Eagle Pass with her…pledged to be my mate.”

Kestra’s smile vanished. “Mate? As in, for life?”

Shade nodded, not seeing what the problem was. “Yes.”

Kestra began shaking her head sympathetically. “Shade. Shade, Shade, sweet Shade.” Her smile was twisted coyly. “Sadly, you will have to pursue your quarry evermore.”

The shock hit him harder than his decision had. He blinked, unable to believe what he was hearing. “What?”

“A mate? For life?” Kestra shook her head again, her smile more like daggers than soothing warmth. She raised her eyebrows playfully. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Shade stared at her, stunned. He couldn’t have been more shocked if someone had come up behind him and whacked him with a two-by-four. And compared to this, he thought he would have preferred the board.

He searched her eyes for a joke, a jest, but found nothing but smug pleasure. The words emerged one by one, coming out without any consideration or censor: “But…I…love you. Kestra.”

Her smile faded, and she studied him carefully, and then opened her mouth to speak.

An earth-shattering crack roared through Shade’s ears.

Shade spun around to see a dark-skinned hunter clothed in many furs pointing a huge, smoking rifle in their direction. Behind him barked four thick-furred dogs, jumping up and down and yapping for all they were worth, but smart enough not to get between hunter and prey. All this Shade took in in less than a second, and he swiftly swung around and yelled, “Kestra, c’mon! Run!”

Kestra didn’t move. Her body was sprawled out on the snow, but her beautiful eyes were still open, boring hard and deep into Shade. A thin trickle of red dripped slowly from the side of her head.

“Kestra!” Shade nudged her with his foot, and recoiled instantly. She wasn’t there.

Another shot split the air, and Shade instinctively jumped away and started running. He gritted his teeth as he felt the bullet graze the back of his neck, and the hunter muttered something obscene.

Shade’s mind was a wildfire, burning with images of what he had just seen and the dim glow of automatic thought settling in around them. Somehow while seeing Kestra’s dead body he could still think, ‘If he follows me, I can’t lead him to the packs.’ He zigged and zagged lest more bullets come his way, and finally threw himself down behind a boulder outside a lonesome cave many miles east of Eagle Pass.

Blood drummed against his skin, and he panted heavily for air and for the ability to erase his memory. His thoughts presented themselves one by one: ‘Kestra’s dead. Those dogs…I could be one of them. Kestra’s dead. It’s my fault; I shouldn’t have said anything. When I go back everyone’s going to say how stupid we were. Kestra said I was the hunter, but we were both the hunted. Kestra…’

Shade closed his eyes, and for the first time let a sob erupt from his chest. Shoulders shaking, he buried his head between his paws and whispered his regret and loss and guilt to the snow. He tried to howl in mourning for Kestra, but his throat was too tight with sobs. He lifted his head to the pale ice-gray sky…and collapsed.

A few days later Shade stood on a stone ledge protruding out from above Eagle Pass. The whistling wind tossed his fur to give the impression of movement, but in reality he stood as still as a statue, leering down at the tundra below. He didn’t even know how long he had been standing there, searching the frozen land with his eyes.

And at last, he saw what he had been waiting for.

A speck in the distance grew larger and larger until Shade could see it for what it truly was: the hunter. Three smaller specks followed him. Shade knew these had to be the hunter’s dogs. He wondered where the fourth hound was. He hoped it had been mauled by a grizzly bear in front of the hunter’s very eyes, or accidentally shot by the hunter’s own gun. If the man cared anything about his dogs, only then would he understand what he had done to Shade.

The hunter moved to the edge of the forest that lay before the mountains and walked along it, his dogs sniffing at his every step. Shade’s eyes narrowed, and a low growl rumbled like thunder inside his throat. His vision sharpened, and his gaze shot through the thick forest to rest on the hunter. The man was still clothed all in animal skins, but a new fur caught Shade’s eye. Around his shoulders the man wore a short cloak. It was furred beautifully, a rich red-brown that, when caught by the light, gleamed with a golden sheen like a thousand tiny pieces of sun.

Shade started to shake. An icy rush of adrenaline burst from the small of his back over his head, through his legs and into the ground beneath him. His heart, so stiff and cold for the past few days, suddenly felt flames of anger heating its surface until it blazed. The knife of grief glided between his ribs and stabbed at the heart, but the pain only added more heat to the flames.

Shade felt the hate swirl over him like a river, nearly losing his mind to it. That was Kestra’s fur. That was Kestra’s skin. They had taken her from him, only to use her as a cheap trophy.

With an anguished cry Shade threw himself towards the ledge, his body burning to rip and tear and take vengeance for Kestra’s spilled blood.

“Shade, no!”

Shade slammed into someone and knocked them to the side. He dug his claws hard into the dirt, leaning dangerously over the ledge and then sinking back.

Remus raised her head to look at him, and the look in her eyes was so shocked and angry and bewildered that Shade had to wonder if they were really brother and sister. She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand his need for avenged blood.

He threw his gaze back down on the hunter. The dogs were sniffing excitedly at the path leading up the mountain pass, and Shade held his breath. The hunter scrutinized the path, sifting the dirt through his fingers, but then he seemed to change his mind and stepped lightly back to the edge of the forest and faded among the trees. One of his dogs whimpered at the unexplored trail, but at an unseen signal all three pulled themselves away and melted into the foliage after their master.

Shade listened until the snap of twigs under boots and paws had died away, and then he felt his shoulders slump. He had missed his chance for revenge. He had missed it…all because of Remus.

A small coal of anger began to burn inside Shade’s chest. It caged his chest, spreading slowly over him until his torso felt trapped in a tight box of hot, bubbling metal. It scorched his skin, plummeting deeper and raising scars and blisters long-buried but not forgotten. He could feel the veins pounding with blood against the metal, the box tightening with every pump of his heart. He could barely breathe. His breaths came faster and shallower as his chest heaved, as once again he saw Kestra’s blood speckling the snow like pieces of a splintered aurora. Her eyes, her lips, her voice, all taken by a single bullet.

He silently groaned as a wave of pain overtook him, but just as quickly that wave twisted into a typhoon of hate. He whirled on Remus, spitting flames of malice. “You always hated her, didn’t you?”

“What?” Remus stammered.

“Kestra! My ‘girlfriend’ I’m ‘kissing up to’, remember? No, of course not, because you never remember anything but things that are important to you! And what are those? Taking control, being the boss of everyone, crawling over others’ backs to save yourself! Well, all you need to get into your head is that I love Kestra! I love her! No, she didn’t love me…So you were right about that! Well, who cares? What matters is that I love her, but now that doesn’t even matter anymore because she’s dead! Dead! And you can’t even get your head around how this feels! You’ve never had this feeling! You have a head and a heart of stone. So could you get it through your head that your stupid little plan is never going to work? There will always be wolf hunters! There will always be someone to kill wolves. We shouldn’t be hiding; we should be getting rid of the threat against us! Killing this hunter will get rid of one more killer so no more wolves end up like Kestra.” His blood was on fire. And with every sharp, flinty word the metal cage loosened a little from his chest. Words left him, and the cage squeezed again, leaving him choking and angrier than ever. He stared straight into his sister’s eyes and raged, “So what’s it going to be, Miss Queen of the World? Either way, you’re history!”

Sweat flecked his heaving sides as he breathed heavily, his eyes flashing like dull gold. The metal cage had fallen away, leaving only a hard, hot iron ball lying heavy inside his chest. He thought he rather liked the feeling, but then he couldn’t feel anything.

Remus stared at him, her eyes searching for he knew not what. The coppery scent of blood pricked his nostrils, and he watched as she reached up to wipe away the scarlet trickle from the side of her mouth. He had hurt her when he had pushed her out of the way. Normally he would have felt shame, but now he could only watch impassively.

She hesitantly pushed herself to her paws and then slowly padded over to the path leading down the mountain, keeping her eyes on Shade the whole time. She raised a paw as if to stumble back down to Eagle Pass, but when she turned her head she lowered her eyes and said quietly, “I didn’t know you…felt that for Kestra. I just thought it was something you guys did for fun. I’m sorry.” Her white cheek was smeared with red. “I’m sorry, Shade,