Brayden nodded. “But we need to get her out of here before Silas finds her.”
They were going to keep me captive, they were going to move me to new locations every time someone tried to find me.
Frick!This was stuff you saw on crime TV.
The panic inside of me turned to anger and a searing heat burned along my spine. Unbridled rage bubbled to the surface of my skin and Brayden’s eyes bugged.
“Holy crap she’s shifting,” Maddy said, stepping closer as if to get a better view.
“No, no, no, just calm down.” Brayden stepped off of me and held his hands out in a placating gesture.
Calm down.He kidnapped me and pinned me to the floor. Being calm wasn’t in the cards.
Agony consumed me. My body pitched forward and my back felt like it snapped in half. I wailed in pain, looking at my hands as I lay in an awkward position on the carpet.
“What’s happening?” I whimpered. My bones were breaking, I could feel them.
Snap, snap, snap.
Light grey fur grew on my palms and I gasped, then my fingernails elongated into claws.
No. This wasn’t happening. This was a dream.
Suddenly Brayden’s face swam into view. “Silas Ashwood of Deep Woods Pack bit you, which would have killed you had I not licked the wound with my saliva. The saliva entered your system, which slowly changed your body into a werewolf. This is your first shift, and the most dangerous. It’s the one that kills seventy-five percent of new werewolves.”
What thehelldid he just say?
A scream ripped from my throat as my femur bone snapped in half. I had a come-to-Jesus moment where in the span of two seconds I believed everything he and Maddy had told me. How could I not? I was living it right now, and all I wanted was for the pain to stop.
Snap, snap, snap.
“We have to go.” Brayden scooped me into his arms as my contorted and broken body continued to change.
“I’ll drive, you can be with her in the back.” Gone was all of Maddy’s joking. A very real this-girl-is-totally-going-to-die look was now on her face. I must have blacked out for a second, because I blinked and then I was in the back of a truck bed lying on Brayden’s lap. He peered down at me with golden eyes, the same golden eyes I recognized from the grey wolf I’d protected in the woods.
Pain laced along my back and I looked down at my body… and screamed. One leg was a wolf, one was human but broken in at least five places. My torso was ballooned in such a way I was pretty sure all of my organs had exploded.
“Kill me,” I begged him. “Please, it hurts. Just kill me.”
A pained look crossed his face and he leaned down, brushing his lips against my ear. “Youwillsurvive this. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
I didn’t know if it was his faith in me or what, but a little bit of my pain eased at his words.
“She might not be Lena,” Maddy said from the driver’s seat, yelling through the open window into the cab as we drove over rugged terrain, every bounce bringing a new pain to life in my body.
Lena? Who the hell is Lena?
“She is. I’m sure of it.”
I didn’t have time to wonder what they were talking about. All of the bones in my face cracked then and a howl ripped from my throat before everything went dark.
FOUR
Maddy’s voice was the first thing to reach me: “If she keeps passing out we’re going to need to invest in smelling salts.”
“Stop. I’m not in the mood for jokes.” Brayden’s stern tone shut her down.
Everything was dark and I had yet to open my eyes. I was afraid to. Instead, I just focused on my body, and how I was feeling. The searing pain was gone, and in its wake it left a slight burning all along my skin. I breathed in, I breathed out. It was manageable.
