He kisses me then, hard and possessive and desperate. When he pulls back, his eyes are blazing blue.
"If he crosses a line—any line—you tell me immediately. I don't care if I'm in class or across campus or in the middle of a fucking exam. You call, and I'm there and I'll bite his fucking head off."
"Same," Micah adds. "We'll all bite his head off."
"He only has one head," I remind them.
"Then we'll sew it back on and bite it off again," Micah suggests.
Killian nods. "Works for me."
The protectiveness would usually feel suffocating, if they were anyone else. But this is different. They're not trying to cage me. They're offering backup. The knowledge that I don't have to face anything alone.
It's... nice.
Footsteps approach from the hallway. Rowan returns, looking weary.
"Dale is currently winning at Grand Theft Auto and eating his body weight in questionable nachos," he reports. "I told him he's free to go whenever he wants. He said he'll finish the game first."
"See?" Killian says pointedly. "He's fine. Not traumatized at all."
"He asked if we were going to sacrifice him to our wolf gods," Rowan deadpans.
"And?"
"I assured him we don't have wolf gods. He seemed only moderately relieved."
I bury my face in my hands. "This is my life now. This is what I've chosen."
"Yep," Micah says cheerfully. "No take-backs. You're stuck with us."
"Lucky me."
"You have two hours and then you have to put the janitor back," I say, pointing at Killian.
"Hey, he's a free man," Killian says, raising his hands. "I've learned my lesson."
Somehow, I doubt that.
Chapter 18
KILLIAN
I'm running.
The forest stretches endlessly around me, ancient trees looming, watching. The wind rushes past my ears like a song I've known my whole life.
This is my favorite thing.
The freedom of the shift, the perfect unity of man and wolf, nothing but instinct and speed and the wild joy of movement. I've been running these woods since I was a pup, since my first shift cracked my bones apart and remade me into something more.
The forest is mine.
Thenightis mine.
But something's wrong.
I notice it first in the way my muscles burn. The shift isn't supposed to hurt. We're born to this, we shifters, the change written into our DNA as naturally as the color of our eyes. Buttonight my bones ache like they've been shattered and fused back together wrong. My joints grind with every stride. My skin feels too tight, stretched thin over something that doesn't quite fit inside it.
