shifting.
Subconsciously brushing her fingertips over the spot where the implant lay just under the skin of her upper left arm, Avery recalled the visceral reaction that had fired off from both herself and her wolf the second she laid eyes on Chase again.
The moment she stepped into Roxy's diner, it was all she could you not to lunge at him, pressing her body against his, sink her teeth into his shoulder. He was just sitting there sprawled out in the diner booth, his big body eating up all the space around him. That same ash blonde hair, chiseled jaw, his frame still built with thick layers of muscle that strained the simple navy T-shirt that he wore.
And those eyes… She couldn't have forgotten them if she'd wanted to. That verdant splash of green that spoke of wild things rustling in the Amazonian undergrowth, secret gardens tucked away behind high gated walls, a brilliant ribbon of emerald that called to Aubrey and her wolf on the deepest level.
For just a moment, Avery was suspended, existing in a vacuum where there was no question of right or wrong, nothing existing in the entire world except her and Chase.
She’d stepped closer to him, and the perfect moment broke like a bubble popping. Avery was left with an ache in her heart before she even slid into the booth. That was what Chase did to her.
Later that night, Avery had lain awake on her bunk for hours, parsing the entire interaction. Back when she first been attacked, the Hunter scientists gave her a great deal of information about werewolves. Everything from the ideal diet to their hunting practices to the rich background of myths and truths about the rise of shifters in the Greco-Roman era. Avery was to shellshocked at the time to take much of it in, but now one phrase stuck out in her mind strongly.
Fated mates . Wolves were intended to find their ideal partner just after their late teens, according to the Hunter scientists. They asked Avery a thousand questions about all of her ex-boyfriend and sexual exploits, trying to determine who hers might be. Even back then when she was still on the thrall of her father and uncle, Avery refused to say a word about it. The last thing she needed was them dragging in every boy she'd ever kissed in college, turning them into werewolves in some twisted attempt to find Avery's other half.
That was the beginning of the end of her trust in the Hunters. That was when she started to doubt, when she opened her eyes and saw the true nature of her uncle and the other Hunter commanders. Her father's death only made her feel more certain about it, freed her to start planning the Hunters’ downfall.
Fated mates . The phrase rang in her mind again, as much a temptation as a distraction. This silly to even be thinking about it really, since she didn't expect to live through the week once she launched her attack on the Hunters. Even with Chase and his friends backing her plan, the odds of survival were desperately low.
If she did somehow make it out alive, unless she killed every single Hunter, unless she ended her uncle's life with her own hands, she'd have to run. Change her identity, walk into the sunset, never return. It was the loneliest of fates, but it was better than looking over her shoulder her whole life, never being able to make friends or even take a lover without knowing she was putting them in terrible danger.
The metallic squawk of the bunk room’s front door swinging open made her jump, the stamp of soldiers boots dragging Avery's gaze up from the floor.
"You have to come with us," an unfamiliar man said to her, his hand resting on a firearm at his waist. Five more soldiers flanked him, a testament to just how scared the Hunters really were of her kind. Six big guys just to escort her across the Compound, though she'd walked right in here yesterday of her own volition?
"Of course." Avery wasn't about to put up a fight. She saw that smug satisfaction on the men's faces, and part of her wanted to laugh. The