Raw yellow light overtook the mingled browns and greens in his eyes. He opened his mouth to allow his fangs to extendto their full length. Letting go of Aster, he nudged away the blankets tucked around Lucas’s neck, then lowered his head.
Only a born wolf could change someone outside of the full moon. If I bit Lucas right now, we’d just have to add puncture wounds to his list of ailments.
I lowered my head to the back of Lucas’s hand and willed his body to accept the change. The worst it would do was reject it, but in this moment that was a terrifying possibility. He might not have chosen to leave being human behind like me, Louisa, and Errol, but he needed to become a wolf.
The scent of blood filled the air as Callum pressed his fangs deep into Lucas’s neck. He and Bonnie hadn’t been able to explain how they were able to turn people outside of the full moon. Callum said something vague about saliva and Bonnie claimed she and her brother were superior wolves. Either way, I was unendingly grateful my pack contained the possibility of saving Lucas.
The last time we properly talked couldn’t be when he’d fled from me. I couldn’t accept that he would die without knowing deep in his core that everything between us would always be okay, even if he never wanted to kiss me. The last sounds I heard from him couldn’t be faint whimpers of pain.
Callum sat back. ‘It’s taking.’
‘Thank fuck,’ Aster said, then burst into tears. He buried his face in the unbitten side of Lucas’s neck.
I’d not been around a werewolf transformation other than my own before. Usually, it took a day or so for a body to switch from being human to a wolf. Lucas’s change would likely take longer, since his body had not only a mystical change to contend with but all the damage he’d sustained during the storm as well.
‘Kit?’ Louisa’s hand was firm on my shoulder. ‘Can you come with me?’
I lifted my head and blinked up at her. I didn’t want to leave Lucas, but the lines of black on my arms were sinking to grey. I’d used up my ability to drain pain, fought off sleep with every heavy drop of my eyelids.
Lucas was okay. His breathing had calmed and his heartbeat was strengthening. Aster was curled into his side, Callum tucking himself under the blankets on the other. They would look after Lucas in the volatile few days after becoming a wolf. We’d all rested here as we got used to our new bodies.
I wondered if Errol and Louisa had cried as much as I had after they were changed.
‘Do we need to go?’ I slurred as I stumbled after her into the main room of the cabin. The fewer people around when Lucas woke up, the less overload he’d suffer as he adjusted to his newly heightened senses. I wanted one of those people to be me, but Callum had turned him. He needed to be close when Lucas woke up. And Aster wasn’t about to leave his best friend any time soon.
It was horrible to walk away, but I had to trust Callum and Aster would look after Lucas. They had much more claim over him than I ever would.
‘We’ll go in a minute.’ Louisa shut the door to the bedroom behind us.
The rain pounding on the roof of the cabin was much louder in the main room, or maybe it was that out here my sole focus wasn’t on Lucas’s heartbeat. Logs crackled in the fire and a grey pygmy goat snored where it cuddled with a larger brown and black one on the sofa.
Louisa grasped my shoulders. ‘You can fall apart now.’
I hadn’t realised I’d needed permission to crack in two.
A wet sob forced its way up my throat as I collapsed into Louisa’s waiting arms.
Lucas was alive. He would be well. Forever linked to me as a member of my pack.
But he had come close to dying. Far too close.
It took a long time for my tears to stop, the memory at the forefront of my mind Lucas’s slowing heart right before Callum bit him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LUCAS
Iwoke up warm and dry. It took a confused second to remember why it was so freaking wonderful to not be soaking and chilled to the bone, then memories of the storm crashed in. I cringed and snuffled my nose further into a pillow that smelt like clean cotton and lavender.
My recollections were dark and hazy, full of relentless rain. I could still hear it now. It poured down a gutter somewhere nearby. The wind whooshed in regular blasts.
I frowned. I remembered falling, but it couldn’t have been too bad. I wriggled my toes. Nothing hurt. My foot brushed something warm.
My eyes snapped open.
Aster was in bed with me. He laid close enough that I could easily pick out the freckles across his forehead. There were forty-nine of them. He’d made me count them once. They were extra bright today.
He looked as cosy and sleep mused as he did after a thousand sleepovers. His dad and my mum hadn’t bothered with blow-up beds after the first few nights Aster and I spent together.He’d always wound up snuggled with me, his hands tangled with mine.
