Sam's silent treatment ends. I'm no longer the bad guy. Not the worst in her vicinity, that is.

Her suddenly wide-eyed expression tips me off—there's someone behind me.

I whirl around, not a moment too soon. There's a pipe swinging at my head with intent—to turn out the lights. With a direct hit, it could be for good, even for me.

Getting a hand up in the nick of time, it catches my thumb, is thrown slightly off course, and hits my shoulder by the neck. The momentum is cut in half, but it still does some damage. My collarbone cracks. I can feel it. Hear it even.

My satchel was pinned against the barrel by my foot, but I'm forced to step away. It gets snatched by a second accomplice while another swing of the pipe is in motion. I lurch backwards and it just misses my gut.

Once the bag is acquired, the pipe gets dropped and they both run.

"Stay here," I say to Sam and give chase, despite my incapacitated right arm.

The bag has half of our food, most of the remaining cash, the knife—our only weapon—and the sleeping bag is clipped to it. From the godawful stench of them, I can tell they're only human. They're not even in great shape. The big one who took the swing has a gut slowing him down. His sly friend is the opposite—short legs and no great height or bulk.

I follow them to the street, leap over the guardrail, and attempt to cross the four lanes. The thieves had clear passage, but I almost get hit by a speeding car. I dodge the bumper but dent the corner of the old sedan with my hands. Though I mutter, "sorry," the driver swears at me through the open window, pulls to the right haphazardly, and gets out of the car.

He's a bear of a "man"—middle-aged, and more hair on his face than his head—and he's not alone. There's at least one passenger. I miss getting a whiff and don't spare them more than a glance. I make the bag my priority, and forge ahead, but, mere strides away, there's a spike in my blood pressure. Who is this guy and why does he seem so familiar?

The thieves cut across the ramp below the overpass and slip into the wooded area that leads to the higher road. It's in that dark, narrow section that I start closing the gap. The guy with the bag is no more than a body length away from me.

They're in a fuck everything state of being—me, my bitch mother, the formidable slope—scrambling for more distance and kicking at shadows, never quite making contact.

The bag is almost at my fingertips when I hear a scream. It's unmistakable. Sam wouldn't let one fly unless it was life-or-death. And it seems to slip out, probably around hands, trying to subdue and silence her.

As hard as it will be to survive without our supplies, I let the bag—and the thugs who tried to kill me—go without a fight. Even a grunt at them would be time wasted.

On the way back down the hill, I slip and fall, sliding down on my ass. I come to a stop against a rock with a thud.

The new pain, old pain, and my lousy position pile on extra seconds when I have none to spare. With a busted shoulder, it's a struggle to get back on my feet.

Staggering back into the lights of the street, I can just make out Sam on the ground and three people—if I should be so lucky—holding her there, her midriff exposed, indelicately high and low.

"It's her," one of them shrieks, curling a thumb into her side—the healing "devil's mark." They're blocking her next scream, but her body recoils. I can hear her attempt to cry out around the suffocating hand.

"Hey!" I call out from the far side of the road. To get their hands to stop roaming. To make me their person of interest.

It doesn't even work all that well. Only the driver rises from his crouch. He turns around and gives me a sneer, more holes than teeth. The two others carry on, mumbling about ten grand and how pretty she is.

There's a price on Sam's head. I shouldn't be surprised that the dregs of society were already looking for her and that she was so easy to spot.

I'm a lane, sidewalk, and maybe five additional yards away from her. The dude facing me, the apparent boss of this operation, strides forward, eager to block me from their conquest. He snaps at the other two.

They stop manhandling her, and by her wrists and ankles, they attempt to load her into the car I disregarded earlier. The back door is already open, and despite her vehemence, she's a trifle in their grip.

And that's when my inner wolf bursts forth, right in the street, annihilating any former protocol for secrecy. My roar sends out ripples that I'm sure can be felt for miles. My clothes shred. I don't have any extra, but it is what it is. My body doesn't even give me a choice.

Circumventing the blockade with big fists, I bound on top of the car and leap at the two others, bringing one of them down to the ground with me, his neck clamped in my jaw.

We tumble and tussle. There is blood in my mouth and Sam gets dropped. But my animal advantage is short-lived. When I scramble back to four feet, ready to tear into more human flesh, two mangy black wolves are prowling around me. They're a lot older than I am and look diseased. Rabid, practically. But their shoulders are broader, torsos longer, and heads wider.

In this moment—outnumbered and on the brink of a brutal death—it all comes together for me. This is Rollin's pack of origin. It's probably why I feel like I've seen them before. We're not friends and he's not chatty about his past, but it's no secret that he still has occasional contact with them—and Ishmael does as well. They're like mercenaries for hire. Bounty hunters, in our case.

The shifter I bit is struggling to do much of anything—I got him pretty good. He won't likely have the energy to transform. Glancing at the blood-loss, he may not survive at all, even with fast healing. As skilled and fortunate as I may have been in that regard, he's only a third of my problem.

Sam, not wasting any time, rolls into a squat by my side, her backpack surprisingly still in place on both shoulders. While I'm snarling, trying to hold our ground, every muscle clenched and ready to launch itself at any sudden movement, Sam crosses her arm over her chest and puts her right hand on my right shoulder. She gives it a subtle pat and then latches onto my fur. It's the signal for go.

Running is probably the only choice we have, but I'm injured and would have precious cargo. Plus, I'm outnumbered. They may have associates nearby as well and tracking is their expertise.

But, if we don't at least try, this will be our last stand.

The black wolves continue pacing around us, making the circle tighter, in perfect synchronization, no pattern to be seen. Our window of opportunity, if there ever was one in the first place, is closing.

Though I'm doing my best to cloud my thoughts with garbage, they may have some ability to probe into my mind. Even if they couldn't, I can't be that hard to read. There's only one of two things I can really try—run or attack. They're both dumb and pointless, but to me, the former seems less than the latter, and seasoned predators would be attuned to that, mindreading or not.

Seconds tick by, and there's never a clear path. I'm forced to accept—the window is shut. My growl dies out. Their snarls surge. Then, the moment of truth gets punctured by a higher pitched hiss.

A group of vampires whir onto the scene. Normally, this wouldn't be good news—what they lack in sense of smell, they make up for with speed and agility—and yet, at the tip, I recognize the curly hair of Nicola, Shilo and Blaise's vampire companion.

Nicola and I didn't have the warmest first encounter, and vampire whims can shift like spring weather, especially with money involved, but Shilo and Blaise trust her to some degree. We may have problems immediately following this three-way confrontation, more than we ever had before, but the vampires provide enough of a distraction for me to drop down and lift off, in one fluid motion, with Sam on my back. 

We break through their feral orbit. I sprint like a starting pistol just fired. With any luck, they'll be too busy fighting each other to notice or care for a moment or two. The victors will catch up to us, regardless of the outcome, if that's what they intend to do. We only have a frail string of hope to cling to, just the slightest chance for things to go awry for our pursuers, whoever the worst of our enemies happen to be.

Running away, downhill, wherever we have that option, I go, and go, and go, until I just can't anymore. On a steep decline, my shoulder gives out. I tuck my back legs in and slide down on my stomach. I do everything I can to avoid rolling on top of Sam. When I'm about to lose that battle too, she wisely scoots off me. We both come to a stop in another ditch, but this is no hiding place. There's probably a strong-scented streak of bare earth leading right to us. It won't matter how dark it is.

While I catch my breath and attempt to rally my strength, victorious howls erupt, near enough to suggest they'll be arriving momentarily. The vampires lost or weren't willing to give us more than a head start. Or, heck, maybe they came to an arrangement and are working together. The vampires are just quieter about it...

"Let's go." Sam tugs on the scruff of my neck, but I don't get up. "The river isn't far. I'm fine. I can run." The quiver in her voice sends rifts through the resolve she is trying to portray. "You don't have to carry me."

I can't quite explain myself with the signals we've established, so I transform and sit there, cradling my knees with my head down. "My shoulder is out."

She's already on her feet, trying to tug me up by my other arm. "Good thing you have two working legs when you're like this."

"Sam..." I try to level with her. "It's over." I say this from my feet. Somehow, she manages to get me upright and staggering along with her.

"I'm not ready to admit that. Let's go before they see us." She clings to my hand and takes off, dragging me along.

"It doesn't matter if they can see us. They can smell us. The river won't help if they're this close."

"Then we get in it. We stay there for as long as we can stand it, and then we cross to the other side."

I keep stumbling along, though I'm not sure why. "A," I start. "It's freezing and we have no way to keep your clothes dry. I don't even have any anymore. B," I continue, and by now, I can hear the rush of the river. "It heads in the wrong direction. If we stay there too long, we'll be back where we started. And C," I begin to inform her, sighing before I go on. "Even with two good arms, I can't really swim."

"Good thing I can."

"Really?"

"Why do you sound so surprised?" she asks me, and I know not to answer. "In the water, there were few who could beat me. You know what? I'm actually glad you're surprised. It means everyone else will be, too. And the change in direction may be the best thing for us. That way," she points out, gesturing to the left, the overall way we were heading. "Isn't going all that well." 

Naked and barefoot, the wind whipping, the snow flurries squalling, Sam leads me across the rocky bank of the river. With the water lapping against our toes, she takes off her shoes and pulls off all her clothes. After shoving them into the one remaining backpack, she takes me by the hand. 

A howl at my back has me shin-deep in the river with no regrets. A few steps later, Sam and I catch the current, hand in hand. It's undeniably frigid, but it's quiet, peaceful. Everything is laid out, bare. Her beauty and my inability to look away. Our bodies and maybe our feelings for each other. We're alone and together, as much as we ever will be, perhaps. As much as it sucks that we didn't succeed, I can certainly think of worse ways to go.

For example, two snarling wolf heads disrupt the tranquility of the bank upstream. As they peer in our direction, we let ourselves sink below the surface. And we gain some distance. With her below me, scissor-kicking, swiftly and effectively, arms wrapped around my chest, she doesn't let go. It keeps me calm and focused.

By the time we pop up for a breath, the wolves are out of our lives . . . at least for now.