As soon as she heard the keys jingling, Zoe knew this was her chance. But they were lycans, so she had to be careful and wait for just the right moment…

One of them came into the cell and approached her. She could feel him getting closer without needing to rely on her eyes to confirm it.

“Wyatt, come see if she is breathing,” the male with the deep Alpha voice said. He sounded nervous, and it took a considerable amount of self-restraint to keep from smiling at that realization.

“Well is her chest movin or not?” the elderly male asked, shuffling inside of the cell.

Zoe focused on what she knew she was capable of, having thrown Zagan around at the Hallowell pack house and even keeping him down and away from Lucas… if she could do that to a vampire, then she could do it with these two. She just couldn’t use up all of her energy, because she still needed it to run and figure out how to get out of here. Hopefully she could remember the land well enough to navigate herself out of it, but having been locked up most of the time that she was here, it was going to take a miracle.

“Her eyes are movin,” Wyatt said, bending over her.

“What do you mean her eyes are moving? They’re closed,” Kane growled. Putting up with this old male was taking all of his patience tonight.

“I mean they’re movin,” Wyatt answered, turning to face his Alpha whose face was obscured by the fire he was carrying. “Don’t your eyes work? Why do you have that torch anyway?”

When Wyatt looked back down at the young female, her eyes were now open staring at him. He jumped back in surprise, and Zoe’s face contorted with the effort it took to throw both of these grown males against the craggy walls. They flew in opposite directions, her arms wide as she used her hands to focus the energy she sent to throw them off of their feet. And then, taking advantage of their surprise and confusion, she jumped up and ran out of the open cell door.

She was barefoot, and the jagged rock of the mountain was cutting into her feet, but she barely felt it. All of her senses were focused on finding her way out of the cave and down the mountain. Her dress caught on one particularly sharp rock, and she groaned with the effort to free it, tearing it in the process.

Snarls came from behind her as she heard the males shifting into their wolves, and then the breath in her lungs grew shallower and her feet went faster knowing that they were in pursuit. She wasn’t going back to that cell. This wasn’t her pack anymore. This wasn’t her home. This had never been her home.

The sound of rushing water caught her attention, and she veered off the forest path she was on to try to find it, sliding down a steep, rocky embankment with the sound of growls and snarls getting closer behind her. A small whimper escaped her lips when she heard how close they were. Her desperation to escape was so great. She was free, and she wasn’t going back.

‘They are not going to catch me. They are not going to catch me. They are not going to catch me,’ she repeated in her mind. She was not going to be taken prisoner by this pack again.

She sprinted forward to finally reach the rushing water that now sounded so close, but then there was no more earth to take her there—the ground fell away at the edge of a small cliff, and she was reeling backward using her arms for balance to keep from falling forward. The dark mountain river was there below her glittering in the moonlight, but it was a huge drop. It was such a huge drop.

The two male wolves appeared above her, eyes fierce and hungry. And that’s when she jumped—without even a second thought. It would be better to die from this fall toward her freedom than to be caught.

The fall was so free and empowering. She was in control of where she was headed for quite possibly the first time ever. And then the ice cold water hit, taking her under and rolling her like a rag doll in its current.

Alpha Kane saw Zoe jump and the current take her. She would be lucky to survive those rapids, but he knew exactly where they were headed and he sprinted back to the path cutting through the forest to intercept her before she got to the waterfall further down.

It was Samhain. It was a full moon. What did an alyko reappearing in one of their old mountain cells foretell about the dark winter ahead for Kane’s pack? This was not a good omen, especially if the girl died when the vampire’s team was already on the way here to retrieve her. That would not go over well. It might be worse if they simply lost her, though, so Kane pounded the earth on all fours to make it downstream as quickly as he could to try to cut her off.

Zoe couldn’t tell up from down as the rapids took her, and her whole body went almost instantly numb from the freezing temperature. But somehow she was able to right herself and find the life-sustaining night air above the surface of the water. She gasped for breath, trying to paddle with her numb arms, but it was nearly impossible to move them.

When she was taken underwater once again, swallowing water instead of air, she realized this was probably going to be it—she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move her limbs. She wasn’t going to survive this. And there was one regret that flashed through her mind—having helped plot against the alyko. If she could survive to do just one last thing, it would be to help free them.

She took in another mouthful of water, and this time she stopped struggling. The river seemed to realize when she gave up, taking her as an offering, pulling her down and whipping her around with its unseen force. And it was so loud. It sounded like it was speaking to her.

‘Ne-OM-ah. Ne-OM-ah. Ne-OM-ah. NE-OM-AH.’

Kane was closing in on the river, and he saw the limp body of the alyko being tossed around and pulled under. He growled and lunged forward when she was finally within reach, aiming to retrieve her with his teeth. But somehow, all he came out with was a wet muzzle. His teeth clamped down on nothing but the river.. He shook his head free of the water and looked around, eyes narrowing on the dark rapids that rushed past. Had she just… vanished?