My face flamed, making denial pointless.
Bonnie bounced her eyebrows. ‘Your secret’s save with me, Kitty-poo.’
She cackled as she left, but I was reassured by the fact her heartbeat remained steady. As much as she liked to tease all members of her pack in a seemingly merciless fashion, Bonnie did have some boundaries. She didn’t poke at our raw wounds. I hadn’t done a good enough job of hiding my loneliness or my joy in Lucas’s presence if she’d identified my attachment to him as something she shouldn’t play too roughly with.
I bit my lip and rolled her final words around my mind. Bonnie would keep my secret, but I wasn’t going to be able to control my scent around Lucas. He had to know I was attracted to him, since I’d asked to kiss him, but it was one thing to know something abstractly and another to be slapped in the face with it.
I had to hope we would be able to come to a mutual understanding; Lucas wouldn’t mention the waves of want pouring off me and I would extend the same courtesy to him. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to kiss me, that he wasn’t interested in anything but friendship, even if the warmth that rolled off him was tinged with need.
We would engage in mutual want and mutual denial. It would be fine.
I could almost feel the bump in my heartbeat even as I thought that, but I didn’t care. So long as Lucas adjusted to his new life soon and came back to live with me, I didn’t mind what I had to push down and ignore. I just wanted him close and safe. Nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LUCAS
Isat cross-legged on the bank of the river that ran alongside Callum and Aster’s cabin. It was mad that yesterday I’d thought I was hearing a leaking gutter, when it had been the babbling water outside.
Callum had explained a lot more about my newly boosted senses after me, him, and Aster awoke from our nap yesterday. I could control how much I let in, could stretch further if I concentrated.
He’d said sound was the easiest to master. That was what I was supposed to be working on right now. Identifying the river was easy, as was my heartbeat and that of the goat called Tim, who was snuggled up beside me. I absently rubbed his grey head as I half-concentrated on picking out Aster and Callum’s heartbeats inside the cabin, the rustling of wind through the grass, faint hints of voices and various mechanical whirs far away in the village.
Playing with my newly advanced senses was cool and incredibly surreal, but I couldn’t keep my mind on the task. Ever since I’d woken the second time yesterday and practicallyinhaled a pot of stew while Callum explained the ways of the wolfies, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Kit.
He wasn’t allowed up here at the moment because everything was too new and I needed time to adjust around those who were familiar. No one could be more familiar than Aster, and turning me into a beastie gave Callum a pass to hang around too.
I didn’t know how to explain that Kit being here would be fine. More than fine. Good. The best.
I wanted to learn how to hear with my new ears by searching out his heartbeat and listening to the breath coasting over his lips. I wanted to know how he smelt with my new nose, understand the different scents of emotions by sniffing out his. I wanted to test my strength with him, run across the mountains at his side.
Callum was a good teacher, patient and wise, but I didn’t want to explore all of this with him.
I didn’t get a say though. Callum was the one who’d bitten me and Aster was my best friend. While I’d slept through my body healing and changing, they’d made decisions on my behalf. Kit had been sent off down the mountains, and I wasn’t going to see him again until I’d figured out all this wolfy stuff and could be trusted to rejoin the wider island community.
‘Concentrate,’ I muttered, slightly hindered by a horn digging into my thigh as another goat joined us. The legendary Albert. I patted his head, scrubbing my fingers through the thick brown and white fur between his ears, before closing my eyes again and listening.
‘I’m going to go chat to Lucas,’ Aster said.
I twisted around, but he hadn’t crept up on me. My heart thumping, I huffed out a laugh. This was why it was important for me to master my new abilities before I left the mountains. Went home to Kit. I couldn’t be jumping at noises from the opticians that shared the ground floor of the cottage my surgerywas in and zoning out of what the people – and animals – in my examination room were telling me.
The cabin door opened behind me and I tried not to flinch. Aster and Callum would get the deciding votes on when I could leave the mountains and they wouldn’t let me if every loud noise made me jump, but the goats betrayed me. Fed up of my constant twitching, they skittered off along the riverbank.
‘Hello, my newly wolfified friend.’ Aster sat down beside me, his knee nudging mine when he crossed his legs. ‘How are you feeling on this fine afternoon?’
‘Good.’ Callum had warned me to be careful lying around other wolves, that they would know if I was fibbing or telling half-truths. It was weird to hear my own heart miss half a beat.
It wasn’t a full lie. I did feel good. But I was also frustrated.
Aster didn’t need to know that. Salty sadness hadn’t left him since I’d woken up sandwiched between him and Callum. It would take time for him to get over my almost death, to come to terms with having made a huge life decision for me. As much as Aster was a wrecking ball, he didn’t mean to cause damage. When he took control, he did it for the benefit of everyone around him. I was glad to be alive, if changed, but it would take him a while to see that, to understand that I was fine now.
He didn’t need to shoulder my angsting over how far away Kit was as well.
‘How are you?’ I asked, at the same time Aster blurted out, ‘I have something to tell you and I’m worried you’ll hate me.’
If we hadn’t grown up together, I would have been impressed at how he fit so many words into the same space as mine.
‘What is it?’ I asked, at the same time he said, ‘I’m fine. Should be fine. Will be fine.’
