This time, I knew, I wouldn’t be able to stop the wolf. The beast would come out, erupt with a howl for freedom.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through me, mixing with the pain, and I rolled out of bed, landing on all fours on the floor beside it. Quiet, nearly soundless footsteps placed two black shoes in front of me, and it was then I knew I wasn’t alone in my room.
Henry stood above me, smiling down at me with an air of superiority he did not deserve. He must’ve been careful, moving slowly and noiselessly, to come into Forest’s house without waking any of the other shifters sleeping in the house. He was a pack elder; I supposed he had years of practice.
“What did you do?” I wheezed, doubling over. It was like something crawled beneath my skin, clawing its way out, shredding every single one of my nerve endings. my eyes, tears forming in the corners, landed on my left hand, on the scratch.
I knew.
I knew exactly what he did, and I hated him for it. For his stupidity, for his haughtiness, for his know-it-all attitude. A hatred burned within me, fired up by the wolf inside. My wolf. My wolf that was currently on her way out.
My fingernails sharpened and grew, painfully erupting from each of my fingertips until they curved into the floor. My mouth ached, my whole head feeling as if it were going to explode. I shot Henry a glare in the darkness; I could see a bit too well, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my green eyes were now reflective and metallic.
“You scratched me,” I muttered, my teeth sharpening into fangs. “I’ll—” I found I could say nothing else, only growl as my spine cracked and rearranged itself, as my bones morphed and shifted into that of a wolf, tearing through my clothes.
“Stop fighting it. Let it happen,” Henry advised. “The first one is always the worst.” The way he looked down on me, I could tell he didn’t even care about my pain, about what his idiotic mistake might have cost us all.
As my human form faded, someone pounded on my bedroom door. The handle was locked, though it wouldn’t stop them for long. “Addie!” It was Forest’s voice. He sounded more frantic, more worried than I’d ever heard him, but I was too lost in my transformation to pay much attention.
More shouts were had behind the door, my other mates arriving at the scene. “Henry’s with her,” one of them said. I was not human enough to differentiate the voice.
Hair grew on my body, a tail sprouting on my tailbone. A snout grew from my face as my ears shifted upwards on my head. It happened fast, and yet not fast enough. Every little change hurt more than words could say, and I was no longer human enough to cry, to scream, to do anything but let the change take over.
I couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t stop it. Not once in my life had I felt so powerless, useless. Hopeless. I was a slave to the change. The shift was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, so many sensations, so much agony, all at once. It was miserable.
And then, once it was over, once I shook off my torn clothing and stood on all fours, clawed feet digging into the floor, I felt only one thing.
Rage.
Chapter Twenty – Addie
I turned my head up, glaring at Henry. The smile on his lips made my hackles raise and a growl erupt from my throat. Teeth bared, I wasn’t even sure how I was doing it; it was instinctual, my wolf side taking over.
My wolf was pissed.
I took a step toward him, stepping away from my torn clothes, which had fallen to the floor as they were shredded off my human body. The wolf’s muscles were new, strong, my sense of smell sharp. I knew everyone who was in the hall, pounding at the door, and I knew it would only be another short minute before the door was broken down.
This had to end fast.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Henry sneered, haughty even in the face of a raging, wild wolf. “I am your elder, pup. You do not disrespect me—” He went on and on about how we shared a pack, how my loyalty should be to him. He was the one who brought me here, he was the one who set things right.
But I could hardly hear him over the hot blood pumping through my body, over the constant growling escaping from my wide, strong chest. I couldn’t focus on anything except the way the vein in his neck rose when he spoke, calling out to my teeth. I wanted to rip him apart and show him who truly was the best out of us.
My mind was too jumbled to think of why, but I hated him. Blamed him for everything. I wanted to make him pay more than anything in the world.
He reached for me, and I snapped at him, catching the tips of his fingers in my mouth, my teeth, fresh and new and beyond sharp, tore through them instantly, just as the door to the room was broken through.
As Henry stumbled back, clutching his bleeding hand, his eyes flashed metallic. He started to shift, but a large, powerful figure let out a thunderous growl as he stormed across the room, slamming his palms onto Henry’s chest. The old man went flying to the wall behind him, cracking the drywall before sliding down, not lifting a finger to defend himself.
“What have you done?” Forest growled out, glaring at Henry before turning his eyes onto me.
Him, the others. I vaguely recognized Sarah through the eyes of my wolf. It was too much, all at once. Too many people, too many other wolves. I needed space. I needed freedom.
I had to run.
Too many people stood near the door; there’d be no getting out that way, so I bolted to the next and only other option—the window. Before anyone else could stop me, as the others cried my name and tried to calm me down, I leaped, breaking through the glass with ease. My clawed paws slid on the shingles of the wrap-around porch, and my back legs bent as they took the brunt of the leap from the roof to the ground.
And then I did what I had to do. I ran.
I ran through the empty streets of Crystal Lake, zigzagging across lawns, darting over sidewalks and leaping over the hoods of cars. I wasn’t sure where I was running to, but I had to do something. The adrenaline of the shift was too much. It was all too much, too soon, and I was a slave to my instincts.
The more I ran, the less angry I was. The faster my legs pumped, the more freaked out I became. The more frightened. I wasn’t a scaredy-cat, quite the opposite, but I felt like one now.
My legs took me past the town’s park, through the area where I vaguely remembered large crowds of people, past a trench with ashes in it, straight to the lake itself. I felt drawn to the dock, so that’s where I went, my feet slowing to a walk as I moved across the wooden boards. Farther out I went over the water, until the dock ended, and I was surrounded on three sides by a crystal clear lake.
The moon overhead hung low, its hue a bright silver. Its light illuminated the bottom of the lake, and maybe it was with my wolfish senses, but I could see everything that went on under the water. The rocks on its bottom. The fish slowly swimming along. The snails and the tadpoles and the crayfish. Not a single shred of murkiness. It would’ve been beautiful, had I been in my right mind enough to realize it.
As it was, I wasn’t in my right mind. I was barely in my mind at all, with everything that had happened.
I leaned over the edge, staring at my reflection in the calm water below. Shiny green eyes looked back at me, set in the skull of a wolf with brown fur and bits of pink. My ears were lowered, and I looked the very opposite of a confident wolf.
Because, I realized, my mind fighting its way back to me, I wasn’t supposed to be a wolf. I was supposed to hold off on shifting, wait until Clay was handled and dealt with, before any of this happened.
This wasn’t supposed to happen now. The choice was supposed to be mine.
And it was taken from me.
I felt my tail tuck between my legs, and I dropped to my stomach, whimpering as I laid on the dock. The tip of my snout hung off the wood, and I moved one of my front paws beside it, dipping it in the water. Almost immediately, fish swarmed it. Bluegill and minnows, hoping for a meal.
Funny. The fish had no idea something was wrong. They went on with their little fishy lives, oblivious to the w
orld around them. Clay could’ve murdered every single shifter in Crystal Lake, and the fish wouldn’t care either way. They didn’t care I was a wolf, didn’t care I was forced into this against my will. The fish were happy being fish.
I was both jealous and sad about that.
How long would it be before I shifted back? How long would I have to wait before I was in my human form again? No one had told me these things, partly because I never asked and partly because no one thought this would happen so soon. My mates—they all wanted me to make my own decisions, waited patiently while I played hero and kept pushing back my inner wolf. They were great. I didn’t deserve them.
Maybe it was just my depression talking, but everything I felt was just an extension of despair. Everything was futile, a waste of time and energy. Would we even be able to beat Clay, assuming Arthur and Zak’s testimony served as proof? I used to hope so, but now…now it was too hard to hope.
Why bother hoping for anything when all I would be was let down?
My nose picked up the scents first, and then my ears. I was no longer alone in my cloud of depression, but I was too downtrodden to pick up my head and look at their approach. In the end, none of it mattered.
They each carried their own scent, different mixtures of hormones and testosterone, woodsy and musky and earthy. Not at all bad scents, but ones I shouldn’t be smelling right now, because I shouldn’t be a wolf. Only three of them were near, though. If I had to guess, the others remained at the house, watching Henry.
Forest. Dylan. Maze.
One of them approached me on the dock, the others waiting on the lake’s edge. Forest, based on his smell and the way my wolf forced me to look at him with my head low. He was a large black wolf, his eyes a calm and clear blue. Based on size alone, he was much larger than I was, in both forms. His wolf put mine to shame, just as he towered over me when we both stood on two feet.
Forest moved beside me, pressing his snout against my cheek, sniffing me, nudging me. Basically trying to get me to react. All I did was lift my head and look at him. I didn’t get up, didn’t move. When we met eyes, I knew what he was trying to do: get me up, help me feel better.
I was in my own mind enough to know that this was now the hand I was dealt, and I’d have to deal with it sooner or later.
I let out a whimper, and Forest responded by licking my cheek. He gave me another nudge, wanting me to follow him as he walked down the dock. He waited for me halfway, his stare expectant.
Before now, I thought I wanted nothing more than to sit and whine, pout and lose myself in my sorrow for a while, at least until the change took hold of me again and I shifted back, but in spite of it all, I found myself slowly getting to my feet.
Forest was…a lot of things to me, and before I might have known he was my alpha, but it was not until that moment that I understood exactly what the bond meant.
He was my alpha, he had my respect and my devotion automatically, even if he wasn’t my mate. But he was. There was no question about it. He was my mate, my alpha, my everything.
One of my everythings, I corrected myself as I lifted my head and met the warm amber stares of the pair of wolves waiting for us on the rocky shore. Maze and Dylan, looking wholly similar as wolves, though one had slightly longer tufts of chocolatey fur on his head—Dylan. He also didn’t stare directly at me, due to his lack of glasses.
My nerdy, semi-blind, mate. And Maze was my talkative, eager mate, full of useless facts and energy.
Maze only proved my point by wagging his tail, practically hopping around like an excited dog. If I could’ve smiled then, I would’ve. Ridiculous and silly didn’t even cut it.
I couldn’t say how much time passed, and it didn’t matter. We didn’t stray from the lake’s shore and the park as my mates taught me, showed me what it meant to be a fully shifted wolf. Running, playing, letting the breeze blow against my fur and relishing in the sensation. It was almost fun, nearly enough to make me forget about the fact that I hadn’t agreed to change yet, that I didn’t want this.
But as I learned to bark and howl, as I learned how to walk on my padded feet without making nearly a sound, I could not forget. Henry had turned me against my will. Why? For some misguided, misplaced prejudice against magic? The old man had made it clear from day one he did not like my father or his magic. The more I had used it, the worse Henry became, the grouchier he was.
Did I do this to myself?
No. I wouldn’t let myself think like that. There would be no victim-blaming here. My grandfather was just an ass through and through, and he didn’t deserve the so-called respect he claimed to have from the pack as an elder.
However long it was, whenever Henry had snuck into the house and scratched me, hours must’ve passed, for the sun started to rise in the distance before I felt the beginnings of the change. Bones cracking and reforming, some growing smaller to morph back into human shape while others grew larger. I was kneeling in the middle of the park when my wolf’s fur started to fade into my skin, lightening and thinning until it was no more than the normal hair on my arms and the stubble on my legs.
It hurt, but the pain was nowhere near as intense as it was when I’d first shifted in the bedroom. Hopefully after a few more shifts, I wouldn’t feel a thing, and it would happen much faster. When my mates turned, they did it effortlessly and easily. It had to be a sort of thing I had to practice, even though turning was the last thing on my mind as I hugged myself on the ground, fully human once more.
Fully human, and one hundred percent naked in front of three male wolves who were my mates.
Talk about awkward.
Chapter Twenty-One – Addie
I hugged my knees to my chest, glancing up at Maze, Dylan, and Forest. They stood around me, unabashedly naked and baring it all, not only to me but to each other. Right. Because wolves weren’t really modest animals—but I wasn’t quite up to their level, both literally and metaphorically, so I hid all my important bits.
Then again, it didn’t really matter for Maze, since he’d seen me in the shower and had touched nearly every inch of me.
And Forest…he’d done much the same, minus the whole naked bit. Clothes did not hamper him at all.
Ugh, okay, I hid myself from Dylan, then.
Which was just stupid, because Dylan couldn’t see well without his glasses, which were probably currently sitting somewhere in the house, left behind when they’d turned and ran after me.
Still…the mere thought of standing and acting as though I wasn’t naked and surrounded by three gorgeous, muscular, and equally naked men was not a good one. What to do, what to do…
I, of course, knew what my wolf wanted to do, since we were now one in every way possible. My wolf wanted the guys before me to throw me down, wrestle me into submission and have their way with me again and again.
Very graphic, sexually explicit thoughts entered my head, and I felt my cheeks blushing furiously, as if nothing had changed. Like I was some newbie to all of this, to them.
And I most definitely wasn’t.
At least my breathing was under control, though the same couldn’t be said for my heartbeat—but that was mainly because of the men in front of me and their ridiculously sculpted bodies, along with their dicks.
Nope. Don’t go looking at those, Addie…
Forest knelt before me, Dylan to his left and Maze on his right. He studied me, really studied me, made me feel quite self-conscious as his blue gaze ate me up. “How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice a strange sort of gentle, very un-alpha-like, but more than welcome to my ears. The wound on his stomach was mostly healed due to the shifting—something the pack’s tradition went against.
All rules were thrown out of the window for me.
Holding onto myself as if I was afraid I’d fall apart if I stopped, I answered him truthfully, “Tired.”
No, tired didn’t cut it. I was exhausted, weary to my bones, all the way down to my core. I was tired of putting on a brave
face, tired of marching into danger, and tired of the general state of things. Done, in every meaning of the word.
But just because I was done and worn out didn’t mean I could sit out the final battle. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I would see Clay die for once and for all, and I’d dance over his corpse once he was nothing but bones. Morbid? Yes, totally, but the bastard deserved it.
“Let’s get back to the house,” Forest said. “You can rest—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, my pink hair flying. “I want to see Henry.” Just thinking of the bastard made me all different kinds of angry. Enraged, furious, infuriated beyond belief. My wolf wanted to tear him apart to teach him a lesson, but I knew there was another punishment that would make him even more miserable—assuming Forest let me choose.
And he would. I’d make sure of it.
I slowly got to my feet, straightening out my spine, shaking off the feeling of dirt everywhere. We faced what might be a suicide mission against Clay, whether or not Arthur and Zak changed anything with his testimony, so what use was it to spend what little time I had acting all coy and shy?
I met Forest’s eyes as he stood before me. It was at that inopportune moment that I had a most inappropriate thought: I could use another orgasm. A little pick-me-up.
“I want…” I had planned on saying I wanted to deal with Henry first, but things stirred within me suddenly, all warm and wanting. I wanted something I’d never once wanted with any of the human boys I’d ever met before.
The way the three males before me eyed me up, how their eyes raked over my naked body…only further served to give me ideas.
I was not the only one speechless in the group. Maze and Dylan—though mostly Maze, since his twin could probably only see my blurry naked form—stared at me with brown eyes burning with desire.
Their eyes, though, were not the only parts of their bodies holding a desire for me.
How the hell was I supposed to concentrate on anything when they stood there looking so damn fine? The finest specimens of the male gender I’d ever seen, better than any Hollywood superstar or model. Chiseled eight packs on abdomens to die for, drool-worthy arms with bulging muscles and veins, hands that could easily hold me down while touching me in other places…
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