Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Mind racing, hands a flimsy shield, I back away from Grayson. An automatic defense.
Another shudder rolls through him and he doubles over, the moon-mad wolf screeching out a cacophony of suffering. The desperate scrambling to remove the shallow poker from its eye yields nothing.
Grayson drops to his knees, his hands scrubbing through his hair, short black bristles of fur tearing through his skin.
Please. Come out. Now would be a great time to make an appearance.
No amount of pleading has ever coaxed my wolf to the surface before. Being moonlocked isn’t as bad as being moon-mad, is it?
“It’s fine.” A desperate laugh scrapes from my chest. “It’s going to be fine.”
The moon-mad wolf pulls free from the window clutching its skull, rotten blood seeping between its claws.
Grayson is here, solid and hurting. I met him after the first attack and since he hasn’t changed yet, the shift will suck, creeping and painful.
“You have to breathe through it. Don’t fight the shift. Your wolf will need you to be calm otherwise the pain is hard to manage. Stop the shift before it roots.”
It will be worse for him if he’d been changed by one of the cursed.
I keep those thoughts to myself.
Grayson opens his mouth but there are no words, only a guttural growl too similar to the syllables of my name to be mistaken for anything else.
“Grayson—”
His head snaps up at my approach and pupils narrow into slits. His shoulders hunch forward as bone snaps.
The cleaver. He lost his grip on it and it fell. Where is it?
Outside, the creature roars, half blind and clawing through the wood to make a larger hole to get inside the cabin.
Grayson jumps to his feet and whips around to face the creature. Grabbing the table near the side of the couch, he grips the legs, swinging it like a baseball bat.
It makes contact with a dull thunk that only enrages the creature.
Trapped.
We’re trapped with nowhere to go. The second I bolt, it will set them both off.
The wolf howls again and Grayson answers with a growl of his own. The hair on my arms bristles at the sound, low, guttural, rough. My guts slacken and the moon-mad beast jerks backward, blood-red nostrils flaring at the new scent in the air.
Grayson’s wolf.
It’s everywhere, pungent and demanding, a force in itself. I swallow a gasp.
Sweat and fear seep through my pores and coat my skin.
“Grayson, you have to stop fighting it. Your wolf is part of you. If you accept it, talk to it, you’ll be able to stop the change. There’s no danger,” I croon. “I can handle the moon-mad wolf.”
As long as I find the cleaver.
If Grayson actually goes through with the change, there isn’t a doubt in my mind. We’re all dead meat. The madness is real and he’s managed to hold it off this long. If he gives in tonight, the curse will take him.
I drop to my hands and knees, breathing shallow and stalling. The walls of the cabin close in around me as I scrape my hand under the couch to search for the weapon.
Shit.
I’m halfway to the window. My attention snaps between the two, deciding on a whim which one is more dangerous.
Both cursed. It’s a tossup.
“You have to get a grip,” I tell Grayson through another moan.
I’ve been waiting for him to change. Not knowing when it will be, or when he’ll react. Of course it would be now.
The chaos of the hunt sent him over the edge.
My fingers brush against the cleaver handle and I grab it, rising and swiping it between Grayson and the wolf outside.
Tears sting the corner of my eyes and they widen when the moon-mad wolf pulls itself through the husk of the window.
Grayson composes himself long enough to swing the remains of the table. The hit glances off the wolf and my scream cuts off as he yells, fingers flexing beyond his control.
He goes down again.
I have to do something. I have to handle the situation.
“Mandi.”
On his knees again, his spine bulges, the bones sharp. A gust of wind pulses through the open window.
All that chaos, the noise, then nothing.
He grunts, hands flexing, sharp tips of claws bursting through his skin. My throat closes. I’ve never seen a change like this. And I refuse to move.
Run.
“Okay. If we can’t stop the change then we accept it. Shifting for the first time isn’t easy. I’ll walk you through it. I’ve seen it done plenty of times.”
He shakes his head. Bones crack again and when he looks up at me, the wolf has overtaken his features. His nose lengthens into a snout, jaw cracking to make room for pointed teeth.
“Go. Bathroom.” His voice breaks. “Lock.”
It’s the last thing Grayson manages before the change warps his vocal cords.
I slap a hand against my chest to get my heart beating normally and the air to the bottom of my lungs.
“Are you crazy? You want me to leave you now? The moon-mad wolf is gone. We’re safe. It’s okay.” I maintain an even tone.
I’ve spent my entire life running, hiding from the truth of what I am. Skirting around the edges of the pack as a ghost instead of a person.
Leaving Grayson isn’t an option when he needs me most.
I have the chance to be the kind of person I need.
A tremor crests through him, bowing his back. He grunts and squeezes his eyes closed, muscles tensing and changing to accommodate the beast inside. More black fur spreads across his exposed skin.
I crouch so I’m not looming over him. Heart racing loud enough to give me a headache, I stretch a hand out, jerking it back when he lifts his head.
His face is trapped between human and animal. Fear paints his eyes, blown wide now by the change. He glances behind me at the bathroom door with a silent plea.
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving you.”
Fangs puncture his lower lip and blood trickles down his chin. Skin pulls tight over warping bone.
“I understand. I’ve seen other people I care about go through the change. It’s hard, and it hurts. I’m here for you. Okay?”
I won’t let go of the cleaver.
It’s different for bitten versus born. That’s what we’ve always been told in Ironwood. Born wolves are the only true shifters out there. It makes me being moonlocked so much worse.
I swallow down my bullshit to focus on Grayson.
“My younger sister went through her shift early. She was terrified. She kept trying to run and hide like it would somehow help her escape the change but the moon always holds sway,” I tell him in an undertone.
The pack would brutalize Grayson now. Dad booted him out without thinking, assuming the human would die during his first shift.
We’d been monitoring him, sneaking around, waiting. Waiting is the worst part.
Waiting for him to change so I can finally see if he’s been cursed. Another shudder races over his skin and his jaw breaks and lengthens. His gums bleed.
All perfectly normal responses.
“I’m here with you. You aren’t alone,” I say. “That’s the worst part, trying to do this yourself. You don’t have the pack behind you but you have me and I’m not running.”
I adjust and slide closer, elbows on my knees and my legs screaming from crouching.
His gaze pleads with me for space, for privacy, for room where he isn’t worried about hurting me.
I brace myself for whatever is going to happen but I won’t leave him. Everyone deserves to have someone to watch their backs through the tough messy bits. Everyone should have a person who refuses to shrink.
He’s the reason I distanced myself from the pack these last few months. Poor Grayson, who didn’t want to be bitten, who didn’t ask for any of this, deserves better than whatever fate whipped up for him.
And if he’s moon-mad—
I plaster a fake and fraying grin across my face and stretch my hand out toward the half-shifted man. “It’s going to be fine. Trust me.”
He shakes his head and lurches to the side, his limbs elongating faster than he’s able to process. He slams into the side of the couch and sends it screeching across the floor.
Another gust of wind spreads broken glass in an arch, away from the gaping maw of the window.
“Try not to panic,” I say in the face of Grayson’s absolute panic. He attempts to right himself and loses his balance, falling hard on his shoulder. I wince with him. “It’s worse if you panic. It will make it easier if you stay calm. Panic only makes it more painful.”
So I’m told.
My own control slips, the mask awkward and cumbersome at once, and a bit of my own fear and disappointment and worry leak outward.
His rounded, glowing eyes lock on mine and a shiver spreads along my spine.
“Don’t fight the wolf. And don’t worry about me.”
He lets out a shuddering breath, his vertebrae poking against the tightness of his shirt. The material shreds as the change sweeps over him and his back claws burst through his sneakers.
“The first time is the worst,” I continue, inching forward.
When my knees scream in agony, I drop to the floor, landing hard on my tailbone.
“Holly said her first time was a bitch. I’m not sure if it’s harder for a bitten were than a born one but I do know you’ve got this.
You’re a big, tough football player. Right? That’s it.”
I suck in a deep breath, loud enough for him to get the memo to breathe with me. “In and out. The wolf knows exactly what it’s doing and what it wants.”
And if the wolf is moon-mad? Cursed before ever glimpsing the moon for the first time?
“See? You’ve totally got this.”
My throat closes, fear swelling my tongue, but I keep breathing.
“That’s it! Calm is good. Panic is pain. You’re almost there.”
He holds my gaze through the elongation of his face, his jaw morphing into a muzzle. His eyes narrow as humanity slips away and I tense, expecting red.
Expecting the worst.
If only the witches had been successful in searching for a potion to counteract the moon madness, if that’s what will do it. If only they’d found the cure. Months of work and research and no one was any closer.
It’s too late to help Grayson.
The boy who came out of nowhere to rescue me slips away. In his place is the wolf. This form is much larger than a natural one, bulky in the shoulders and pure black with only a small slip of tawny near his chest.
I can’t look away.
I don’t want to.
Something snaps in my chest and releases a small bit of pressure. There’s no loose fur or flaying skin. There are no red eyes or foaming mouth. Only the wolf and Grayson tucked somewhere inside of it, getting his bearings in this new form.
“Wow.” The word slips out of me.
The moment stretches, stitched together with tension and awe. This is the closest I’ve ever been to a bitten wolf, and to be there to watch his first time shifting…
It’s impossible to put it into words. I swallow compulsively as a tight grin stretches my lips for real.
“Hi, Grayson,” I whisper.
It takes a moment longer to realize I’ve still got my arm outstretched toward him, spanning the distance between us. His nostrils flare and he cautiously steps up to my hand. The tip of his nose brushes my fingers.
The intensity swells. My eyes slip shut and another long breath pushes its way out of my lungs. He bends to push the top of his head against my waiting palm.
It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine now.
The statement forms in my head as a growl lifts like punctuation. Then the pressure against my hand disappears and Grayson takes a step in the opposite direction, his lips peeling back over his teeth.
My eyes pop open in time to watch him snarl and snap in the air where we’d touched.
“Grayson? Are you okay?”
Self preservation kicks in. I skitter backward, kicking my legs for speed, clenching the cleaver but I can’t bring myself to swing for him. A single bound closes the distance and he lunges, biting. His teeth clamp down on my forearm, lifted in time to block my face, to protect me.
Agony blots out everything else. His teeth shred through my skin and a scream tears loose. He clenches his jaw to hold on, shaking his head. I’m the prey.
I’m the one stupid enough to bank on a connection between us that has never existed.