Wolf Pact - By Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,2

so bright. So this was the sun. His eyes hurt from its brilliance. He was cold and hot all at once, shivering and sweating, and he realized he was naked. They all were. They were four boys on the side of the road, shuddering from the cold and broken from the heat.

How had they gotten here? He remembered running into the portal, landing in the woods, realizing they'd somehow shifted to human form. They'd been shocked and exhausted, and he wondered if they'd somehow wandered back and been transported somewhere else. It didn't matter now; they just had to figure out how to function in this new world, how to figure out if they'd been followed, if the hounds were on their tail. With their collars off, the hounds would be able to trail them only by their scent. They had some time, he hoped. Time to get used to this new world, time to run and hide, time to plan to free the others.

"Here." He looked up to see Tala standing over him. Unlike them, she was clothed, wearing some sort of black-and-red checked suit, in a material that looked warm. The clothes were huge on her; her small frame was drowning in them. She handed him a similar pair. "Pajamas," she said. "That's what they're called, for sleeping." She was speaking the human language, and he could understand her.

Tala placed a blanket on Mac's shoulders. Mac was the youngest of the brothers, unsure of himself and often scared. Tala seemed to have appointed herself his caretaker, and Lawson was grateful for it.

"There are more back there." She pointed to a small building on wheels not too far away.

He gathered Edon and Rafe with him, Tala, and Mac; the five of them were all that was left of the pack - such a small number - and they walked slowly toward the trailer. Tala had already broken the lock on the door. They rummaged through the drawers in the small beat-up compartment, which was even shabbier than the den they'd left behind. So this was what it was like above-ground, he thought. And here they were, stealing from folks who were no better off than they were.

The clothes were ill-fitting, but covered them. He looked in the mirror, shocked to see his human reflection. It was said among the wolves that Lucifer's curse was what had turned them into animals. Lawson saw that he had dark brown hair, brown eyes, a scrawny build. This was what he'd fought for, a new life, a new beginning, and he realized he wanted a new name to go with it. The old one wouldn't do anymore. Not in this new world. But what? He found a blue jacket on a nearby chair and put it on, grateful that it was warm.

"Lawson," Mac said, pointing to the white tag on his lapel. "Your name," Mac joked. "And mine is Malcolm."

Lawson. That would fit. He could live with that. It sounded brand-new to his ears, and he liked that.

"That's me," Lawson said. "From now on."

Mac nodded.

Lawson looked around at his brothers. Rafe was large and hulking; Mac, or Malcolm, as he wanted to be called now, was too skinny; Edon, out of all of them, looked almost normal, handsome with his bright golden hair, his features almost like those of the masters, except without their frightening scars.

"You look good," Lawson told him. "But the rest of us ..." He grinned.

Edon didn't look at him, didn't smile, didn't answer.

They had left Ahramin behind, and Lawson wondered if Edon would ever forgive him for that. But he had no time to worry about that now; they had to figure out what they were going to do now that they were up here, now that they were free. His stomach rumbled, a low, almost gurgling sound, and he realized none of them had eaten in at least a day. "We have to find food," he said.

"There's a refrigerator in the kitchen," Tala said. She was slim and small, quiet-looking, almost plain, but her blue eyes were the same as before, kind and gentle.

"How do you know so much?" he asked her. She knew the words for everything. She knew how this place worked.

"Master Quintus would read to me sometimes, books from this world. I was his favorite pet." She shrugged.

They took only as much as they needed: a loaf of bread, a jar of something green, "pickled," Tala called it. He didn't want to take any more,