Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
BELLAMY ROSE
Thirty Minutes Earlier
I felt helpless while watching as Tiny, Halo and Cree fought off the hordes of shifters coming at them. I wanted to do something other than sit in this damn tree like a damsel in distress.
“Let me out.” My wolf sounded louder than she normally did. It was like she was sitting right next to me yelling in my ear.
“How?” I desperately asked her.
“You know how.”
“No, I don’t! Tell me how!” I screamed in frustration. Everyone kept telling me I would remember everything when the time was right. Now felt like the right time, but I was no closer to remembering anything than I was yesterday.
You would have thought my wolf could just take over like she did that day with Kenzo.
Letting her out sounded crazy. How the fuck did I let something out that I’d never seen before?
Not only that, but my fucking mate was fighting a damn huge-ass monster.
I didn’t know how much help I would have been, but I at least wanted to try.
I wanted more than anything to keep the people I loved and cared about safe.
“Let me out,” my wolf yelled again, sounding just as aggravated as I felt, which only pissed me off even more.
“I don’t know how!” I yelled back at her ass. How the hell was she mad at me when we were supposed to be one and the same? Hell, if anything, I should have been pissed at her. She should have been able to explain to me what the hell she meant.
Seeing everyone fighting with all their might sent me back to the night when Alonzo fought for me.
Once again, I was hiding helplessly, and I made a vow to myself to never be the helpless one again, but here I was once again doing nothing, even more so after Kenzo mindspoke to me, basically demanding I stay in this fucking tree like an invalid.
I wasn’t weak. There had to be a way I could help.
My heart dropped. Halo was holding her own against two big ugly-ass chameleon-looking things.
She was easily tearing into the two chameleons.
“Halo! Behind you!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, but it was too late because a Snake shifter had grabbed her by her hair before sinking its fangs into her neck. I watched in horror as my friend's body went limp.
Immediately, Cree finished off the Snake shifter he was fighting.
Darting over to Halo, he used his teeth to rip off the head of the snake that had bitten Halo.
He let out a blaring agonizing howl. His wolf licked at Halo’s face.
Out of nowhere, four of the Chameleon shifters all jumped on Cree’s back, knocking him away from Halo.
He tussled with the chameleons and fought them to the best of his ability.
Halo’s unconscious body was left out in the open.
Tears pooled in my eyes upon seeing Halo not moving. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Let me out,” my wolf calmly said.
“Tell me how. Please. I’ll let you out. Please!” I cried, begging for my wolf to explain to me what I needed to do.
Her silence broke my heart. Fuck this. If my wolf wasn’t going to help me, then so be it.
As fast as I could, I climbed down from the tree I was in.
If I died, it wasn’t going to be while hiding up in the tree.
No, I was going to do my best to protect Halo.
Looking on the ground, I found the biggest branch I could carry.
I needed some kind of protection for us.
From the tree, Halo didn’t look that far from me, but on the ground, she was actually a good distance away.
I could make it to her fast enough; however, it was going to take longer than I thought. I’m coming Halo.
In the midst of the chaos, three more black wolves, all big but two of them extra big, lunged from the forest clearing, immediately attacking the shifters. One of the wolves helped Cree while the other two started helping Tiny take on the shifters still coming from the opening.
Focusing back on Halo, I started to run toward her at full speed.
In the distance, I could see a big frilled-neck-looking Lizard shifter running toward Halo at full speed as well.
Malice radiated from the shifter as he opened his mouth in a downward position as if he was preparing to bite into Halo.
I wasn’t going to make it in time. The shifter was twice as fast as I was.
Help me! I didn’t know who I was talking to. All I knew was I needed to get to Halo before he did.
“Relax and allow me to take over. I am you; you are me. Trust me.”
I couldn’t explain it, but this time, when my wolf spoke, I fully understood what she meant. I had to relinquish control and trust her to take control.
Doing as she told me, I let go, trusting my wolf to do what we both wanted.
The experience of feeling fur sprouting out from my skin, hands transforming into paws, my nose transforming into a snout, was unbelievable.
I always thought the shifter experience would be more painful. However, it was a euphoric process.
Without needing to be told, my wolf rushed the lizard just as he was almost to Halo. We sank our canines into the lizard's neck, ripping its head from its body. We stood in front of Halo’s body in a protective manner, daring anyone to try us.
“That hole is a portal. We need to close it, or they won’t stop coming out,” Tiny yelled while pointing to the hole where the giant monster Kenzo was fighting came from. “You see those crystals at the bottom? We need to destroy them.”
“Bellamy, where are you?!” Kenzo mindspoke to us. We could see him frantically searching the tree for us.
“We are behind you.” Quickly, Kenzo turned around, looking dead at us.
“You shifted?” Kenzo asked proudly. We imagined if he was in his human form, he would have had a huge smile on his face.
“We did.”
“Your wolf is breathtaking. More beautiful than we ever imagined.”
“Thank you,” we bashfully replied.
Kenzo’s bear nodded. “We have to destroy those crystals,” I told him, repeating what Tiny had told us.
“If we go at the same time, we can destroy both of them at the same time,” Kenzo suggested.
“No, I’m not leaving Halo,” we refused.
“Go with your mate. I will keep her safe,” Tiny said as she appeared beside us. We didn’t want to leave Halo, but we trusted Tiny to keep her safe.
We nodded at Tiny, and then we met Kenzo at the halfway point. His bear and my wolf eagerly sniffed each other. Clearly, our animals didn’t care that we were in the middle of a battle. Their happiness over seeing each other outweighed everything.
“You get the crystal on the left. I’ll get the one on the right,” Kenzo said.
We both took off in the direction of the portal.
The closer we got, the stronger we could feel the power of the portal.
From far away, we couldn’t see the portal.
It was some type of camouflage. Up close, we could see the distorted tunnel the shifters were coming from.
The crystals keeping the portal open looked like two black hearts beating.
It was something from a scary movie. Kenzo started to run toward the crystal on the right.
Once he got into position, we prepared to smash them.
Then Meenie appeared in front of me in her vile, distorted form, eyes twisted with evil and malice.
“Don’t…” Her raspy voice sent chills up my spine.
“I will give you everything you want. Your life will go back to normal. No more shifters, no magic, no Kenzo. All the things you miss, I will give back to you, even my mate. You can have him back, and this time, he will love you. Allow my minions to overthrow this land, and you can have your old life back.”
I looked at Kenzo, who was staring at me intently.
It was crazy because had Meeny got to me a few weeks earlier, everything she offered would have possibly enticed me because that was all I wanted for the last year.
Now, though, I realized all the things I wanted before weren’t real.
I wasn’t living my true life. I wasn’t really happy.
I was just existing. I didn’t hate shifters.
How could I when I was one? My dad, my sister, my best friend, and my mate were all shifters too.
Reconnecting with my wolf did more than just allow me to shift.
It helped me remember everything. Everything they wanted me to forget, I remembered.
My destiny, my family, my instinct, I remembered it all, and now that I knew who I really was, there was no going back to the lie of the life I lived before.
“Bellamy…” Kenzo spoke cautiously.
“Break it.”
Simultaneously, we both smashed the heart-shaped crystals.
“You fucking idiot!” Meenie snarled at me in disgust, then zoomed through the portal before it closed all the way.
After finishing off the few remaining shifters left over, everyone reconvened around Halo’s still limp body. Finding out the three wolves that joined were Delcan, Yves and Alexander made sense. Cree had shifted back to his human form and was now cradling Halo’s body.
“I can’t connect to her through our bond,” Cree desperately said while looking at Tiny.
“It’s not for you to connect with her,” Tiny responded while looking at me. “Bellamy, wake your friend up.”
I didn’t know what the hell to do, but that didn’t stop me from going over to Halo and nudging her with my snout.
“Halo…” I tried to mindspeak with her. Since we were so close, I figured it might work. To my shock she replied.
“I’m here.”
“You can hear me?”
“I can. I remember… Everything.” She sounded calm with hints of excitement.
“Me too.”
“I wanna shift… I’m scared, though.”
“Shift so we can run together like we used to.”
“What if I get stuck?”
“You have to trust your wolf. Know she’s going to always do what’s best for you. If you get stuck, know I’m stuck with you.”
Halo didn’t immediately reply. “Okay,” Halo timidly responded.
A few minutes of silence passed, and then Halo’s body began to shake. Gray fur began sprouting from body, and she began to slowly transform into her wolf.
“What the fuck?” Cree said in amazement.
Slowly, Halo opened her eyes in her wolf form. The first thing she did was lick all over Cree’s face in excitement before hopping out of his arms. Then she trotted around everyone, sniffing and looking at everything in amazement.
“I can’t believe I really shifted,” Halo said before sitting down next to me.
“Love and friendship are powerful,” was my reply.
“That they are.” Tiny smirked at us proudly.
Halo walked back over to Cree and nudged him until he shifted back into his wolf.
“Let’s run,” Halo said. Then Cree, Halo, Yves, Delcan and Alexander took off running.
“Hell nah! I’m not a damn wolf. I don’t need to run,” Kenzo grunted before sitting down on his ass in protest.
“Pleaseee. This one time,” I begged while rubbing my wolf against Kenzo.
“I’m not running… but I’ll follow behind you to keep you safe,” Kenzo begrudgingly said.
“Fine,” I happily responded, knowing it was the best I was going to get from Kenzo. “Kenzo?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, and there isn’t any place I want to be other than with you.”
“I love you too… and you didn’t have a choice other than being with me because I wasn’t letting you go… Ever.