A howl sounded from somewhere nearby, making my brows rise.
“He didn’t return to the house like he said he would,” I murmured, my wolf riding at me to go out and run with my alpha.
“No,” Ethan said slowly. The first inside, he switched on the lights and placed Sabina’s things on the hall stand. I did the same, but I shrugged out of my coat.
“Something had him on edge tonight. And I’m not just talking about grief after Merinda’s death. Did you see how he was with Sabina?”
“No missing it.”
“What’s it mean?”
He shrugged. “No way of knowing.”
“What do you think the council meeting was about tonight?” Just because we were Eli’s left hand didn’t mean we were a part of the upper hierarchy of the pack.
“What is this? Twenty questions? I don’t know, Austin, and it’s not like he’s going to tell us either.”
Punching him in the arm, I muttered, “You’re in a piss-poor mood.”
“Seeing an innocent woman forcibly turned does that to me. What can I say? I’m all heart,” he grumbled.
“Not enough to stop you from eying up her pie,” I muttered back, but because he wasn’t wrong, as I trudged down the log-lined hall, I added louder, “Well, you can take first shift. I’m hungry and tired. Call me if the council leaves and we’ll go over and wait on Eli.”
Ethan didn’t grumble because we both knew he was the night owl anyway.
The cabin had three bedrooms. One at the front on the top floor, one at the back—his room—and then mine, which was a new addition. Until this point, enforcers had only come in single units, and because everyone only ever had one child, there was no need for a third bedroom in any pack member’s house.
Eli had built onto the log cabin, giving me a room on the ground floor because, though we were twins, and while we were glued at the hip, Ethan irritated the fuck out of me as much as I did him. Everyone needed their own space.
Plus, my room was off the kitchen, and who was about to complain about that?
As I slinked toward the fridge and grabbed the makings of a ham sandwich, I kept my ear cocked for the sound of Eli howling again. He did it several times, and though I wasn’t sure what each howl meant in this form, I knew something was wrong.
Not in a ‘we need to get out there and break some bones’ kind of way, but inside him. Something wasn’t right.
Although we were probably closer to Eli than anyone else in the pack, except for his mom, Eli kept his own counsel. As was the way with alphas. He’d tell us if he wanted us to know, and I had to take comfort from that, even if it made me sad to think he was out there with Sabina, doing his duty to a new member of his pack, all while something was eating at him as he dealt with his grief.
When my ham sandwich was made, I didn’t bother cleaning up. Ethan was as much of a slob as me and, undoubtedly, he’d be down for some food later. Though we’d intended on stuffing our faces at the carnival, that hadn’t exactly happened, had it?
Traipsing into my room, I switched on the TV and flicked through the channels until I found a Seahawks’ game. I didn’t hate them, and it was better than just sitting in silence.
Once I toed off my boots, I left them by the door, then climbed onto my bed. I had a little seating area over by the TV, and I even had a desk, but I felt like lying down. Council parties could last for hours, and I was actually tired, so I considered taking a nap before we had to head out to Eli’s.
As I ate, and even when I fell asleep, the sounds of Eli’s howling haunted me.
I didn’t think about why that was more so than usual. Why would I?
I didn’t know what had happened tonight.
Didn’t understand the ramifications.
But I would soon.
Sabina
I felt weak, weaker than usual. My body always ached now, and the fibromyalgia made some days a nightmare just to get through, but this weakness was different than how I usually felt.
Some mornings, just getting out of bed made me want to cry, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. My life didn’t come with any kind of grants or federal aid. How could it when I was a ghost? When I’d been that way for twelve years?
So every morning, when the pain made me want to weep, I just had to suck it up, and trust me, it was easier to give birth than it was to suck it up—and I’d know. Labor was on par with the constant pain in my bones, so when I woke up and I felt just weak, it was kind of nice.
After all, weak was better than childbirth.
When I opened my eyes, I recognized that I wasn’t in my trailer back at the fairground. In fact…
I blinked and slowly sat up as I registered where the hell I was.
For a second, I could do nothing but gape at the wolf who was sitting before me, proud and tall and straight, his black fur gleaming in the early morning sunlight, and then I took in the fact that I was in the woods.
I wasn’t sure which made less sense.
The fact that I was in a forest or the fact that a massive wolf was standing close to me. Like, within touching distance close.
Fear tried to filter through my system, but even as I felt it, it swarmed away, replaced with a warmth that couldn’t be denied. But why would looking at him make me feel warm?
I always felt cold. Always. So this warmth was enough to make me feel sleepy, and the longer I looked at him, the better I felt!
The beast’s bright green eyes glimmered in the light too, making them sparkle like emeralds as he stared at me. When I sat up, he tipped his head to the side before he tilted it back and released the most piercing, mournful howl that I’d ever heard.
It was crazy that, until today, I’d never realized just how much emotion was in a howl, and yet, here? I could tell the creature was hurting. I just didn’t know why. And I really wanted to.
I also needed to pee, was hungry as hell, and wanted to know why I was in the woods with him watching over me.
In no particular order.
After he released that howl, he began to approach me. At first, I reared back, scrabbled away even, unsure where to go or if I could even outrun the beast. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d been a sprinter back when I’d been in the peak of health, so now? Yeah, there was no way I could outrun a wolf that looked to be in the prime of his life. So I stayed put, kept as still as I could, and prayed that he wouldn’t rip me to shreds.
My heart pounded in my chest, my lungs bellowed with fear, and then, as he approached, instead of expiring from fright, that warmth appeared once more.
It took away the terror, eased the dull throb of my heart as it fluttered like a frightened bird, and my lungs stopped burning from breathing too fast as well.
When he nuzzled into me—there was no other word—I flinched. He shot me a mournful look from those doe-like eyes and nuzzled into me once more. The brush of his fur didn’t tickle, though, and I was surprised by that. I’d thought it would rub against my cheek and make me itchy because I’d always been allergic to dogs. Instead, it felt…good.
Right.
Perfect.
I twisted my head to the side, aware of how close he was, and then he licked me. Except, when his tongue collided with my nose, my nose wasn’t my nose. It was long. Longer than ever before because I watched that pink tongue shoot out, even watched it move along my—
My—
No.
No way.
I did not have a snout!
A moan of fright escaped me, but it didn’t sound like it did usually. I was used to moaning and groaning, I knew what I sounded like when I was in pain. But this? It was more like a whine.
A doggy whine.
The wolf beside me yipped, then, dragging his nose over my snout, he took a few steps back. As he did, I realized that there were some bones beside him. Bones that were covered in blood. While I was stunned at the sight, what stunned me more was that I didn’t want to puke.
Oh, no.
I wanted more.<
br />
The bones triggered a memory. I wasn’t sure how that was even possible, but hell, if I was tripping on some bad weed from the pouch Liana had bought for me yesterday, then this was the weirdest fucking high I’d ever had before… I could taste the fresh meat, the rich, iron flavor that came from the blood spurting into my mouth…
Looking at the wolf, I whined again, and he darted forward, licked my cheek—did wolves have cheeks?—then he retreated to the bones once more.
He sat there, watchful. I thought he was just staring at me again, but he wasn’t. He was doing something. Something that called to me.
Before my eyes, his fur retracted, his snout turned back into a nose, his jaw shortened, morphing into that of a man’s, and his back appeared to break before he was in human skin once more.
The force of the shift had made his spine bow, so when he stared at me again, and I caught sight of his face, I whined again.
He was beautiful.
Absolutely beautiful.
I could honestly say that I’d never seen any man like him before. He had hair so dark that it wasn’t just black, it didn’t gleam blue—not at all—and was glossy like silk. We had a few Roma at the carnival, so the rich dark hair wasn’t utterly unique, but his skin wasn’t tinged café au lait from his heritage. If anything, he was bronzed, like he was tanned, everywhere, except for the faint redness of his cheeks. Amid those black locks were dashes of salt and pepper that only augmented the rich onyx.
His jaw was stony, his nose was straight and free from breaks, and his brow was wide and topped with a widow’s peak that had his hair cascading about his ears in a shaggy mop that surprised me. He looked too serious, too somber to have such a relaxed and down-home hairstyle.
But as I took all of him in, what I noticed more than anything was the pain in his eyes. A pain that, I realized, had been reflected in his howl.
It was also a testament to how crazy this was that I registered then and there he was also naked.
And one word summed him up—wow.
But he was moving. Toward me, behind me, before I heard him rustling around. I twisted my head, watched him dress, and as I did, he started speaking.
“It’s okay,” he told me softly, his voice low and deep. At a tenor that I sensed was meant to soothe and keep me free from agitation. “I know you’re scared, but you don’t need to be. I’m here for you. I’m here with you to help you.”
When he said the words, ‘I’m here for you,’ something about his phrasing, about the dip in his tone, told me he meant something else. I wasn’t sure what else those four words could mean, but I detected something that didn’t exactly put me on edge, although it certainly made me eye him warily.
I shoved myself up so I was standing, almost falling over when I realized I had four feet to balance on. As I did, tumbling into the leaves he’d settled me in the night before—yeah, I remembered that too—he leaped forward and went to help me stand.
“You’re still going to be shaky on your feet,” he muttered, watching me to make sure I wasn’t going to fall again before he took a step back. “You should be resting. I’m not sure why you’re not.”
Well, if he was confused, what the hell was I supposed to be?
With my weight distributed between the front and rear of my body now that I was standing, it felt weird, but what I reveled in was the lack of pain. The relief and the freedom from it made me realize just how much it had bogged me down, ruining every part of my day with its taint.
The pain with fibromyalgia was unbearable because it was everywhere and nowhere. I couldn’t point to my elbow and say, “I twisted it playing tennis when I was fourteen, and it’s never been the same since.” How could you describe the pain when it was like a hive in your bones? One that had wasps surging out to assault you? To invade every nerve ending until an attack could have you feeling as though your entire being was shutting down?
But here? Now? I was free, liberated, and even if I was terrified about why I was like this, even if I knew the story about how it had happened was going to be beyond nuts, I was mostly just happy.
Happy.
I was pain free. What wasn’t to celebrate?
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to try and get you to shift back.”
A growl escaped me at that, because I’d stay like this forever if it meant never experiencing my illness again.
The man frowned, then sighed before he crouched down in front of me. As he did, I eyed him all over and recognized the expensive cut of his clothes, the fineness of his boots—clothes he felt comfortable storing in some hole in the forest floor.
He had money.
A lot of it.
I recognized that because, conversely, I had none.
Still, it wasn’t his fault that I made a pauper look rich. So instead, I just enjoyed the pull and play of the denim covering his legs as it bunched at his groin.
I totally looked.
Shoot me.
“I think we need to start things off the right way. I’m Eli.” He reached over like he was going to take my paw in his hand and shake it. Well, that’s what I thought at first, except instead, he fondled my ears, tickling them in a way that had my tongue wanting to do something weird.
In fact, beyond weird.
I couldn’t stop it from dropping out of the side of my mouth, and I couldn’t stop the keening sound I made as he scratched a little harder.
A laugh escaped him, but it wasn’t mean, and truth be told, I was glad to hear it. He looked so sad, and I wanted to take that sadness away so badly. It was almost as though I could feel his sadness deep inside me.
Huh.
Now that I thought about it, there was no pain in my body, but there was a weird feeling. A kind of energy. It didn’t belong to me, but I sensed that it didn’t belong to the wolf either.
What it was, I had no idea, but I jerked back to the present when I realized Eli was talking and I wasn’t listening.
Shit!
“—this is my pack, and I’m the alpha. I know you must be scared, but there’s no need to be. Whoever did this to you will be caught and punished but, in the interim, you are a part of my people now, and I will not only keep you safe, but I’ll also do everything in my power to ease this…” He winced. “I want to say transition, but I can’t even imagine what you’re going through. How scared and confused you must be.
“The choice was taken from you by someone who had no right to make the decision to do what they did. I can only apologize for them and—”
Wait, was this guy for real?
He was apologizing for something he hadn’t done, when he was the only person trying to help me? To guide me through this transition, as he’d called it?
Because words were literally beyond me, I stepped closer to him on legs that were still shaky, because I wasn’t used to walking on four of them, and butted my head against his chest. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was the most I was capable of at that moment.
I didn’t imagine he’d want me to lick his nose, that was for sure!
Eli’s smile deepened, making the tiny lines at the side of his eyes crease. The sight made me happy, and I yipped and bounced slightly on my toes, which was the wrong thing to do. Like I’d reared up instead of just jumping slightly, I toppled to my side like I’d fallen off a pogo stick.
His laughter, when it came, was just as gentle as his smile. I felt no humiliation or mortification at his amusement. Sure, it was at my expense, but it was different. And with my past? I knew the difference.
Eli crouched down, placed one knee on the loamy ground to support himself, then reached over and helped me stand. When his hands moved over my body, it felt good, which was somehow stranger than anything that had happened to me today.
I’d woken up as a wolf, but the weirdest thing was that I appreciated this stranger touching the wolf’s body.
I knew that sounded odd, and though it assuredly was, there was just something right about his touch. Like I kn
ew him, knew his touch, even though I definitely didn’t. I’d never seen the guy before in my life, and if he was from this area, then that made sense. I’d never been to Washington before, never traveled this far northwest. My family was based in the South, and the carnival I’d hooked up with three months ago had been traveling down from Canada into the States. So, even though there was no way I could have known the man, my body disagreed.
“You need to take it slowly,” the guy cautioned. “Normally, you’d be asleep for a long time, until your body was ready to deal with this. I’m not sure why you’re not resting,” he said again, like he was looking for answers, but I couldn’t give them to him.
He looked, I realized, puzzled. More than that, he appeared genuinely concerned.
Why?
Because he felt the link between us? Or was he just a decent man?
I’d known decent men before, knew how they could be like gentlemen, knew that they could have big hearts and warm souls. I felt that in this man. Felt it and, as I stared at him, I saw that even in this form, I could see his aura.
There were greens and blues fading into one another, merging like they were two different rivers flowing into the one source. I felt his ambition, saw his desire to strive for more, but I also saw his goodness, saw that he cared.
It was when I saw the overshadowing gray that I recognized he was in pain. Hurting from something. The notion had me shuffling forward, carefully because I was still wobbly on my feet, until I could push my snout into his chest.
He laughed softly, but he didn’t push me away. If anything, he let me lick the underside of his jaw and allowed me to stand so close that it was kind of awkward. For a second, both of us just enjoyed the moment, enjoyed the strangest, weirdest moment of my life, then I felt it.
More pain.
A mass kind of darkness that made me whine a little.
It didn’t come from him. It was too large. Too—
My whine deepened.
Hundreds of people’s pain.
It wasn’t physical. Exactly like this man’s. It was emotional.
Loss.
Only the loss of someone beloved could cause this amount of pain. It had to be grief.
WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1) Page 5