April moved her chair closer. She rested her head against his bicep and spoke quietly up to him. “What will happen if you do?”
He looked down into her eyes. Breathtaking blue. Kind. Intelligent. Beautiful. The words rasped in his throat like broken shards. The words he couldn’t speak last night. The words she deserved to hear, to know.
“I might not come back.”
She blinked a few times. Confusion filtered into her essence. “To your human form?”
He shut his eyes against the shame of it. Never in his life had he been ashamed of being a wolf, being alpha. Not even when he lived in his parents’ house. He had talked Aaron through the self-loathing that had caged his friend when they were teens. He had encouraged pride among his pack, especially for the young ones like Quinn who needed to know early in life the dignity of what they were. Now here he sat, head bowed, crushed by his own weakness.
“Can you tell me where this is coming from?” April said.
He wanted to howl. She didn’t understand, spoke as though his fear were groundless. “The lore is clear. The full moon determines the length of time a wolf spends in his animal form. The setting of the moon marks the boundary, the end of the wolf’s time to roam.”
“All right, I hear that, but you don’t need the help of the moon to change, so why would you need it to change back?”
“Because it’s too much.”
Despite the awful confession, his mate’s arms wrapped around him. He let her. He needed her touch.
“The battle inside you, the amplified strength,” April said.
“Yes.”
“But the wolf isn’t the only one gaining strength. You said you are too.”
“I don’t know who’s stronger right now. I’ve always been the stronger.”
“And clearly you still are. You’re sitting here in a chair. In your human form.”
From inside came the kicking, thrashing, snarling. He held onto his mate and wrestled inwardly until the wolf backed down again.
“Oh, Malachi,” April said, her voice full of tears. “You have to stop this. Listen, okay—when you were in your wolf form on that table, how did you change back?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The memory is blurred. I suppose I willed it.”
“So you’ll will it again.”
He shook his head. She had to understand. “The wolf was weaker then.”
“So were you, baby. Please, listen to what I’m telling you. You’re not able to trust yourself right now. So trust the ones who’ve told you what’s going on here—Trevor, Aaron, Arlo, Rebecca, and whoever else. Haven’t they all proved trustworthy in the past?”
He rumbled assent.
“Then honor that. And I’m with them on this. Trust your mate too. Believe me when I tell you you’re not seeing this clearly, because deep inside you there’s still the little pup who was locked in a dark room, who wasn’t fed, all for being a wolf. That’s why you’re afraid of this new strength, Malachi. That’s why you can’t eat.”
As her words fell softly in the otherwise quiet room, his wolf did not resume fighting. Quiet settled in his body, stilled the circling thoughts in his head, soothed his battle-worn heart. He rested his chin on her head and breathed in long and deep. Sweet citrus. Oranges and lemons. April, his beautiful mate who held him in her arms as though…
As though she cradled the small pup with amber eyes. The little one looked up from a corner of Malachi’s heart that lay in shadow, his eyes glowing in the dark.
“Werewolf,” he said aloud to the pup, and it flinched inside him. He flinched.
“No,” April said. “Wolf pup. Just a little pup.”
“Just a pup,” he said, and tears began to fall. He wept for a few minutes, felt the tears cleanse even the shadowed corner inside and bring in a sweeping beam of light to fall on the little pup, for whom he’d never cried before today.
When his tears stopped, April tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “Now it’s time to open that door and let the pup out into the light.”
“Yes,” he said.
