by Anita Oh
I took a cautious step closer to him. Even if that power struck out at me, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if it hurt me or took me over; I had to help him.
His eyes weren't his own. He wasn't in control, and that seemed so wrong. Tennyson was always in control. It was his defining feature. It terrified me to think of him being out of control like this, losing such an integral part of who he was.
"Lucy, I think you should move away," said Sam from somewhere behind me.
I kept my eyes on Tennyson, reaching a hand out toward him. I couldn't feel him through our connection, and when I tried, it felt like stepping over a cliff and into a void. I couldn't move away from him. I had to find him, to bring him back.
I remembered a moment similar to this with Sam, when he’d been stuck mid-transformation. I’d wanted to help him, and I’d been so sure he wouldn’t strike out at me, but I’d been wrong. But I wasn’t wrong this time. Tennyson was part of me, and no matter how lost he was, he would never hurt me.
The others moved farther into the clearing. I couldn't see them, but I could sense them as clearly as if I were looking straight at them. They moved toward Tennyson.
"Don't come any closer," I said, trying to stay quiet so I wouldn't alarm him. "He's not himself."
"We can help," said Nikolai. He moved toward Tennyson, putting himself between Tennyson and me.
I tried to move around him before Tennyson could react, but I wasn't fast enough. Tennyson let out a thunderous roar and struck out at Nikolai with one of the tendrils of power. The force of it sent Nikolai flying all the way across the clearing until he smacked into the garden wall.
He slumped down into a heap and didn't get back up. Althea ran to help him.
"Lucy, get out of there!" Sam yelled.
"No!" I yelled back at him. "I'm the only one who can help him."
This was my fault. Tennyson had taken the power to help me, and now it was consuming him. It had made him hurt one of his pack members, the ones he'd do anything to protect. I couldn't think of anything worse for Tennyson, and I had to stop him.
I took another step toward him. The power was so strong this close to him. It was almost like a forcefield, pushing me back. I had to shield my eyes from the blinding light. I couldn't believe this power had been inside me all along. How had I not burned up?
"Lucy!"
Sam grabbed my arm, and I knew exactly what was about to happen.
Tennyson gathered up the full force of the power and directed it at Sam.
I twisted around, pulling Sam behind me, and as the power struck me, Tennyson's eyes met mine.
As the power flooded into me, I let go of Sam and let it take me. It was me that it had wanted all along, so I'd let it have me. Better me than Tennyson.
As it filled me, I rose into the air, held up by the steady stream of power between us. I'd thought to siphon the power from him, but it didn't seem to be leaving him. A high-pitched squealing noise began to fill the air, and I realized what was happening. The power was circulating between us through our connection, and that sound was the feedback loop we created as it amplified. The noise got louder and louder as the power grew, and I knew I had to do something about it. The power had to go somewhere. If I wanted to save Tennyson, I had to find somewhere to direct the power. But, first, I had to take the power from him, and it occurred to me that the two problems might actually be the solution.
I had to use the power to block him from it, to create another barrier. Only, this time it wouldn't be a hurtful barrier to cut him off from an integral part of himself, but one to protect him from me and whatever I might someday become.
I'd never used the power for any real purpose before, only pushing it and pulling it as best I could, so I wasn't sure I could do anything fancy. I raised my arms in front of me and tried to weave the power into shapes.
I wove it into a dome around him, like he was trapped inside a big glowy purple bubble. Only this bubble wouldn't pop. It was indestructible. As I wove it, I realized that I didn't want him to be completely trapped, to be cut off from me. He should be allowed to come and go from his protective bubble as he pleased, to talk in my mind and share my feelings and all that other stuff the bond had allowed us. I added a door. And some windows. He'd probably miss me too much if the barrier was too strong.
All the power that had been spiraling from him, lighting him up, was drawn from him now and added to that bubble.
The stream of power between us faded, and I dropped back to the ground. Tennyson was standing inside the bubble, looking more like himself again. He reached out to touch the bubble and smiled at me.
You did it, he said.
Then he collapsed.
All the power rushed back into me at once. I let it. I had no other choice.
Behind me, I heard Sam snarling. He lunged for Tennyson, but the protective bubble pushed him back.
The power wanted to consume me, and I wanted to let it. It was inevitable. It was my fate.
As long as Tennyson was protected, I realized, I didn't care. The power could do what it wanted to me as long as it stopped hurting him. The entire time we'd had this bond, he'd been suffering because of me, because of the power, and I just wanted that to stop.
As if that thought was a command, the power flowed out of me and surrounded Tennyson. It spun around and around him like a tornado. I couldn't even see him, the power was rushing around him so fast. It glowed faintly, turning from the purple that it had been earlier into a bright gold.
Even though I couldn't see Tennyson, I knew the power would no longer hurt him. This power came from within me. However it had first been sparked into being, it came from me, had grown within me, and I suddenly understood that because of that, it couldn't overpower me unless I let it. The power was mine, and it would do as I willed it.
I raised my hand to tell it to stop, and the power drew back into me.
I had mastered it. I had been transformed. Where the power had been spinning around Tennyson, there now stood a giant golden tree, and he was lying at the foot of it, a pure white wolf.
The Becoming was now complete. But I knew that it wasn't over. I'd merely taken the first step in the journey I'd seen on the mosaic walls.
Chapter 23
Nikolai had healed in no time, more injured pride than anything, but Tennyson still hadn't woken up. It had been three days. The armchair by his bed wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep, and I'd been developing a pretty serious crick in the neck.
He’d transformed back into human form sometime during the first night, but part of me wished he hadn’t. He looked so vulnerable lying there, his eyelashes dark against his pale cheeks. I'd wanted to help him, and it had ended like this. The others thought he'd be fine, that he just needed time and rest for his healing abilities to do their work, but I was getting worried. He was so still that I had to keep watching carefully to be sure his chest was still rising and falling.
"You know, you can't really call me the creepy one when you're in my room watching me sleep."
I'd been so intent on watching him breathe that I'd missed the moment he woke up. He stared at me with those bright blue eyes, brows furrowed in question.
"How much do you remember?" I asked.
My belly squirmed around, which was stupid, because it wasn't as if I was nervous. Everything that had happened between us had been a matter of survival. It didn't mean anything.
Even I didn't remember everything. There were things I knew had happened, like when we'd been so joined that we knew every thought the other one had ever had, but the details of that were fuzzy now. Maybe it was the protective bubble, or maybe it was that we were separate again now, but that was probably for the best, even though part of me still yearned for that kind of closeness. It just wasn't realistic, wasn't sustainable.
He gave a little shrug, then winced. "Bits and pieces."
Then his eyes went wide in fear and he reached out for me and grabbed my hand. There wasn't that immediat
e feeling of relief that there had been before, when I'd needed his help controlling the power, but still, it was kind of nice anyway.
"Nikolai and Sam?" he asked.
"They're fine," I told him. "Better than you."
He sagged back in relief, his eyes falling closed. I thought he'd fallen asleep, but then he spoke again.
"It's still there," he said quietly. "Our bond. I can feel it, but it's different now."
"We completed it," I told him.
He nodded. "I remember."
My stomach flipped over again, but I ignored it. "You're stuck with me now," I told him.
"Probably for the best," he said, squeezing my hand. "You're fairly useless without me."
There were so many things for us to sort out, to deal with, but just for the moment, it was nice to sit there with him quietly.
Before long, Althea and Nikolai appeared in the doorway. They knew Tennyson was awake, and I'd sensed them coming. I always would now, I supposed. It was part of my new powers, my new life. Just one more of the things I needed to sort out later on.
I pulled my hand away from Tennyson's and stood up.
"You don't have to leave," said Althea.
I moved out of the way so she could take my spot at the bedside.
"It's fine," I said. "I've got some stuff to do."
She smiled at me. and I knew she understood what I meant.
Nikolai hung back by the door for a moment, and I hovered, wanting to see how this played out. They were both kind of idiots about most things, but I hoped they wouldn’t be about this.
“How are you?” Tennyson asked. He sounded nervous.
“You punched me in the face with magic. How do you think I am?”
I held my breath for a moment, but then Nikolai started to laugh, and I knew everything would be fine.
Sam was out in the clearing when I found him. I'd known he would be. He was sitting on the bench, glaring at my golden tree. He didn't speak to me as I sat beside him. We’d barely spoken in days.
"You're misunderstanding everything," I told him. "I can't help but think it's on purpose."
"The Becoming gave you lycanthropy," he said. "And you're bonded to Tennyson forever."
I nodded. Both of those things were true, more or less. But I wasn’t exactly a werewolf. I wasn’t exactly anything anymore.
"Tennyson and I…" I sighed. "Just because we're bonded, that doesn't mean we're in love."
He scoffed at me. "Don't be naïve, Lucy."
I rolled my eyes. "Don't be a jerk, Sam. What's going on here is about more than some stupid bond. The Others are out there, Sam. They took you, they took Hannah. They have your mother."
I couldn't tell him the thought that followed on from that. One day they would have me. I'd started walking down a path that had only one destination. It was too terrifying to think about, so I put it out of my mind.
"Plus, I'm one of you now. I'm going to need your help. You can't teach me how to werewolf if you're mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you, Lucy. I'm…"
I nudged him in the side. "You're what? In awe of my awesomeness, right?" I waggled my eyebrows at him.
"Sure, Lucy. I'm in awe of your awesomeness." He cracked a smile. It was only a small one, but it was there.
I waved a hand toward my tree. "Right! I mean, I grew a whole tree with my brain. That's pretty awesome, right?"
"You and Tennyson joined together to grow a tree," he said, sounding glum again.
"Don't make it sound dirty. It's an awesome brain tree. It probably has powers, too."
I looked at my tree, at its wide, golden branches. No matter what Sam said about it, that tree shone like a symbol of hope to me. If the power inside me was something inevitably evil, how could it create something so bright? That helped me believe that maybe I wouldn't have to walk down that dark path, that instead I could use the power inside me to fight the Others.
In my mind, I could feel Tennyson's contentment. Part of it was our bond, but I could also now sense him as part of the same pack. It felt good. It felt right.
Everything okay? he asked me.
Yeah, I told him, leaning my weight against Sam. Everything's just fine.
Werewolf High #5: The Love Potion will be out in 2017! For updates, bonus content and special offers, join the Werewolf High mailing list!
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Kathryn for sharing your wealth of knowledge.
Thanks to Carol Davis for editing.
Deranged Doctor Designs, my cover is awesome.
Hannah, Liam and Morgan, thank you for letting me steal your names.
Sandy and Laurie, thank you for all your help, support and advice.
Thank you to everyone who has continued to read and support this series. You guys are the best!
About the Author
Anita likes dogs, naps, food, and Japanese idol group Arashi. Everything else can be improved when combined with these four things.
After several years in the warm, comforting cocoon of fandom, Anita has decided to see what’s up with this real world she’s heard about. Judgment is reserved until more information can be gathered.
Anita lives with a two spoiled dogs who boss her around terribly.
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