Chapter 17
SADIE
I growled deep in my throat, the sound more instinct than anything. Loud. Powerful. And not at all human.
The next sound to leave me was a whimper.
The biggest of the wolves prowled closer as I tripped over my feet again. His fur was an ashen colour, and light seemed to glow through eyes the colour of dark chocolate. Rich and so deep I could fall into them if he wasn’t about to attack me.
I’m not going to attack you, he said calmly. Neither are these two idiots. You can hear our voices because we’re all pack. There’s a bond that connects us.
Two bonds, the breathless wolf said—the smallest, his fur a pale silver, eyes a dark colour I couldn’t place even with my enhanced sight.
Why can I… why can I hear you? I whispered, all my fight fleeing at once. I can hear you, and I can’t walk right, and I don’t sound right.
I didn’t want to put them together, but my mind was racing, knocking one thought into the next.
And the terror that coursed through me made it impossible to breathe. Because there was no way, right? There was absolutely no way that my paranoid thoughts were true. Because if they were, and I went back to Lunova, they would kill me on sight.
It was the sharp one who spoke, and a wolf came forward, with the blue eyes so pale they were almost white. The voice belonged to the wolf who moved towards me. Maybe if I said it a few more times it would feel more real, and not just the product of a well-earned mental break.
You can hear us, he said with brutal truth, because you are a wolf now.
We found your broken body at the bottom of that hill and you died.
And for some godforsaken, stupid reason my alpha thought it was a good idea to save you.
If it was up to me, I would’ve left you to die there in the cold, where you belong.
Pain, as bad as anything I’d felt before, ripped a hole in my chest, and I staggered back. A whine filled the air, and even though it completely matched the aching, ripping feeling inside me, it couldn’t have belonged to me. Because that was the sound of an animal, and I was human. I was human.
What they said made no sense. Things like this didn’t happen in real life; they happened in movies and books.
I didn’t care that I could hear voices in my head, or that I couldn’t stand up straight, or everything in my body felt alien and new, and all signs pointed to him speaking the truth. I refused to believe what he said.
You’re insane, I hissed, my voice weak, and completely inside my head. There was no noise that left me, nothing except that whine. But judging by the way the wolf with the sharp, pale eyes reacted, my voice was inside his head, too.
Pack bond, the other wolf said. As if that meant anything, as if that was any explanation.
I was shaking, I realised, as I stood there facing the three wolves, not daring to look down.
Because if I looked down, would I see two human feet, or would I see paws?
The thought made me shake harder, until my teeth knocked together, and even that felt strange and unfamiliar.
As if they weren’t my teeth. As if they were new.
I didn’t die, I said with as much sharpness as the pale-eyed wolf.
Starlight, the softest voice murmured, and the green-eyed wolf came forward, closer than the other others.
That’s close enough, the sharp one bit out. She’s a slayer. We don’t know what she’s capable of or how many she’s killed.
I flinched as visions flashed through my head. Ash drifting from the ground, meeting a night sky that never lightened. Hair wrapped around my fist in a braid. Threatened words from a scared woman. And then a crack, final and fatal. Suri’s empty eyes staring up at me.
He was right. I was a killer. But I wasn’t a wolf. There was no fucking way I was a wolf. I shook my head in denial, but the motion felt wrong, new in the same way my teeth felt new, and my legs felt new as I tried to operate them and turn away.
Breathe, came the calm, steady voice of the one they called alpha. The most dangerous and dominant of them all. The biggest threat, the one that was probably about to kill me. I backed up a few steps, getting the hang of sliding through the dirt, even if I couldn’t walk properly.
I can’t fucking breathe, I snapped, an awful wheezing noise leaving my chest.
Give her space, he ordered the others. Look at me, he said, meeting my eyes, nothing but patience and concern in those dark chocolate irises. It was strange to be looking at a wolf, to be looking into his eyes and not into its mouth as its teeth gnashed down, severing my life.
Look at me and only me, he commanded in such a steady, unwavering voice, and with such confidence that I did.
It was a voice not to be ignored, and I didn’t have the power to ignore it even if I wanted to.
There was a part of me that was completely out of control, and that part of me pushed my head down in a ridiculous facsimile of a bow.
As if he was my king. As if they were telling the truth, and it was wolf instinct that made me bow to him.
I shook even harder, denial becoming harder to hold onto. What the fuck is happening? I demanded, but my voice was so small.
Lainsz is right, the alpha said, keeping his distance from me but never taking those dark eyes off me. We found you on the floor at the base of that hill, and the damage was so bad that your body couldn’t fight it. We took you inside in the hopes of healing you, but you were too far gone.
You’re saying I’m dead, I said in a voice little more than a squeak, a whimper.
I’m saying you were right on the edge of dying, and we saved you. He paused, holding eye contact, something significant in it. I saved you.
Which means you’re part of the pack, the soft voice one spoke. Our Alpha saved you, which makes you one of us.
One of you, I repeated, the shaking intensifying.
You mean you bit me and made me into a freaking werewolf.
That sounds insane. You know that sounds insane, surely?
The laugh that came from me was forced and brittle, and not so much I heard as felt.
I’m not a wolf, I’m human and completely ordinary.
You’re a miracle, the soft one said.
Alright, Leander, tone it down, the alpha chided.
Leander. The awed, soft-voiced, green-eyed wolf was called Leander. It occurred to me that they didn’t even know my name. They were saying all these batshit things about me dying and becoming a wolf, and they didn’t even know my name.
Okay, I said, backing up. I’m just gonna leave now. Thank you for saving me, I’m a big fan of being alive. Let’s meet up sometime. But right now I have places to be, people to see, you know how it is.
My laugh this time was strangled, but that didn’t stop me retreating, my feet finally cooperating to carry me three steps away from them. And I realised why they allowed me to retreat when my backside slammed into a tree.
It wasn’t pain that made me freeze so much as the sensation of it.
Not rough bark on skin, but a shudder along my nerves, a feeling like my hair standing on end, except all over my body.
It began at the place I hit the tree, and moved all the way along my back to my neck and my head, and then down my legs. All four of them.
A sharp, wolven cry ripped from me, my delusion torn away all at once until reality punched me in the face.
I really wasn’t human anymore. I was a wolf.