Jack stepped out of the bush in the form of a wolf, huge and dark, shoulders broad, eyes steady. The air around him condensed, like the forest itself molded around him.

  Gabriel bared his teeth without thinking.

  Jack's ears tilted back slightly, not in fear, but in warning. A low rumble rolled out of Jack's chest.

  Gabriel's body responded before his mind could catch up. His muscles coiled. His weight shifted forward.

  He launched.

  The collision was brutal, fur and muscle slamming together, jaws snapping, claws digging into the earth. Jack met him head-on, solid as stone. Gabriel felt teeth flash past his throat. He twisted away, teeth catching Jack's shoulder. The taste of blood hit his tongue, copper and heat, and it lit something in him.

  He fought like a cornered animal, wild, desperate, all sharp edges and no plan.

  Jack fought like an alpha who had been doing this since before Gabriel was born.

  He didn't waste movement. He waited for openings and used them with cold efficiency.

  Gabriel lunged again, and Jack ducked under it, slammed his shoulder into Gabriel's ribs, drove him into the dirt. Gabriel snarled and snapped, teeth grazing Jack's muzzle. Jack snarled back, the sound deep and terrible, and for a moment Gabriel hesitated, a sliver of recognition slipping in.

  Father. Home.

  His hesitation was enough.

  Jack drove him down harder. Gabriel's legs scrabbled. His claws tore grooves in the mud. He tried to roll, to buck, to get his teeth into Jack's throat.

  Jack shifted his weight, pinning him.

  Gabriel thrashed, choking, eyes wide.

  Then a new scent hit him, sharp and bright and impossible.

  Pups.

  His head jerked. His gaze locked on something beyond Jack's shoulder.

  A bundle of cloth in the grass. A little pajama top with a Minnie cartoon. A simple white T-shirt.

  The instinct hit like lightning, protect, protect, protect, protect.

  His body surged, trying to tear free.

  Jack followed his gaze in a single swift motion, and Gabriel felt the moment Jack understood exactly where his mind had gone.

  And he used it.

  He slammed his weight down, teeth closing around the scruff of Gabriel's neck with a grip that was not meant to kill, but meant to end.

  Gabriel went rigid, shock shooting through him. His limbs trembled. His teeth clicked shut on nothing.

  For a moment, the world narrowed into sensation only, pressure at his neck, cold mud under his belly, Jack's breath hot against his fur.

  Then Jack growled, low and vicious, and Gabriel's body finally stilled.

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  Jack held him there until the fight bled out of him, until the wild thrashing turned into shudders, until Gabriel's breath slowed from ragged gasps into something that almost resembled a pattern.

  Jack released him only when he was sure Gabriel would not spring again.

  Jack stepped back and, without breaking eye contact, shifted.

  Bones reshaped. Fur folded into skin. The change was fast and fluid, almost seamless.

  Jack stood there in human form, chest rising and falling, blood smeared along his collarbone where teeth had broken skin. His eyes were bright with anger, and with something else, something worse than anger.

  Fear.

  Not for himself, but for what Gabriel had become.

  Jack's hands hung at his sides for a moment, fists clenched, then he stepped forward and crouched. He didn't touch Gabriel, not yet. His gaze flicked to the clothes in the grass, then back to Gabriel's eyes.

  "Do you see that?" Jack asked, pointing to the pile of clothes. His voice was rough, as if it had scraped through gravel on the way out.

  Gabriel lay in the mud, still in wolf form, chest heaving. His eyes tracked the bundle again, helplessly.

  Jack's jaw flexed.

  "Do you recognize it?" he demanded, and this time he didn't speak as an alpha, but as a father trying to grab his son by the soul.

  Gabriel's ears twitched. His throat worked. No sound came out except a low, broken whine that made something in Jack's face tighten.

  Jack swallowed hard. For a second his eyes shimmered, like he might have blinked wrong, like the man behind the alpha was cracking through.

  Then he leaned closer, voice dropping, every word precise.

  "Pull yourself together," Jack said. "You are not an animal."

  Gabriel's body trembled. The beast in him wanted to snarl at the insult. The man in him wanted to sob, because the insult was mercy compared to the truth.

  Jack's gaze sharpened, burning.

  "You have children," Jack said. "Bloodkin. Fragile."

  Gabriel flinched as if struck.

  Jack's voice wavered, just barely, a tremor that lasted half a breath before he forced it flat again.

  "You left them," Jack went on, the words coming out like accusation and plea braided together. "You left them in a pack that won't hesitate to tear them apart over one wrong move. Your mother and I are here, yes. We will guard them with our lives. But they need their father. And our family needs to stand solid and strong to protect them."

  The forest seemed to lean in, listening.

  Gabriel's gaze flickered. For a moment, something human moved behind his eyes, a flash of recognition, a flash of horror.

  Jack saw it and grabbed it like a lifeline.

  "So you will pull yourself together and come home," Jack repeated, his tone sharp. His throat bobbed. His voice dropped even lower.

  "Or I will end this," he whispered. "Right here, right now."

  Gabriel's body went rigid. His breath stopped for a second, then came in a harsh gasp.

  Jack's eyes glistened, and this time he did blink, slow, as if the act cost him.

  "Even though you're my son," he said, and the sentence broke on the edge. "And exactly because you are."

  Silence stretched.

  A bird called somewhere far away, oblivious.

  Gabriel's head lowered, muzzle pressing into the mud. His whole body shook in despair. His spine arched as if something inside him pulled. For a moment the pressure of shifting rose again, not as a violent instinct, but as a desperate attempt, a body trying to become something that could speak.

  His breathing hitched. His eyes squeezed shut.

  Hands, the human part of him begged. Please, God, give me hands. Let me tell them I'm sorry. Let me hold them. Let me make it right.

  The other part of him fought it, afraid of what a clear mind would bring. Pain. Worry. Guilt. So much guilt.

  He trembled between two forms, not fully changing, not fully staying, caught in the worst possible place, where awareness was a knife.

  Jack watched him, face hard, but his hands shook slightly at his sides, as if he wanted to reach down and steady him and was terrified of what that might mean.

  "Son. Come back," Jack said, quieter now, and the command had turned into something almost gentle. "Come back to yourself."

  Gabriel's eyes snapped open.

  For one heartbeat, Jack saw Gabriel in the wolf, eyes full of recognition and raw, wrecked remorse.

  Jack inhaled sharply.

  Somewhere in the deep dark, far beyond this clearing, empty and alone, a howl rose.

  The wolf that was Gabriel, yet not Gabriel, blinked, confused, foggy-eyed once again.

  Jack exhaled through his nose, slow. He looked once at the clothes in the grass, then back at Gabriel.

  "All right," he murmured, and his voice broke on the word, just a hair. He cleared his throat, hardening again. "You're still in there, son. You're not lost. For now, I'll take that as enough."

  Gabriel's ears flattened. His breath came in shudders.

  The scent of the clothes lay between them like an altar.

  The forest watched as man and beast within Gabriel locked in a motionless fight.