He is Ghost

Shade

The next time she saw Judd, she might bite his fingers off. Maybe then he would keep his dirty fucking hands to himself.

She hated him. Or maybe she hated the idea of him, hated the power he held over her body. Perhaps it was simply the situation she found herself in that she hated. Whatever the reason, Neira knew the amount of aggression rolling off herself was not normal. The heat was deep under her skin, thrumming even when it wasn't outright attacking her body and mind. And now, with his mark on her throat?

Little was known about the infamous mate mark. It was a taboo subject but still widely practiced. It seemed it was a choice given to females, one of their few choices in this world. Neira knew very little about males marking first. Many years ago, before her time, Neira knew it was once a crime for a male to mark first. The details were fuzzy to her now. It seemed that part of her mother's history lessons were nap sessions for Neira.

What she could remember about mate marks was simple. Neira hated to think about it. He would have a direct, hazy line to her emotions. Judd would hold the upper hand. There would be a window into her brain, her thoughts, if he was close.

Damned bite. Damned heat. Damned all of this.

She dashed out the door, Judd's eyes on her back as she didn't even bother to take her new borrowed clothes off before shifting midair and falling from the one-story deck. Her paws hit the earth hard, the bones in her forelegs rattling on the impact. She shook her head and dashed into the tree line.

Neira kept running until she couldn't run anymore. She ran so far that she knew it would be dark when she returned to her little shack Judd had let her use. Like hell she would be going back to him anytime soon. Deep in the back of her mind, Neira knew the stubbornness in her decisions would get her into more trouble than good. She couldn't bring herself to care.

She decided to catch a hare or two for supper, and maybe breakfast too, depending on how cranky she was in the morning.

It wasn't hard for her to hunt. She had practice, many, many hours of practice.

Neira never caught a hare, though. Instead, her teeth found the body of a relatively small deer. It wasn't much, but it would last her through supper and breakfast in the morning.

With her belly full and mind at ease, she scoped out the area for a place to rest. The forest was dense in this part, thicker than the trees in the center of Judd's territory. Neira peered up through the canopy above. The sky was almost wholly dark, the last remnants of light falling away to the west. A puff of air rushed out of her nose.

She circled back and took one more bite of fresh meat before trotting under a fallen pine. Neira curled her body around and collapsed in the dirt. It only took minutes for her eyes to close and sleep to take over.

That was the thing, though, about sleeping as a wolf. The animal instincts were so close to the surface that Neira could never truly sleep peacefully. Every crack in the brush, every whistle of the wind, every shake of the overhead branches caused her eyes to flash open. The morning was still far off, and with the wind whistling like it was, there was no way her body would let her sleep soundly. The noise of the wind hid many things, even the sound of leaves cracking.

She heard it then, what sounded like a paw in the brush. Leaves crunching. And then the wind stopped howling through the trees. Neira's hackles raised on her still curled-up body. She didn't dare move. She couldn't show the slightest inclination that she had heard whatever it was approaching.

Air whooshed in through her nose, tasting it for something, anything.

Nothing.

Crack.