I run. Not screaming, but I feel that terror inside me, burning my lungs. I know wolves. Open mouthed screams only tempt them closer. And I can't be found. I can't.

Thomas sat up beneath the smoke-stained ceiling of his private room in White Pine's city barracks, wide awake. He pressed a hand to his chest to regulate his breathing, only to find it slick with sweat.

Damn these dreams.

Morning pried a finger through the blinds, which made the smoke smudges in the room seem like sticky shadows the light couldn't clean. The room's former owner had been a runner with a penchant for pipe smoking and an aversion to open windows.

Thomas opened the blinds and pushed the window from its latch. It banged against the bars outside, and morning rushed to him with winter, nipping away the sweat on his skin. This high up, he could barely smell the exhaust of the city.

Home. Beyond the bright bite of a thousand windows and winding tramlines that made up the queen's side of the city was the black snake of a river that led to Luna's half of Beltan.

He generally avoided his barrack's room, but after jobs so close to the mountains, it was best not to bring the dreams back to his flat across the river. Reliving any of his time in the mountains, even his escape, gave him an edge the rest of the day. A brawler's edge was a danger he hoped to mitigate with ten floors of wolf soldiers beneath his feet.

When he stretched, the cold sun on his bare back, his knuckles brushed either side of the room. Carefully, cautiously, he avoided the floorboard that creaked and to his wardrobe. He had a meeting to get to, and the last thing he needed was—

The door of the room beneath his own slammed opened anyway.

Gunther. Thomas yanked his suspenders from their hanger. The other reason he avoided this room.

Gunther was one of the few other brawlers in White Pine, and he considered pressing the boundaries of Thomas' melancholy his solemn duty. Thomas might have loved him for it, if Gunther's definition of friends involved a little more... space. Alas, Gunther knew no distance from no creature.

Thomas managed to tuck his undershirt in fresh trousers before the hall door banged open outside. Gunther moved slower than usual—hung over, probably.

"Guess who's home?" roared the voice down the hall. Definitely still drunk. Thomas drew the bolt over his door.

The knock came anyway. "No matter how much you pay the doorman—" Another knock. "—no one reeks so much of angst and menace as you do."

"I reek of what?" Thomas threw the bolt and opened the door.

Gunther stood with his forearms against the doorframe, blocking the rest of the hall. His dark skin glistening: bare chest, bare feet, and loosely tied shifters that sloped toward indecency. He reeked of women and perfume—strongly. A different sort of drunk then. Great.

The brawler inspected Thomas in turn. While his carefree smile didn't waver, Thomas sensed the razor edge of concern. The morning had yet to clear the scent of fear in the room.

"Hard job, then?" Gunther peered over Thomas' shoulder like the ghosts of dreams would peel from the walls to meet him.

Thomas bared his teeth and blocked his view. "No harder than the rest."

Gunther raised a brow. "Heard it was twenty-eight put downs."

Eighteen, in fact. This time yesterday morning, Thomas had been knee deep in digging the grave for his eighteenth kill. Thomas pushed away from the doorframe, dug in his closet for a shirt and checked the starch in its collar. The more formal he looked for this meeting, the less they'd question why reeked of—what was it? Angst and menace.

Gunther followed him inside, adding the smell of citrus perfume to the expired smoke of the room. "The press is already rolling out the news. Enforcer returns to his mountain roots!" He picked up Thomas' damp coat from under the bed. "And returns home covered in blood."

Thomas snatched his coat away and threw it in his closet. "The bodies were buried in the rain," he muttered. Poor excuse, but now that it was blood and smoke and women's perfume in the room, Thomas was anxious and tired and bitter.

Gunther made a face at his tone and returned to the threshold. "Well, fear not, brave brawler. I have a surprise to cheer you up."

Cheer for Gunther was best distilled in liquid form. Or had long legs and brown hair. Or was it short legs and blonde hair? Thomas turned to say something to snide to that point, only to find Gunther dragging one such beauty from the hall with a grin strung between his ears.

"Holy hell, Gunther!" Thomas' closet door banged against his footboard as he searched for a shirt.

She was tall and lithe with milky skin and hair a dark sheen of autumn brown; freckled nose and round lips that parted in a perfect O as she took in Thomas' bare arms and unshaved chest.

Gunther pulled her into Thomas' coffin of a room with a grin of apology. "That peg down the hall snitches more than your floorboard." He kicked the door closed.

Females were strictly prohibited in bachelor halls. Besides the city view, it was this room's only selling point.

"Like he won't smell her perfume." Perfume meant she was human; lemons and jasmine and a touch of vanilla, he thought.

"And trace the scent right back to you." Gunther revelled in his cleverness. No one would dare snitch if Thomas came home with a woman. Menace required an outlet, they said. Which made Thomas feel all the more the monster.

Gunther turned to his new human. "See, babe? He's as big and bumbling as promised. Thomas, meet Jenny, your biggest fan. Jenny, presenting the great executioner of White Pine."

"Enforcer," Thomas corrected out of habit. But, hell, could she find something else to ogle?

Gunther didn't notice or didn't care. "His kill count is way up in the hundreds. The mountains breed them fierce, it would seem."

Thomas rolled his shoulders to hide a grimace. The snarl in his voice escaped anyway. "I am mountain no more." But his syntax didn't come out quite city either. He clenched his jaw on a growl.

The human squeaked in surprise at the wolfish sound, blinking her pretty eyes and retreating into Gunther's smug arms.

Thomas looked to the ceiling like the well-studied smoke stains spelt patience. His job was to terrify wolves. He had no tolerance for humans who thought stroking a wolf's throat a game.

"Don't take it personal, babes." Gunther spread his hand over her hip. "He won't hurt you. I'm his only friend. He just can't speak more than five words to women in his age bracket."

Thomas ran a tongue over his teeth to check his canines were still hidden. If he could kill the wildest rogues, he could smile for Miss Jenny, here. "Hello, Miss. Good Day." Was that five words yet? Thomas opened his door and sucked in the air not steeped in lemons and vanilla. "Here's the door. Please..."

She looked to Gunther for solace—protection from the big bad wolf, and Thomas' words slipped from him.

He had been teased enough for his avoidance of the female sex to be inoculated to the ogles and whispers. He could even learn to laugh when the brothels on Luna's side of the river flirted with him about his size, his muscle, his bronze skin, his mean eyes. But the blushing and flinching—the cowering—that was always the worst. Made him feel bigger than a mountain on the outside, smaller than a worm on the inside.

Gunther pat Jenny's glossy hair. "There, there."

Thomas bared his teeth when Jenny wasn't looking. "You only introduce them to me to feel better about yourself."

"Them?" Gunther prickled. "Jenny's the real deal, Tom. You said when I got serious, you'd buy me a round from Eagle's Eye. I'm dead-heart serious."

Of course he was serious. Gunther was dead-heart in love with every woman he'd ever met. Charles, who had been the enforcer before Thomas, liked women too. It was a bad thing for wolves. Too many broken hearts made a wolf a dark and scary thing. Charles managed it by never loving a woman. Gunther had survived thus far because his heart was so big, even six, soon seven, breaks still left it big enough to give to another.

But this Jenny watched Thomas, even while Gunther stroked her hair. Her eye lingering on the scar at Thomas' throat with a shy dip in her lashes and a secret smile in her pout. Oh, the press loved where his criminal collar used to be.

Still single! A headline had once read. Who can kiss away these scars? The breeding office despairs.

"Gunther," Thomas began, looking over Jenny's head entirely. "If you insist on a human, at the least find one—"

The hall door banged open again. "Woman on the floor!"

Thomas crossed his arms and swallowed the rest of his lecture. "Which of you are paying the fee?"

Gunther rolled his eyes. "The doorman owes me a favour."

But instead of a clonking doorman's march came thin-heeled clicks of booties muffled by carpet. Thomas and Gunther met eyes. Only one other woman was allowed to bypass the rule.

"The breeding office," Gunther whispered, then grabbed Thomas' sleeve. "Think I can fit under your bed?" He lifted Thomas' pillow in consideration. "They've been making their rounds on us brawlers. Think they have a potential in mind and I'm too high up on the list to risk it."

Thomas threw an alarmed look at his door. "You think you're too high on their list?"

"Jenny! To the closet." Gunther pushed her toward the small corner of the room. "Cover for me, hey, Tom? You have Beta Kate on your side. They see me with a human and I'm done for."

Jenny looked at him with wide eyes, which, while infuriating, still flustered. Thomas shoved Gunther toward the closet to break her line of sight and reminded himself he really did only have one friend.

"Get in," he growled.

Gunther folded himself in thirds and kicked Thomas' sullied jacket back under the bed. He'd dislodged all of Thomas' carefully folded shirts and overturned his basket of socks, before the rapt knock sounded on Thomas' door.

Panic compressed the room, but Thomas kicked the closet closed and dutifully opened the door.

Francine, his breeding officer, peered up at him through grey eyes framed in light wrinkles and red glasses. "Good morning, Thomas. I heard you were back."

Less than ten hours back, mind. Which meant whatever the breeding office was paying the doorman was more than what Thomas shelled out for his silence. Not that Thomas blamed him. Francine had four decades of breeding experience, which if said with just the right smile to a bachelor wolf made Thomas' kill count seem like pittance.

She was human—prim, pretty, and petite. But Thomas was not fooled. Breeding officers consistently breached the touchiest of subjects with the world's top predators. She was no pansy push-over. And the bonus for ensuring the breeding line of a wolf like Thomas would seal her retirement in luxury.

She pushed up her glasses and wrinkled her nose. "Is that Crinella's Lemon Spritz I smell?"

"No," Thomas said, too quickly. Dammit. His ears heated.

Francine's frown deepened. "And your buttons are uneven."

Thomas looked down to find his shirt three buttons askew. He cinched the gap that left his chest showing with his fist and cleared his throat. "I'm afraid I cannot speak now, madam. I have a meeting very soon."

She pulled out her clipboard. "Yes, your monthly check in, correct?" She made a note. "And do you think they still find your frame of mind amiable to your job?" She pushed up her glasses with the butt of her pen.

Thomas grit his teeth in what he hoped was a smile. "I meet with the surveillance team once a month to discuss what I remember of the mountains. My sanity is not in question." Not directly, anyway. But he definitely should shower to slough off the last of those dreams from his scent beforehand.

"Good, good." Francine pressed her clipboard to her chest. "I heard thirty-two wolves died at your hand last week."

Heaven and hell—it was eighteen. But Charles insisted he never correct the rumours.

"I will run late, madam," Thomas moved to close the door.

Francine stuck her ballpoint pen in the gap. "It won't take but a moment, Thomas. Tell me, did your visit home stir anything in you?"

"The mountains are no home," he heard himself say.

"A longing to settle down, maybe? Procreate, perhaps?"

His dreams returned to the fringes of his attention. "None at all."

A giggle came from his closet, then Gunther's laughing hush. Even Francine's human senses would hear that. Thomas' chest deflated with a sigh. "If you'll excuse me." Thomas inched her pen back toward her clipboard and shut the door.

He yanked open his closet to find Gunther and Jenny locked in their passion and wiles. With the heat of mortification and annoyance crawling up his neck, Thomas snatched the lone waistcoat and tie left on a hanger.

"Room's all yours," he grumbled, too low for Francine to make out.

Gunther lifted one of the hands wrapped around Jenny in gratitude.

Thomas slammed the closet door closed and fixed his slanted buttons with impatient speed.

Francine persisted in her knocking until he opened the door again. Before she could question the laugh from his closet or why his waistcoat smelled like limoncello, he pushed past her into the hall, closed his door and made his way to the stairs.

Down the hall, doors peeped open. They doubtlessly smelt Crinella's Limen Spritz, Gunther and Thomas' fury. He wasn't home much these days; anything he did seemed newsworthy. And Francine was sweet crème atop this morning's gossip.

The breeding officer clipped after him in her ribbon-laced boots. "In all seriousness, Thomas, you've spent the last five years enforcing. Six, if I include your training. Surely it is time to put aside all this... killing for a while?"

Thomas tossed on his waistcoat and stuffed his necktie in his pocket.

The breeding officer checked her clipboard and hurried her speech. "We have a lovely new option on the table. Her case is confidential now, of course. But we're taking a poll of interested—"

Thomas pivoted so fast, she stumbled back a square on the checkered carpet. "Tell me, madam," his voice was low and controlled; he tried to keep his enforcer tone out of it. "If I don't do the killing—who will?"

Francine was startled by his sudden attention; she pushed up her glasses when he couldn't hold his gaze. "I mean— surely Alpha can—"

Thomas scoffed. "In all his spare time." He buttoned his waistcoat with angry fingers and continued to the stairs.

"Thomas!" She called after him, jogging to keep up. "Think about it. A mate to love at night. Pups to chase after in the morning! The pups, Thomas! Think about the pups!"

Doors wide need to take in the scene in full, and Thomas' ears burned. Shameless wolves. They could hear just fine from the privacy of their beds.

Thomas snapped his teeth at room 1209—Danny, the newest brawler kid with his hunched shoulders and amused grin. "Toss me a pair of your shoes," he growled.

Danny hurried to obey and Thomas stuffed his feet in the shined boots. They were a smidge too small, even without socks. But they'd do.

Francine had caught up in a swish of pink skirts. "It's for the good of the Pack, Thomas," she shoved a sticky white curl back in its coif. "Not only would you strengthen our line, but you'd have something to take the edge off all this..."

Thomas stomped the second boot on and met her eye. "This what?"

Francine retreated to another checker square. "That," she gestured to his face.

Thomas bared his teeth to showcase her point. "How does this potential mate feel about taking the edge of all this, hm? Does she even want a brawler?"

Potential mates generally liked the runner breeds, or the scouts. A hunter if they had a taste for danger. But even with a potential's genetic predisposition for—how did Francine put it?—wolf procreation, they remained human enough to flinch at the thought of a wolf so large. No matter how much the breeding office salivated at brawler pups, they made a hard sell.

Francine had the grace to bite her lip in chagrin. "We had an increase in our budget recently..." she began.

"Yes, pay them to love me." Thomas rolled up his shirt sleeves to hide their lack of cuff links and shouldered open the door to the stairwell. "I think I will stick with my kills, thank you."

The smell of Jenny's fear beneath the lemons was still too raw for this.

He held open the door for Francine. "Shall I call the elevator for you, madam?"

Francine squinted down the stairwell, as if contemplating all twelve flights in those heels.

Thomas smiled. "In Charles' absence, Beta Kate is in charge of my breeding. You may speak with her about any and all potentials interested in my file."

Francine dropped her clipboard to her side. "Thomas, you cannot run from this forever."

"If I don't run, madam, I will be late." Thomas sketched a bow and let the stairs door shut behind him.

On his walk to the offices, he consoled himself that despite wearing small boots with no socks, sleeves with no cuff links, and a cravat tied with no mirror, the smell of lemons and fury hid the worst of the dreams. The surveillance team already suspected they'd lost Charles to the wild; as the lone enforcer left, it was Thomas' job to assure them the wild was years off for him yet. And the mountains were years past.