She’s mine. She has always been mine.
And I just claimed her in the most fundamental way possible.
“Listen to me.” I cup her face, forcing her to meet my eyes. “We’re not blood related. You know that.”
“The pack won’t see it that way.” Her voice drops to a whisper, raw and terrified. “Your father won’t see it that way. My mother…God, my mother will kill me.”
Silence falls over the room, heavy with the weight of what we’ve done.
“You know I’m right,” she whispers eventually.
Then, gold flickers in her eyes. Just for a second. A brief spark that makes my wolf surge forward with recognition.
“Violet.” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “Your wolf.”
She blinks, and the gold vanishes. Her eyes return to their normal hazel, confusion replacing the brief glimpse of her animal.
“What?”
“Your eyes. They flashed gold.” I search her face, my heart racing. “Your wolf. I saw her.”
“I don’t have a wolf.” But her voice wavers, sounding uncertain.
She has never been uncertain about this before. In all the years I’ve known her, she has always spoken about her absent wolf with resigned acceptance. Never with any kind of hesitation.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
Her hand moves to her chest, pressing flat against her sternum before her fingers curl into the blanket again. “When we were together, I…felt something.”
I take a deep breath. “What kind of something?”
“It was inside me.” Her voice cracks. “Like something was trying to…I don’t know how to explain it.” She looks up at me, her eyes wide and perplexed. “My chest felt different. Not exactly tight, but…fuller. Like there was a living thing in there.”
My heart pounds so hard I’m sure she can hear it. “Living?”
She nods, her fist still pressed to her chest. “I’ve never felt anything like it before. Except when we first kissed.” A tremor runs through her. “Do you think—Could it be…”
She can’t even say it. Can’t let herself hope.
“Your wolf,” I finish for her, my voice roughwith emotion.
She stares at me, and I see a flicker of hope so fragile, it could shatter with a breath. “But I don’t have a wolf. I’ve never had one, for as long as I can remember.”
“You do have one, Violet. She’s just been dormant.” I cup her face, forcing her to hold my gaze. “But I saw her. Just now. Your eyes—they flashed gold.”
“Gold?” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“Only for a second. But she was there.” My thumb strokes her cheek. “Your wolf is inside you. And she’s waking up for the first time.”
My mind races.
Violet’s wolf has been dormant for as long as I’ve known her. It’s not unusual; some shifters are simply born with dormant wolves. And traumatic events can cause wolves to retreat so deep that they never resurface.
When my father brought Violet and her mother home all those years ago, he told me that Violet’s father and brother had died in an attack on their pack. But he never divulged which pack or what had happened, and I never tried to find out.
But now, I wonder.
Did the trauma of that attack shock her wolf into dormancy? Is that why she has never shifted? Why her scent barely hints at the presence of her wolf?
