My first impulse is to run away, to hide from the hideous face I know so well. The child inside me feels pure fear, aching and absolute in its simplicity. But the woman I've become, the free were I am now, refuses to back down or to show Andre Dumont even a scrap of anxiety.

My wolf howls in my heart, her need to shred his throat in our teeth, to drink of his blood, and to bathe in the gore as he dies adds to the shaking of my hands. I'm forced ...