CHAPTER 4

Brock threw himself towards Heather as the room and everything in it spun around them with rapidly increasing speed, but just as he made a grab for her, she screamed as she was sucked back into a black void that had opened up behind her.

"Noooooo!" he yelled as her fingertips brushed his. She was gone before he could get a grip on her. He threw his hands out in front of him to catch himself as he hit the floor, but his body paused, hovering in midair as the world around him changed direction. Something grabbed him from behind, the force of it bending his body at the waist as he was sucked back the opposite way.

His hair blew around his head, obstructing his view. Not that there was much to see. Tumbling head over heels, he careened through the abyss, trying to catch his breath as the cold air whipped around him. It was like he'd gotten sucked into the middle of a black hole.

After what seemed like hours but was more likely only seconds, he felt gravity take hold, pulling him in the opposite direction as he sped through the blackness. He panicked and his wolf howled, responding to the adrenalin flooding through him. Throwing his arms and legs straight out, he settled into a free-fall and allowed the change to take him without fighting it. If anything had a chance of surviving this, it was his wolf.

He roared as his bones shifted inside of him in mid-air, reforming and resetting. His skin stretched and his muscles tore and healed as they grew into his new shape. Sun-tipped fur sprang out in sparse tufts until it covered his entire body.

The change complete, he opened his eyes just in time to see the ground rushing up at him. He hit hard, unprepared, the earth cracking beneath him

with the force of his landing. Tumbling over and over until he slowed enough to come up on all fours, he dropped back down into a defensive crouch and bared his dagger-like teeth in a snarl, prepared for anything. His eyes skittered this way and that, but he couldn't see much through the thick fog that rolled over the ground.

Still keeping a wary eye, he lowered his head and sniffed. He smelled pine and dirt and decaying insects. Around him, all he saw were the ghostly silhouettes of evergreens. It was eerily quiet. He heard no birds, no animals, no rustling of the trees. Nothing.

What the hell was he supposed to do here? And where was Heather?

As if in answer to his unspoken question, a scrap of paper floated to the ground in front of him.

Brock snarled and reared up onto his hind legs. He spun around in a tight circle, looking for the one who'd dropped the note, but he could perceive no immediate threat. With one last cautious sniff at the air, he began to change back to his human form. He didn't make a sound, more in control of the process this time in spite of the pain. When it was finished, he caught his breath and bent down and picked up the paper. Pushing his hair back off his face, he read the elegant script on the page.

"Find the girl and return to where you started. You have five days."

He looked around again, and then glanced down at himself. His clothes had been ripped to shreds on his way down. He could see a few pieces of material hanging from the tree branches, while the rest lay strewn across the ground like the remnants of a plane crash. What was he supposed to do? Just run around naked? Personally, he could really care less about his nudity, but it may disturb anyone else he happened to run into.

He heard a small thud behind him and he turned to find a golden coin lying on the ground, identical to the one the prince had thrown.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

He stared at it for long seconds, took a step towards it, and then changed his mind. Leaning his head back, he yelled to the sky, "Can't I just have some clothes?"

The coin gleamed with an odd light from its spot in the grass, even with no sun. Brock stared at it some more, paced back and forth a few times without taking his eyes from it, and then stopped in front of it again.

Well, might as well see what the fuck this was all about. Somehow, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to get away with not tossing the

stupid coin. Picking it up, he tossed it high. As it began to fall back towards him, he shouted, "Tails!" Catching the coin, he flipped it over onto the back of his opposite hand.

An etching of a pine tree stared back at him. It was tails.

Something landed behind him and he spun around to find a pair of camouflage cargo pants, a black tee shirt, thick-soled combat boots, and some heavy socks all wrapped in a sheet of plastic.

Tearing it open, he got dressed. He waited a few minutes to see if anything else was going to fall, but apparently, this was all he was going to get. He tucked the note and the coin into his pocket.

This was like a bad game of the Alice in Wonderland sort. He didn't have a fucking clue where to start searching for Heather, or how to find his way back here once he found her. And this fog was so thick, he couldn't see more than ten or fifteen feet in front of him.

But he did know that he would be no good to anyone if he didn't cover the basics. So first, he needed to find water, and food.

Picking up a few pieces of his destroyed shirt, he tore off a small strip and tied a marker to one of the tree branches to his right. Then he repeated the process on a tree on his left to mark the spot where he'd landed. The crack in the ground would be his third clue. He shoved the rest in his pocket and set off in no particular direction.

He'd been walking for a few hours when he heard what he'd been hoping for: The sound of trickling water. Veering off to the right, he topped a small rise and saw a small stream dead ahead. It wasn't much, but it would do.

Like any animal, he knew that if there were one place he would run into trouble, it would be approaching a water source without checking for others who were doing the same thing. So he tied a strip of material to a branch to mark the spot where he’d veered from his trail, but stuck to the trees for a few minutes, watching and listening. When he was sure the coast was clear, he cautiously left his cover.

He looked around carefully one more time before dropping to his knees and cupping his hands in the icy water. Taking a small sip, he let it run over his tongue and then spit it out, waiting for any possible ill effects. After a minute or two, he still felt fine, so he drank in earnest this time, then splashed some cold water on his face.

Deciding to stay near the water source as he had nothing to carry it in, he followed it downstream until it started to get dark. He found a clump of trees that would provide some shelter, stripped off his clothes, and left them folded neatly against one of the trunks.

He needed to hunt and find some food.

Even in wolf form, it took him another few hours to find a small animal. He wasn't even sure what it was, but it appeared to be edible. Taking it back to his shelter, he hunkered down for the night with his meal. The temperature had dropped, and he debated turning back and putting his clothes back on, but decided against it. He'd be better able to defend himself in his current form if any type of danger stumbled upon him during the night.

Not for the first time that day, a familiar feeling of loneliness swept over him. He had no idea how he was supposed to find Heather. He'd been tromping through this God-forsaken place all day. All he'd seen were pine trees, fog, and the stream. This animal he'd caught was the first warm- blooded creature he'd come across, and he'd had to dig it out of a burrow.

Hell, he didn't even know if he was going the right way. Or if Heather was even really here, wherever the fuck "here" was. Or if she was the "girl" he was supposed to find. He assumed so, but who knew with all the shit that was going on?

He wondered, again, who this guy was that had sent him here. One thing was for sure: The dude had to be some kind of powerful witch to pull off something like this, and Brock hated witches. They gave him the creeps, and he tried like hell to avoid them. It was no wonder he'd made his skin crawl.

But that prince…that prince had seemed vaguely familiar to him, like he’d met him somewhere before, but he didn’t see how that could’ve happened. He shook his head, ruffling his fur. Nah, there was no way he could know him. Yet, for some reason, he was positive that he did.

Tired and frustrated, he laid his head on his pile of clothing and tried to get some sleep.