Chapter 5 #2
It wasn’t the hesitant tap of a patient afraid to bother a doctor after hours. It wasn’t the firm, regulated rap of an official who already knew he would be let in either.
This knock was uneven. Rushed. Almost frantic. The sound of someone who didn’t have time to be careful anymore.
I froze with the pen hovering above the page.
The knock came again, a little faster. Then I heard the unmistakable scrape of someone leaning their weight against the wood.
I stood.
When I opened the door, a man fell inside.
He didn’t stumble inside. He collapsed, as if whatever had been holding him upright had finally given out the moment he crossed the threshold. I caught him by instinct, arms wrapping around a body already slick with sweat, the smell of fear and iron clinging to him like a second skin.
His pupils were blown wide, dilated until they swallowed almost all of the irises, leaving only a thin ring of color that glared back at me in wild, unfocused terror.
His breath came in harsh, rasping pulls, each one accompanied by a low, broken sound that scraped out of his throat.
His hands clawed uselessly at his own chest and arms, fingers digging into skin as if he were trying to rip something out from underneath it.
“Help,” he gasped, the desperate word tearing itself free.
I slammed the door shut behind us and threw the lock, my heart already pounding hard enough to make my vision pulse. I dragged him farther into the clinic, boots slipping on the tile as he sagged against me, his weight feeling far heavier than it should have been.
“What happened?” I demanded, though part of me already knew.
“They kept us in cages,” he said, words tumbling out in a rush. “Like animals… Then they injected us with something. I don’t know what…”
He trailed off, shoulders shuddering.
My stomach dropped.
I guided him toward the examination room, easing him down onto the table. My hands moved automatically, checking his pulse, his temperature, the state of his mind.
“How long ago were you bitten?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain steady.
He swallowed hard. “Two days,” he whispered.
His pulse hammered beneath my fingers. It was too fast, too strong, like his heart was trying to tear its way out of his chest. His skin burned beneath my touch, heat radiating off him in waves that didn’t have anything to do with fever.
It was far too late.
“No,” I breathed. “Fuck—”
His body seized.
His transformation began with violence.
His back arched violently as his spine bowed, muscles bunching and twisting under his skin. He screamed, the sound ripping itself free of him in an animalistic wail that reverberated off the walls.
The room filled with the smell of adrenaline and sweat and something feral and wrong, a scent that set every instinct I had screaming at once.
I backed away as quickly as I could.
He came at me fast.
Faster than anything human had a right to be.
I turned to run, but my body was already too slow.
I didn’t make it three steps before he hit me, weight slamming into my side and driving me hard into the floor.
Pain exploded through my shoulder as his teeth sank in, tearing flesh and muscle.
I screamed as we crashed together, his jaws snapping inches from my throat, hot breath washing over my face.
This is how it ends, I thought distantly. Eaten alive by the thing I’ve spent years trying to save.
Acting on pure instinct, I jammed my thumb into his eye with everything I had.
He howled, recoiling just long enough for me to scramble back, blood pouring down my arm, the world tilting violently as shock and pain threatened to pull me under.
The feral wolf staggered, confused, half-shifted and fully lost, claws scraping uselessly against the tile.
I grabbed the nearest heavy object, an examination lamp, and swung.
The impact jolted up my arms. Bone crunched, a sickening sound that echoed far too loud in the small room.
He collapsed.
Didn’t get back up.
Silence rushed in to fill the space he left behind.
It roared in my ears.
I sat there on the floor, back against the cabinet, shaking uncontrollably as I stared at the body of a man who had been human when he’d walked through my door.
My breath came in short, panicked bursts.
My hands were slick with blood, both his and mine, and the metallic smell coated the back of my tongue.
I pressed shaking fingers to the bite in my shoulder and felt the heat there, pulsing, spreading. I didn’t need tests. I didn’t need time.
I knew exactly what was coming.
There was no hiding this. No lying my way out. No delaying the inevitable with paperwork and careful omissions.
I had been bitten.
I dragged myself to my feet and stumbled to the sink, vomiting until there was nothing left but bile and pain. My reflection stared back at me from the mirror above the basin, pale, hollow-eyed, with blood smeared down my shirt and across my face like war paint.
I laughed weakly, the sound breaking apart halfway through.
“Of course,” I whispered. “Of course this is how it happens.”
I cleaned the wound as best I could, teeth clenched against the pain, then wrapped it tight with shaking hands that gradually, disturbingly, steadied. My body was already adapting. Already changing.
That scared me more than anything else.
I went to the comm unit and activated the channel I had memorized but never truly believed I would need.
“This is Tierney,” I said hoarsely. “I need extraction.”
Static hissed, stretching the seconds thin.
Then a woman’s voice cut through. She was calm, collected, and unmistakably in control.
“How bad?”
“I was bitten,” I said.
Silence followed for a brief moment before she spoke again.
“Stay where you are,” she said. “Do not leave the clinic.”
The connection cut off.
I slid down against the wall, breathing hard, my shoulder burning, my blood humming like electricity under my skin. Every sound felt too loud. Every shadow seemed to move.
I don’t know how long I waited.
Minutes.
An hour.
Maybe longer.
Then there was a knock.
I didn’t bother asking who it was.
When I opened the door, she stood there like a storm had decided to wear human skin.
Dark hair plastered to her coat from the rain. Eyes pale gray and assessing, taking in everything in a single glance. There was a knife strapped to her thigh.
“My name is Tamsin Drake. I’m the leader of the Accord,” she said. “You look like hell, Tierney.”
Relief and something much more primal than that hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
“Come on. We don’t have much time,” she said, pushing past me. I quickly closed the door behind her.
And just like that, my old life ended and my new life began.
Because I’d just found my mate.