After mating, Brance stretched out along the cool grass of the clearing while Caleb went in search of food. Brance’s rear leg throbbed with a dull pain that centered around an old scar in his side—the remnant of a bullet his fellow soldiers had fired the one time he made the mistake not to leave camp before his change. The wound had healed, the bullet extracted by Caleb the night they first met, but the damn muscle still ached from time to time, an unpleasant reminder that the years were beginning to take their toll. He’d seen men younger than himself die on the battlefield. If he hadn’t left the Union Army when he did, he might’ve been among their number soon enough.
Caleb took to the task of hunting with eagerness. The moment Brance slipped from him, satiated, Caleb was off, chasing up
