In moments, Parker burst through the brush, followed by Owen and Ethan, three dark blurs soaring through the air in front of me to land with delicate, easy grace. Except for one. Ethan landed not on the ground, but on Jace, who rolled over onto his back at the last second. He caught Ethan’s throat between enlarged canines and the vulnerable flesh of his attacker’s stomach with exposed rear claws. They were only playing, so Jace neither bit nor slashed, but had it been for real, it would have been bloody. And it would have been over in a heartbeat. But then, if it had been for real, Jace would never have heard him coming.

Jace tossed Ethan to the ground, where he landed on his feet, hissing with his fur standing on end. They both joined the others in greeting me. In cat form, even more than as humans, our greetings were very physical. I found myself at the center of a writhing, purring mass of black fur and whiskers, tails curling over, under, and around me. The mingling of personal scents was both comforting and invigorating, as were the memories tumbling over one another in a bid for my attention.

When my patience dwindled, I nipped at whatever came near my mouth. I got a whiff of hay and dry soil as I bit down gently on Owen’s tail. Jace’s ear came with the faint scent of the Granny Smith he’d finished for Ethan. But no one paid any attention to my warnings until I growled, and even then they were slow learners.

Marc came to my rescue, which I thought was the least he could do, since it was his fault they’d converged on me in the first place. And since even the smal est of them—Ethan—outweighed me by forty pounds.

Marc hissed, and I turned to look at him across someone’s back. He stood several feet away with his neck straining forward and his jaw open to expose a mouthful of sharp teeth, ears flat against the top of his skull. He wasn’t real y mad; he was just posturing to get their attention. It worked.

All eyes were on Marc, and since I was never one to pass up an opportunity, I launched myself over Parker and through a thin clump of brush. The chase was on.

I heard them behind me, pursuing me for the thril of speed, and not because they had any hope of catching me. Surely they knew they had no chance. Maybe in a car on a long stretch of highway, but not in the woods where I’d grown up. And never on four paws.

My pulse racing, I darted between trees and vaulted off fal en limbs, sending smal creatures fleeing ahead of me. Everywhere were the sights and sounds of the woods. The undergrowth grew thick and green, and pine trees soared to over one hundred feet high, with the red birches not far behind. My ears were on alert, catching and instantly cataloging the various nocturnal forest creatures as I passed them. Mice squeaked, owls hooted, and possums waddled off in search of safety. I ignored them al .

For fun, as my heart beat a syncopated rhythm against my rib cage, I climbed a broad oak tree, gripping the trunk with my claws over and over again, leg muscles tensing and relaxing as they propel ed me upward until I gained a low, thick branch.

With a glance at the ground below, I leapt onto a limb extending from a neighboring trunk. From there, I worked my way along, leaping from branch to branch, tree to tree, until I final y thumped to the ground, already running.

My eyes were perfectly suited to roaming the forest at night. They made good use of generous pools of moonlight pouring through gaps in the canopy of leaves and heavily laden pine branches above. Light reflected from the eyes of potential prey, and I could easily distinguish the dark coats of nocturnal animals from the shadows nestled in every niche and crevice, and hiding beneath curtains of fern and blankets of poison ivy. Dry leaves crackled beneath my paws and thorns tugged at my fur as I sprinted, my lungs relishing the luxury of such fresh, fragrant air.

Our forest was home to any number of woodland creatures, the largest of which were deer. But we were the biggest predators around for miles. Dogs—and especially cats—knew to avoid our territory thanks to Marc’s obsessively organized system of scent marking. We had the run of the forest, and we liked it that way.

On my right, something slithered beneath a pile of leaves, but I didn’t pause to identify it as I ran. The only things I chased that night were my personal demons. Or rather, they were chasing me. For the first time in years, I felt the hot breath of my past on the back of my neck. It was the carnivorous spirit of everything tradition demanded I become, and the only way to escape was to run, to beat the ground with my paws, in a furious race for the right to control my life. And I would not lose.

Not again.

Final y, when my lungs burned, my legs ached, and every muscle in my body insisted that I must stop or collapse, I had to admit that at least for now, the demons were only in my head. My pursuers were my fel ow Pride members, and they only chased because I ran. It was a cat’s instinct to try to catch anything that moved, like a kitten pouncing on a piece of string trailed across the floor. And I’d trailed my string al over the forest, practical y daring them to come get me.

I slowed to a stop, listening between ragged pants as I calmed my racing heart. The guys had fal en far behind, and the evidence of their pursuit faded into the symphony of shuffles, rustles, cracks, hoots and squeaks that defined the forest at night. Satisfied that I’d proven my point, that I could outrun them al , I sank to the ground to rest at the base of a pine tree. I glanced around, taking in even the most minute shift of leaves in the warm night breeze. The night was mine for as long as I wanted it, and I final y had the privacy I’d sought for so long at school. It irked me that I’d found what I wanted in my own backyard, when I’d searched for it fruitlessly for years, hundreds of miles from home.