CHAPTER 11
JONATHAN
Iwoke on a floor.
Naked. Hot. Humid. Covered in dirt.
Mouth dry. Lips parched.
Taste of blood…there, still.
Where am I? I thought.
Slowly, the blur sharpened and my surroundings came into view.
A ceiling loomed over me, its wooden beams catching the pale light of early morning. I was in my cabin.
I looked down. Scratches on my arms. A scrape across my thigh. Something dark streaking my side. I didn’t remember getting back here. My shoulder ached. My ribs throbbed. My jaw felt like I’d been chewing gravel in my sleep.
I scanned the room. Half the furniture was knocked around. My boots were missing. The front door…unlatched. A breeze whispered through the cracked frame.
What time was it?
Sitting up slowly, I felt pain flare low and deep. My muscles screamed. Every inch of me felt wrung out. I felt like an aging furnace, smoldering embers from a previous fire.
The blanket I kept by the door, my usual fail-safe, was draped haphazardly over me. That meant I’d made it back at some point. On foot. On instinct.
My fingernails were filthy. I didn’t want to check my teeth. The mirror would confirm what I already knew.
Another blackout.
Another episode.
Fragments splintered my mind. I remembered…the moon, inky-black night. Running. Branches whipping at me as I dashed through thickets. Chasing. Blood in my mouth. Fresher than it tasted now, dry and crusted.
I rose unsteadily, gripping a side table for balance. My knees shook. My body was caught between two skins—neither felt right.
I was losing control. Slowly and gradually. Ever since she’d gotten here.
My memory came back slowly.
Last night, I’d gone up to Cryer’s Point.
With Blanche, I remembered.
The name hit like a dagger in the gut, but it helped center me. Her voice in the dark. Her laugh. The way her heartbeat had caught in my ears when she’d nearly fallen. I’d walked her back.
But after, everything was a blur.
I clenched my jaw, running a hand through my hair. This wasn’t supposed to be happening anymore. I was supposed to have control. I had been managing it, hadn’t shifted without wanting to in some time now. Not like this, without warning, violently.
Water. I needed water. I was dehydrated.
I stumbled to the bathroom sink and twisted the tap with trembling fingers. The pipes groaned, then a sputter and water began to flow. I drank with both hands like an animal, fast, letting some run down my chin.
The water was cold and sharp, helping to chase away the taste of metallic blood. I braced against the counter, shoulders heaving. My reflection in the mirror met me like a stranger with bloodshot eyes.
I had gone to her door again.
Not out of choice. Not consciously. Something in me had sought her out. Maybe the beast in me thought she’d bring me the peace I’d desperately searched for, like I was orbiting her without realizing it.
But what if it changed? What if next time I wasn’t just pacing the edge of the woods? What if I didn’t only stop at her door?
I pressed my forehead to the edge of the medicine cabinet. The wood was cool. Solid. Real.
Get a grip, I ordered myself.
I needed to check the perimeter. Clean up the cabin. Maybe eat something. Put things back in order.
Routine steadied me. Logic steadied me. And gods knew I needed that right now more than anything. Because if I didn’t…if I slipped again…
It would be like that night in Graymore. The alley. The blood. The man I’d nearly killed.
He’d been hurting someone. A woman. I still heard her screams and sobs.
But once I’d gotten him off her…I hadn’t stopped.
I’d torn into him.
And when I’d come to, he’d still been breathing—but barely.
I convinced myself it was merely justice.
But deep down, I knew better.
I had enjoyed it.
The woman had run from me too, scared pale of the beast now covered in blood. Maybe she’d been even more frightened of me.
Shifting always hurt. Blood coursed like fire through veins, nerves lit up, and everything swelled.
But in that pain of the body tearing itself apart and being reborn, came a twisted sense of relief.
Because when I let go and freely gave myself over to desire inside, I didn’t have to fight anymore.
I didn’t have to think. I just became what I was, what I’d been born to be.
That was the truth that sometimes haunted me.
I found a pair of jeans and pulled them on. My skin was raw in places, scraped from bark and gravel.
I’d gone to her cabin again. I could still smell her—lavender, firewood, faint vanilla from those tarts May loved baking.
I hadn’t hurt her.
Not yet, at least, I thought bitterly, feeling the whipping of anger rise.
I didn’t trust my shifted form. Never had.
That part of me was clawing closer to the surface. Too close.
I gripped the edge of the counter until my knuckles burned white.
Why her?
Why now?
I didn’t want to need her presence like this. I didn’t want to feel safer when I was near her. I didn’t want to wonder if the beast was drawn to her…or if I was.
I wasn’t safe.
Not for her. Not for anyone.
And if she ever saw me—really saw me, my true nature—I didn’t know what she’d do. What scared me more was not knowing what I’d do.
The first time I’d shifted, I’d been thirteen.
A bully from the western slopes of Juniper Woods, Donovan, had singled out this quiet runt named Mitchell, from a lower-line family.
Mitchell hadn’t been a friend, but he’d kept to himself and never bothered anyone.
One day, I’d seen Donovan picking on him—knocking him around while the others had stood around laughing.
Something in me had snapped. I’d launched at him, latched on, and never let go.
By the time I’d returned to myself, Donovan’s face had become almost unrecognizable—broken nose, cracked incisor, blood everywhere.
Of course, all the parents and the council had intervened.
Fortunately for me, the elders had dismissed it…
said Donovan had provoked the fight and I’d simply ended it.
Donovan had invoked Ravakar…a spirit debt.
Or as humans called it, karma. Translated from our tongue, it meant the scar that returns.
It was how we governed our kind…our version of group therapy, I guess.
Later, my father had spoken to me, stayed with me that entire night as I’d tried to control my first shift. Talking, guiding, trying to educate me on what I was becoming…or rather, what I was but had not understood until that moment.
He’d warned, There’s a fine line between controlling it and becoming it. The longer you pretend you’re only one thing, the harder the other part claws to remind you that you’re not.
I’d grown up my entire life in the shadow of the beast, scared of what I was. I’d thought most kids grew up wanting be something else. I was no different, but for different reasons.
I’d thought I’d never be that scared again. I’d been wrong.
Last night, she’d gotten too close, and I had allowed it.
I didn’t want to hurt her…so I couldn’t let it happen again.