ever since Rafe and his best friend, Brice Walker, had successfully wrangled the ornery sow as teenagers. Their victory had resulted in cracked ribs and massive bruises, but the adventure had been one of the best of their lives.
Rafe suppressed a snarl at the arrogance of youth. Once he’d been cocky and proud. In a time when it felt good to be alive and unstoppable in the face of a nova-bright future and carefree oblivion.
At fourteen, Rafe had believed he was invincible. At twenty-eight, the reality of how wrong he’d been lived coiled inside him like a copperhead, its fangs embedded deep in his conscience, spewing venom into his soul.
The cries of frightened wolflings penetrated his mind. Rafe leaped to his feet in an all-or-nothing run. The nearest sentinels would converge to investigate. Some in wolf form, others in human form dressed as Walker’s Run Cooperative security guards. But none were as fast as Rafe.
Paws thundering against the damp and familiar ground, he zigzagged through a dark maze of tall pines. The crisp, cool spring air ruffled his fur as he ran. He covered the four-mile distance in just under two minutes.
Three frightened wolflings darted haphazardly across the farmyard in a confused search for the right direction to run.
“Go on, you damn wolf pups. Get!” Stomping on her front porch, Mary-Jane McAllister—a sturdy woman dressed in a flowered housecoat and tattered slippers with curlers in her gray-streaked hair, waved a shotgun in the air without making any action to fire it again. Although her tongue had delivered a fair share of sharp lashings, she’d never harmed a wolfan and Rafe didn’t think she intended to do so now.
“Cybil!” Mary-Jane hollered at the huge pig plowing into the woods. “Be back by morning. I got no time to look for you. I’m plantin’ beans tomorrow.”
Rafe doubted the pig would return any time soon. Once roused out of her pen, Cybil didn’t willingly go back in until good and ready.
She would be safe in the wolf sanctuary. None of the Walker’s Run Wahyas would harm one short, coarse hair on her body. The pack considered the big sow family. Besides, Cooter, the pack’s lead sentinel, was sweet on Mary-Jane. If anything happened to that pig, paying the devil his due would be pennies compared to what Cooter would extract.
Mary-Jane trudged inside the house, the screen door slamming behind her. The panicked wolflings fled into the woods. Rafe loped after them to steer them to safety.
Two adult wolves appeared ahead and the wolflings separated.
Rafe nodded to the sentinels, then bolted after the tawny wolfling who’d veered left.
“Alex, stop!” he called telepathically, adding a note of annoyance to his thoughts. Chasing his cousin’s delinquent son through the forest wasn’t how Rafe wanted to spend the rest of the night.
He’d grown up believing he was the last of his parents’ bloodlines. The recent discovery of a maternal relative and her son in need of sponsorship gave him another chance at family.
Not that Doc, his adoptive human father, wasn’t family. He was, absolutely and resoundingly.
But Rafe longed for more. The loss of his birth parents and entire birth pack had created a soul-aching need to rebuild his family line.
His dream had ended with a single shot from a rifle. After losing Lexi, Rafe had no desire to claim another mate. Since wolfan males could only father children with a female they’d claimed, he would likely never have a family of his own.
Then Ronni and her son Alex, distant cousins through his mother’s bloodline, had come along. Looking after them was a far stretch from being a mate and father, but as their only male blood-kin he was responsible for their welfare.
“Alex, I said stop!”
“Rafe?” Even as Alex’s startled voice sliced through Rafe’s mind, the wolfling disappeared over the ridge.
Damn.
Rafe cut sharply through the budding brush, hoping to catch the wolfling before he reached the old two-lane road.
The soft hum of a motor vibrated through the thinning trees.
Rafe crested the rise and his chest tightened, restricting his airflow like the choke valve on an old carburetor. “Alex, get out of the road. Now!”
Paralyzed inside a glaring beam of light, the wolfling didn’t budge.
Rafe darted down the embankment, leaped over the roadside ditch, and slammed into Alex. The adolescent wolfan tumbled clear of the oncoming car and darted into the woods.
Dazed and sprawled on the pavement, Rafe stared into the headlights of imminent doom.
He’d spent more than two years drunk and wishing for death. Nine months, three weeks, and five days ago, he’d gotten his life back on track, sort of.
When he quit drinking and resolved to put the past behind him, people said things would get easier with time.
They lied.
Nothing was any easier. At least life hadn’t gotten any worse—until now.
The blare of a horn shattered the zombie-like shroud fogging his brain. Pure Wahyan instinct took control. The sudden surge of adrenaline caused a loss of coordination in Rafe’s limbs. His legs skewed in different directions, his paws scrambled for steady footing.
Tires screeched from a hard brake, slinging the car into a slippery slide across the asphalt.
“Alex!” Rafe’s mind screamed at the wolfling barking frantically from the edge of the woods. Time slowed to a centipede’s crawl. “Look away!”
A wave of heat from the car’s engine rolled over Rafe’s fur. His nostrils stung from the acrid smell of burning brake lines.
His heart pounded furiously, the beat stabbing his chest in a desperate plea for him to get up and run, only his legs wouldn’t cooperate. Rafe curled into a ball, every muscle clenched for impact.
This was it. Really it. There’d be no coming back this time. He’d already survived two near-death experiences. He wouldn’t survive a third.
At the last possible moment, the car veered sharply to the right and careened into the embankment. The crunch of metal competed with the jackhammering pound of his heart.
“Rafe!” Alex’s hysterical cries penetrated Rafe’s mind.
The wolfling’s cold nose nudged Rafe’s side. As if a reset button had been pressed, a current zipped through Rafe’s body and pumped a steady stream of relief through his veins.
His stomach lurched to untangle the knots that had formed.
“I’m fine, Alex.” Rafe unfurled his legs and stood, a little wobbly until his nerves settled.
“I thought you were a goner.” Alex tucked his head beneath Rafe’s chin and rubbed his muzzle against Rafe’s neck, warming Rafe’s fur with his frantic pants.
A deluge of affection greatly increased the probability of what would have been an uncharacteristic hug, if Rafe had
