Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
In a matter of minutes, she is lying in her fully furred self, still completely asleep under the moon. I reach out with reverence, touch the soft fur between her large, pricked ears. She’s a red wolf. I would not have expected that. The fur around her legs and feet is quite pale, but she has a deeper ginger stripe running down her spine. In certain lights, she might appear domesticated by those who do not know what they are looking at, but she is entirely wolf. Her muzzle is strong. Her body is lithe. She is ready to chase, to hunt, to howl. But instead she nuzzles up against me in her sleep, and she continues to slumber.
“Such a good girl,” I praise her. She can’t hear me, but I hope she can feel my approval. She deserves to feel good.
As the long night wanes, she slips back into her human form. I scoop her up in my arms and carry her off to bed. She is exhausted, of course. The shift will have drained every bit of energy in her. When she wakes, she will be sore, and perhaps confused. I will tend her until that time.
CHAPTER 11
Nicky
I had such strange dreams under the moon. I felt like I was returning to my old self. I felt a part of me I had not felt in a very, very long time. As I open my eyes, I feel as though I am somewhere new inside myself. That doesn’t really make sense, but I know it’s true.
Then I try to move, get a little more awake, and I am filled with an ache that seems to come from every ligament, muscle, and bone at once. I feel like I’ve been brutally assaulted. Every part of my body feels like it has been taken apart and put back together. When I swallow, I taste blood in my mouth. Weirdly, my hand, which has been stuck in bandages since I broke it, is not only no longer bandaged, but completely healed. I flex it and feel no grinding or pain at all.
Something about that trips the recognition in me. I instantly know what happened. I was asleep and…
“No!” I bolt upright.
“Easy, baby,” Rex says, resting his hand on my chest and pressing me back down against the bed. “Relax. You’ve been through a lot.”
“What did I do? Was it bad? How many were there?”
“How many were there what, sweetheart?” He brushes my hair out of my face gently, keeping his hand on my chest to keep me down because he can feel that I am about to pop right back up as soon as he lets me.
“Bodies,” I cry.
“There weren’t any bodies, baby,” he frowns. “You must have been having bad dreams.”
“I turned into a wolf. Right? I took my wolf form?”
“Yes. You did. And you were…”
“How did you stop me?”
“How did I stop you from doing what?” He looks genuinely confused.
“From attacking everyone and killing them?”
“You didn’t attack anyone. You certainly didn’t kill anyone,” he says. “You were asleep curled up with me. I brought you up to bed. You’ve been out of it. It’s very normal to be after the first shift. It mangles the body and it addles the mind. Don’t worry. You did nothing wrong.”
I don’t understand how what he’s saying can be true. My father told me over and over that when you shift, you have to kill. It’s inescapable. I wonder if maybe I just didn’t get a good chance at it. Maybe the fact I didn’t wake up saved this whole reserve from turning into a bloody massacre.
I try to calm down, but I am anything other than calm. I’ve started shifting, and it hurts. It hurts so fucking bad. I stop trying to get up because moving makes it worse.
I relax, and he takes his hand off my chest. “I wish you’d tell me what’s going on inside that mind of yours,” he says. “Sometimes I can hear the weight of your thoughts, but not the thoughts themselves.”
“Just as well,” I say.
It’s his fault. He did this to me. He fucked me and he turned me into a fucking monster. And now I have to hide even harder because if he ever sees what I’m capable of when I am awake…
He frowns slightly at me. “I will get you some orange juice,” he says. “You need some sugar and some protein. Does bacon sound good?”
“Bacon sounds great,” I say with a smile that is almost entirely forced.
The moment he leaves, I get out of bed. Every step hurts like absolute hell, but I can’t stay in bed. I can’t stay at all. He’s going to make me shift in daylight. He’s going to make me turn into a ravenous beast who can’t control herself, who destroys everything that is good, and who is eventually hunted to her death. I have to assume that is what happened to my father.