Hunted by the Shadow Division

Chapter 4

Ryan POV

Rhy and I had an understanding from the very beginning.

He was not simply a wolf that lived inside me. He was not a passenger or a second voice in a crowded head. He was the other half of something that had always been incomplete, and from the moment he woke up on that football field and said, very casually, "Hey, I'm Rhy," as though he had simply been waiting for me to be ready, we had been negotiating the terms of sharing one life.

He got the senses. The speed. The instincts that arrived before my slower human mind had finished forming the question. I got the words and the coffee and the part of the morning that happened before the world required anything from either of us.

He also, it turned out, had opinions. Strong ones. About food, about running, about Nat — who he adored with the uncomplicated devotion of a wolf who recognised a fellow predator — and eventually, overwhelmingly, about Cassandra.

I had never heard Rhy go quiet before he smelled her.

Not the quiet of patience or the quiet of waiting. The quiet of something very large and very certain settling into place. Like a bolt sliding home in a lock you did not know was open.

"That's her," was all he said.

Two words. Said the way you say something when no further explanation is required.

I did not understand yet what he meant. I would, soon enough. But in that moment on the balcony, with the city spread out below us and a girl with chocolate brown eyes looking at me without any fear at all, I only understood that Rhy had gone very still and that when Rhy went very still, I paid attention.

He had always been right before.

He was insufferably right about almost everything.

I never told him that. He would have been impossible to live with.

…

Rhy had woken up during the third quarter of the Richwood High homecoming game, which was, as far as dramatic timing went, extremely inconvenient.

One moment I was on the bench watching the first-string Centre take a hit that had the medical staff running onto the field. The next a voice I had never heard before said, "You worried?" with the casual ease of someone who had always been there and saw no reason to explain the delay.

"Yip. Hey, I'm Rhy," he said, when I asked if he was who I thought he was.

"Like the bread?" I said.

"No. And I take offense."

There was no time for more than that. The coach was already shouting my name. Rhy, who had been in existence for approximately forty-five seconds and had already assessed the situation with the efficiency of something born knowing exactly what it was, stepped in and hiked the ball before I had fully decided to move my feet. I threw the pass. Touchdown. The stadium erupted.

Rhy cheered loud enough inside my head that I winced.

It was, all things considered, a remarkable entrance.

…

I found the Rogers and Nat after the game. I was so excited to tell them about Rhy, especially since Nat's wolf Lee had woken two years back. I thought they would be excited too. I had not yet understood that for wolves, a first change is not a celebration until it is safely over.

"Ryan! Over here!" I heard Nat shout.

"Guys, I have the best news!" I started.

"News? You just won the game for Richwood High!" Nat commented. She was always willing to come through and watch my games, even when I didn't play. Even when she had a lot going on in her own life now that she was at university. Nat had always shown up. That was one of the most consistent things about her.

"Ryan my darling, you were wonderful," said Mrs. Rogers while squeezing my face.

"Of course he is. He's my son," cooed Mr. Rogers.

"Ours!" corrected Mrs. Rogers.

"Guys wait, I have some news!" I tried again.

Just then the hairs on my neck stood up. Simultaneously, Natalie grabbed the Rogers while growling toward me. Not at me. Toward me. The way a wolf growls when it is reading something on the air that the humans around it cannot.

"Ryan. Explain."

I looked at my foster parents and my sister and burst into the biggest smile.

"He woke up," I said excitedly.

"Who, honey?" asked Mrs. Rogers.

"His wolf," whispered Nat.

"Quickly, let's get home!" said Mr. Rogers, rushing us toward the parking lot.

Nobody said a word on the drive home. Even Rhy had gone quiet, reading the mood with the instinct he had come into the world with. I stared out the window of Mr. Rogers' Jeep Wrangler wondering why no one seemed excited for me. The stadium lights fell away behind us. The familiar streets of our neighbourhood came and went.

"Dad," I said to Mr. Rogers. "What's going on guys? This is good, right?"

"Ryan, you weren't there for my first change, and that's OK," said Nat. "But I am here for you now."

"What does that mean?"

I was starting to get really anxious.

I had not been there for Nat's change. It had happened the summer she turned eighteen and I was away at football camp. When I got back she was excited to introduce me to Lee. We had gone into the woods behind the house and she had changed. Not into a full wolf but partially. Her face elongated, and hair grew all over her. She became taller, and I remembered hearing her legs pop as she did. Her feet became long with claws, and so did her arms. I just remember thinking how extraordinary she looked — my sister, my fierce, impossible sister — while Lee proceeded to cover my face in wet kisses as though none of it was remarkable at all.

Now it was my turn.

So why did everyone seem so worried?