After not eating any of the food they brought for dinner, I lay down to sleep. The lights shut off a few seconds later. I dozed and was on the verge of falling asleep when my eyes snapped open.Wake up!My wolf.
Are you there?I asked her.
I could sense a change in the depths of my being, fueled by my mother’s words. A deeper well of power seemed to open within me. My wolf’s voice whispered from deep within my mind.
It’s time.
74
MADDY
My body was tearing itself apart. That’s what it felt like. All I could do was writhe on the cot and the floor. It hurt so much that I couldn’t even scream. I lay there, beads of sweat dripping off my head, teeth clenched, hands fisted, vibrating like I was having a seizure. My wolf was right there with me. She was snarling and pissed. Her frustration melded with my own.
The moon was like a malevolent spirit hanging over us, trying to physically rip the shift into being. I could imagine alabaster white claws stretching down from the sky, digging into my chest and grabbing my wolf, trying to wrench her free.
The pain was so bad that I struggled to my knees, intent on getting to the toilet before my stomach expelled its contents. I didn’t make it and turned slightly to vomit on the floor. A moment later, the door to my cell opened.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” the guard yelled. I could hear the irritation and disgust in his voice.
Rage unlike any I’d ever experienced surged within me. I snapped my head around and glared at the man. My vision went red, and I knew my eyes must have been the same shade. Alphared. I growled, low in my throat, and he stumbled back. He managed to get the door closed and latched. I supposed it would have been too much to hope for him to have forgotten that little detail.
Once he was gone, a small respite came over me. I was still miserable, but at least I managed to get myself under control. I washed my face and rinsed my mouth out at the sink, then used an entire roll of toilet paper to clean up the mess I’d made. The last thing I wanted was to sit and stare at a pile of my own sick on the floor.
Sitting back on my cot, I hugged my arms to my chest and waited. For what, I had no idea. My shift, my death, my rescue—who knew? Before I could dwell on that too much, I heard the lock being disengaged again. The door swung open, and Viola stepped through, pulling Gabriella along behind her.
She shoved her toward me. “Maybe you can use the new little trick you showed us to control your brat. I need her ready for the ceremony at the height of the full moon. I don’t want her to lose her mind before that. I trust you can do that,” she said with a sneer before stepping out and slamming the door again.
Gabriella looked at me with sorrow. “Oh, Maddy. This is all my fault. You look just awful.”
I sat, shivering, pale, my hair limp and greasy around my face, sweat dripping off my body. I nodded. “Yeah. You look great too.”
Another wave of agony seized my guts, doubling me over in pain. One moment my birth mother was standing by the door, and the next, a wolf was nestling herself down around my body. Even in my pain and agony, my eyes widened in surprise. My mother had shifted. She was a shifter. What the fuck was going on? My thoughts and surprise vanished for a moment. The feel of her warmth, the softness of her fur, and the sound of her heartbeat lulled the pain away. Slowly, with the help ofher comfort, the pain started to vanish. I didn’t know if it was because she was my mother or if she was a shifter. Either way, I was grateful for the relief.
My true mother and father were the ones who raised me. They’d held me when I was sick and scared, had pretended to be Santa and the Tooth Fairy, and loved me unconditionally my whole life. They were my parents, but there was something about blood that was intense and unbreakable. Something the shifter side of me was unable to shrug off. Having my birth mother curled around me like that, bathed in the scent of her that was so much like my own, was more calming than any drug I could imagine. I barely knew her, but my wolf didn’t seem to care.
Sensing my recovery, she shifted back to her human form but pulled me to her, cradling me in her arms. I let her hold me, my body still wanting the contact.Needingit. But I had to know what the hell was going on. I raised my head and looked at her. “You can shift? Kenneth never told us about that.”
She sighed and shook her head. “He never knew. I kept that hidden. Everything you’re going through is what I went through. I also became a shifter later in life. Not as late as you, though. It happened right after your father and I…well…he claimed me, the night you were conceived.”
My eyes widened. “He turned you into a shifter?”
“No, no, not really. I was already distantly related to Edemas, your father and I were like, sixth cousins or even more distant, who knows. But your father’s wolf was the reincarnation of Edemas. The strongest shifter to ever live. The werewolf king. Any other shifter and I would never have changed, but when he claimed me, and we became one, I felt my wolf’s awakening the same night.”
It was almost like what happened with Nico and me. She did understand what I was going through. “Did it take you a long time to shift?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Within a day or two, I’d learned how.”
That little tidbit didn’t make me feel so great, but it was good to know I wasn’t the only person who’d endured the pain and irritation of turning into a shifter later in life. I’d gone nearly ten years longer than she had. Plus, my wolf had been suppressed with drugs. I was one in a million. Probably more like one in a billion.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked.
She took in a shaking breath as she stroked my hair. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m sorry this is so rough for you. Like I said, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t given you those suppressants for all those years, this wouldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t be so miserable right now.”
I ignored that. If she hadn’t given my parents those drugs, the royals would have found me much sooner. I’d probably have been dead before high school. What I was going through right then sucked, yes, but it was better than being dead.
“What was it like when David shifted? Was he always a werewolf? Or did he shift into a normal wolf sometimes?” I asked.
“He could become either. Though the werewolf part of him was much stronger, and that was usually what took over. I only saw him as a normal wolf ten or twelve times. And on the full moon, he barely had any control. The werewolf came out whether he wanted it or not.”
