“Enough.”
“Then you recall turning into a twelve-foot-tall Relic and wrecking the place?A prehistoric, savage, out-of-control Were like hasn’t been seen since the Stone Age?”
“It’s been seen,” Cyrus said roughly, remembering the night that he and some of our boys had taken their ride on the Relic train.
They’d been dosed up by Danny, a guy looking to use Jenkins’ brew for revenge on the Were community, specifically the Clan Council, which he blamed for the death of his father.The idea had been to spike the drinks at the yearly meeting, wait until everyone started to change, and then sit back and watch the newly made Relics rip each other apart.The fact that most of the people there weren’t on the council and hadn’t had anything to do with what happened to his father hadn’t bothered him in the slightest.In fact, it had been part of the plan because his vengeance was about more than the death of one man.
He’d wanted to upend the whole system that had relegated him and his family tovargulfstatus, just because his father wouldn’t sell his profitable restaurant to a Clan leader who had wanted it, precipitating a series of events that ended in tragedy.I still felt conflicted about him, about the man he might have been, had things been different, and so did Cyrus.It was why he was working so hard on our clan now.
Otherwise, the Were world was going to be looking at a lot more Dannys.
“Not until recently,” Sophie was saying.“But now the past is back with a vengeance, including a ramped-up version of my Cat, because I got hit with that stuff, too—”
“I’m sorry,” I told her sincerely.“I should have protected you.You shouldn’t have even been there—”
Two furious hands hit the tabletop.“Would you shutup?”
I blinked at her.
“I have beentrying,” she said, breathing heavily.“To tell you somethingall day.Will you listen for one.Freaking.Minute?”
“Listening.”
“Good!”She pulled up a chair and sat at the table.“Okay.So you and I are among the two-natured, as some call us.Human and Other in one package, right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, not anymore.After we got back this morning, I was freaking wiped in a way I can’t ever remember being.I went right to sleep, and while I was out, my leopard came for a chat in my dream.It does that sometimes; I think it was the only thing that kept me sane on the inside.That I could get out in dreams, when it would show me all sorts of things...Anyway, this time, it came to talk.
“And what it wanted to talk about is that it’s gotten a lot more crowded in here suddenly.”
“Crowded?”I glanced around the room, but there was no one else there.A bunch of faces at the door, because privacy in a Were household is relative, but I didn’t think that was what Sophie meant.
“Yeah,” she said.“Looks like the stuff that Jenkins guy was brewing isn’t a one-use deal.‘Cause I don’t think I’m two-natured anymore, and neither does my Cat.She says there are three of us in here, and yes, she used thepresent tense.Not like there was one this morning, and after the drug wore off, it’s gone, but like there’s anothernow.”
Blue eyes met mine, and they were as somber as I’ve ever seen them.“I don’t think we’re two-natured anymore, Lia.I think we’re three, and you just met your third.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Istared at her for a moment, unable to speak.Then I got up and slammed out of the back door and into the yard, which was just a big sandlot since I’d never gotten around to landscaping it.And probably wouldn’t now.
What does a monster need with grass?
There was something wrong with my lungs; I was breathing hard but couldn’t seem to get any oxygen.I hadn’t been able to in the kitchen, either, and had thought it would be better out here.It wasn’t.All I could smell was potion, all I could see was that stupid ampule...
And Caleb, one of the strongest war mages I knew, looking terrified as he stared up at the Relic version of me.And my hideous reflection in the window of the grocery, like something out of a nightmare.And Sophie, lying on the filthy floor screaming, a student I was sworn to protect, but who I’d just attacked.
And blood, blood everywhere as it dripped down my white laundry machines, from the body of the last student I’d killed—
I took off running, and since there was nothing behind my house but desert, there was nothing to stop me.I transformed at some point into my wolf form because she desperately wanted to run, too, and we ate up the ground.We usually had to slow down for the boys, especially the younger ones, when we ran as a pack, but this time there was no need, and it felt like flying.
I don’t know how long it was until I noticed a second shadow on the sand, rippling along just after mine, and recognized Cyrus’s silent form.He’d been keeping pace with me the whole time, not telling me to slow down, not telling me anything, because wolves—even the human kind—didn’t talk as much as norms.They knew how to be still, to breathe, to run, and right now, that was all I wanted.
I don’t know how far we went, but it was fully dark when I finally stopped, panting hard but feeling more myself, more normal, more calm than I had since that horror story this morning.I lay down, exhausted, and then Changed back, letting the moonlight bathe my human body and briefly mourning the demise of another outfit.Weres were hell on clothes.
Cyrus didn’t transform immediately, but curled up in front of me, an enormous black and tan wolf breathing only slightly fast, and nuzzling my face and neck.I grabbed hold of him like a child with a stuffed animal, a ridiculously huge, warm, safe presence against the night.And held on.
We stayed like that for a while, until my breathing slowed down and I was no longer shaking.Then he finally Changed and sat on the sandy ground beside me, and again, nothing was said.It didn’t have to be.
