Brody stared out at the rocky beach from the inside of his tiny eight by eight cell unsure if he'd last another day in this hell hole.
If this is what it felt like to live with multiple personalities then those afflicted had his sympathy because this shit sucked.
His security detail kept calling him feral and he was sick and tired of hearing that too.
Several of the pack assured him he'd only be held until they were certain he wasn't a danger. But he knew better. In the midst of his frenzy he'd bitten an innocent girl. She survived, but that situation did not bode well for him.
Not that he blamed them.
He spent his whole life hating and hunting down shapeshifters without understanding anything.
Shifters called the hunters fanatics, where Brody simply called them family. Now, forced to walk in their skin it was easy to see just how narrow-minded he had been.
A growl escaped him.
For a minute, the scent of a mate had given him hope. The disappearance of that scent, however, had created a monster.
According to the pack, his frenzy should have ended with mating season. Only it didn't.
Weeks had passed and he still wanted to tear down the walls and go on a hunt. Except he had no clue where to start.
The beautiful brown-haired girl he'd found on the beach had disappeared.
After first scenting her in wolf form, he'd tracked her for miles before finally coming upon her sitting on the beach.
Night had fallen and the golden glow of her campire cast an ethereal aura around her. Instead of shifting and approaching her, he'd chosen to sit on his haunches and watch her from afar.
He'd simply wanted to savor the moment.
He couldn't see the color of her eyes and had no idea what her name was, but in the soft light with the cool breeze blowing through his fur, none of that mattered.
Listening to her laugh with her scent wrapping around him calmed the chaos raging inside him. For the first time in weeks he'd felt at peace.
Of course he'd waited too long. By the time he was ready to talk to her, she'd disappeared into her tent.
He'd taken cover in the tree line for the night and laid down in the grass and fell asleep.
When he woke she was gone. He'd lost his mate.
Brody pulled his gaze back from the beach, dropped to the floor, and began doing push ups. Since he couldn't run free, he was forced to do calisthenics to ease some of the energy overloading his system.
It didn't exactly work. But it made him almost civil so, he continued to do it.
He wasn't thinking about anything beyond the determination to keep going so the new scent from the open window slammed into him unexpectedly.
Brody dropped and rolled, his hands ripping at the pants that confined his shift.
It couldn't be.
Before he registered what was happening claws tore at his zipper and he barely got the denim off his legs before bones popped and fur sprouted across his body.
He jumped on the window and inhaled deep, sticking his snout through the bars. It was there. The unmistakable scent.
The wolf clawed at the walls.
He scratched and scraped until his forearms ached and his claws were worn down to the quick.
"Brody, what the hell are you doing?"
