Chapter 18 #3
I thought he was mad, but fine. I was ready to entertain madness if it made me human again.
I reached into the place that hadn’t existed before today and I imagined it taking the shape of a wolf, huge and impressive, far bigger than these three.
So big that my arms couldn’t go all the way around her when I hugged her, resting my cheek on her chest. Her heartbeat thrummed with fear and a hunger for revenge that eclipsed everything else.
Yeah, I know the feeling. But I imagined stroking her fur until her shaking stopped, until she lay down on the ground, rested her head on her paws, and slept.
That’s it, Verne said. Exactly like that, Sadie.
Keep your wolf calm, and imagine you’re rising to the surface of a lake after being underwater.
Your arms will break through first, and then your head, your torso, and finally your legs.
The warm water isn’t a threat to you, it isn’t going to hurt you, but you’ve been there long enough now and you want to leave.
I could see it, could almost feel the slow ripples of warm water over my arms, and I imagined kicking my feet as I swam.
I didn’t expect it to work, had no faith at all in Verne or myself.
But the panicked instincts within me remained lulled, napping, and somehow I managed to find my way to the surface and break free.
The cold hit me first. It slapped my face, dragged fingers through my hair. It bit into my fingertips and toes as I knelt on the ground. I couldn’t stop shaking, shivering, and I was cold to the bone, but when I looked at my fingers through blurry eyes, a sob broke free. I was back. I was me again.
I dragged my fingers through the dirt just to feel them, to feel something real and familiar.
It didn't matter that I was cold enough to catch hypothermia, or that my clothes had vanished, or that a thousand different aches erupted from my neck to my shoulders to my ribs, then down past to my knees to my ankles.
As if every bone in my body groaned at once.
Not quite pain, but overwhelming enough to turn everything else into a dull smear for long moments.
I fumbled at my neck, panic making me clumsy, but I exhaled hard, slumping when my fingers met the warm metal of my necklace.
Something rustled nearby, leaves crunching, and I lifted my aching eyes—and my stare latched onto the three men who had been wolves only minutes ago.
They were no longer pale and furry, no longer possessed paws and teeth that could rip me apart.
If I didn’t know these were shifters, I would’ve thought they were human.
I never would have known, and that was enough to make my stomach churn.
How was I supposed to know who was human or wolf, safe or a threat?
More to the point, why was I worrying about that now?
When the more pressing issue was these men deciding they didn’t want me alive after all.
That, and the people who ran Lunova Academy finding us.
What if the professor investigating Fioranna’s death found me?
I couldn’t recognise a wolf, but they trained for years at the academy.
Would they take one look at me and know?
“Yes,” a familiar voice said, except louder and more baritone. That was Verne’s voice; out loud, there was a resonance to it, a deeper vibration. “They’ll be able to smell it on you,” he confirmed my worst nightmare.
So my options were never to go back to the Academy that tried to murder me, or stay here with three wolf strangers who would also try to murder me, or keep me as their so-called mate.
What did that mean anyway? All I knew about soulmates was when people went to Gran Canaria and slept with a guy they barely knew, and for the rest of their life called this guy their soulmate.
Or couples that had been together since school, and were convinced their souls were bound together.
Something told me these wolves had a different definition.
I pressed my hands into the cold ground, meaning to stand, to run even if it was pointless. If life had taught me anything, it was that fairy stories were fake. Soulmates were a myth, or an excuse for questionable behaviour. I’d take my chance in the forest, find some way to get back home.
Rogue said there were vents between this world and my home. And sure, I needed a talisman to get through, but I couldn’t think about that right now. All I could think about was getting away, somewhere I could think, somewhere I didn’t feel three stares on my body. Somewhere with clothes.
But when I looked up, it wasn’t to find an escape route. It was to find three naked men trying valiantly not to look at me. But now I was looking at them. And heat crawled up my body, blazed across my face, and a force punched me in the solar plexus, knocking all the air from my lungs.
I didn’t look at them and see a threat, didn’t even look at them and see three dangerous men that were wolves a minute ago. I looked at them, and my reaction was visceral. My throat closed, my breathing quickened, and a rush of heat went from my neck, down my chest, all the way to my core.
I looked at them, and I needed them. Now.
Oh shit. So this is what mate meant.