This felt so much like a goodbye.
Did everyone survive the transformation? With so much else to organise, it struck me that I may not even be alive tomorrow.
This could kill me.
The only alternative was to get Sascha involved… but I just couldn’t give him more power over me. His presence wouldn’t change the outcome.
This would be my dirty secret for as long as I could manage it.
I read Rhona’s reply.
Yeah, SG noticed straightaway. Smelt it maybe? All of them did.
He was pissed.
They didn’t say anything though.
Part of me expected Sascha to, well, cry wolf to the head team. I’d relied on the guilt Sascha still held about Herc’s death and his desperation for me to view him as worthy. Looked like it worked.
I typed back.
Thank you. Love you.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
She replied.
Please be careful or I’ll never forgive you.
My single wish would be for Rhona to know everything and still love me the same. If there wasn’t a slim chance of that, I couldn’t say whether or not I’d still be in the valley.
A pain stabbed me in the stomach, and I gasped, phone tumbling from my fingers.
Another followed, and I sank down, clutching my torso.
Eyes streaming, I peered up to the full moon peeking between the thick trees.
Fuck.
Stumbling inside, I grabbed my prepared pack. It contained a change of clothes, soap, a towel, a first aid kit, food, water, and spare shoes.
Snatching up my keys, I tried to remain upright and casual on the way to Ella F in case Heather was watching.
I had to get far enough away so no one could see or hear me.
I gunned the engine as a fresh bout of agony ricocheted through me.
This is it.
A cold dread settled over me, and I just knew.
It was happening.
Wrenching at the wheel, I barrelled down the road.
Past the heat detector.
Past the cameras and frequency generators.
Out of tribe territory.
Away.
I had to get away.
11
I screamed as my leg bowed under the brutal and invisible force.
Snap.
Thigh bone.
My toes followed suit in a wave of snaps that stole sanity from me.
My vision ebbed. This had happened before. The breaking and the blacking out. Many times. One of the other times, twilight was here. Now, it was pitch-black. No birds sang. Maybe I just couldn’t hear them over the weak shrieks ripping from my raw throat.
Time had passed and I couldn’t remember being here before.
Tears fell from my scratchy eyes as I panted, noting the pressure of fangs either side of my chin.
Was it still my chin?
I felt like paper mâché. Like pulp. Like someone had added water to me and let a toddler do their worst.
My body was broken and still breaking.
Arching, my feet slid through the sandy shore of Lake Thana. My cry turned guttural and deep, animalistic. Breaths chuffed from a chest that didn’t feel the same shape.
As my ribs popped and squelched again, I couldn’t care.
This had to end and take me with it.
The invisible force flung my thighs to my chest, and I shrieked again as my knee reversed in a splitting of ligament and bone.
I tried to move my limbs. It worked. A little.
A whining filled my chest as I was thrown forward, but I didn’t sprawl in the sand. My lower body supported me.
In horror, I stared at my human hands bunched in the sand, then to the hairy legs folded beneath me.
I was half wolf.
More than half.
Coarse hair covered my naked, bleeding, pulpy torso, spreading down my arms. I stopped breathing as my fingers shattered and pulsed, reforming into paws.
Mostly wolf, I sank into lying. But long, auburn hair waved in my peripherals. Was my face still human?
No more.
Please.
The pained moans from my lips turned to high-pitched whines as the pressure in my face mounted. Mounted until my human shape could no longer contain the bulging shape pushing to escape. My cheekbones cracked, chin dissolving away as my mouth pushed forward, shoving aside my skin to lengthen to a snout.
Throwing my head back, I screamed…
… and mourned the howl that left my curled lip.
I trembled in the sand, a wolf, waiting for the next onslaught.
So weak. I listened to the whine escaping my animal face.
Hello, Andie Thana.
Intruder. I couldn’t even spare the energy to yelp. I inhaled instead, tasting the scents on the air.
Good water. Stone. Sand dirt. Little food. No danger.
Wait, what was I doing? This was crazy. Yet my nose hadn’t lied. I wasn’t in danger.
I was alone.
Mostly alone, yes. Except for me.
I froze as my ears picked out the familiar tones of the voice bouncing inside my head. Was that my voice?
My brain was talking to me.
I am your wolf, Andie Charise Thana.
Frozen, I couldn’t move. Tuning inward, I could feel a… a foreign presence inside. I couldn’t say exactly where—in the same way I couldn’t describe myself as coming from one part of my body.
This thing was just in me. I mean, Sascha and Greyson were so different, but I’d always viewed them as Jekyll and Hyde. Different sides of the same coin. But this was another entity within me. A living, breathing, and thinking entity.
This was bad. I should find out more.
You consider Luthers your enemy? she asked.
Should I talk back? Could she hear all my thoughts? Uhm, hey. And yeah. Luthers don’t like me. It’s returned.
Would that offend her? Him?
Good. I don’t like rules.
I closed my eyes. You’re a sigma.
The world was laughing at me.
Your labels are pointless. I don’t acknowledge them.
So that was a big, fat yes. Are you inside my, uh, body forever? And are you female?
Who knew how this stuff worked?
I am made for childbearing like you, yes. And I will be with you until death.
Crap, crap, crap! You kind of just stay in the background and talk?
In this form, I am most active. In two-legged form, I will assert myself if you anger me. I can talk to you in both forms if I choose, but human interactions are beneath me.
The wolf had a huge ego.
I inhaled, checking for enemies again. Or were we doing that together without me realising? My ears twitched at the sound of hooves in the distance. Medium prey judging by the tread. Enough meat to sustain me for a week.
The childbearing thing, I replied after this influx of messed-up information. I’m not down with that.
You don’t have to be. I am made to have children. If I don’t do that, then I have no purpose and I must die.
“Jesus.” At least I tried to say the word. A chortling question mark sound came out instead. You said that you don’t like rules, but you’re sticking to a pretty big tradition there.
Talking to her was helping somehow. Or maybe it was a time thing. I felt stronger. The shaking had stopped.
I should figure out how I got here.
Where was Ella F? The last thing I remembered was slamming on the brakes when my arms first broke.
Her harsh words filled my mind again. It is a good argument if not a pointless one. I am what I am.
Okay, cool. How do I get back to two-legged Andie?
You want to leave this form already?
Her displeasure and disappointment were plain. Her emotions had that same foreign tinge to them—I could just tell they weren’t mine.
If you don’t respect my presence, she said, I will take over entirely.<
br />
That couldn’t happen. How do I respect your presence?
Seriously, I had no idea Luthers had a running conversation in their heads all the time.
I like to run. I like to chase prey. I don’t like others of my kind, especially the one you call Greyson.
Ha! We can fucking agree on that.
I will kill him when he arrives, but we should find a better battlefield.
My eyes widened. Odd, really, how many things wolves could do. He’s coming here?
I drew him with our howl. Men are led by their breeding parts. I told him that we were eager.
She didn’t. That was a dick move.
You won’t say that when his blood coats our fangs and fur.
Gross.
I’m taking control now, she said.
Half a yelp left me before she slid into the driver’s seat. Just like that, I had no control over this form. I was a passenger, able to feel the movement of my four legs and the expansion of my ribs, and able to process scents and sounds and tastes, while being an absolute observer at the same time.
I didn’t like it.
You’ll get used to it. As I will in our two-legged form.
Claustrophobic was the word.
We whined as my panic mounted.
That will drive us both insane, she snapped. Relax into our movement.
No, I snapped back. Give control to me.
She laughed in her dark, guttural voice. This is my form. You have control in the other. That is how we exist, Andie Thana.
I got how this was meant to work, but it just wouldn’t. With me. That’s a no, not an I can’t. It’s an I am not capable of doing that.
Our breath became shallow and erratic.
We stumbled through the bush even as our ears picked up the whisper-soft sigh of a large predator racing toward us.
I felt weak and drained—so different from a minute prior. What was happening?
This form is mine, she snarled.
This is my body. Our body, if you’re here, too, now. We share everything. This form and the other. I won’t be locked out ever.
Whining again, we flopped onto the ground in a shuddering heap. The sudden divide between us was draining our energy away. It was the only thing that had changed.
Black crept across my vision and the impossible strength I’d felt building on the shore was a forgotten thing.
We share both forms, she mused. It is unnatural and will take practice. But I am fond of making my own rules. I will do this thing, so you don’t kill us both. If a wolf and human cannot co-exist, then nature has no need for us.
I sighed as the black retreated and power flooded back into my body, filling my lungs with air and sharpening my mind. I feel stronger than before.
Yes, she answered, her amusement plain. It seems meeting halfway was right.
I moved a paw. How is sharing going to work?
You tell me.
Rolling to stand, I tried to walk forward, face-planting when my four legs tangled together. Shit. Okay, how about you handle our movement. I’ll handle the senses for now. We can play around with things later.
She didn’t reply before taking off at a loping run that was nowhere near as fast as the huge bounds of the beast closing in. I twitched our ears and pinpointed him behind us. How far away is he?
I don’t know how to tell you.
Crap, okay. A metre is the length of that branch. How many metres away is he?
Around a thousand of those.
A kilometre. Okay, thanks. We could only count on a couple of minutes.
We wound up a small rise and found a cave at the top. She smirked inwardly as I scanned the dark for company, inhaling. Rats? Small prey. Nothing more. And they’d already scattered because they wanted to live.
Hey, I asked. What should I call you? Do you have a name?
I live, I eat, I breed, and I die. I have no need nor desire for a name.
I had a feeling a lot of our conversations would be this way. What’s the plan with Greyson?
Kill him and eat his heart.
That actually made me emotional. Thanks for hating him too.
His wolf murdered a member of your pack.
She didn’t consider the tribe her pack. Then again, she didn’t like others of her kind either. Sigmas were usually lone wolves, so that must be it.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but Greyson is kind of big. How are we playing this?
He won’t hurt us. We are his weakness.
Twisted. I liked it. I might just give you the reins for this one. I’m a bit rusty on wolf-to-wolf combat.
She didn’t snort as I’d expected. Instead, I felt her agreement in my mind. Or wherever she resided.
I won’t betray your trust, Andie Thana.
Just Andie will do.
I had so many questions. Mainly about how she sounded so wise and old when she was less than an hour old. Did she know where Luthers came from originally or anything about them? I’d known Luthers could speak to each other in wolf form, but not that they actually spoke to their wolves. Was my wolf limited to what I knew? She seemed to come into existence knowing how to survive. In which case, she could help me against the pack. This could be a far stronger advantage than I ever expected.
Maybe I shouldn’t look at this development as a negative.
Your incessant chatter distracts me.
Oh. Sorry. I focused on Greyson. He’d slowed and circled us with a deliberate tread not intended to hide his presence.
He completed a lap, paused, and then retreated before stalking forward a way.
My wolf shuffled us forward to the edge, draping our paws over so we could glance to the bottom of the small rise.
I listened to his breathing, peering into the trees where I knew him to be.
We inhaled.
Pine. Musk. River water. Sweat.
The scents hit us one after the other like brick walls. Pine, musk, river water, sweat. We staggered from the force of the smells, and a panicked yelp left our snarling lips as we clawed at the crumbling rock ledge.
Nope.
Yelping, we rolled down the crumbling, rocky hill. I didn’t care. Pine, musk, river water, sweat. Pine, musk, river water, sweat. Slamming to a halt against a thick root, the smell barraged our senses, filling us with need.
Pine, musk, river water, sweat.
He’s coming, my wolf said with difficulty.
We struggled upward as Greyson stalked into the clearing. Sinking down, we snapped and growled our warning, ears pressing back. Our claws splayed in the forest floor, ready to provide traction, eager to slice and tear.
The wolf took a step closer, and our snarl intensified. Pine, musk, river water, sweat.
Take another step and I will kill you, my wolf boomed.
Full of shit. We were disorientated to say the least. We shook our head, but the scents kept bouncing around in there.
You are mine, she-wolf, Greyson answered.
We will never belong to you. You murdered a member of her pack.
Greyson tilted his head. She was in danger.
She can handle herself. Leave. Or die by my fangs and claws. You are no mate of mine.
A whine slipped from our teeth as his scent swam around us.
What’s wrong? he demanded.
We didn’t answer as our legs gave out and we trembled on the ground. I listened absently to the cracking of bone and ripping of sinew, thankful it wasn’t coming from me.
The one I like is here, my wolf purred.
I cracked open an eyelid and took in a very naked Sascha. You’re fucking kidding me. We don’t like him either!
I do. A lot.
Fucking traitor.
“You’re okay, little bird,” Sascha said in a low voice that one of us liked far too much.
Don’t come any closer, I mentally snapped at him.
He won’t hear us in two-legged form, she told me.
He sank to a crouch and held both hands up. “I
need to get closer to see what’s wrong.”
Maybe the gnashing teeth gave away my mood.
There’s nothing wrong with the way he smells. Mmm. She inhaled deeply.
What is it? I demanded.
The scent meet. On our behalf anyway. Judging by his lack of reaction, he’s already scented us.
Oh, fuck. She was right. Where’s the sex part?
Both of you must be in two-legged form.
“You need to shift back.” Sascha shuffled closer.
He’s right. Her voice echoed in my head. Our head.
Whatever.
Panting, I moved away, stopping when my butt hit the crumbling hill at our back.
“Easy, little bird. Easy. You need to focus on what you look like as a human. Imagine the way your body moves in that form. The way you see and smell. The shape of your ears and mouth. The feel of your fingertips.”
Not doing it.
My wolf snorted. You will not be a normal companion, I see. This time, I will trigger the shift. But I prefer this form and will not help you again.
Don’t you dare. The heat!
Her thoughts seized mine. Hands through sand. Hair tickling my lower back. The long, graceful movement of two legs.
Crack.
Short nails. Warm toes.
Pop.
Upright. Soft voice.
Crack, crack, crack.
The invisible force took over, and we whined as it flung us forward again.
Human arms.
Human body.
Red hair plastered against my sweaty forehead.
In a crouch, my legs reversed and lengthened with a series of sickening crunches and groans so much faster than my descent into the other.
My face drew in, shortening, sharpening, and I jolted as my whine morphed to panting gasps. Knees to my chest and hair in a tangled curtain between me and Sascha, I struggled to get my bearings from my crouched position before him.
Oh my god. I was back.
My breath hitched.
“Andie,” Sascha said, his voice filled with wonder. “Beautiful wolf.”
My senses were sharper.
I felt strong. Powerful. Fast. I could hear the trickle of where the closest stream met Lake Thana.
They weren’t as attuned as in wolf form, but I was…
I was a predator.
I was alive.
Moon Claimed: Supernatural Battle (Werewolf Dens Book 2) Page 10
