by Moira Rogers
“It’s too late for Cindy to help.” His own voice sounded far away. When Sasha sat there, unmoving, he whispered again, “Hurry.”
“Shh.” She closed her eyes and swayed a little, then murmured a few unintelligible words.
Power ripped through Joe, followed by searing agony that dropped him to the floor. Brynn. He struggled back to his knees, blotting out her pain. Then he felt it, the final connection between Guide and Initiate.
When Gavin and Sam performed the ceremony, it required an elaborate ritual of candles and chanting. But he didn’t have time to question Sasha. She laid her hands on Brynn’s face and uttered a single word he didn’t understand.
Power filled the air and Brynn’s back arched sharply. She screamed once, low and pained, and the change began.
The change was never gentle. Bodies contorted, twisted. Flesh melted as bones rearranged. In time, the strongest wolves learned to control it, learned to breathe through it and suffer a minimal amount of discomfort.
Brynn had no such advantages. Her torn body twisted as her eyes flew open, nothing human left in her gaze. Just pain and terror and something feral that reminded him of the stories they told about humans who managed to suffer through the change on the night of the full moon.
He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the wave of helpless protectiveness that rose in him. When he looked again, a small gray wolf stood in the midst of the blood Brynn had shed, flesh and fur already growing closed over her wounds.
She growled, and he barely had time to catch her as she barreled toward Sasha.
The witch shrank back toward the cold fireplace as he struggled to contain Brynn. If he let go long enough to change, she would attack. Sasha, certainly, and maybe Keith. The only person he knew Brynn wouldn’t attack—
Brynn snapped at him a second before he heard a low, commanding howl. The wolf he recognized as Abby walked closer and growled. Brynn snarled and tried to twist out of his grip, her front paws scraping his bare chest.
His breath caught in a painful hiss, and he whispered to the wriggling wolf. His words didn’t seem to calm her, so he reached down and gathered the power inside him, willing her to submit.
She whined once and stilled her struggles, though her tense body trembled with pain and the need to run from it. He stroked a hand through her fur and nodded once to Keith. “Get Sasha out of here. Abby too.”
His friend was silent for several seconds as his dark eyes watched Brynn shake. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and hoarse. “Do you want me to keep everyone else out?”
Joe could feel Brynn. She’d attack, out of pain and panic and confusion. “We’ll be all right.” He kept his voice steady and level, though he wanted to echo Keith’s fear and anger. “Just for a while.”
“Yell if you need us.” Keith herded Abby and Sasha from the room, leaving Joe kneeling on the bloody floor with a terrified wolf whining her distress.
He released her when he heard the door shut. She skittered back, slipping once on the bloody floor before she got her footing and darted across the room. Her paws slid against the slick wooden floor and she thumped softly against the wall and backed into the corner with another low, terrified whimper.
With the fullness of the moon still racing in his blood, it took only moments for Joe to begin his own change again. When he stood on four paws, he padded toward Brynn and answered her whining with a soft noise. When he reached her, he nuzzled her lightly and backed away.
It worked. She took one trembling step forward, ears flattened against her head and her tail low. Nervous tension echoed through the bond between them, though pain had given way to fear.
It’s all right, Brynn. It’s me.
She was small, even compared to some of the other female wolves. Another shaking step brought her to him, and the top of her head fit easily under his chin. She nuzzled her nose into the fur at his neck, and curiosity joined the jumbled mix of emotions clouding the air between them.
He let instinct take over and bumped his muzzle against hers. Then he growled, a low invitation that held no menace. Mine.
Finally, finally the tense feelings radiating from her eased. Her trembling legs gave out and she dropped to the floor in front of him. He followed, coiling around her to lick at her jaw. He felt and heard her heart, still racing and wild, but he could also feel her exhaustion. He rested his head on her shoulder, closed his eyes, and waited for her to sleep.
Joe woke with Brynn’s head pillowed on his belly, her matted hair scratching his skin. The smell of cleansers assaulted him, and he vaguely remembered Keith coming in during the night. He hadn’t wanted to let Abby clean up her sister’s blood.
He eased into a sitting position and studied Brynn, cataloguing her for injuries or distress. She seemed fine under the cracked patches of dried blood, though she bore deep shadows under her eyes. “Brynn. Wake up.”
Her eyes drifted open, and she didn’t look fine anymore. Blank eyes stared up at him, hard-edged and distant, as she lifted one hand to the dried blood on her neck. “I thought he killed me.”
“Sasha.” He touched Brynn’s cheek. “She bonded us. It bore you through your change.”
“Oh.” Her fingernails scraped at her neck and left streaks in the blood. “He tore out my throat. I remember it. I—”
He grasped her hand. “Shh. There’ll be time to wrap your head around it.” The strange blankness he sensed in her frightened him almost as much as seeing her broken and bloodied had.
She stared up at him for several tense seconds, then jerked her gaze away from his face. “I need a shower.”
He rose immediately and gathered her into his arms. “Upstairs.”
“Where’s Abby? Sasha? Is she okay?”
Keith would have taken them to Gavin’s. “I imagine they’re fine. We can go check after your shower.”
“Okay.” She turned her face into his neck as he started up the stairs, and he could hear her heartbeat quicken. “You feel different,” she whispered hoarsely.
He knew exactly what she meant, because the awareness burned in him too. Before, his wolf had all but ignored her, taken a calm survey of her and noted that Joe’s attraction to her had nothing to do with him. Now, he could feel that instinctive part of him studying everything about her, the way she moved and breathed. The way she looked at him.
She shuddered in his arms and he felt cracks form in the wall of blankness. “I want things I shouldn’t want. Everything’s so loud and bright and you smell so good.”
The wolf rose up, his interest piqued. “Shower, Brynn.”
“Shower.” Her breath skittered hot against his neck. “I feel weird.”
Having hard, instinct-fueled sex in Keith’s shower wasn’t an option. “Do we need to go home?”
“I don’t know. I don’t—” Her rigid control slipped again, and he got a taste of the tangled mix of emotions just under the surface. She might cling to the numb shock that kept the world in focus, but the wolf paced impatiently inside, waiting for her chance. She was strong, not in the way Abby was, not dominant, but the call of the moon or the brutal way she’d been changed had smothered Brynn’s humanity under something dark and primal.
When he got to the bathroom, he set her down and twisted the knob to turn on the shower. “How warm?”
She didn’t answer. When he glanced back he found her studying her hands as if she didn’t recognize them, both held out in front of her and shaking a little. Her gaze jumped up to meet his, and she closed her hands into fists. “I’m not human.”
Even though his own circumstances had been vastly different, he still remembered the feeling of not belonging in your own skin anymore. “No, sweetheart. You’re not.”
Brynn tilted her head back and screamed, and an overwhelming wave of pain and fear hit him, followed by blinding, uncontrolled rage.
He caught her face between his hands and kissed her hard. It was the only thing he could think of, the only way to distract her from her t
errifying loss of control. It was possible to stop her change with his own energy, but he was exhausted after the events of the previous night. “Stay with me, Brynn,” he whispered against her lips. “Fight it.”
The snarl that left her lips raised the hair on the back of his neck. Her teeth caught his lower lip and she bit him as she raked her nails down his chest, a flirtatious challenge from the wolf inside her.
The scratches burned, but he barely noticed it as his instincts took over. Her back hit the tile wall, and he growled low in his throat, his mouth hovering a mere inch over hers.
Her eyes fluttered open. “I want you to do things to me that would have scared me yesterday.” Emotion clogged her voice, made it husky, and because of the bond he knew it was a mixture of confusion and lust.
He knew what she wanted. Strength, domination… All the things she’d only flirted with as a woman would be things the wolf inside her craved. “Not now.” His words were forceful because he knew her wolf would listen. “Right now, we’re taking a shower.”
“Shower.” She shivered and closed her eyes again, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t seem to know why she agreed. Her wolf obeyed, so she obeyed. “Let’s take a shower.”
He managed to get her under the warm spray. His soapy hands slicked over her skin, washing away the blood she’d shed. She stood quietly under his touch, even when her careful obedience began to shift toward arousal again.
Her quick, shallow breaths tripped something inside him, and he turned her away and lowered his teeth to her shoulder with a quick nip. “Just a few minutes, baby, and I’ll take you home.”
“Home.” It seemed to encourage her, and she reached out for the shampoo against the wall and started to help him, struggling with the tangled mess of her hair.
Finally, he urged her under the water to rinse her hair. It took less than a minute for him to bathe, and her hair was mostly clean by the time he finished. “Let’s get you out of here.” He reached for a fluffy white towel hanging next to the shower and wrapped it around Brynn, then squeezed excess water from her hair. “My clothes are downstairs. You can steal Abby’s bathrobe.”
She nodded and stepped out of the tub, still looking more than a little wobbly but determined to do it herself. “I’m going to go find her robe. Keith was going to buy me one…”
He lifted her in his arms again. “I don’t want you pitching headfirst down the stairs.”
“Nothing feels right. My arms and legs don’t fit. I don’t fit. I don’t want clothes.”
With the sort of shock she’d taken, it would be a while before everything felt right again. If it ever does, a small voice inside him whispered, and he shoved it down. She’d be fine.
He walked into Keith and Abby’s bedroom. A terrycloth robe lay over the back of a chair. “Here.” He snatched it up with one hand as he set her down. “Put it on and we’ll drive back to my place.”
She slipped the robe on and tied it around her waist. “Okay. I’m okay.”
He’d get his own clothes later. He pulled a pair of sweatpants from a stack of folded laundry on the bed and stepped into them. “Come on.”
He didn’t pick her up again, just guided her gently down the stairs. Her fingers clenched around his arm hard enough to bruise before they hit the landing, but she stubbornly refused to let him pick her up even when her legs shook. Not until they reached the front stoop, when she realized she had no shoes and the gravel walk was littered with branches and sharp stones.
He put her in his truck through the driver’s side door and paused before climbing in after her. As soon as he got her home and calmed down, he’d call everyone. They’d figure it out.
They had to.
Chapter Eight
Brynn awoke in a tangle of bedding that smelled like Joe. Her stomach rumbled and the sound of soft voices filled her ears. The fact that she could hear anyone talking in the other room was almost as alarming as the strength of Joe’s scent—and how much it comforted her.
So this is what it’s like to be a werewolf. It felt strange. Strange inside her head, and strange inside her skin. Everything was loud and bright, from the sun creeping through the blinds to the sound of her own heart. The only thing she didn’t mind was the sharp, masculine smell in the bed, something she’d faintly associated with Joe before but now…
Now she could pick out the individual scents. Something metallic that might be oil, and tangy sweat and something dark and musky that she had no words for, even though it felt familiar and enticing. That was the scent that made her body warm and flushed, that made her want to roll onto her back and offer herself.
Brynn scrambled out of the bed, nearly tripping as her unsteady legs hit a floor that seemed to roll under her feet. Her muscles didn’t move quite right, everything felt too fast and too strong. When her fingers curled around the headboard to steady herself she felt wood creak softly, a reminder that strength rested in her body now.
This is what you wanted, she reminded herself harshly as she took a steadying breath. This is what you asked for. Maybe not this fast, not like this, but she was alive. She had survived.
So keep surviving.
Silence fell in the other room, and she realized they must have heard her moving about in the bedroom. By the third step across the floor she’d stopped weaving so dangerously, and by the time she reached the door she was almost steady.
Keith and Abby were in the living room with Joe, though it looked like Abby had spent most of the last twelve hours crying. Her sister’s face was puffy, her eyes painfully red, and Brynn ached to reassure her, to be able to find some words to soothe the guilt Abby always took on herself.
Her sister rose. “Do you need some help getting dressed?”
Heat flooded Brynn’s cheeks as she realized she’d forgotten about something as basic and human as clothing. She saw understanding in Keith’s eyes and concerned sympathy in Abby’s, but Joe’s face was carefully neutral. Brynn shivered and stepped backward, her hand groping for the door handle. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“I’ve got it.” Joe walked forward, his coffee mug forgotten. She could smell the pungent brew inside, could hear the whisper of his bare feet across the wooden floor. “I scrounged up a few more things for you, Brynn,” he said softly as he backed her into the bedroom.
She heard Abby take a hitching breath as Joe shut the door and realized that her sister was crying. “She shouldn’t be here,” Brynn whispered, surprised when the words came out flat and unemotional. She didn’t feel flat and empty. She was full of everything, sights and sounds and smells and emotions so wild and foreign she couldn’t begin to keep them straight.
“If it’s too much, Keith will take her home. But I wasn’t going to tell her not to come.” He lifted a folded stack of clothing from the chair beside his bed. “Are you hungry?”
He’d coaxed her to eat before she’d fallen asleep, which couldn’t have been more than a few hours ago, and yet her stomach growled audibly at the mention of food. “I guess so.”
The clothes turned out to be sweatpants and a T-shirt. “They’re loose,” he told her. “It’ll help at first.”
It still felt strange, but Brynn forced herself to ignore it as she tugged on the sweatpants. The T-shirt proved to be one of his, though, and somehow the slide of fabric against her skin bothered her less when she could still smell Joe on it, even under the bland detergent it had been washed with.
He watched her. “Are you going to be okay with Abby and Keith here?”
“I don’t know. Not if Abby feels this bad.” She forced down guilt and lifted her gaze to his. “I don’t think I can handle trying to make her feel better about this, Joe. I just—I can’t. I can’t handle it. Not right now.”
“Then don’t worry about her. Worry about you.” He smiled and rubbed his thumb over her jaw. “Keith will know when enough’s enough for her.”
She barely heard him. The wolf rose at his touch, hungry for him and desperate for somethin
g Brynn couldn’t even name. Approval wasn’t quite the right word, but it was as close as her human mind could come. A throaty whimper escaped her as she turned her head into his hand and bit his finger.
His eyes went dark with desire, and he wrapped a quick hand around the back of her neck. “Your sister and my best friend are in the next room.”
The stranger inside her didn’t recognize words like sister and friend. She recognized power, and the heat of his body, and the strength in those fingers cupped around the vulnerable base of her neck. Brynn struggled for something human, something familiar, but the human part of her felt nothing but nervous fear and a desire to lean into Joe until it passed.
He stared down at her, his gaze riveted on her lips. Then he blinked and let go of her. “Ready for lunch?”
She wanted to say yes, but the wolf forced her forward, unable to relinquish his touch. This time she didn’t whimper. She snarled softly and buried her face in the crook of his neck, where she could taste his skin and hear the soft beat of his heart.
He bent his head to her ear and whispered her name. As he spoke, something welled up in the scant space between them. Something comforting and oddly right. The wild feeling faded until she could breathe again.
It took ten of his slow, even heartbeats before she felt steady enough to lift her head again. “What was that?”
“Why you needed a Guide,” he answered simply and brushed her hair back from her face. “Magic, sweetheart. You’ve got it inside you now, remember?”
“Oh.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t let me try to jump you in front of my sister, please.”
“Not a chance.”
It took more courage than she wanted to admit to step back into the living room. Abby looked calmer, and there were no traces of tears on her face. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked evenly, her hand wrapped tight around Keith’s.
Brynn tried for a smile. “Honestly, I don’t know. But nothing hurts or anything.”