My wolf didn’t take it well. She wanted to break something, or run, or maybe both. My mind ran through all the permutations, every moment I’d told myself I could never trace, Bryce’s questions, my mother’s evasions, the hundred times I’d told people his father wasn't in the picture.
I pressed my palms to my thighs and curled in on myself. I couldn't look at Zaden. I wanted to call him a liar, but the memory flickered behind my eyelids, clear as anything. The hotel room in downtown Nashville, sheets that smelled like bleach and cheap whiskey, the way he’d smiled when he undressed me, like he’d never wanted anything so much in his life. Even then, I’d called him dangerous.
I dug my nails into my knees, trying to anchor myself. Then I stood. "I have to go."
I rushed out of the room with my head spinning. Of course, I had to tell him about Bryce, but not tonight. I needed to clear my head and figure things out. Get in touch with my mother because somehow this was her fault.
In the hallway, the walls closed in. I bounced off the wood paneling, nearly slipping on the polished floor, but I kept moving, kept breathing, kept telling myself that if I could make it to the door, I’d be fine.
I heard Zaden behind me, his steps soft, careful. "Krystal, wait. Please. Let’s talk this through."
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t.
All I could think of was Bryce. How he hadn't quite grown into his nose yet, his wolfish grin, the way he’d once howled at the moon until the neighbors complained. He was mine. He was everything. What if Zaden wanted to take him away? No, I couldn’t think about that.
I hit the front hall, grabbing my coat from the hook with fingers that barely worked. My keys rattled in my fist. Zaden called my name, but I shut the door behind me, hard enough to rattle the frame.
I rushed to my car, got in, and drove off. When I got home, I didn’t go right inside because my wolf needed to run off the confusion and fear.
I ran toward the forest behind my cottage. At the edge of the woods, the world bent. Breath scraped my throat, lungs burning. I ripped off my coat and let it fall, stumbling across the first patch of frosted grass. My wolf paced under my skin, restless, her claws raking at the soft places inside me. She howled for release.
As fast as I could get undressed, I let her have full control.
My bones splintered and mended, without pain now after so many years of shifting. My skin split, fur erupting across my arms, back, face. My next breath filled with the taste of raw wind and nature, the dirt soft under my paws.
I dropped into a lope, then a sprint, leaving the world of men and dragons behind.
Night in the woods was a different animal. Shadows pressed in close, but the moon cut everything to black and silver, each trunk and branch outlined with razor edges. Every scentexploded, rabbit burrow, fox piss, the iron tang an owl's fresh kill somewhere out there.
I ran until my muscles sang and my ribcage ached with every inhale. The only thing that mattered was movement, forward, away, out. My wolf didn’t care about the cold, or the rocks, or the scrape of bramble across her flanks. She only cared about putting as much distance as possible between herself and what waited back at the house.
I cut right, bounding over a fallen log and through a shallow creek. Cold water soaked my belly, but I never slowed. My ears flattened, my body streamlined for flight. This was what I was made for. Speed, escape, pure animal clarity.
The forest opened into a clearing, an old church ruins ghostly in the moonlight. I slowed, skidding across the moss and mud, chest heaving. I circled the clearing once, then slumped down against a toppled headstone, sides heaving.
For a minute, there was nothing but the wild thrum of my heart.
I shifted back, skin prickling as the fur retreated. I hunched on the ground, naked and shivering, clutching my knees. The night air stung my eyes, or maybe that was just my tears.
Bryce was my son.Mine. He’d always been different, but I’d never had a word for it. Now I did.
Hybrid. Would he be a wolf or a dragon? How had I not sensed it on him, how had the pack not?
I pressed my forehead to my knees, willing the world to stop spinning. It didn’t.
After a long while of sitting there, I walked back to my cottage without caring about the cold bite in my feet. It was a long walk.When I reached my driveway, I started collecting what was left of my clothes. Some of them had shredded. I pulled out my phone from my coat pocket and glanced at it.
Seventeen missed calls. Six texts.
All from Zaden.
I scrolled past the notifications as I walked up the porch steps and let myself in. I locked the door, checked it twice, then pressed my forehead against the wood.
Holy shit. What was I going to do?
Chapter 11
Zaden
