It doesn’t automatically make you a monster.
You choose what you become.
Just like my mother told me.
I turn back and start planting the seedlings, trying hard not to think about anything. They join me, one by one, until all six of us are in a line planting what would have taken me weeks.
I can’t imagine anyone from my old pack helping like this. It would have been considered human work. Frieda was too old to help me easily, so this is the first time anyone has.
I don’t want to examine why that means so much to me, but it’s touched something inside me that’s all vulnerable and left me wondering if keeping secrets is really the right move to make.
Should I tell them what I am so we can deal with it together?
I remember how the pack treated an omega they caught on our territory. They’d ripped her apart. Her screams still keep me up some nights.
There is nothing more dangerous than an omega, except a pack with a deep hatred and fear of them. They didn’t ask, they didn’t try to help her; they just shredded her.
One wolf can’t hold back the tide of a pack.
And I don’t have a wolf.
No, it’s better to find another way. I have another full moon coming next month, I can get back up there and…face the bear. I sit back on my heels, staring at the dirt.
My gaze finds Angel and lingers there. He knows what I am, but he still kissed me. Why did he do that?
Wrath glances at me. The gleam of menace is easy to read.
I glare. “Don’t you dare.”
He stands up, stretches up on his toes, and shakes. Clumps of dirt go flying, hitting everyone and the side of the house.
“Wrath!”
He bounces around and knocks me on my back, sitting down heavily on my lap.
“Oh, god, get off!” I wheeze. “You weigh a ton, you overgrown fluff ball.”
He wiggles and then stiffens.
“Don’t you dare, Wrath! Stop! No!”
He flops back, smooshing me to the grass. He wiggles around on top of me before springing up and taking off, doing more laps of the yard.
I roll up on my hands and knees and lift my head, coming face to face with Hazard. He opens his mouth in a doggy grin and then licks my face.
“Ugh! Why?” I shout at them. “Just why?”
Khaos chuffs.
I grab the bucket of water. “You think so, do you?”
Without putting much thought into it, I empty the contents of the bucket on his head.
He jumps up and howls, whirling on me with gleaming eyes, and his teeth bared.
“I’m not scared of you, Khaos.”
He snaps his teeth and tenses, crouching low.
