Chapter 1

She lay curled up on her side on the cold, grimy floor, naked, shaking and shivering occasionally. Her torturers were gone and she still quivered from the onslaught of their blows. Blood pulsed sluggishly through her veins and she felt the electric hum of dormant power beneath her fingertips.

Her torturers were getting careless. It'd been almost a week since her last shot of intravenous silver and she could feel the drowsy stirring of her sleeping wolf. She grimaced. Her jaw ached from being broken several times and healing far too slowly without the help of her wolf.

She took in a deep breath and perceived the sharp tang of residual silver on the torture instruments, the metallic scent of her blood, and the antiseptic smell of raw salt scattered all over every surface, the floor included. The salt served a dual purpose of burning fiendishly on her open wounds and leaving no room for infection.

Today was the day, she thought. The pack had a visitor. She'd heard from a loquacious guard saying too much. That was probably why they had been too distracted to pay much attention to her torture. A distraction that she would utilize to free herself.

Groaning, she placed her palm hard against the salted floor and pushed herself up to a slightly sitting position. The movement jangled the silver cuffs on her wrists and the smell of sizzling flesh filled the room.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed around in the back of her mind, looking for that throb of power that she so desperately needed. Her hands fisted as brute strength coursed through her, breaking her wrist cuffs with one tug. She bared her now elongated canines and morphed into some sort of wolf-human hybrid, that being the closest she could come to shifting. Her wolf-like ears twitched, listening for any signal that she was heard. When she found nothing, she proceeded to rip off the ankle cuffs that bound her feet, ignoring the silver burns on both her ankles, wrists, and paw-like hands.

Her heart beat at twice the usual rate, and adrenaline reluctantly pulsed through her veins. She could hear the bustling of the packing house above her and slowly got to her feet. She knew this place like the back of her hands. If she could somehow get out of this basement and out of the house without being seen, she was certain she could make a run for it.

Suddenly, she felt a pounding in her head, and a ringing in her ears. Her eyesight dimmed, reducing to pinpoints of focus. Her whole body shook uncontrollably and she wondered what luck had made her have an episode now. She couldn't complain though. She could only use this as a means of escape.

Doing something she had never done before, she tuned in to the strange electric hum she felt, drawing in the power. It seemed to s*ck energy right out of her environment and into her. She glowed like a fluorescent light bulb, suddenly feeling as though the months of endless torture had never happened. Using this strange power came naturally to her. She didn't need to move, only focused on what she wanted. The door blasted outwards, with the force and noise of a windstorm, crashing against the opposite wall and splintering into a million different pieces. She smiled. Her broken jaw was completely healed now and she felt no trouble with it.

Alpha Marcus was an arrogant man. He was also a pervert. It was his perverted nature that made him have his basement soundproofed. Adrienne had no doubt that the crash she had made would not be heard by the inhabitants of the floors above. Her only problem was the guards standing right outside.

She walked almost leisurely out the ruined doorway, the salt and remnants of silver not even giving more than the barest of stings on her bare, bruised feet. One of the guards was already unconscious and bleeding, no doubt as a result of her power blast. The other guard looked at her glowing body in fear. She saw his eyes begin to fog over and immediately reached out with her mind. Twisting tendrils of light shot out from her and seeped into his eyes, making them fall shut. He immediately fell with a thud, stone-cold knocked out. She stepped over him, not even blinking. Somehow, she wasn't herself, but she didn't feel possessed. This was a part of her that she'd never seen, never allowed to bloom, always suppressing it in the hopes that she wouldn't feel so alienated from the rest of the pack members. Now, it came to her rescue, where even her wolf couldn't. Her instincts led her to a barely used way that led right into the woods that she didn't even know existed. Her steps were light and swift against the rough wood floors.

All was silent and the only light in the dark passageway was from her. Now that she had time to study it somewhat, she saw that it ran in snaking tendrils like curled vines all over her skin and glowed in a bright but fading golden light. As her light faded, so did her sudden burst of strength. The passageway was long and now, she occasionally stumbled and her glow flickered with each breath. Finally, she saw a far-off light that she knew was sunlight. That seemed to give her tired body a fresh burst of hope and energy.

She staggered towards her freedom, her power supply finally out. Excruciating pain from her various wounds seemed to come back doubled.

So they weren't healed completely, she thought. They were only numbered. The ringing in her ears resumed, temporarily impairing her hearing, which was why it took her a while to actually hear the sounds of pursuit coming from far back.

They were after her.

With her last reserves of strength that shouldn't have been present, she raced through the passageway, out into the blinding light of the sun and tore through the woods at an alarming pace for someone in her condition. She heard the sounds of pursuit getting louder and continued plunging blindly into thick underbrush that grabbed at her, poking thorny fingers everywhere, and making fresh blood run.

She ran like her life depended on it - which it did, dodging little rocks in her way, and leaping over low branches that threatened to trip her. She was fast, but no match for the pursuers, who were slow, were at least healthy, and she knew that. She had to leave the packed land, and fast. They wouldn't dare follow her uninvited to another pack lands and risk getting caught. It meant she was going rogue, but she couldn't care less, as anything was better than waiting for your death painfully.

A gunshot rang out behind her and she could only gasp as a silver bullet embedded itself into a tree trunk right next to her as she sped past it. Her feet were bleeding from stepping on thorns and her vision was blurring. Finally, she ran past a line of trees and felt the lines that bound her to the pack cut loose. She was free. Not stopping to breathe, she continued her excruciating journey that was now no more than stumbling and staggering in any direction that wasn't backwards until she felt warmth under her feet. Looking down, she saw she was on granite, no longer dirt and dead leaves. A road. She swayed. The world was spinning, and spinning fast.

She heard a low hum, and the squeal of brakes. A car. The door opened and the driver rushed out, yelling in alarm. She couldn't make out the words, only saw his mouth move. She was falling. Her eyes remained open as she hit the ground, the harsh contact barely jarring her, so far gone she was. She saw a face loom over hers, one she didn't recognize, meaning he wasn't from her pack, and forced her mouth to work, even if her voice wouldn't.

"Help."