It was a long walk to the field where the wedding was being held; navigating the trees, thick bushes and vines, and along rocky drops and hills. The path was rough, and even I tripped a few times and needed to lean on Andrew for support along a few sections. The man was patient, somehow tripping less than me by a small margin as we made our way slowly downhill, following the river.

  “So, probably too late to ask this, but are there any, like, Purist manner things I should be familiar with?” Andrew asked as we half-slid down a muddy slope, sounding a bit nervous by the thought. “Like, I’m not going to ask, ‘so what do you get for fun’ and have someone rip my head off, right?”

  “Just, don’t start a fight,” I said, trying to think of how else to phrase it, before realizing that was too vague. “You know what, how about you just stick with me? I’ll keep you safe — if anyone’s going to attack us they’ll go for me first.”

  “Because you left them?” Andrew asked, catching on immediately to my meaning.

  “I’m an honored guest, and if anyone asks we’re in the same pack,” I told him, nodding as I climbed over a fallen log, “by the Right of the Pack: any honor extended to one member of a pack is extended to all other members in equal measure. That means while I’m protected you are too. The problem is, Purists aren’t supposed to be allowed to leave, and I’m technically supposed to be on a sort of ‘convert at first asking or kill’ list. If it makes you feel better they’ll probably just eat my heart though, if they do try anything.”

  “Oh, only eat your heart,” Andrew muttered with a shake of his head, “yay, why what else would they have done?”

  I considered not answering for his own good, before I also decided the warning would do him some good. With a small noise of hesitation, I explained, “traditionally someone leaving the purists is tied to a tree by their entrails, and hammered in place by iron spikes with their mouth sewn shut and a silver collar around their neck to prevent transforming. They’re then left there for two weeks, before you start offering to let them return to the Purists every day. If after four weeks they have not been killed by wild animals taking their head, or they don’t return to the fold, they are released. You’re given twelve hours to heal, after which you must escape Purist territory while being hunted by every Purist in the region.”

  “Yeah that’s fucked up,” the man admitted, nodding slowly at my description, “that doesn’t extend to the Right of the Pack does it?”

  “Traditionally, yes,” I admitted, hearing the man let out a small “ah” even as the field came into view, “look alive, stay close to me. If I tell you I forgot anything in the truck it means sneak off with me into the woods and we run as fast as we can out of here.”

  Andrew looked ready to ask more, and I ignored him as we stepped out into the wedding area.

  The wedding was held in a nearby clearing, where once an abandoned farm had stood and now had long since been abandoned. Most of the fencing was long gone and removed, even their holes filled in, and nothing had grown or been tended there in at least five decades. The old rancher home had long ago burned down and been abandoned, and the barn was only not at risk from collapsing due to years of halfway fixes. Outside of that building a gathering of a dozen coolers of beer had been set up, and four whole wild hogs roasted over bonfires as a few people lazily tended to them.

  Around forty werewolves stood in the field, from all around the state and probably beyond, all in various states of dress and form. Some wore full clothes in various levels of wear and tear, some walked around in just well-torn pants or nothing at all, and even others stayed in their wolf forms. I recognized only a small handful of those there, and neither Wounder nor Hunter were in sight as Andrew and I paced the edge of the party and I looked around.

  No one seemed to be uncomfortable with us being there, at least yet, which was probably a good sign all things considered. My biggest worry was we’d stick out and be targeted immediately, though either no one had known what we were or the others had done a great deal in explaining our presence. Either way, it was a welcome surprise, even if we still kept our distance and the wedding felt rather safe so far.

  No, that wasn’t perfectly accurate.

  One of the people here was the man who threatened to kill me, who was holding Martin hostage with my life as the cost. On top of that, an uncertain amount of the people here were probably his packmates, and I’d just killed one of them a few days ago.

  In the best case scenario, I’d killed my blackmailer’s mate, and in the worst case I’d made yet another enemy through a dead loved one.

  “I love unsalted ham,” Andrew said, sounding like he was trying to be sarcastic to keep up the mood, unaware of that bit of threat.

  “Yeah, probably doesn’t taste as good as I remember,” I admitted with a small sigh at the sight, “wish they sprung for pizza. I used to be able to eat a whole pizza and then some when I was a half-one.”

  Andrew looked ready to say something to that idea when a voice rang out over the crowd. A distant sound at first, even to my ears, which then called out in full as I tilted my ears to better hear it.

  “Hey, Bloodhound!” my old mentor’s voice called out from the coolers, where she by her self, “get the fuck over here! How’s my favorite bitch doing?”

  Andrew looked around confused for a moment, even as I gripped his arm and pulled him toward the older woman that gestured us over.

  Chaser had been my mentor for years when I was with the purists, and as Hunter’s mother she’d been the one to set us up as mates. She was older, in her sixties and looking in her thirties, with blonde hair only just showing gray. Her body was more scarred and worn than my dad’s jacket, not one inch of her skin wasn’t marked by blade or burn in some way. Her left hand was missing, her right eye healed pale white with a deep gouge in it, a chunk of her right ear gone, and the tip of her nose clipped off. She currently wore a torn and stained sundress that did little to hide her growing stomach or the novel of marks she bore.

  “Ain’t you just a treat as always,” the woman laughed, pulling me into a half-hug with her left arm even as she awkwardly held two bottles in her right. “You and Hunter back together yet? You know I like grandkids, and my kids aren’t exactly giving me a ton.”

  “We’re probably not,” I told her, giving a nervous laugh as I shook my head. I hugged back a moment before stepping away, frowning slightly as I pointed to the bottle, “you know it’s bad to drink while pregnant.”

  “I’ve had kids, I know what not to do,” Chaser told me, shaking her head as she popped the bottle open with her teeth and held it out, “Tracker asked me to get her one, you want it?”

  “Well, I’m not driving tonight,” I shrugged, taking the drink with a smile as I sipped it. I hated the taste, it didn’t do much for me, but I could at least play along, “someone has to drink for both of us.”

  “I’ll say, I haven’t seen Tracker since you became a Purist, and she’s rather a stick in the mud anyway,” the woman chuckled, shaking her head at the thought, “I was starting to worry though it’d be just as long before I saw you. Hunter was no help, I didn’t even learn you two had stepped different paths until he showed up asking for my help to call you. What made you go and leave the purists like that?”

  “Well, it was that or die,” I admitted with a shrug, not really sure what else to say to the question, “honestly I’m surprisingly not regretting it at all. It’s been…well, it’s definitely had its perks at times, I’m not going to lie.”

  “We all have our reasons,” the woman shrugged, looking me over with a sad smile, “you’re young, you have time to learn what the world can be like for our kind.”

  I nodded, not sure what else I was supposed to do as I struggled to compose myself at the idea. A part of me did worry that I would end up like her given time, as much as I liked to pretend I didn’t.

  Everyone knew Chaser’s story and what it meant.

  She’d been a normal werewolf like anyone else, one of the traitors, been happy enough with her life and lived it that way for years. One day a hunter killed most of her pack, The Lady refused to let her get revenge, she’d joined the purists and got it anyway. Simple, short, and the sort of thing where I couldn’t in good faith say I didn’t think I wouldn’t be tempted to follow the same path again in her shoes.

  I needed to change the subject, and clearing my throat I gestured to the man next to me as I said, “Chaser, this is Andrew. Andrew, Chaser.”

  My mentor smiled, stepping forward as she offered her hand to Andrew, Chaser seeming surprisingly pleased with the sight. The man hesitantly took the hand, looking like he barely wanted to touch her as he gave me a nervous glance.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” the woman purred, “and this is your?...”

  “Sort of a parole officer,” I admitted, sipping my drink. Still tasted horrible, but it was a wedding and complaints weren’t meant for these sorts of days.

  “Well, they’re pretty good looking for a parole office,” Chaser acknowledged, giving Andrew a long look over, “let me know if you’re wanting to get out of that RV tonight. I’m sure we could find you room in my corner of the cabin.”

  “I have a girlfriend — not the cannibal,” Andrew said slowly as he sounded unsure of what was going on anymore, “have we met before? You look really familiar.”

  “Can’t think of where we would have,” Chaser shrugged, tilting her head in sudden confusion, “I was in the Purists when you would have been a kid, if I had to guess.”

  Andrew nodded, and I tried coming up with what was going on as Andrew asked, “you’re Canni- Mary’s mentor?”

  “Everything the dame knows and more, so long as Mary’s Bloodhound here,” Chaser chuckled, slapping me on the shoulder, “let me tell you, I knew she was going to be a great werewolf from the moment she woke up. We had to herd her through the suburbs until she passed out, we’re lucky Tacker had us in the area — the gods are telling me to come here and all that. You know what she did? Half naked, blood on her mouth, wearing that shitty jacket she always has with one sleeve half snapped? Looks up, looks around for a moment, and asks me, ‘I’m not fucking dead am I?’ just like that.”

  “I had a similar experience, I’m not going to lie, and I knew about werewolves,” Andrew admitted, getting a good sized laugh from Chaser.

  “It was a good first sign,” Hunter’s mom sighed, shaking her head as she grabbed another bottle from the cooler and started through the crowd with us beside her, “let me tell you, I knew then and there I was training this girl like a daughter. She reminded me so much of Hunter, she was having trouble adjusting to the Purists, I just had to set them up as mates. I swear their wolves were fighting for one another as soon as their minds were bonded the first time.”

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  “That might be too much information,” I said, looking away with an awkward laugh, seeing Andrew give me a concerned look out of the corner of his eye, “it wasn’t that fast, and it’s better than it sounds.”

  “Oh of course, of course,” Chaser muttered, smiling as she leaned over to Andrew, “they were looking for every excuse to be near each other in a month. I swear, they thought they were the sneakiest wolves running off into the woods.”

  Andrew nodded, furrowing his brow as he kept his deer in the headlights expression, and I tried to avoid eye contact as I feared needing to explain any of that to him. The whole story was probably how it looked from the outside, and it probably wasn’t the most inaccurate description of what had happened, but that didn’t matter. It just also happened to be that it wasn't exactly something I was fully comfortable bragging about anymore.

  Gods, I didn’t even fucking know anymore how things had ended up like that, my emotions had been so cloudy back then. They never truly felt like me in hindsight.

  Chaser ended up leading us to the edge of the gathering, and it was only then I became aware of a small gathering of werewolves that sat on the woodline watching the party. We approached them, and one of the older women came up, grabbing the bottle from Chaser as she shot us a glance.

  “That you, Bloodhound?” Tracker asked, walking over to us with a tilted head, putting out a cigarette on her leather jacket’s sleeve before opening her bottle with her teeth.

  “Yeah, it’s Mary now though. I picked out the name when I left the Purists,” I said, frowning slightly as the acrid smell of the smoke and burnt leather hit me.

  Tracker had very briefly been my mentor when I became a werewolf, and had been the one who taught me about the wolf gods and how to use their runes. After months of that though she’d kicked the duty over to Chaser and went off when the woman set me up with Hunter. I’d not seen her since, and she seemed to not have any sentimentality for my presence as we met again.

  “Who's the handsome bastard?” she asked, giving a smirk to Andrew, “well, good looking. He’s still a bit of a downgrade from Hunter though, no idea how you ever let the hunk go.”

  “Thanks?” Andrew asked, continually confused. Yeah, a relatively healthy and clean looking werewolf man was probably a rarity in the Purists now I thought about it.

  “Please don’t talk about my son like that,” Chaser sighed, sounding as though she’d needed to petition Tracker with this grievance more than once before.

  Tracker chuckled, sipping from her bottle as she told Chaser, “you said the same thing to me, I just said it a little more clearly.”

  “He’s also the only sire above two hundred and fifty full moons you haven’t run the night with,” Chaser sniped, pointing to the woman accusingly, “keep it that way.”

  “Doubt he’d be interested anyway, I’m practically thrice his age. That said, I think it’s about time we fetched him before the wedding,” Tracker admitted, shaking her head with a chuckle. The woman walked up, slapping Andrew on the shoulder, and told him, “you hurt Mary here, Chaser and I’ll remove your skeleton while you’re still alive, we’ve done it before.”

  She walked off, and Chaser walked to follow her, patting Andrew on the shoulder as she comforted, “we never actually did that,” before following the woman.

  Andrew and I were left alone, and the man remained silent for only a moment before he hesitantly told me, “interesting folks, these Purists.”

  “Yeah, they could be,” I admitted, not sure what else to say.

  “I do have to ask though,” Andrew admitted, adjusting himself as a shot of fear went through my chest. He was going to ask about the mate, about the bracelets, I’d need to explain all of that. I’d need to tell him what I’d done. “What’s with all the colorful names? Bloodhound, Chaser, Tracker, Hunter, Scout, Wounder. Do you guys have, like, a thesaurus or something?”

  “Oh,” I muttered, giving a small laugh as a wave of relief passed through me. It was easy to forget sometimes that my experiences weren’t exactly universal. “Purists take on names based around their role in the pack, or at least what you want it to be or see it as. I was always finding prey or following scents, so I was Bloodhound. Hunter was the best of us at harrying someone in a chase. Scout could get in and out of anywhere without you ever knowing that she was there. Wounder was the best fighter among us when it came to multiple opponents, I saw him take on three werewolves in a competition once without getting a bite on him.”

  “Kinda badass,” Andrew admitted, even as a familiar face trotted up in wolf form. They were large and strong looking, with a thick black coat, and I recognized them even before they changed back to the form of a tall human with shaggy black hair and an untrimmed beard.

  “Ah, there you are!” Wounder called, smiling brightly as he pulled me into a hug that I returned, before he held an arm out to Andrew, “come on, join on in, man. I’ve seen you two wolves looking at each other. Any mate of Mary’s is a friend of mine.”

  Andrew looked over the man’s naked body a moment, seeming impressed by either the body or confidence as he answered, “you know I got limited naked hugs privileges right now, I think I’ll pass. Besides that, I’m not Mary’s…mate? I’m not her mate, I’m just keeping an eye on her. She’s more like a friend, you know?”

  “Oh, damn, really?” Wounder asked in disbelief, looking over Andrew a moment, “Mary, you’ve lost your touch, you could totally land this man. The domesticated life is dulling your claws, when was the last time you sunk your teeth in flesh?”

  A few nights ago was the correct answer, and I was surprised Hunter hadn’t revealed that information to his pack. I wondered if they even knew about the limited contact I’d had with the man, if they didn’t know I’d chewed a woman's head off. It’d been wonderful though, and I’d gotten to finally give into the instincts of a fight, so I wasn’t going to complain about getting to talk about it if they asked.

  That was also the wrong answer to give right now, and the last thing I needed was to give him a reason to think I was ready to come back. Instead I shrugged, not sure if I did it too much, and answered, “A little too long for my tastes, but they’re keeping me busy at the Covenant. You can have some good hunts without them ending in blood though.”

  “Ah, I’m sure sires and dames have been falling under your teeth in that case,” Wounder laughed, extracting a noise of surprise from me as he slapped my ass and pushed me back, “your same old signature? Find a quiet place, a person you like, see what they can do for you? Only difference is it seems like you’re not giving Hunter a chance to show them up, are you?”

  “Too much bloodshed doing that,” I laughed awkwardly despite myself, seeing as Andrew looked over to me in slight horror. I gave a small gulp, covering my mouth to hide a blushing smile as I explained, “sometimes the wolf tries coming out when I get too into things, can usually hold it in but usually still some claws and teeth. Works fine with werewolves, especially if they can hold me down, humans not so much. It’s…I was trained in a specific way, it’s what happens when you get trained to associate a racing heart and adrenaline with transforming, you know?”

  It felt weird to say, and my smile briefly faded as I wondered what was wrong with me that I was feeling conflicted by the statement. It’d been something natural, something I’d never really thought about as easily as I felt the wolf, and now it made me sound unhinged.

  “The war stories I could tell you,” Wounder chuckled, clapping an arm across Andrew’s shoulders as he started leading us through the crowd, “one time the pack went to this big party, forget what they were celebrating we just snuck in. We’d only just become a pack formally, right?” The story started to click for me, the first time I lost control, and I wanted more than anything to tell him to stop. Something about this story didn’t feel funny anymore. “There were like fifteen people there besides us, some house in the woods, no idea how we were blending in. Hunter, Scout, and I are in the main part of the party, smoking weed, someone brought beer, that sort of thing. Mary and Hunter weren’t even mates yet then. Anyway, it’s getting late, we’re all thinking it’s time to leave but we can’t find Mary. Suddenly there’s this screaming upstairs, lots of crashing furniture, some growling, everyone rushes upstairs and what do we see? Mary’s wolf form, covered in blood, this cheerleader on the ground nearby with her throat half-ripped out. Ended up being our first group hunt together, even if the surprise was a little unwelcome.”

  Neither me nor Andrew laughed, though Wounder did, and that felt surprising to me as much as I hated the story. We’d been laughing about that story a few weeks before my departure, and now it just left me feeling sick. I couldn’t even remember what I’d found funny about it, all I remembered now was the fear I felt, how I’d cried for a month afterwards before Chaser convinced me it was nothing to feel bad about and helped me make my bracelet.

  All I felt was horrified, like I wanted to throw up all over again.

  It’d been my first kill, and I had needed to pretend that it wasn’t when we’d talked about it. I was supposed to have killed someone a mere few days before. Hunter had known the truth, and I thought that even he had seemed to forget the fact, or assumed that seeing death was the same as killing with forethought.

  A Purist wasn’t considered a Purist until they completed a rite of passage, the First Hunt that all werewolves of their kind took. Once you were trained, looking like a good potential member, and declared your intent to join, your mentor put the hunt together. A human was brought far into the woods, you released them at noon and gave them a head start until nightfall, and then you hunted them. If they were caught and killed within three days you were considered one with your pack until death — if not, you were hunted.

  That last one was rare, they more than stacked the odds in your favor and there was always room for cheating. My supervisor had been Hunter, and even with a string of bad luck I’d managed to be considered a Purist. A hurricane had hit and the scent was hard to track. I'd fallen down a waterfall and lost half a day getting back on the trail. The man had been a survivor, setting traps and living easily in the woods.

  Then we found him.

  He’d run from us as fast as he could, and yet we were both faster all the same. He’d slipped, sliding on some rocks and fell down an incline into the trees below. A branch had gone through his thigh, he’d broken his back, and instead of finishing him off I’d sat there in horror watching him bleed out. It shouldn’t have counted, it should have been a failure on my part to not deliver the killing blow, and instead Hunter had helped me cut off his head and said that if anyone asked I had eaten his heart. It was crueler than actually killing him, he’d fucking begged for death for nearly an hour.

  I’d watched a man die for an hour begging for death, and killed so many who didn’t fucking deserve it. Maybe Alpha’s dad was fucking right, maybe I deserved to die.

  Wounder had started telling another story, and I was lost in my memories even as we were thankfully spared by a man coming out and tapping my former packmate on the shoulder. They exchanged some whispers, and the man turned to us with a small bow as he walked off, “later, Mary. I have some clothes to put on and a mate to make a spouse.”

  Andrew watched Wounder leave, and slowly he walked over beside me to in a whisper ask, “Are you going to be okay?”

  “I think so,” I admitted, shaking my head for a moment, “let’s just get this over with, please.”

  Several minutes later a call was put out, and the Purists began to gather in the barn as a silence fell over the crowd.

  Scout and Wounder both wore clothes made of various animal furs and skins, and each went through the act of making their vows and giving their praises for the other. They exchanged blood, kissed, and Andrew and I watched on from the back of the barn.

  I’d been gone less than a year, and I’d missed so much with people I’d once considered like family. They were strangers to me, people I had no idea who they were in any form. I didn’t know their life anymore, I didn’t feel comfortable in their humor or home, everything felt like a foreign concept to me.

  I’d lived with them for five fucking years of my life, almost a fourth of all the time I’d lived on this earth, and it felt like it’d been for nothing.

  A year ago Hunter and I would have been making out in this barn while hiding from the others, Scout and I would play games of hunting and hiding in the woods nearby, Wounder helped me relax when I grew stressed with his constant humor, I was a member of the family. Now everything felt dirty, the humor cruel, the behavior disturbing, and the person I was a year ago a stranger. I didn’t even think I’d changed as much as I had until being here, and it felt wrong that it felt wrong.

  “There’s a bouquet of all things?” Andrew asked, pulling me from my thoughts as I saw Scout making her announcements to the crowd.

  “A little different than you’re thinking,” I admitted, giving a forced smile at his confusion as I watched Scout take a bone from one the heads of the crowd, “you toss a deer femur covered in some old poetry over your shoulder. The person who catches it will have luck in their hunt for love, and find their prey waiting and willing under their fangs.”

  “Oh Tara’s going to love it if I catch this,” Andrew laughed, shaking his head as he seemed to brace himself to get ready.

  Scout let out a howl and gave a quick glance back as she tossed it over her shoulder and into the air. Andrew seemed to follow its arch intently, and I only looked up at the last second as it was about to slam into my face. I let out a squeak of surprise, raising my hands just enough to knock the bone straight up in the air. It came down a second later, and I managed to somehow catch it.

  A small cheer of various energy rang through the air, and I gave an awkward shrug to Andrew as I passed the bone to him and said, “you can have the luck if you want.”

  It was probably a cruel irony for me to catch good luck with love when I likely had less than two weeks to live, but I wasn’t going to complain. It’d been a good laugh, and it made me happy to know my former pack mate had cared like that.

  Scout had done it on purpose, I fucking knew her well enough to know the bone wasn’t that on target without it being so. She’d been good at throwing things, liked to practice with knives and hatchets, something useless to a werewolf but she found joy despite it. All the same, it was a nice surprise and I couldn’t help but giggle knowing she’d done it for me, like she still cared if I found love.

  At the very least it was luck of some kind in my life.