He swallowed before replying in a low voice, “Isolation. Separation.”

I took a moment to absorb his words, even as I examined his face, studying every flicker of emotion that crossed it. His jaw was tight, and he looked like he was trying to steady his breathing.

“Creatures like me,” he went on, “we are not meant to be separated from our pack, least of all our families.”

Understanding dawned on me. In a time when his entire world had collapsed around him, the very foundations of his life had been shaken and all that he loved had been stripped from him… what did a man such as Bastien have to cling to? What mechanisms did a werewolf, an inherently social creature, employ to cope?

He’d watched his family murdered, and he’d been beaten and locked up in a cage. Then I’d appeared from nowhere and freed him. And when he’d heard my scream on arriving at the other side of the portal, he had been called to help me because he’d seen me as an ally. A friend. Someone he could trust where he’d had none other. As a wolf, he appeared to have an inbuilt need for connection, companionship, however weak or useless or even burdensome that companion might be. And I… I was serving that need for him.

I cleared my throat. “Well, thank you,” I said. “You’re a, uh, very caring person.” Ugh. That sounded so lame.

“Perhaps I have my mother to thank for that,” he murmured.

Before he could sink too much into melancholy again at the thought of his mother, I asked with a smile, “And what about your climbing skills? Where did you get those?”

His eyes warmed. “Not all werewolves have that skill, you know,” he said, a boyish grin spreading across his face.

I didn’t doubt that. Our werewolves in The Shade could climb, but certainly not with the skill and agility that Bastien could.

“Would you like to know something about my childhood?” Bastien asked, leaning back against the wall of the cave, eyeing me.

“Yes,” I replied. I truly was interested.

“I was very different from every other werewolf my age,” he said. “While they shifted between man and wolf, I remained always stuck as a wolf. Indeed, I was born as a wolf—something that is practically unheard of in The Woodlands.”

“So you came out of your mother as a furry, baby wolf?”

He nodded, still grinning. “My parents were both shocked and devastated. They feared I was deformed and might never become a man.”

“And you were stuck as a wolf for how long?”

“I was a wolf all throughout my childhood. I couldn’t shift until I turned fifteen—in wolf years, that is. When I did manage it, I was able to shift at will.”

“Why is that?” I asked, staring at him in astonishment.

“I was simply a fluke of nature, according to my parents… I’ve always been the wildest of my siblings. Being a beast throughout my formative years, when I finally managed to shift it came as a shock. It felt so unnatural. So restrictive.”

“Restrictive?” Thinking back to his Tarzan moves, I would hardly say that.

“Well, it was to me,” he said. “It was the strangest thing to be unable to feel the ground beneath four feet. I missed the speed, the wild abandon of racing through the meadows at speeds only a wolf could. When I shifted to a man, I needed to find other ways to feel wild. Other ways to release my energy.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Releasing energy is something you seem to excel at.”

He smiled impishly, running a hand down the back of his head.

“You’re different, Bastien,” I concluded. “And I like that about you.”

And even if we never see each other again after tomorrow, I thought with a twinge in my chest, I hope you won’t ever change.

Victoria

Bastien’s mood grew heavier and sadder as the night wore on. And I knew why. I felt worse than ever at the thought of abandoning him. But I had to remind myself that I had other responsibilities. I had my family to think about. Maybe once I managed to make it back to The Shade and reunite with them, I could persuade the League to lend a hand to the werewolves to try to lessen their plight caused by the hunters. I didn’t know how that would all work out with the governments once the hunters found out we were trying to work against them, but nobody in The Shade would stand for what was going on here. My parents wouldn’t, and my uncle, Derek, certainly wouldn’t. These thoughts were the only way I could comfort myself as we left the cave at the first signs of morning.

Gathering up the satchel and the belt, Bastien dutifully clambered down the mountainside with me on his back and re-entered the woods. The journey passed quickly this time—perhaps because I had so much on my mind. It was certainly the first time I could make such an observation since arriving in The Woodlands.

The shore came into view, another pebble beach, though much longer than the one where Bastien and his pack had their hideout. As we emerged onto it, leaving the shelter and shadows of the trees, we looked around cautiously. Bastien looked left and right, up and down the shore, while I scanned the skies for mutants. Or maybe even helicopters. God knew what else these hunters had brought through the portal.

So far, so good. The coast seemed clear. He began to run again, bolder now, along the beach.

“How do you even know about this gate?” I asked him.

“My older brother was the one to discover it,” he replied. “This one is less known to other werewolves than the one that the hunters have occupied…”