Damon crouched in the bushes, still a wolf, surveying the pack prison. The sun had just passed beyond the horizon, leaving the area in shades of dark gray, shadows clinging to the trees. Perfect for staying just out of sight. Damon, with his speed in wolf form, had managed to arrive just as the car holding Jun pulled up to the prison. For him and the car to arrive at the same time told Damon that they had, indeed, tried to go after Mark as well, but Mark must have gotten the hell out of dodge after getting Damon's call because only Jun was brought out of the car and hustled into the prison.

Though it felt like a million fire ants were gnawing at his skin, Damon waited patiently in the brush for the guards to situate Jun inside before they got back in the car and drove away, leaving the three regular prison guards to do their jobs. This must be a big day for them. So rarely was there a need to use the holding cells – they must be jumping for joy now that they were finally getting some action. They spent the other 364 days a year standing around.

Damon had only been to this part of the pack territory once in his life, when he was ten or eleven. His class had taken a trip to all the outlying parts of Ganymede pack, the parts that no one would typically have a reason to go to, just to show everyone that they did, in fact, exist. It also served as a warning not to stumble onto some of those parts when frolicking in wolf form – approaching the holding cells as a wolf could get you in a lot of trouble. Well, it could get you in a lot of trouble no matter what form you took if you didn't have permission to be there.

As for right now, the guards could kiss Damon's fuzzy ass. Even if they caught him trying to sneak in, the worst they could do is banish him from the pack, and with the way things were heading with the accusations against Jun, that would be a desirable outcome anyway.

Damon surprised himself, albeit in a quiet, internal freak-out kind of way, with the understanding that he didn't care one bit about the possibility of being tossed out of the pack. Normally, you would be distressed about that kind of thing, right? The possibility of being forcefully removed from your previous way of life – from family, friends, all the familiar places that brought you comfort.

A normal person would panic.

But Damon was quickly beginning to realize that since meeting Jun, he had lost any hope of being normal. Since some time ago, Damon didn't know how long, a quiet conviction had already sprouted and took root in his heart, an inescapable truth that he could only put words to once Jun was taken away from him. He had to put a name to the ache in his chest, to the anxiety tightening his stomach into knots.

It wasn't something he'd ever felt before. It was painful; it was sweet. He felt like he could cry, laugh, and then kiss Jun senseless until his head was spinning, all in that order, and he knew, now, that there was probably only one thing that felt like that.

Love was painful. Love was sweet. It was making him crazy.

So no, it didn't really matter if Damon ended up banished, because Jun was probably going to be banished too. He could call his parents. He could visit Mark and Ava and all his other friends. But if Jun was kicked out, Damon was going to get himself kicked out too.

And though his nesting urges were a constant twitch in the back of his brain, Damon knew that this irrationality had nothing to do with that. Loving Jun to the point of recklessness was a certainty that had been established subconsciously long before he began nesting. Perhaps it was heightened by the stressed omega voice inside him urging him to find his alpha and get to safety, but it didn't originate there. It originated in candles in cupcakes, in every touch, every glance. All the ways Jun made Damon feel like he was being hugged even when he was alone.

Damon forced himself to wait. He had to wait long enough that the guards would have time to calm down from the excitement of having someone to lock up for the first time in months. Long enough that they would drop their guard.

It was nearly midnight by the time Damon decided to slowly move out of his crouched position, stretching stiff limbs. He gathered his clothes back up in his mouth. The bonus of waiting so long was that Damon had had ample time to figure out where all the guards were.

The first, and most obvious, was stationed at the front door, sitting on a chair and looking rather bored. Unlike in many movie situations where the guard would fall asleep, however, this one was clearly awake and not about to nod off anytime soon. He had been hired specifically for this job, and with a prisoner to watch over at long last, it was unlikely that there was any chance of him slacking. It seemed impossible to get past him at first, but luckily, Damon waited long enough to see that the front door guard stood up and checked around the sides of the building every half hour or so – probably more to keep his legs from falling asleep than anything else.

The second guard was on the roof to watch for anyone approaching the building. He seemed less interested in the whole situation than the first one, and had been sneaking out his phone every five minutes. If he was bored now, Damon couldn't imagine what every other shift he worked was like.

The final guard was somewhere around the back of the building, keeping watch from that direction. Damon only knew about him because he'd seen him go back there after Jun was brought inside.

So how was Damon going to get inside, you ask? Well...very carefully. He was counting on the one on the roof being distracted. Pretty much everything was hinging on luck and the fact that the guards didn't have weapons of any kind, so if they did catch him, all they could do was throw him in the cells and tell the pack leader and his parents that they had him. In the cells was exactly where he wanted to be, so even if this went south, it likely wouldn't be a total loss. But Damon wanted to be in Jun's cell. He was going to get discovered sooner or later, he knew that. He would just rather he was discovered later, once he had managed to sneak in and get to Jun.

Once the door guard got up to do his rounds, Damon crept out of the tree line, immediately feeling way too exposed. Every motion became like waving a signal flag over his head, and every sound became a gunshot. He hesitated there, still half under the brush, and darted a glance toward the guard on the roof.

He was looking off to the left, relaxed and bored. Then, after a few more minutes – he pulled out his phone again, responding to a message, scrolling social media, maybe watching porn – Damon didn't know, didn't care, as long as he was distracted. He took the chance.

With the guard on the roof turned slightly toward his left, not paying attention, Damon burst out of the brush to his right, ensuring that he wasn't in his direct line of sight. Damon's vision zeroed in on the door – which he remembered from that tour so long ago locked from the inside, but not the outside, which just goes to show how little the prison was used if the lock system was so lax.

It also meant that Damon wouldn't be able to get out once he was in. But he didn't particularly care. Jun needed him.

Whatever happened...at least they would be together.