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David...

Released into his heart shape. The scent was effortless to follow. Even the stink of the black van couldn’t erase the path the four men had taken. The burn of their specific tires was so fresh it made his skin itch. The path split to the left when they reached a fork in the country road. Jeremiah had it as well. David planned to reach her before those bastards turned their thoughts back to their captive wolf. With each stride he took, he picked up speed, stretching his body out and chasing the thick and pungent ribbons of scent. They might lead him to Blossom. He’d run as many miles as he needed to.

David smelled her fear before he saw the small caretaker’s cabin. They’d been keeping her less than two miles from the grand house. The wind ripped past him, pulling heat from his body, keeping him strong. He didn’t care if they had left guards around her. These evil Sheep would fall. David’s mouth was hungry, his claws sharp. If he and his ring brother died to rescue his friend, they would sing to their son from the afterlife. They would walk in his shadow, guiding every arrow and thrown rock. A thousand skips across the lake. A blessed child. A lucky boy.

When he burst through the front door, Jeremiah was right behind him. David had expected blows, or the stinging burn and hurt of bullets, but the place was a hallmark card, plush couches, fire merrily at war with the air conditioning. He tasted the air and sank his claws into the floorboards. There was blood, lots of it. They had her under the floor, and he had no time or patience to find the trapdoor. The wood splintered, cracking wildly. Jeremiah joined him with his massive dense body, pulling apart the flooring like a child digging in his mother’s garden. They dropped through into the starkly lit room.

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When he saw the amount of blood on her, his heart shuddered. She threw her body toward the front of her cage. Jeremiah gripped the back of his shirt as he headed forward without thinking. The camera was on. This was being recorded. Jeremiah picked the camera up and the last thing the viewers on the dark web saw was the interior of the room and the flash of their own names on the screen, not their oh-so-protective online aliases, but their actual names and addresses.

*

Kennedy…

Time fractured, and the night had become a separate space, the three of them held. As she watched the yellow-orange flame dance high into the sky, she tasted transformation. When she turned her head, she saw Red roll back into his pain. He cloaked himself in his burden and stood. In the moonlight, his deeply scarred body had an indescribable beauty. He limped as he walked toward a fallen tree trunk, as wide as his palm and five or six feet long. Terry stood as his ring brother approached the fire. Terry held up his hand.

Red’s voice held fatigue and sorrow. “I am sorry, you are her son. She deserves a woman’s hand to begin her journey, but my miserable self will do.” He bowed his head. “You cannot do this part. No mother wishes her child to break her bones.”

Kennedy pushed herself up from the dirt, body split into fire orange and black, and the night’s cold blue. She reached out her hand. “Give it to me.”

“You aren’t strong enough. You don’t understand.”

A place in her soul settled, and she straitened herself. Belly marked with swirls of black, breasts streaked with lines, she felt every bit of who she was. The center of her singing bones told her she was up to this task. She opened her hand wide, and the gesture held no question or softness in it. It was a command. Red hesitated, but only a moment, and placed the heavy section of wood into her hand. She gripped it and felt the strength in her body. She had never tested her power or pushed herself to her limits. Heavy, the length of wood pulled toward the earth, but she insisted it move toward the fire instead. Gripping the length with both hands, she raised it high over her head, and slammed the blunted end deep into the fire, splintering wood and bone both.