Trevor:Hey man, do you also have a tank? Because now I can’t un-think it.
Rhett sent a two-letter text, shaking his head while he tapped it out. Then he gave a snarl-laugh and held his phone out to Malachi again.
Rhett:No
Trevor:Sigh okay good. Btw thanks for being paranoid.
#thingsineverthoughti’dsaytoyou
Rhett put his phone away, then simply stood there, his eyes on the distant mountains. At last he said, “Ezra wasn’t wrong, you know. About backup.”
Malachi growled. Ezra was definitely wrong.
“Look, I know first-hand how easily you can crush a wolf’s bones, but if this rogue brings twenty or thirty mercenaries down on your cabin, what’re you going to do, Malachi? They’ll tear it down board by board. Or they’ll just walk in and take her.”
The image flashed before him—his mate dragged out to be abused or killed, a mob of twenty or thirty wolves destroying his precious home and the safety he had built. And himself unable to stop them, unable to protect his pack and his mate. Malachi’s blood surged with hot rage. He turned away from Rhett as his entire body began heaving and straining. He bent double, gripped his knees, tried to breathe, to control the wolf. The raging, panting, snarling wolf.
“Malachi,” Rhett said, his voice and his scent sharp with confusion, wariness.
“Go,” Malachi said.
Rhett turned to obey, but then the front door opened.
Raging, boiling inside. Paws and fur, claws and fangs. Fighting to emerge. No. No full moon—it couldn’t happen right now. It never had. Yet he’d never felt so close to the wolf in broad daylight. He must not fall to hands and knees as he always did when the wolf tried to seize him. Too close to four legs already.
“Malachi?” came the soft voice of his mate.
“Don’t touch him,” Rhett said a moment before…
April touched him. A small, light hand between his shoulders. “What’s happening to you? What’s wrong?”
Protect her. Kill to protect her. He would have to. It was coming. He knew it, and the wolf knew it. His mouth opened in a silent howl as the wolf threw itself against his restraint.
Protect my mate! Let me out!
With all the strength in his body, Malachi pushed upright from his bent posture. A snarl ripped from his chest, his defiance and the thwarted wolf inside both present in the sound. His legs were weak, a familiar aftermath of this battle, but he must not collapse.
“So that was interesting,” Rhett said, not a crinkle of worry in his face or his scent, the words as casual as if he were asking which of his cobblers to bring to the cookout.
“Go,” Malachi said.
“Right.” The wolf ambled off with a nod toward April.
Malachi’s straightening to full height had dislodged April’s hand from his back. She didn’t move to touch him again, simply stood and watched him while he stood and watched Rhett leave.
He bent and picked up the dropped store bag. “Come inside.”
She preceded him into the cabin, which was good. She couldn’t see that his legs weren’t quite strong yet. The library seemed a comfortable place to talk, surrounded by something they both loved. She headed there as if she’d heard his thought, and he followed. He sat on the ottoman, and she took the wolf-sized chair in the corner.
“Can you tell me about it?” she said.
“There’s not much to tell.”
“You were convulsing on your feet, Malachi. You seemed to be wrestling yourself from the inside out.”
So that’s how it looked. Aaron hadn’t described it when it had happened last July. Before Aaron, only Arlo had ever seen it, and that had been four years ago. He sighed and leaned against the wall, for the moment still a little shaky. He’d be fine in a few minutes.
“About the legend you were told, that I can change at will… What you just saw is the closest it comes to in reality. I can’t choose to change, but sometimes my body attempts to. That’s all.”
