I’d left them with Altun and Rheda for the night. Even Farmon volunteered to babysit.
They were so excited that I wondered if I should be worried.
“Walk me through it one more time,” I said.
Lucian stood to my left. Solomon to my right. Percy behind me, his hands on my shoulders, thumbs moving in absent circles.
“Quick question first.” I held up a finger. “Does this make me a werewolf?”
Percy snorted behind me. Lucian’s expression didn’t change, which meant he was taking the question seriously.
“No.”
“Because from where I’m standing, a man is about to bite me and I’m going to turn into a wolf. That’s the textbook definition. Even you said that was the difference.”
“Werewolves are human bodies cursed with a wolf affliction.” Lucian’s hand found mine. “You’re bonded to three lycans. The bond isn’t just emotional or physical. It carries a thread of the goddess’s blessing. Every fated mate has a wolf soul already inside them. It was placed there the moment the bond recognized you as ours.”
“So there’s been a wolf inside me this whole time? Do you know how funny that is?”
Percy laughed. The only cultured one who understood why that was hilarious.
“Sleeping,” Solomon said, ignoring my quip. “The bond sustains it. The bite wakes it.”
“Basically... reincarnation?”
“Close,” Lucian said. “Reincarnation implies death and rebirth. This is more of an awakening. The wolf has always been part of you. It just hasn’t had a body to run in yet.”
“That’s kind of terrifying.”
Lucian’s thumb traced my knuckle. “The bite triggers the shift. My bite, specifically. The prime alpha bond carries the catalyst.”
“How long?”
“A shift is minutes for a born lycan. For a turned human...” He paused. “Longer.”
Percy’s hands squeezed my shoulders. “We’ll be here the entire time. All three of us.”
“I know.”
“If it gets bad...”
“It’s going to get bad. That’s the point. I’m trading one life for another, and transitions don’t happen quietly.” I turned and looked at all three.
My mates. My king, my enforcer, my knight.
“I’m not scared.”
“Your heart rate says otherwise,” Solomon observed.
“Well, don’t listen to it.”
I lay on the platform. The furs were soft beneath my back and the obsidian ceiling caught torchlight in patterns. Lucian knelt beside me. His hand cupped my jaw, tilting my face to his, and the gold of his eyes was the steadiest thing in the room.
“I love you,” he said. “Whatever happens in the next few hours, remember that. When the pain gets bad, find the bond. We’ll be there.”
“Sentimental.”
“Occasionally.” He kissed me. Slow, thorough, the kind of kiss that said goodbye to the woman I was and hello to whoever I’d become. Then his mouth moved to my throat.
