14. Sol
CHAPTER 14
Sol
T he smell of warm food woke me from sleep, and when I opened my eyes, I found Orion sitting on the mattress by my legs, picking at a plate of chicken. He looked absolutely wrecked, like he’d gone on a juice cleanse and hadn’t slept in months.
“Ry?” I croaked, pushing myself into a sitting position.
He glanced at me, his eyes shifting from dark brown to the clearest sky blue, and his scent wafted toward me, a barrage of pine and sandalwood and him. He could reel me in with that alone, and I wanted to spend forever pressed against him, inhaling him deeply.
“Hey.” He curled his lips into a gentle smile and handed me a glass of water. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay.” I clenched my eyes shut and sipped, delighting in the delicious coolness as it slid down my burning throat. The sense of anxiety that had been rotting in my stomach for the last few days was gone, and the thundering between my temples had dissipated. In its place was a newfound curiosity and an overwhelming need to run, to be free. “What happened? You look like hell.”
He ignored my inquiry and grabbed a piece of chicken, holding it up to my mouth. “You need to eat.”
My stomach chose that moment to rumble, completely wiping away any resistance I may have put up. I opened my lips and let him slide the food inside. The flavors burst against my tongue, salty and flagrant and downright delicious. I’d never experienced anything like it before, and when he held up a piece of orange next, I wrapped my lips around that, too. It was like experiencing food for the first time, like I hadn’t eaten in weeks and now dined on the finest fare.
“What happened to me?” I tried to remember yesterday or the day before, but all my mind could conjure was him. Memories of him inside me, of sucking on his wrist and his neck, and… are those bite marks? I gasped at the wounds on his throat, violet and jagged. “Oh my God. Who did that to you?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Princess, we need to talk.”
I didn’t like the drop in his features or the weariness in his tone. “Okay. What’s going on?”
“Have you ever heard of shifters?” He held up another piece of meat, and I took it without thinking, chewing on it while I considered his question.
“Like—werewolves?” I furrowed my brows. “I mean, I’ve read stories about them. But?—”
“They’re real,” he said. “Almost all the legends are real.”
I laughed and swallowed, reaching for the glass so I could take another sip. When Orion didn’t laugh with me, I paused and blinked, trying to rationalize his reaction. “Wait…what?”
“My eyes,” he said. “You asked me why they change colors, that it should be impossible.” I vaguely remembered that but after the last however long, it seemed like a fever dream. Like it had happened to someone else. “My eyes are brown. My wolf’s eyes are blue. Whenever he’s close to the surface, whenever he takes over, they shift.”
I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it, especially as he continued talking. He told me his story, how he’d been raised in the Bastards as a child, how almost everyone in the MC was a shifter or a shifter’s mate. “Most of us are wolves,” he said, “but there’s a few coyotes and wild cats. When we reach a certain age, we go through a transition. The magic takes hold of us, mutating our genes so we can handle the shift.” He grabbed another piece of meat and held it up to me, but I refused it in favor of trying to comprehend this new information and why he was telling it to me. “If the shifter’s personality is more submissive, they’ll need a dominant. If they are more dominant, they will need a submissive. Usually, it’s someone of the opposite gender expression, but not always. It depends on the person’s preference.”
I shook my head and swallowed my food, sensing in my chest and my gut that this was significant for more than one reason. “Are you saying you’re a werewolf, Orion?”
“I am,” he said. “And you are, too. Though, not a wolf, I suspect. But something similar.”
I froze, raising my eyebrows as I stared at him.
What. The. Fuck.
“There’s a reason you were so tired a few days ago, a reason why you felt the urge to clean the entire house from top to bottom. The headaches, the body chills, they’re gone now, aren’t they?”
I nodded, taking a deep breath before I swallowed so I didn’t choke on both the food and the new information.
“If you were to focus, I bet you could hear Lycan and Poe talking about us downstairs. You could smell the coffee in the pot and the ingredients Poe used to make breakfast this morning. Hell, you could probably tell all the different animals in the barn.”
I hung my mouth open like an idiot because he was right. I heard Lycan and Poe flirting and laughing almost as if they were in the same room with us. I smelled melted butter and toast and the specific type of bacon that they’d cooked. I could even make out precisely how much sugar Poe had used in his coffee.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he continued. “Especially since you have no reason to believe me.”
“What the fuck, Orion?” I pressed my palms into my eyes, my mind struggling to keep up with this new reality. “How did this happen? Did you do this to me?”
“No, Princess,” he said. “You’re either born a shifter or you’re not.”
“How?” My chest tightened and my stomach bottomed out, dropping to somewhere near my knees. “This can’t be real. You’re fucking with me.”
“I wish I was,” he said, brushing a piece of hair out of my face. The sensation of him touching my face rattled down my spine and into my toes. I felt him everywhere. I sensed him deep inside me in a way I’d never imagined I could.
Even as I bucked against this, I couldn’t deny that I felt different…that I was different.
“I have no reason to lie to you.” He sighed and tried to feed me another piece of orange. “Please. Eat.”
I clenched my hands into fists as I tried to understand, but when I let him place the fruit on my tongue, a new voice took root in my brain. It was me, but distinctly not me.
He’s right, it said. You know he’s right. You can feel it.
What the hell is that? I argued with myself, unsure what to do with this identity.
It’s me, it said. It’s you. It’s us.
“It’s unbelievable and incredible I know,” Orion continued, “and there’s a thousand reasons why we’ve kept ourselves hidden. Humans are destructive, and if they knew about us, they’d lock us up in zoos or keep us as science projects.”
The betrayal that had been brewing inside my chest subsided, replaced with a hesitant understanding. “That’s why you didn’t tell me…before.”
He nodded and ran his hands back through his hair. “There’s a lot more to explain, but for now, I need you to understand that you went through a change, that you’re different from who you were.”
I opened my hands and stared down at my palms, seeing the same skin that had always been there. But it tingled with excitement and unfulfilled potential, like I had infinite strength, like I could run a marathon if I wanted to. More memories from the last few hours bombarded me, and I remembered biting into Orion’s wrists and tearing at the skin on his neck with teeth that had grown sharper than they’d ever been. I ran my tongue over them, widening my eyes when my canines grew. They throbbed in beat with my pulse, and the more I thought about the time I’d spent in bed with him, the more they tingled.
“That’s your animal side,” he said, reaching out to run the back of his finger down my cheek. “Your teeth will elongate now whenever you get excited or angry or fearful. You might grow claws or…other things.”
“Other things?” It came out clipped and rushed, my heart now thundering between my ears. Trying to ignore my rising panic, I raised my eyebrows and took a long, deep breath. He pressed his lips together, his cheeks glowing a faint shade of pink. “Well, go on. You might as well tell me.”
“For shifters with a penis, particularly wolves, we have an extra muscle at the base that locks us inside a partner. It’s called a knot.”
As he talked, the last two days became clearer. He’d rutted inside me, emptying himself and unable to move for quite some time. It had been hazy, of course, but toward the end, I’d been more levelheaded.
“And for shifters with a uterus?”
He cleared his throat and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “You have slick.”
“Slick?” I swallowed against a dry throat and reached for the glass of water, suspending disbelief long enough to remember how wet and sloppy our union had been…and it didn’t have to do with the blood. “That sounds awful.”
Orion barked out a laugh and shook his head. “It’s not. At least, not to other shifters.”
“What is it?”
He glanced at the space between my legs and cleared his throat. “It’s like when you get wet…but more.”
My mouth fell open and I fought the burn in my cheeks. “Oh.”
“It helps with the knotting.” He gave me another grin before picking up the last pieces of meat on the plate and placing them in my mouth.
“Oh my God,” I said through chews, suddenly remembering that we hadn’t used a condom. “I’m on birth control. Does that still work on shifters?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “No one gets pregnant during the transition. The magic is too traumatizing for your body. You have to go into heat to have pups.”
“Like a dog?” I didn’t like the thought of that.
“Like a shifter,” he corrected. “There are other things you should know, too. Skin privileges and feeding times and burrowing, but we have to get ready for the full moon.”
“That part’s true?” Still convinced that this must be a dream, I swung my legs off the mattress, moving to sit beside him so we connected from shoulder to hip to thigh. Scalding electricity bloomed through me, almost like it had been when I first got here, but more— painfully, erotically more.
“Unfortunately,” he said. “Shifters can’t turn whenever they want, nor would we want to turn all the time. The shift is…well, I suppose you’ll see.” He glanced away, focusing on the ground, but I put a hand on his cheek and turned his face back to mine, taking in the sheer beauty of his features.
Yes, he looked gaunt and exhausted, but the hard edge to his eyes had disappeared and the vicious set of his jaw had eased. He looked relaxed for the first time since he found me in my SUV.
“Tell me,” I said. “I want to hear it from you.”
“The shift is painful,” he explained. “It takes a few minutes to complete. But it’s also…” He trailed off, seeming to look for the right word. “Ecstatic, like you never knew what it was like to be alive until that moment.”
I nodded and licked my lips, trying to understand, but Orion’s gaze dropped to the movement and he gulped, quickly looking away.
“Thank you for helping me,” I said. “You’re too good to me.”
“Never,” he said, leaning down so he rested his forehead against mine. “You deserve so much better.”
“How can you say that about yourself?” I murmured, grabbing both sides of his face to hold him up so I could stare him in the eyes—those beautiful clear eyes the color of the ocean. “I think you’re amazing.”
“I think you’re amazing, too, Isolde.” He leaned forward to brush his lips against mine, and I moaned into the contact, relaxing against him as the sensation of our kiss echoed down my spine and into the space between my legs. I’d wanted him before this transition, but now I ached for him with a desperation that echoed deep in my molecules. I wanted to crawl in his lap and take him inside me and test all the things this new reality had in store for me.
But when I ran my hands down his jaw to his neck, he winced and pulled back, clutching at one of the wounds.
“I’m sorry,” I said with a grimace. “I take it that’s my handiwork?”
He sighed and traced his knuckles down my cheek, giving me a soft smile. “It’s not your fault. I wanted you to do it. They’ll go away after the moon tonight.”
I pursed my lips as a small flame boiled in my gut. I didn’t want them to go away. I wanted them to stay so everyone knew I’d put them there, so that no one else would dare touch him. And if he even so much as thought about helping another shifter through their transition?—
Wait…what?
He laughed and grabbed my bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, giving it a little pinch that brought my attention back up to him.
“Don’t pout, baby girl,” he said. “All that territorial aggression is part of the shift. That’ll go away after the moon tonight, too.”
I almost asked him what I was supposed to do if I didn’t want it to go away, but he stood and I ran my gaze down his body as if I hadn’t just had it all to myself for the last forty-eight hours. I still sensed him inside me, like his soul and mine were now entwined on a level I didn’t understand and perhaps never would. I glanced down at my palms, opening and closing my fingers. I almost saw his blood flowing through my veins. Could he feel it as well?
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again, putting a finger under my chin to lift my face up.
“I can feel you,” I murmured, “in my blood.”
He nodded and smiled. “I had to give you my magic for you to survive. I only know of a few people who’ve done it without help. It’s not easy.”
“Will that go away after the shift, too?”
“In a week or two.” He turned to grab a T-shirt off the ground and handed it to me, and a strange purring noise came out of my chest when I pressed it to my nose. It smelled like him and me and us, and this new side of me recognized the delicious notes that made up our connection. Ambrosia.
“C’mon,” he said with a quiet chuckle. “Get dressed. I’ve got to clean the sheets and you need a shower. You look like you survived a horror movie.”
There was so much more to talk about, and I almost told him about my situation with Marx. What would the leader of the rival motorcycle club do when he realized I was a shifter and harbored conflicting feelings toward the veep of the Royal Bastards? I should have said something to Orion, but with all the thoughts rumbling around in my brain, I barely had time to catch up to the new changes in my body, much less confess why I’d been out in those woods, driving through dangerous territory. There would be time to explain. I had to get through my first shift.
I pulled the shirt over my head and got to my feet, meeting my reflection in the mirror for the first time since this started. The woman staring back at me wasn’t the same that had come to this cabin just over a week ago.
That woman had pale skin and green eyes and long, wavy ginger hair. This woman had a glowing, radiant complexion and a mane that hung in wild curls around her head. But most startling were the amber eyes that stared out at me, golden and vibrant and magnetic.
“Holy—” I got closer, pulling at my lids to get a better view. “Is that…is that my other side?”
“Yes, Princess,” he said, wrapping his arms around my midsection from behind so he could rest his head on my shoulder. “Say hello.”
“Hi there,” I said, giving my new reflection a grin.
Hi, came the soft internal reply.
* * *
“There she is,” Lycan said when I emerged from the shower in a different set of Orion’s clothes. He held his arms out for me and I wrapped mine around him in a hug before doing the same to Poe. They were the same people…er, shifters…as before my change, but everything about them was different. They smelled more like themselves, deeper and richer and familial, almost like I could sense a piece of myself within them.
Pack, came the voice inside, my beast, my other half.
“I still can’t believe it,” I said, ignoring that voice for now. “No one else in my family is a shifter. I don’t understand how it’s possible.”
“Sometimes, the magic lies dormant,” Lycan said, gesturing to the spot across the table from him. I sat while Orion busied himself with making more coffee. “Until you’re stuck in the wolf’s den.” He flashed me a toothy grin and a wink before nodding toward Orion. “He insisted it was nothing, that I was reading the situation wrong. But my wolf is never wrong, not about this.”
“I suppose I owe you an apology,” Orion grumbled.
“Don’t worry,” Lycan said. “You’ll find a way to make it up to me.”
“Ry said the shift is really taxing on your body,” I said. “Aren’t you worried about going through it so close to…” I remembered how we’d spent the last forty-eight hours and my cheeks burned. “…what just happened?”
Orion sighed while Lycan scoffed. “He’s the second for a reason.”
“Second?” I furrowed my brows, trying to understand.
“Our alpha is Kodiak,” Poe explained. “He’s the president of the MC and the one who keeps us all together.”
“In the pecking order, he’s the biggest, baddest motherfucker there is.” Lycan took a sip of coffee. “The only one who could take him in a fight, the only one who could come close, would be your man, Orion.”
My man. I pretended the heat lighting in my stomach had nothing to do with the thought of him belonging to me.
“Am I a wolf, too?” I asked, but even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew it was wrong.
Lycan shook his head and leaned in closer, giving me a deep sniff. “You’re canine adjacent, but not a wolf.”
“Fox,” said Orion, rolling his head around and cracking his neck.
Both Poe and Lycan paused, and I glanced up at the man currently breaking eggs over a pan on the stove. So much about my life had changed so quickly that the earth could suddenly smash into the sun and that would be more believable.
“How do you know?” I worried my bottom lip with my top teeth, trying to grasp all of this. I’d gone to sleep in one reality and woken up in another.
“I can smell it,” Orion grumbled, adding a few slices of bacon that made my mouth water.
“I guess we’ll know for sure at the full moon,” Poe said with a laugh.
“Orion said all the legends are true,” I continued. “What about vampires? Or witches?”
“Yes,” Lycan said. “You’ve heard of the Bloody Scorpions?”
I froze, stiffening as a chill raced down my spine. I tried to play it off and act like the mention of the rival MC had no effect on me. But the words brought back everything that had been going on in my life before the blizzard.
“I have.” I cleared my throat to maintain my composure.
“They’re the local bloodsuckers,” Lycan said, rolling his eyes with a pretend shiver. “Bunch of fucking leeches, all of them.”
I remembered the sense of foreboding I’d gotten when I’d met Marx and the rest of his gang. He had looked evil, and based on what Lycan shared, I’d been correct in assuming they weren’t good men. The words were on the tip of my tongue, and I almost admitted the reason I’d come here in the first place. I trusted them now, and I was sure they’d help me if they could. But my life had literally been turned upside down and everything I thought I knew had changed so quickly. I decided to wait until I could talk to Orion privately. He’d know the best way to break it to the others, and it would be easier to explain to him alone. We could still sense each other. He’d understand… right ?
“Shifters are born of nature,” Poe continued. “You’re either born a shifter or you aren’t. People like you have the magic, even if it’s latent until activated. Vampires, on the other hand?—”
“They’ve been perverted,” Lycan cut in as Orion sat down next to me, scooting his chair closer so his arm brushed against mine. His stomach grumbled as he dug into his food, and I watched him eat while Lycan continued. “Their magic isn’t from the earth; it’s from a curse.”
“That’s why they need blood to stay alive.” Poe shook his head. “It’s disgusting, the fucking parasites.”
“Do they feed from humans?” I was ravenous for more information. I wanted to know everything as soon as possible, even as I realized it might take me a lifetime to figure out this new mythology and my place in it.
“Humans, shifters, other vampires.” Poe pretended to wretch. “I’ve seen the leftovers from a vampire attack. It’s traumatizing.”
“They killed most of our parents,” Lycan said, glancing at Orion quickly before looking back at me. “They attacked our pack and took out the alpha’s mate, not to mention countless others.”
Orion paused for only a moment, his fork halfway to his face, before clearing his throat and shifting his shoulders, obviously uncomfortable with something Lycan said.
“They’re enemies,” Lycan continued with a stern stare. “Now that you’re a shifter, you should stay away from them.”
“Our blood is an aphrodisiac,” Orion explained. “They take great pleasure in draining us dry for months at a time.”
I nodded and glanced down to the table in front of me, knowing now that I had no other choice. I had to get out of the predicament waiting for me at home. There could be no going back, especially not after tonight.
“But what about the transition?” I asked. “I drank Orion’s blood. A lot of it. Isn’t that the same?”
“That happens only once, and unless you’re into that sort of thing, you don’t have to do it again.” Lycan laughed but Orion snapped his eyes to him with a sharp glare. “And throw away all of your silver jewelry. It’s not deadly for shifters, but we tend to be allergic to it. Notice all our utensils are stainless steel.”
“What about the vampires?” I asked, glancing between them. “What’s their weakness?”
“The stuff about iron and a stake to the heart is true,” Poe said. “Though I prefer ripping their heads off their shoulders.”
“And witches?” I said. “Fairies? Other mythical creatures?”
“Witches are real,” Poe continued. “They’re just as complex as anyone else, some good and some bad.”
“I’ve never met a fairy,” Lycan said. “But one of my pack mates swears he met a leprechaun once, and they’re fairy-ish.”
“I wouldn’t trust anything Nix says without seeing it myself,” Orion added, biting off a piece of bacon. It made me happy to see color returning to his face while he ate, even if I still worried about the upcoming shift. Perhaps it was his magic inside me or some animalistic drive that wanted to keep him forever, but the thought of him in pain made me want to claw off my own skin. I needed him healthy and safe.
Almost like I’d said it out loud, Orion looked at me and smiled, and the intimacy in our locked gazes reminded me that there were very few barriers between us now. He’d taken me and I’d drank of his magic, and together, we’d created this bright burning affection between us.
I want more, came the voice, unbidden and reckless. But he had the opportunity upstairs to tell me he wanted to do it again, for real this time, and he hadn’t. What if this connection was only one sided? What if he’d seen me through the worst of it and believed there was nothing more between us? I hadn’t been good enough for him before now. Had anything really changed? I was still a Vanderbilt. He was still a Bastard.
“So what now?” I asked, drawing my own attention away from that complicated situation. “When do we leave for the full moon?”
“I suppose we don’t need to leave anymore,” Lycan said. “But roaming the woods is always much better than being shut inside. We’ll stay close by.”
“The snow melted in the last two days,” Poe said. “I think it’ll be fine to run in the forest.”
“Really?” I hadn’t even thought to check outside, but when I got up and walked to the door, dread lined my stomach. Poe was regrettably right. What had once piled up to the fifth step on the porch now sank down to the third. In just a short time, it would be nearly gone, which meant the roads would be clear enough for me to go to my SUV…for me to return home.
“You should probably check in with your family,” Orion said, and I swallowed against a parched throat as I walked back into the kitchen. “I’m sure they’re worried about you, especially since it’s been two days.”
I forced a grin. “I’ll go give them a call right now.”
“I’m sure we don’t have to tell you to keep this to yourself,” Lycan said, narrowing his gaze.
“I told her that,” Orion cut in.
“It bears repeating.” Lycan crossed his arms and shook his head. “Not even your family. No one can find out. It’s the first rule of being a shifter…of being pack.”
“Is that what I am now? Pack? Or am I still a Vanderbilt?” I looked between the three of them. “Where’s the line?”
Lycan and Poe shifted their attention to Orion.
“Go call your folks,” he said instead of answering. “Then we should start to prepare. We’ll need to make food and bring extra clothes, even if we plan to stay on Fiver property.”
“You got it, boss,” Lycan said as I rounded the corner to the stairs and made my way to the second floor. I heard Orion apologize to Lycan again for not believing him about my shifter status, but I shut the door on that because I needed a moment to myself, a moment to wrap my mind around everything that had happened.
My room smelled stale and distinctly human. This new me had a wildness that could have only come from Orion, but standing in what remained of my former self, I couldn’t help but think how that person was gone. It had only been ten days, but I was completely different from the girl who had wrecked her SUV. I would run away before I’d marry Marx. I would do whatever I could to rebel against it while still saving my family.
What would the guys do when they found out about Marx and my brother’s deal with the Scorpions? I had to figure out how to get out of it. I would tell Orion after the moon and then I would find a new way to help Vanderbilt ranch.
I couldn’t deny that I had spent the last two days under some kind of spell, and something had definitely happened to me in the days since I arrived, but a shifter? A fox? Did I really believe in such things?
And hell, Orion had said the transformation would be painful. How painful? My heart started to pound again and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs.
Relax, came that wild voice inside. Don’t freak out. It’ll be okay.
I turned on my phone and winced at the missed calls from my brothers, but I narrowed my eyes on a new text message from Guin.
Guin: I know what happened to you. Call me before the moon rises.
My heart thundered harder as I pressed her contact, bringing the phone to my ear to wait for her to answer. Did she know I was a shifter? Did she know some deeply held family secret?
Admittedly, I’d spent most of my childhood at boarding school or away at summer camp. How well did I know my family, truly? Were my siblings shifters? Lycan said that one was born this way or not. If I had the gene, then my siblings could as well.
Based on that text, she must have suspected something if not outright knew.
“Sol,” she said when she answered. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Where are you? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days. Percy has lost his mind, and I got into a car wreck on Bastard territory. I’ve been staying here, but Guin…” I choked back a sob, all of my emotions from this past week finally catching up to me. I tried not to freak out, but I wasn’t doing a very good job. “Things are so messed up.”
“I know,” she cut in. “You went through your transition, didn’t you?”
“What?” I took a deep breath and paused, remembering what Lycan had told me. “How do you know about that?”
“I can feel it,” she cut in, “through our family ties. I can’t talk long. I’m in Dallas, meeting with the shifters in the Royal Bastards here. I’ve been trying to research as much as I can about our kind.”
“You’re a shifter, too,” I said, shock rattling through my veins. “How is this possible? How did we not know about this?”
“It’s a long story,” she said. “Look, I’m working on a plan for Percy, but as soon as the snow melts, you need to go home, or he’ll send the cops after you.”
I sighed and collapsed on the mattress. “Mae and Ava are covering for me.”
“They won’t be able to hold him off for very long.” She chuckled in a sardonic manner that reminded me of when we were younger and she’d beat up our idiot brother in defense of me and our sisters. “He’s such a greedy fuck. We’ll figure it out after the moon. Just protect yourself and make it through your shift in one piece. I’ll explain everything when I get home.”
“How is this possible?” I took a slow, deep breath, attempting to keep my metaphorical wits from going haywire. “How long have you known? Is this real?”
“It’s real, Sol,” she said.
“You knew. All this time, you knew.” I couldn’t believe this. The walls of what I knew about my world had started to close in too quickly.
“You’re okay,” she said. “You’re strong. Like me. You’ll survive the shift. Just hang in there.”
“Okay,” I said, blinking back tears as relief sank in my chest. “Thank you. I may not have always said it, but I’m so thankful to have you as my sister.”
“Yeah, you too, kiddo.” Then she hung up.