8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
EMILY
“Breathe, Em. I know it hurts, but you have to breathe.”
Bones snapping. Spine arching. Fingertips bleeding. And a pulsing, breathing entity in the dark recesses of my mind.
Primal. Predatory. Animalistic.
Wolf. My wolf.
I can feel her. See her. She’s wrapped in a fog the color of my eyes, lingering just out of reach. But the outline of her body cuts through the mist. She paces back and forth, whining and howling with her desire to be free.
I’m trapped in limbo, longing for relief from the pain, yearning to be united with her. But the fog keeps us separated. We’re so close. If we could cross through the mist, if she could reach her paw through—
“What’s happening? Why is it taking so long?”
I’ve no sense of time or place other than the fog. But the deep voice vibrates through me. I curl into its source, seeking its warmth and comfort.
“Her body is too weak…” A new voice. Similar to the first, but deeper. Older.
Those two words echo through me. “Too weak.”
Always too weak. A failure. An omega.
“You’re weak.”
The voice morphs into a cruel, dark tone, laced with a command. I’m on all fours in the grass, hidden away in the farthest reaches of the forest. The owner of the voice snarls at me, pushing his aura out so I can’t move or think or do anything other than breathe.
“You’re an omega. You don’t have a wolf, and you can’t shift.
” He crouches in front of me, gripping my chin.
Everything about him is blurry except his eyes, which swirl with his lycan.
“You will never shift into your wolf. Your wolf will stay hidden in the back of your mind unless I order otherwise. And you will remember none of what happened tonight.”
My skin ripples and my bones snap and reform, but his aura overpowers the primal instincts of my wolf.
She howls in my mind as the alpha command shoves her into a mental kennel.
Tears stream down my cheeks, and sweat drenches my body as I collapse on the ground, hugging my knees.
Sobs wrack my body, adding to the pain of the suppressed shift and the emptiness where my wolf used to be.
Someone lifts me into their arms, but I’m in too much pain to see who it is.
And then it all fades into a fog. A dense, silver fog. It coats my thoughts, my dreams, and my skin. It weaves through my hair and into my soul.
I float through the mist. The wolf—my wolf—is gone. Nowhere to be seen. The pain flickers in and out. Sharp and intense at first. Like jabs from a fire poker. Then slow and dull, until it’s a constant ache deep in my bones.
“Em. It’s me. Can you hear me?”
The first voice. The voice that encouraged me and soothed me. The voice that was worried about me. But it’s different this time. Closer. Like it’s inside me—inside my mind—instead of heard through my ears. And with it, a touch. A hand circling mine. Large and warm. Strong, but gentle.
“Em. Em. Em…”
My eyes fly open. They immediately shut again, burned by the bright fluorescent lights above me. The dull ache behind my temples pulses and then ebbs. The hand wrapped around mine gives a squeeze, and I latch onto the gesture, squeezing back with all my limited strength.
Too weak.
My entire body is sore. I’ve never participated in any type of race, but I imagine this is how my muscles would feel afterward.
“Where am I?” My throat protests against my attempt to speak. The words come out dry and strained. I swallow, hoping it will soothe my voice, but there’s no moisture in my mouth to help.
“The Crescent Lake hospital,” someone replies.
The voice is familiar. It’s the one from my foggy dream, from my past. It belongs to someone I’ve grown increasingly comfortable with—someone I’m beginning to consider a friend.
Harrison.
He’s holding my hand. Speaking to me now. The same voice from my dream.
It all comes rushing back, making my head spin—the embarrassing way I sobbed into Harrison’s chest in Mr. Martin’s classroom, clinging to him as I confessed my terrible fate. His dad arriving and accepting me into their pack to keep me safe. My wolf trying and failing to emerge again.
And Harrison’s dad saying I’m weak. Too weak.
“How are you feeling?” Harrison dabs my forehead with a damp cloth.
So many scents invade my nostrils: the water on the cloth, the detergent used to launder the fabric, a harsh antiseptic—and beneath it all, a clean, masculine, woodsy scent.
An incessant beeping pings against my eardrums. A chair scrapes across a tiled floor, and fabric catches on a faux-leather seat.
I grimace, overwhelmed by it all. “Everything is too loud and too bright and too smelly.”
Harrison chuckles. “You’ll get used to it.”
The chair scrapes again. He takes twelve steps. The unpleasant light that burns through my still-closed eyelids dims, and Harrison returns to his seat at my side.
I dare a peek out of my crusty eyes. The room is darker now and doesn’t blind me anymore.
Like Harrison said, I’m in a hospital room, on my back in a bed, with several heated blankets on top of me to keep me warm.
The only body part besides my face that isn’t covered is the hand Harrison was holding.
My fingertips are already chilled from the loss of his touch.
He reaches for my hand. But those words—too weak—keep playing over and over in my mind, along with my failure to shift, and I tuck my hand beneath the blankets instead.
Those words echo through me, a taunting mantra of disappointment. They mock me, like they know I failed. Like they know my wolf is right there, close enough to sense but not close enough to be part of me.
I still can’t see her in my mind. I know she’s there. But that’s all it is. A feeling. A presence in my mind. Not fully realized, but there.
Will it ever be more than that?
Harrison clenches his jaw, but he rests his elbows on his knees. I do everything I can to avoid his gaze. The ache within me isn’t just physical. It’s not just in my muscles and bones. It’s in my heart. My soul.
Everything I thought I knew was wrong.
I remember it all now. The night of my fourteenth birthday, Alpha Justin came to my room at sunset and escorted me to the forest. Then, as the moon hit the highest point in the sky, my wolf pushed forward in my mind—spirited and ready and strong.
But before I could shift, before I could marvel at her presence and celebrate that I had something I never thought I’d get, he stole it all away from me. With a single command, he made me into what he wanted me to be.
Weak. Unworthy.
But none of it was true.
“I have a wolf.”
“Yes,” Harrison says.
“But I didn’t shift.” My tongue is heavy and thick in my mouth, adding to the dryness in my throat.
“That’s correct,” Harrison replies.
My vision blurs as tears flood my dry eyes.
My breath shakes and I turn away, staring at the horizontal stripes on the wall.
That fog-shrouded wolf in my mind gives the tiniest whimper before growing silent once more.
I call for her in my mind, reaching for her with all my energy, but my failed shift—the second one I’ve experienced, I realize—has left both of us too weak to fully connect.
But she’s there. She’s mine.
A wolf. My wolf.
What else do I not know about myself? What if I’m more than a wolf?
No. I would remember that. Becoming a Crescent Lake member invalidated Alpha Justin’s commands—all of them.
A fire surges to life inside my veins. He did this to me. Alpha Justin. He’s the reason for the pain. He’s the reason I can’t shift—the reason I’ve never shifted. It should be as easy as walking for me by now, but he took that away from me.
“Alpha Justin?” My hands curl into fists. I have no energy, no power, but revenge—revenge would be satisfying.
“He’s dead.”
I snap my gaze back to Harrison. “Dead?”
I’m afraid to believe it. To get my hopes up. Because if I wish for it, then it’s less likely to be true. And if I wish for it, what does that make me? Does that make me a monster like him? Will my wishing for his death bring an ill fate upon me as well?
“Yes,” Harrison confirms. “Alpha Justin is dead.”
Dead. Gone. No more. No longer able to hurt us with his lies, arbitrary rules, and commands.
Relief floods through me, cool and refreshing and invigorating. Harrison and his dad would have protected me from Alpha Justin. They gave me their word. But now that he’s gone, I’m truly free.
“Did you…” I arch my brow in question. I sensed the tension and anger in Harrison as I told him what had happened on my birthday. It wouldn’t surprise me if he went after Alpha Justin himself.
Harrison’s jaw tightens. “No. I wanted to, but staying with you and keeping you safe was more important to me.”
“So, what happened? How did he die?”
“Alpha Justin showed up at the Silver Ridge border, demanding information on your whereabouts. When Alpha Julian refused to answer him, Alpha Justin and his ranked members attacked Silver Ridge. They were no match for Alpha Julian and his warriors. Alpha Julian killed Alpha Justin and the others, and is absorbing the remaining Lupine River pack members and the lands into Silver Ridge.”
It all sounds so straightforward and simple when he says it.
I know there’s more to it than what he’s telling me.
How did Alpha Justin figure out I’d disobeyed him?
Did he feel my bond to the pack break? Did someone tell him that they saw me with Harrison?
Why did he approach Silver Ridge instead of Crescent Lake?
More questions race through my mind, but I don’t care about the answers. None of it matters. Not right now, anyway. All that matters is that Alpha Justin is dead. Lupine River is no more. Harrison’s dad is my alpha. Crescent Lake is my pack—my home—now.
Home. I lived my entire life in Lupine River, but it never felt like home.
Not in the way Crescent Lake already does.
Even from this hospital bed, I can sense love and security flowing through the pack bond.
Alpha Michael clearly cares for all his pack members, not just those with a rank.
He has to, or he wouldn’t have made such an intense promise of protection to me when he accepted me into his pack.
That kind of love—that kind of acceptance—isn’t something I’m used to. I’ve never experienced it. Except maybe from my parents, but I hardly remember them. Most of what I remember is from after they passed.
“The command. He placed it on all of us. All the—” All the omegas. I think it, but I don’t say it. It will just upset Harrison again.
I still don’t understand what I am if not an omega.
Everything feels backwards now that I know it’s wrong.
I’m floating into the sky like a lone, loose balloon without that knowledge to ground me.
What else have I gotten wrong about our world?
What other misinformation was I fed? What all was I too gullible to question?
“There will be others,” I continue. “Like me. Whose wolves are suppressed.”
“My dad warned Alpha Julian. They, along with Alpha Timothy from Amber Forest, will help train them so they can build up their strength.”
“Good.” No one asks for my opinion or approval of their plan, but I give it anyway. “And me? They’ll train me too?”
I sit up straighter, waiting for Harrison’s answer. I never wanted training—or I thought I didn’t. But it was never an option. Now it is. And I want it more than anything. So I can never be too weak again.
“No.”
His response steals all the energy from my body.
But before I can deflate, before I can lose myself in the sadness of missing out on something I never realized I wanted, before the words of self-doubt come creeping back into my mind, he says the most surprising thing I’ve heard him say since meeting him.
“They won’t be training you,” he says. “Because you’ll be training with me.”