MOONBOUND (A WEREWOLF)

Chapter 2: The Grain Mill

The old grain mill sat at the edge of town like something the city had tried to forget. Its silo was rusted through in patches, and the loading dock sagged where the wood had rotted out from underneath. Wren had driven past it a thousand times without really seeing it. Tonight she saw everything about it — the way the broken windows caught the last orange light, the smell of dust and diesel and something underneath that, something warm and animal that made the back of her neck prickle.

She parked two blocks away and walked the rest, because some instinct she didn't recognize as her own told her not to bring her car close enough for anyone to remember the plate.

A man was waiting by the loading dock. Late twenties, maybe. Dark hair, a jaw that looked like it had been carved rather than grown, and eyes the same unsettling amber she'd seen flash in her own bathroom mirror that morning. He didn't smile when he saw her. If anything, he looked like a man bracing for a blow.

"You came alone," he said. "Good. That's the first smart thing that's happened to you in twenty-four hours."

"You're the one who bit me."

"Kian." He said it like an apology, like the name itself was something he was handing over as collateral. "And yes. I need you to understand that wasn't — that isn't something I do. Wasn't a choice, not really. Not the way you're picturing it."

"Enlighten me." Wren crossed her arms, mostly to stop her hands from shaking. "Because from where I'm standing, a stranger tore my shoulder open in the woods and now I'm hearing Mrs. Petrakis's television through two walls."

Kian's jaw tightened. "There's a pack. Mine. We run this territory, have for longer than the town's had a name that stuck. Two nights ago, a rogue crossed our border. Wasn't pack — wasn't anyone's, which is worse than it sounds, because a wolf without a pack goes feral fast. No one to check him. No one to pull him back when the moon gets its hooks in too deep."

"And you were chasing him."

"I was hunting him. Difference matters, where I come from." He looked past her, toward the tree line, like he expected the woods to be listening. "I caught up to him near the trail you run. He'd already gone half-mad — hadn't fed right, hadn't shifted clean in weeks. When I finally got him down, he'd already caught your scent. Was heading for you when I intercepted." His throat worked. "I didn't kill him fast enough. And in the scuffle, my claws opened you up instead of him. I didn't mean it. That doesn't undo it. I know that."

Wren stared at him. Somewhere behind her ribs, a low, unfamiliar heat was building, like a second heartbeat trying to find its rhythm against hers. "So what — I just turn into that? Into what came out of the trees?"

"Not exactly like him. Ferals lose themselves because they've got no anchor. You'll have one, if you want it." Kian finally moved, closing half the distance between them, slow, the way you'd approach something you didn't want to spook. "The bite doesn't make you what he was. It makes you pack, if pack will have you. And mine will. I'll see to it personally, because this is my mess."

"That's very noble of you, Kian, but I have a shift at the diner tomorrow at seven a.m., and I would like to not eat anyone before then."

Something that wasn't quite a smile moved across his mouth. "You won't. Not tonight. First shift only takes what the moon's given you — speed, hearing, a temper that runs a little hotter than it used to. The teeth and the claws don't come until the second cycle, and by then you'll have been trained." He held out a hand, not to shake, just open, palm up, an offering. "I can teach you how to carry this so it doesn't carry you instead. Or you can walk away and try to do it alone, and hope you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't end up feral in a ditch somewhere. I've seen both. I'd rather not watch it happen to you."

Wren looked at his hand for a long moment. Then at the sky, where the sun had finally slipped below the silo's broken roofline, and the first stars were needling through the dark like something had punched holes in the world.

"If I say yes," she said, "does that make me pack, or does that make me yours?"

Kian's amber eyes didn't waver. "Ask me again in a month. I don't think either of us knows yet."

She took his hand.