We sat around the coffee table in the living room, eating while Luis explained what was going to happen. Everyone seemed pretty on edge about the whole thing.
“Kenneth is already over there,” Luis said. “Some of the contacts he’s made have really helped. There’s apparently a pretty significant undercurrent of distrust for the royals in the old countries. It was surprisingly easy to get information—relatively speaking, that is. There’s a lot of fear, too. Everyone, it seems, is scared of them. It took a while for him to gain their trust, but once he did, we got a lot of good intel.”
“Like what?” Nico asked, grabbing another slice of pizza.
“Well, he’s found the location of the original castle that Edemas ruled from. The human textbooks list it as the stronghold of a feudal lord, but in reality, it was Edemas. Kenneth has high hopes that it’s the location of the vault or safe or whatever the hell the vial is stored in. I sort of doubt it.”
“Right?” Sebastian said. “Wouldn’t, like, the first place they’d look be in the castle he lived in?”
Luis shrugged. “It’s what I think. Kenneth thinks there may be some hidden areas the royals couldn’t find. We’ll see. It’s a good place to start anyway.”
While they talked, I sat there, pizza growing cold in my hand, remembering my dream from a few nights before. The moon. My wolf was stirring. It was almost as if she was trying to communicate something to me. The images of the dream kept replaying in my mind, niggling at my subconscious. Was there something there? In the dream? The trees, the night sky, the light of the full moon. Over and over again, it flashed through my mind. Along with the images, there was a sense of wanting something.
“Hey,” Felipe said, nodding toward me. “You okay, Maddy?”
Nico turned to me and put a hand on my thigh. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “It’s listening to Luis talk about Norway. There’s something inside my head that wants to bethere. I don’t know wherethereis, though. It’s frustrating.”
Nico wrapped an arm around me. “It’s okay.”
A flash of anger surged through me, and I shrugged his arm off me. “Stop coddling me, dammit. I’m not some damned damsel in distress who needs to be saved. I have things to offer.”
Nico’s face fell, and he looked surprised by my reaction. I wanted to apologize, but the wolf had me, and there was no way she’d let me back down now. He held his hand up in surrender. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry. Are you sure everything is okay?”
I glared at him for several seconds, feeling the awkwardness in the room build as his three friends sat there, mid-chew, as I blew up at Nico. Finally, as the wolf’s anger subsided, I sighed, and my body relaxed. I put a hand to my face. “I’m sorry,” I saidand leaned into Nico. “I told you something is wrong with me. I can’t explain it.”
“It’s almost like she’s going through puberty,” Luis said.
“What?” Nico and I said in unison.
“Well, it usually isn’t so…aggressive, but it’s like the mood swings we had right before our first shift.” Luis put his pizza down and leaned on his thighs. “Sometimes, if someone is a late bloomer, then the wolf can get angrier. Instead of fight or flight it’s more like fight or…fuck,” he said, smiling awkwardly. “You’rewaybeyond just a late bloomer. This isn’t like a kid who is fifteen and finally connecting to his wolf. Yours has been pent-up inside you for almost thirty years. If you’re this easily keyed up, it sounds like you’re nearing your first shift.”
I shook my head. “I can’t shift, though. It’s impossible.”
Luis bobbed his head back and forth. “Maybe. But maybe your wolf knows something you don’t.”
Luis left not long after for the airport. His words sat with me the rest of that night and into the coming days. It was confusing and scary. I couldn’t shift. The blood was too diluted, but now that I was with Nico, my wolf knew its mate wasright there. What would happen as this kept progressing? Would I finally snap and kill someone for doing something dumb? Would I claw out some old lady’s eyes for stepping on my foot at the grocery store? Run someone off the road for cutting me off?
The other thing that scared me was if Luis was right. What if my wolf wanted to shift? Needed to shift, but couldn’t? What would happen? Would I literally explode? It was all too confusing, too terrifying. I wanted it over with.
The next day, I was sitting on the back porch and staring up at the full moon. I felt calm and at ease for the first time all week. The way the light of the moon fell on me it was almost like cool water washing over me. My body had felt hot and on the verge of igniting for so many days, it was a welcome respite.
Nico found me out there and sat beside me, taking my hand in his. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned back and gazed up at the sky with me. I could tell he was waiting for me to say something. He was giving me the time I needed to put things into words.
“Nico?”
“Yep?”
“What does it mean if I…feel something moving inside me?”
He sat forward and turned his head toward me, looking concerned. “Describe the feeling? How long have you felt it?”
“It’s been going on for a little while. Kinda since I started feeling…weird. It’s almost like there’s movement deep inside me. A tingle under my skin. An…almost butterfly feeling in my stomach. Every now and then, I can almost sense something just beneath my skin, sliding across the inside. It’s weird. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Nico stared at me for a long time. The look on his face was a combination of shock and confusion. “That shouldn’t be possible. What you’re describing is what kids experience before their first shift. But…” he shook his head and looked at the moon for a minute before turning back to me. “Maybe you have more shifter blood in you than we thought. That, or your wolf is so strong, it’s trying to break free of the bonds holding her inside you.”
That didn’t sound good. “Is that a thing that happens? I thought the human part was still mostly in control.”
