Chapter 38
The orange and yellow hues of the setting sun were dipping low over the horizon as we got out of the car at the forest boundary. The air out here reminded me of my sanctuary back at Half Moon. There was a slight, cool breeze that brought the promise of pine needles.
Odis and Olivia would be standing watch at the perimeter line, and for once he wasn’t in a three-piece suit.
Tonight, he wore tactical gear, similar to what the Enforcers wore.
His jaw muscles flickered in a rhythm that betrayed the storm raging beneath his professional mask.
Olivia matched him. She smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
They headed out as Ethan made his way around the car.
He wore nothing but black, fitted tactical pants, his heavily muscled chest and shoulders catching the last bleeding shards of sunlight.
The black half-moon mark I had carved into the side of his neck was a raised, angry welt.
I smiled, biting my bottom lip as pride pulsed in my chest.
“Are you ready, Wildflower?” he asked, his voice a low vibration that seemed to roll across the forest floor. He extended a wide, calloused palm toward me.
My pulse stuttered. A cold spike of nerves prickled beneath my skin, warring with the hope that had driven me all day.
I wanted this. Years of needing nothing more than to shed my human skin, to feel the wind against my face as I raced in wolf form—but the promise of it was terrifying.
I knew what the shift required: my bones fracturing and skin reshaping.
My voice failed me. I offered a sharp nod, closing the distance between us until my fingers were swallowed by his hold. The heat of his touch sent a frantic, tingling current up my forearm, a spark from the true mate bond that had fused our souls in blood.
We began to run.
Ethan didn’t rush me, but his grip on my hand was a silent vow as our pace quickened. The deeper we descended into the canyon, the heat began to evaporate, replaced by the cool, heavy mist rising from the black hidden pool below.
As Ethan led me into the trees, I glanced back up from where we came. Odis stood alone at the boundary line, his back to us, a single wall of shadow between our isolation and the rest of the pack on their run.
Wolfless.
The word had been branded into my identity since the day of my failed maturity.
I had spent the last ten years carrying that weight of being a charity case.
I’d accepted that I’d never meet her, but as we strode into the woods, something uncoiled in my chest. The skin over the unhealed craters on my neck and shoulder throbbed violently, the heat spreading downward into my chest until my lungs felt like they were filled with fire.
Coming to a stop, I gasped as warmth melted from my chest and spread outward.
Adea.
The voice didn’t come from the forest surrounding us.
It exploded from the vault inside—the door kicked open as an ancient roar shattered the silence of my thoughts.
Ethan’s hand wrapped around my wrist, hoisting me against his chest. My eyes widened and my breath stalled as a fountain of emotions welled.
Who… are you? I mentally rasped, my hands curled against Ethan’s chest as my knees threatened to give.
Korra, she roared back, her voice strong and magical. It made my soul ache. Finally. I’ve clawed against the cell keeping us apart. Something ancient locked the door before you were old enough to find it.
Everything came crushing down. The burden lifted. I wasn’t defective. I had never been wolfless.
The tears streaked down my cheeks.
Who? I pressed desperately. Who locked it?
But she didn’t answer. The silence that followed was deliberate. I filed it away. I’d ask her again later.
You have never been alone, Korra promised. The moon calls us. It’s time to let me free.
I gulped, tilting my head back to meet Ethan’s stormy green gaze. There was a stillness staring back that wasn’t patience—it was a predator, waiting. He knew. Could he feel her?
“Reveal the other half of my mate,” he murmured, his hand cupping my cheek.
The moment the white light of the moon cleared the canyon rim and struck my face, the world tilted.
I flinched, anticipating the agony to come, but there was none. Instead, pure energy surged through my veins. My body unfolded, and breathless, I watched as my arms melted, the joints sliding and locking into a powerful limb, finding their true shape.
My spine lengthened, not with a crack, but with a fluid, serpentine ripple that stretched me toward the earth. My shoulders broadened, the muscles knitting together and doubling in size.
This is what we were intended for.
My thighs buckled, and I pressed my palms into the damp moss, feeling the dirt beneath me as my fingers elongated, my nails hardening into iron-clawed paws.
Let go. Simply exist, Korra’s voice vibrated through my mind.
“There you are,” Ethan murmured, his voice thick with awe.
My eyes darted to his. He drank in the sight of my transformation with a hunger that bordered on worship.
He stared at me with a look of pure awe.
“Look at you,” they breathed through the bond, the mental vibration trembling with devotion. “Goddess, you’re magnificent.”
The sensation of change hummed into silence.
I took a shaky step toward the edge of the black pool, my new, massive frame moving with a fluidity that made me feel like a shadow. As I leaned over the water, the moonlight caught my throat. The white rings looked stained, touched by moonlight. Then, I saw her—me.
My coat was a striking, asymmetrical mosaic that defied everything I had ever known of pack markings.
The entire left side of my body was a rich, earthen brown, while the right was obsidian black, split perfectly down the center of my spine and muzzle.
Seven thin, white rings ran around my neck like necklaces.
I lifted a paw, watching the dark fur ripple, and felt something close to pride.
I was whole.
And I was fucking beautiful.
Not in the way society deemed, but in the way a storm is beautiful. The transition had been effortless, leaving behind a clarity I’d never had before. I felt my existence realigning. Every ache—the bruising on my hips, the lingering concussion—was gone, erased by the shift.
The air smelled fresh, and the mountain breeze tasted sweet on my tongue.
I lowered my snout into the moss, inhaling deeply; the scent of earth and pine had never been this beautiful, this distinct.
The moon called to every instinct, and I lifted my head to the sky, letting out a victorious howl that shattered the silence of the valley.
Beautiful.
The telepathic rumble echoed through my skull, followed immediately by a sudden static.
Break her. Snap her neck.
I froze. The voice wasn’t Korra’s. It was angry and demanding, bubbling up from the depths of the bond, directed toward me.
Desecrate the vessel. Tear into her throat. Make her bleed.
My stomach turned, but beneath the horror, a thrill passed through me.
This was it—the madness the kingdoms whispered about, the King’s internal war.
But as the voices shrieked for my death, I realized I didn’t recoil.
I wasn’t the weak link. I was the only creature in this forest that wasn’t afraid of him.
While I had been clinging to my wolfless shell, hiding in my own stubbornness, he had been drowning alone.
Not only had I been avoiding a mate, but I’d abandoned him to this cursed fate.
The guilt was a blade in my gut, but I couldn’t look away.
I’d been chosen for a reason. I was the only one who could survive it.
My ears swiveled, searching the shadows.
The man was gone, and a black wolf stood in the moonlight, his massive frame absorbing the starlight.
Erebus. Ethan. They were one and the same—the King and the monster, both mine.
His glowing green gaze pinned me to the spot, radiating a depth of dominant fury and possessive heat that made my heart skip.
Mate, he repeated, his link a heavy command that brooked no defiance.
Even as he approached, the screaming in my mind didn’t stop.
It was a cacophony of gore, a constant, shrill demand for my death.
This was the monster the kingdoms whispered about?
The hell he’d been living in while I hid?
My throat tightened—if I hadn’t been so stubborn, so against finding him, he wouldn’t have been alone with these voices.
Every drop of this madness was a consequence of my own cowardice.
A powerful black paw took a step forward before his frame bounded across the clearing. I rushed to meet him. Our snouts collided with a visceral, heavy impact, and I lifted my powerful head to nuzzle him, my fur mingling with his as I took in pomegranate and chocolate.
Relief flooded through me—the feeling of finally being free.
I stepped back, his eyes narrowing as I turned and ran through the woods.
If wolves could laugh, he made a sound that resembled it.
The thrum of his heavy paws against the earth, hot on my tail, made me quicken my pace.
I jumped over a cliff and slid into a landing, turning to smirk at him as he stared at me from across the way.
I was beautiful, agile, and mischievous.
I turned, swaying my body and flicking my tail—teasing him.
Erebus surged forward, a comet that blocked out the moon.
He was fast, but so was I. I bolted, my paws finding purchase on the moss.
I felt a massive wall of heat closing the gap.
His jaws snapping inches from my flank, I pivoted, my new frame defying gravity as it spiraled.
I tucked my head and rolled, emerging beneath him, my shoulder brushing against the fur of his underbelly.