middle.

More human words, and though he knew the language, right now,

for some reason, he couldn’t understand what the words meant.

“I’m telling you that we need to sell those pelts. I’m not staying in  a tent all the way through winter. I did that last year. I’m not doing it  again this year.”

The answering voice was a whining one. “But I bagged these two  myself on the last hunt! You were with me. You saw it! Why do you  get to keep yours but I have to sell mine?”

“I’m keeping only one. Selling one won’t feed us or keep us out  of this shit weather for the rest of winter. Just sell yours, and the next  wolves you get you can keep as many as you can skin.”

“But I―”

“I also get to decide because I’m in charge. I brought you into  this, and you’re going to do as I say.”

Terry moved away from the tent. Though if he listened long  enough, he thought he could make out some of the meaning of what  was being said, but mostly, he just got angry vibes.

He carefully toed his way out of his hiding place within the  drooping branches of the pine tree, and he moved toward the next

tent.

There were other sounds and smells coming from within that he wanted to investigate. Some of it smelled like gasoline, and some smelled like his friends. The rest smelled like sex.

There was a light on inside the tent, maybe that was where the gas scent was coming from, so he could make out the dark forms of the two men within. The one was letting out guttural moans and grunts, thrusting his hips wildly as he lay on his back and held the other man’s head down between his legs.

Neither of those two possessed the scents of the wolves Terry was

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searching for, though the one man between the other’s legs didn’t  have the scent of a human at all. He was something else.

Something shifted behind him, and Terry spun around.

The arrowhead shape of a wolf head peeked out from within the  exact hiding place Terry had once occupied.

It was his mate. He looked angry.

Terry crouched, though he did not curl his tail between his legs.
 
His friends! He could smell them! They were here!

He tried to tell his mate this with a small whine, but his mate

stepped forward, eyes sharp, lips pulled back to reveal his teeth, while

the hair on the back of his head stood on end.

He didn’t growl, but it was a command for silence if Terry ever

heard one.

Looking at him pointedly, his mate turned and walked back in the bushes, looking over his shoulder at him once more before vanishing into the darkness.

This time Terry’s tail did curl, and he followed his mate as he was silently commanded.

He had an easier time of it following him back to their den than when Terry had first left it.

This was because the trail Terry had made when he first came was now just a little wider since his mate had followed him on it, and now he and Terry were keeping to the same path as they went back. It still made the muscles in Terry’s body ache.

He tried to get up behind his mate, whining for his attention, trying to tell him what was happening, but the growls coming from his mate were not to be argued with.

Finally, they made it back to the large structure where they had made their den. Terry would prefer to sleep outside, cuddling for warmth with his mate curled around him, but it was so much warmer

inside the odd and angular cave that he didn’t offer any protest when

he followed his mate inside.

Then his mate made the shift to two feet, and though he looked

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ridiculous without any fur on him, his face squashed in, and his claws  and tail gone, that sense of deep anger remained.

“Terry, I know you can hear me in there. You scared the shit out  of me,” he said, in that familiar language Terry could barely  understand. “You can’t ever do that again. Do you understand? They  could’ve killed you if they’d realized you were there.”

That other naked wolf on two legs appeared next, cold air blowing  through the open entrance to the cave as he let himself in. The  gushing wind and snow was then gone as he shut the mouth of their  den.

The other naked wolf―a man, Terry realized, recalling that

word’s meaning―rubbed his hands together for warmth.

“Scented the two of you coming back.” Then the man sniffed the

air. “He’s still in wolf form?”

“Yeah, still a little on the wild side, too, from what I can tell. He

walked right into the hunter’s camp, Nick. There’s wolf tracks leading  straight here from them.”

The other man hissed in a breath. “Maybe we’ll be better to leave  an hour or two before dawn instead of right at first light.”

“Better make it two hours,” his mate―Morgan―said. “I don’t

think I’ll be getting much more sleep tonight.

“Try and get something. I’ll keep a better watch out for his scent,  make sure he doesn’t try to leave again.”

Morgan nodded, and with another one of those looks at Terry, he  walked toward the stairs leading up. “Come on. We’re going back to  bed.”

That had not been a command. His mate sounded tired, and with

some fear, Terry hesitated before following him.

Finally, Morgan looked down at him from halfway up the stairs.

“Come.”

That Terry had to obey.

He trotted up the stairs, the route to him somewhat familiar, and he moved toward another hole in the wall that led to a smaller den

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with a large nest. He jumped in, sniffed, circled, and then settled,  waiting for his mate to come and punish him.

When Morgan appeared in the doorway, Terry’s tail thumped  hopefully, but he still lowered his head onto his paws.

Morgan sighed at the sight of him, resting his forehead on the  back of his hand, which was also gripping the door frame. “This is  why I would never make a good leading alpha. I can’t take  disobedient omegas out in front of everyone and dominate them for  punishment. Even though you do deserve it right now.”

His voice was hard toward the end of that sentence, and with a

jerk, Terry realized that he understood every word. The tone, the  meaning, all of it.

His human side was coming back, right in time to be shamed by  his mate for being so completely and utterly stupid.

He was right. Terry would deserve it.

Now that he had control of his mind back, Terry made the shift  back into his human form.

The change always felt odd, like his body was being stretched out farther than it was meant to go. The snap of his bones never hurt him.  He was too used to it. He only realized at the last second that because he’d made the change on the bed, he’d just shed a boatload of hair onto the messy covers.

That was going to have to be shaken out before either of them could sleep in it.

Terry stepped out of bed and stood before his mate. He clutched his hands in front of him, hardly knowing what to do with himself or all the guilt he was feeling.

He kind of wished Morgan would just take him outside and throw him onto his back in a show of alpha dominance. At least that way he couldn’t be feeling all this guilt.

“I…I don’t know what happened,” Terry said.

Morgan nodded, stepping away from the doorframe. “I know. It’s not like I can blame you. Your wolf is still uncontrollable, and it’s not

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like I can hold that against you. Thank God you’re omega. Otherwise  it might actually be something of a problem.”

Just thinking about what he’d done, and where he’d gone, made  Terry sick to his stomach. Really, his guts churned, and he thought he  might vomit all over the floor. He put his hand over his stomach, as  though that would somehow calm it, and held onto the wooden bed  frame with his free hand to keep from falling over as his knees shook.

Morgan was beside him in an instant.

“Hey, you don’t have to worry. I wasn’t going to do anything. I  would never hurt you.”

So not what Terry had been worried about. “Not that,” he said,  recalling what he’d seen, and everything he heard came back to him  in a stark clarity he wished he didn’t have. “Oh God.”