After an uncomfortably quiet ride home,I left Liam without saying goodbye, my throat and chest too congested with anger andgrief.
I headed straight to my bedroom, to the small terrace with the single Adirondack. I dropped into it and watched the heavy starlight bathing the serrated crowns of thepines.
Maybe I wasn’t being fair to Liam. After all, his father had been murdered. Not that Heath’s death was my fault. I’d simply gone to his place posing as an escort so that he’d let me in. If I’d gone as Ness Clark, he would’ve turned me away at the door. After playing nice for an agonizing stretch of time, Candy told him she knew what he’d done to Ness Clark’s mother, to Becca Howard, and to a handful of other women, and warned him she was going to press charges. Heath laughed ather.
Atme.
And so I’d slapped him. Hard. Which turned his dark eyes frosty. But at least he hadn’t shifted, thanks to the crushed pills I’d slipped into his Manhattan. I drugged him, afraid he’d kill me once I revealed my trueidentity.
In skin, he was frightening, but in fur, he was amonster.
When I told him who I was, he growled, “Get…out,” and I gotout.
And someone must’ve gotten in right afterme.
Murdered.
The eight-letter word iced me. I wrapped my arms tighter around myself and stood to go inside when a howl echoed deep in thenight.
A shadowy shape moved at the edge of the forest—a large black wolf with glowing eyes. The wolf looked at me across the grassy expanse and howled again, and his howl scattered goose bumps over my forearms, over my entire body. Another deep keening made my muscles spasm and my nails turn intoclaws.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” I whispered, backing into myroom.
I yanked off my jacket, threw off my dress as my torso twitched, and tore my necklace off. Heat engulfed my skin, and then fur—white, silky fur blanketed my burning arms and sprouted over my legs. My thighs hardened and shortened. My teeth sharpened. I felt them with the tip of my tongue that had grown thicker,longer.
I tried to pull off my underwear, but my hands werepaws.
Paws with sharpclaws.
A bolt of pain hit my spine. I arched and threw my head back as my lips stretched and stretched, like my nose, like my ears. I growled, and it vibrated against my narrow, rubbery muzzle. My bones shifted underneath my skin, my shoulder blades turningin.
I dropped to my knees hard. The black pads that had replaced my palms absorbed the brunt of my weight. A tail surged from my backbone, shredding my underwear, whipping against my desk and bed. My knee joints cracked, snapping inward, until they became lupinehocks.
Adrenaline shot down my spine and into my limbs, electrifying every inch of skin, sharpening each one of my senses. I heard conversations from all the way inside the living room. I caught the hoot of an owl, the caw of a raven, the rustle of pine needles. I smelled Lysol and detergent and the green scent of the swaying forest beyond my first-floor balcony. I felt the heartbeat of tiny things—bugs and rabbits andowls.
I ran toward my open balcony doors, crouched low, and then sprang over the balustrade. I soared through the frizzling night air, body thrumming from the release of the wolf that had lain dormant beneath my humanskin.
I hit the soft grass on all fours, and then I was galloping through the clearing that led to the forest, kicking up clumps of earth and grass. Behind me, on the large terrace, loud gasps and small cries rang out, followed by captivated chatter. I swiveled my head, and sure enough, a handful of bodies were pressed tight against the wooden railing, pointer fingers raised toward my recedingform.
Wolf-watching was an attraction mentioned in the inn’s brochure. Visitors were rarelydisappointed.
I lifted my nose to the wind and sniffed to pick up on the other wolf’s trail, but became distracted by the chitter of a squirrel spiraling up the trunk of a tall cedar. The furball stopped to watch me, its lithe flesh pulsing deliciously beneath the dusting of tawny fur. I’d hunted a squirrel once, had torn through its warm body and crushed its bones in my jaw. I was a sentient beast, but a beastnonetheless.
I observed the squirrel a while longer, until a new fragrance tickled my senses—sultry and spicy and fresh, like hot musk and crushed mint. I ran toward the scent, my paws kicking up pinecones, my claws digging into moss and clattering against downed logs, splashing into engorged, moon-lacquered streams. I dove into one, rolled on the bank, and then wrung myselfout.
Free.
That’s what I was…wild anduntethered.
I sprinted. Away from the inn. Away from the girl I’d left behind. The girl weighed down by guilt and debt. I ran until my heart threatened to derail, and still I ran. Only when I passed under a rocky ridge did I slow. The seductive fragrance of mint and musk churned in the air above me. I craned my neck and met the gaze of an impressive black wolf pawing the stone ledge dozens of feet up from where Istood.
Beneath a cover of matted leaves, a mouse shuffled. I didn’t chase it—mice were more cartilage than meat. The wolf made a soft keening noise that traveled toward me slowly. There were no words in that sound…or perhaps my lupine brain hadn’t yet reawakened to ourtongue.
Was itLiam?
If it was, had he tracked me, or was it a coincidence that he wasthere?
I thought of Heath again before remembering that wolves could read minds, so I sprinted away, the forest smudging into one long strip of wild darkness. Only hours later did the inaccuracy of my memory hit me—wolves weren’t mind readers. They could, however, speak into minds, but only the Alpha possessed that ability, and I had noAlpha.
