Pain. All she could feel was pain--immeasurable, all-consuming pain that radiated all through her body, from the tips of her fingers and toes to the top of her head. As much as she wanted to go on, to continue, there was nothing more she could do. Having already fallen to the ground, in utter exhaustion, she found her will was not enough to lift her agonizing body up off of the leaf covered forest floor. Her eyes wouldn’t even open, so how in the world could she possibly manage to get her disagreeable limbs to push up from her prone position and continue on her way. No, she wasn’t going anywhere.As she lay there, darkness overcoming her, the wind stirring what was left of her cropped, dark hair, the idea that she couldn’t quite recall what she was running from came to mind. All she could remember was that she was afraid, deathly afraid, and having seen an opportunity to run, she’d done exactly that. Now, having fallen more times than she could count, striking her head on a tree trunk

August stepped outside with his three Omegas and his Beta, Beaux, so that they could tell him more about what had happened. He did his best to listen, but his mind kept going back to the woman inside of the Health Center. She looked so frail, so weak. His mother was a talented healer, and if anyone could find a way to help the girl, it was Isabella, but she was so broken, as his mother had said, she just might neve wake up.“She was just lying there, you know?” Grant was saying. “So still. I thought she was dead.”“She wasn’t moving at all,” Sidney reiterated. “It was frightening.”“We had to shift to get her back here,” Ronnie continued. “We found some clothes in a narrowed out hollow tree and shifted so we could carry her back. If she’d been even a little bit conscious, we might’ve been able to get her on one of our backs, but we were afraid she’d fall off.”August nodded. All of that made sense. “Why don’t you guys show me where you found her?” he suggested.“Sure. We need to get b

Voices she did not recognize met her ears well before her eyes would cooperate. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but she knew there were people nearby, at least two of them. One sounded like a woman, kind and caring, something she didn’t have a lot of experience with. The other was a younger person. Maybe a child. Or a teenaged girl? As her mind began to clear, the words became easier to understand.“Let her rest, and hopefully, she’ll be able to tell us something soon,” the older woman was saying.“I’ll change her bandages again in an hour or so,” said the other.Her eyes flickered open, finally, and a bright light filtered through her eyelashes. She wasn’t sure, but this place seemed unfamiliar. But then… everything seemed unfamiliar. Her body didn’t hurt any more, so that was something. Still, wherever her eyes landed, strangeness surrounded her in a way that made her heart rate increase.It was then that the older woman, who was standing at the foot of the bed ne

AugustAugust pushed through the door of the Health Center, coming as soon as his mother had let him know that the girl was awake and talking. He’d been in such a rush to get over to see her, he hadn’t let Isabella tell him much. For some reason he couldn't explain, the urge to see her for himself had compelled him to hang up the phone and jump up from his desk. Now, he did his best to slow his steps as he walked into the room, trying not to look like he was in such a rush, even though his heart was hammering in his chest.The curtain around the bed was pulled back so that as soon as he stepped through the door, his eyes met the large blue ones staring at him from across the room. Her black hair stuck out around her pale face, and an inquisitive expression let him know she wasn’t sure what to think of him. His mother was standing at the foot of the bed, a smile on her face.Words lodged in his throat as he wasn’t sure who to speak to first or what to say. The girl set a bowl and spoon

AugustSitting alone in his office until late in the night, August did some research on surrounding packs, which was difficult because most of the Alphas and their families didn’t post their business on social media for everyone in the world to see. For the most part, shifters tended to keep to themselves, completely cut off from the human world. That being said, there were some younger members of the packs who kept up on that sort of thing. It was a crime punishable by death to post any information to the outside world about the existence of shifters, so no one would be foolish enough to post anything about what they were, but some of the teens and young adults posted pictures of themselves and their friends on social media apps.August turned his computer on and flipped through a few of the apps, looking for pictures that were readily accessible to anyone. Some of them, he searched by hashtags he thought might be relevant to the youth of the surrounding packs. The rest of the world