by Everly Frost
Looking up, I find that the space around me has transformed.
It’s early morning and the sunlight should be warm, but my hands are clammy, my bottom lip chewed so badly from nerves, it’s cut and bleeding.
I stand again at the school gate, the brown brick pillars rising on either side of the wrought-iron entrance. My mother stands in front of the gate, her sunset hair glowing like a halo. She should have been my angel, my source of love and kindness.
Peter Nash looms beside her, a giant to me, his wolf skull tattoo making me shudder.
Mom casts a cold glare at me across the distance, her head held at a haughty height. I stop on the path, gripping my backpack, my palms sweating so much that my fingers slip as I try to adjust the straps.
I feel her hatred deep in the core of my soul—a hatred I never expected to be so intense. It stops me in my tracks, rips at my stomach, makes my heart burn.
My older self screams at her in my defense: For fuck’s sake. You’re my mother. I was only six years old.
She strides toward me and I remember… in that moment… my wolf’s energy questing inside me, asking to be released. I could sense every watching eye on me. The other kids. Several teachers in the background. Peter Nash’s cruel smile as he watches his mate descend on me. My mother’s shadow looming over me—so large because I was a tiny girl. Her hand rising…
Not this time.
Not again.
My wolf’s energy bursts out of me, taking shape at my side, but this time, I merge with her, shifting fully.
The world around me turns into cobalt fire and I’m astounded at the paleness of my mother’s power, how insignificant it is compared to Tristan’s, even Cody’s, certainly nothing compared to my father’s.
I take on my wolf’s shape, welcome my wolf’s claws and teeth, snarl with her vocal chords, and leap with her strength.
My mother screams, tries to shift into her wolf form, but I’m faster.
I knock her down.
My claws rake across her chest, and I sink my teeth into her neck. But I don’t rip out her throat, pausing as her blood fills my mouth.
This is an illusion.
I never did this. I have never conquered my fear of remaining unloved and unwanted by everyone but my father.
As I release my screaming mother, my surroundings change again. Her screams become a sigh on the breeze as the garden reappears.
Only my full shift actually happened.
I’m still in wolf form, the silver flowers and vines forming a carpet beneath my paws. Snarling, I lower my head, my wolf’s rage flowing through me as I take a threatening step toward Helen. Her silhouette burns bright cobalt in my vision, her power so intense that it lights the space around us in a myriad of sparkles. Her power is as intense as Tristan’s, threatening to burn out my wolf’s power like his did.
“Tessa,” she says, quiet and unafraid, meeting my wolf’s eyes. “Let her out.”
I’m confused. My wolf is already out. This is as out as she gets.
Helen rises slowly to her feet. “You’re holding her back, Tessa. Stop caging her!”
I take a startled step back, but my rage rises, my snarls deepen. A thought rises inside my mind, as if my wolf’s energy somehow finds its own voice: What does this witch know of me?
Nothing.
Not a fucking thing.
I scream inside my mind, a sound that takes the form of a fierce growl, my wolf’s snarls shivering across the air.
A burst of energy flows through me as I prepare to leap forward, but a tearing sensation fills me, ripping through my heart and mind.
My wolf leaps ahead of me, detaching from my body as she leaves the ground and leaps toward Helen.
I scream in shock.
She’s separate from me!
I’m left crouching in my human form in the middle of the vines while my wolf slashes at Helen with her claws and teeth, a wild creature somehow existing outside of me.
At the same time, my vision splits.
I can see the scene in front of me—Helen’s magic bursting around her body to protect herself as my wolf attacks—while I can also see what my wolf sees: a closer version of Helen’s magic swirling around them both.
I’m seeing through my wolf’s eyes as well as my own, even though my body remains behind her. It makes my head spin and the contents of my stomach threaten to return to me.
My wolf rips through Helen’s magic, but the animal’s teeth pass through her arm, not leaving a mark.
I’m filled with both relief and horror at the scene in front of me. Without me, my wolf has no substance. No form. She can’t do any damage, even though she’s outside of me.
It doesn’t stop her.
She tries again, leaping and attempting to savage Helen’s thigh, but my wolf’s teeth pass right through Helen’s body.
Shuddering, I smother another scream rising inside me.
I drop to the ground and squeeze my eyes shut.
Even with my eyes closed, I can still see what my wolf sees.
Helen stops fighting back, allowing her magic to recede, standing very still instead.
My head spins and the contents of my stomach rise as I struggle to maintain my sense of space and time—of where I am. Of what I am.
My mind tells me that with my eyes closed, my vision should be dark, but the scene in front of me tips and whirls, shifting with every savage movement my wolf makes, my ears filling with her snarls.
“Stop!” I cry, clutching my head, pressing my hands to my ears. “Come back!”
My wolf whimpers in response to my command, backing slowly away from Helen. She is so proud that she doesn’t stop snarling, her lips drawn back from her teeth until she backs into me.
Her energy merges with me again, her form melds into mine, and my vision returns to normal when I dare to open my eyes.
I tip to the side, drawing my knees to my chest, curling up in the carpet of silver vines as I struggle to breathe. “What just happened?”
Helen’s quiet footsteps approach.
She kneels beside me, her comforting scent surrounding me again. Her hand is warm, firm, on my arm. “You did what no shifter should be able to do,” she says.
My breathing is rapid. Panicked. “I could see with her eyes.”
“Then she can scout for you, Tessa.”
My gaze flies upward. “What did you say?”
“I said this is a good thing.” Helen’s smile is gentle. “Your wolf has enormous capacity, Tessa. She’s part of you but can separate from you. Tell me: Did you feel weaker when she was away from you? As if she took your strength with her?”
I shake my head. “I felt the same. Just as strong as when she’s with me.”
“Then her ability to separate could be a huge advantage in a fight. She can scout ahead or keep watch at your back. You just need to control what you see without it messing with your head.”
I exhale, my breathing finally slowing. “Did you know that I could do this?”
Helen shakes her head. “I wasn’t sure, but I sensed your power bashing around inside you—tied to you but also trying to escape.”
“I think I need some time to process this,” I whisper.
“Take all the time you need, but remember this: You controlled her. She attacked because you were angry. She stopped when you needed her to stop. She has no mind other than yours.”
Helen presses her palm against my chest above the location of my heart. “When you really understand your power in your heart, then you’ll control your wolf’s energy completely and you won’t be afraid of her anymore. That’s when you’ll also control your scent.”
Helen helps me to my feet, but I can’t quite meet her eyes.
I bite my lip as guilt rises inside me. “I’m sorry that she—I mean I—attacked you.”
She waves away my concern. “You’d be the exception if you hadn’t. Every woman who shelters here has learned to distrust everyone around her in order to survive.
I don’t judge anyone for that.”
Helen supports me as we walk to the stairs, leaving the quiet garden behind. Even two days ago, I never would have accepted her help. Now I hold on to her without shame, feeling like a barrier has been lowered between us.
My wolf attacked her and she stood firm, facing my rage without flinching. Any woman who can do that deserves my respect.
Chapter Twelve
For the next two months, I remain single-minded.
Each afternoon, I spend hours with Helen, learning how to separate from my wolf and to control my power. Each morning, Iyana trains me in weaponry first and then combat after that. My shooting aim improves marginally, but nowhere near as quickly as my ability to take on new combat techniques. At our gym sessions, Iyana introduces me to the art of Muay Thai, and I don’t look back, learning to extend my boxing skills and make more effective use of my elbows, knees, and shins. Every part of my body becomes a weapon, not just my fists and feet.
I’m not the only woman in the house who makes progress.
Ella ventures out of our room and starts spending her mornings in the garden, making her way back up to our room before everyone comes to the garden for lunch. We often meet in the library and walk silently along the corridor back to our room together—me to have a shower, her to crawl into her bed and sleep away all of the sensory input from her morning spent outside.
Over the course of the first month, several women leave the house, including the woman with the pointed ears. Before she goes, Helen places a glamour over her ears to hide her true appearance from the world and protect her.
Jace is a regular but quiet visitor each week, but he only ever visits the gun range, observing me from a distance before disappearing again. It frustrates me that he always turns up first thing in the morning, watches me scowl my way through a shooting session in which I inevitably miss the target about a thousand times, and then he leaves before we head upstairs to the gym.
He has no idea of the progress I’m making in the combat ring.
I tell myself that’s a good thing. Jace reports back to Tristan. If they don’t know about my progress, then they’ll underestimate my skills.
Even so, my pride smarts every time I sense his gaze burning my back. I can feel his judgement cutting into my self-esteem through the soundproofed wall as he watches me fail at target practice time and time again.
Danika, the hawk shifter, often joins Iyana and me in the mornings. And then at lunchtime too. She doesn’t talk much about her past, but when she shows me her room, my jaw drops. She sleeps on the edge of a cliff, where she can shift into her hawk form and soar across the sky whenever she wants to.
As far as the gun range goes, I envy Danika’s ability to hit the target every time, no matter what type of gun she’s using. At one point, she takes pity on me and tries to tell me that it helps to hate my target, to imagine it represents the person I despise most in the world.
I try imagining that the target is Baxter Griffin in the moment that he ripped out my father’s throat. Then I try to imagine it’s Cody. And lastly, Tristan. Even with all of my anger, my bullets continue to chew up the edges of the target day after day, never hitting the center.
Finally, at the end of my second month at Hidden House, I place my empty weapon onto the bench in front of me, remove my earmuffs, and plant my hands on my hips, staring at the untouched target.
If Danika or one of the other women were here, I would keep my earmuffs on for safety reasons, but Iyana and I have the place to ourselves.
Iyana stands a little behind me and I can already hear what she’s going to say: Shake it off; you’ll do better tomorrow.
We both know I won’t.
It’s time to admit that guns aren’t my thing. “It’s like I’m primed to hit everything other than what I’m aiming for,” I say.
As I turn to give Iyana the news that I’m giving up, the door in the glass wall behind us opens.
I freeze as Jace enters.
He was so quiet this morning that I wasn’t aware of his presence. More surprisingly, this is the first time he’s come anywhere close to me since my first days at Hidden House.
Iyana shifts a little closer to me as he approaches, a protective gesture that he doesn’t miss—causing him to stop short. She was originally going to leave Hidden House after my first week. Instead, she’s stayed two months.
Jace folds his arms across his chest as he stops several paces away from us. He’s wearing his usual low-slung jeans, but today, a black T-shirt conceals his wolf tattoo.
I frown at the ugly bruise stretching across his cheek. It’s faded, maybe a week old. My own bruises are long healed, even if the memories of that night will remain with me forever.
“Maybe you should try throwing knives,” Jace says.
I glare at him, unimpressed by his condescension. “Very funny.”
“I’m not trying to insult you,” he says, his tone serious. “I can’t shoot a gun to save my life, but I can hit a guy’s eye with a knife from twenty feet away. While he’s running in a zigzag, no less.”
Jace takes a step toward me, but I stand my ground.
“We’re shifters,” he says. “We need instinctive weapons. Guns are as cold as vampires. No offense, Iyana. Knives are visceral—up close and bloody. That’s how shifters fight.”
Uncertain, I cast a questioning glance at Iyana. So far, we haven’t started working with blades, but Jace’s claims resonate with what Helen has been teaching me about my wolf—she is part of me at a deep, instinctive level. My power follows the most basic instincts—claw, tooth, life, lust, and death. There is no threat here in the gun range. My target is always at a distance, removed from me and made of paper, even if I try to imagine it’s someone I hate.
“I’m willing to try it,” I say, beating back my own misgivings.
“It’s completely up to you, Tessa.” Iyana tips her head in acquiescence. “But blades aren’t my forte. I can fight with them, but I’m no good at throwing them. Jace will have to show you.” She gives him a pointed and cold look, pinning him with her icy blue-gray eyes. “If he’s willing.”
Jace pauses before he inclines his head in agreement. The length of his pause tells me he thought he could throw his suggestion out there and move on. He clearly wasn’t counting on having to teach me.
“Let’s head up to the gym for this,” Iyana says, seeming to take his silence for agreement. “You’ll need a solid target.”
Jace steps well clear of us as we pass by. On the night my father died, Jace told me that whatever power my scent had over Tristan, Jace didn’t plan on succumbing to it. I warned him that he’d better not get too close to me. I’m still not sure if Jace is a powerful enough shifter to detect the high and low notes of my scent like Tristan can, but I don’t want to find out.
I can’t help smirking, though, as I wonder how he’s going to show me how to throw a knife without touching me to check my footing or the position of my arms. Maybe he’ll demonstrate from a distance.
But then I wonder… What if my scent has no impact on him because I have it under control now?
On the way up the stairs, I suddenly realize that I’m in a dangerous position.
In the last two months, Helen has taught me how to control my wolf more thoroughly than I ever thought possible. She has taught me how to diminish my scent, as well as accentuate it, controlling it at will. She helped me see that the cobalt fire that fills my vision when I harness my wolf’s energy is the color of my fear, that I can control my fear and tame it. Helen has taught me to turn my wolf into a quiet predator, scouting through the garden, relaying everything my wolf sees—everything I see—back to my human form.
Helen also promised that she wouldn’t tell Tristan that I was ready until I asked her to.
I’m not ready to leave Hidden House yet.
Soon. Just… not yet.
Now, Jace might find out that I’m a whole lot more ready than Helen has been reporting to T
ristan.
A sense of trepidation fills me by the time we reach the gym. The only way I can avoid being discovered is if I keep my distance from Jace and make sure he doesn’t suspect I’m in control already.
Reaching the gym, we find the room magically rearranged. The boxing ring has been replaced with an open area with large, wooden targets standing in a row. A large rack holding a myriad of different-shaped knives sits at the front of the space nearest to the door.
The card mage twins meet us in the doorway as we arrive. They’re disgruntled and sweaty, wearing their gym clothing.
“We were using the boxing ring,” Lydia says, gesturing to the now-empty space. “Until it disappeared and the room rearranged itself.”
I suck in an apologetic breath. “Sorry, ladies.”
Lydia rolls her eyes. “Well, I guess it’s time for our mid-morning snack anyway,” she says, winking at me.
“Are you sure it’s not afternoon?” I ask, with a completely straight face, testing her ability to tell the time.
She rolls her eyes at me. Over the last two months, the twins have become much more cognizant of time and space, so much that they’ll sometimes remind me when I’m late for something.
“I’m certain,” she says.
Beside her, Luna is fixated on Jace, her sage green eyes widening and her cheeks filling with color. I’ve learned that Luna’s blush is not a sign of embarrassment, rather that she’s accessing her power.
Lydia notices too, startles, and gives Luna’s arm a firm tug toward the corridor, but Luna refuses to budge. She pulls her playing cards from her pocket, a deep crease of concentration forming in her forehead. I catch the startling image of a weeping wolf on the card she holds.
Jace returns Luna’s stare with a calmness I wasn’t expecting. “Don’t worry,” he says to her, a hint of bitterness tugging at his lips. “I know what you’re going to tell me.”
Just when Luna moves as if she’s going to throw the card into the air, Lydia grabs her sister’s hand, covering the cards and stopping her.
“Not today, dearest,” she whispers to her sister. “It won’t end well.”
