Rusty moved away from him, hurrying towards Anita.
Austin shoved a canister of espresso at Cliff. Cliff grabbed it and drank it down in one long gulp. Grant handed him a plate of raw meat, and Cliff frantically shoved it into his mouth as they all hurried toward the starting line.
Huh,Serafina thought.What do you know? Grant does care about Cliff, a little bit.
Jerrold raced after them, swearing.
“You’re a nice guy, Grant!” Taylor shouted as the men hurried to their places.
Grant yelled back something that sounded like an insult, but it was drowned out by the blare of the starting horn.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was almost time.
The moon was climbing higher in the sky. Taylor sat with Cliff, holding his hand, in a clearing on the west side of the property. Rusty, Anita and Chantelle sat nearby. Originally they’d planned to have Anita helping Taylor, but Chantelle was too sick. She needed all Anita’s strength.
Jerrold and his men had been sent by helicopter to the far east side of the property, , thousands of acres away, so there was no chance the two groups would run into each other and fight in wolf form. During the day’s competition, Jerrold had come in second to Cliff. Overall, the ranking was Cliff, Grant and Jerrold just about neck and neck, then Austin.
They’d finish in two days, with the fight between the competitors.
But right now, they had other things to worry about. Like whether Chantelle and Taylor would survive the night.
The first sign Taylor had that the change was coming was an odd yearning sensation in her chest, which swelled like a bubble until it seemed to fill her up and she had no room to breathe, no room to think. An itching sensation under her skin that intensified until she wanted to scratch her way out of her own skin.
And then the feelings crested and burst, and the change swept over her. Her body bucked and contorted, her muscles spasming and contracting and utterly out of her control.
She panted, holding back her panic, and saw that where Cliff held her hand in his, silky white fur was winding its way around her fingers and her fingernails were narrowing into claws.
Cliff squeezed her hand – almost a paw – and grinned at her reassuringly, showing sharp white fangs. She bared her own newly pointy teeth, trying to return his smile, before the change took her again. Cliff had warned her that it would be painful the first time, and it was. She felt as if her bones were breaking, and she let out a long shriek that turned into a howl.
And all the time Cliff was there with her, using his Dominus strength to slow his change so he could transform alongside her. Letting her see that he was with her. That they were together, in this and in everything.
And then she was lying on the forest floor, her tail thumping feebly against the leaves as Cliff licked her muzzle and gave a series of quiet, reassuring whines.
She scrambled to her paws and frantically looked around for Chantelle. Chantelle lay on her side on the ground, a lean white wolf. Her paw twitched. Her chest slowly rose and fell. Anita, a gray wolf, and Rusty, a red wolf, knelt next to her, nuzzling her with their snouts.
A flash of movement in the forest caught her eye. A rabbit. Before she could stop herself, she was running after it, and Cliff was by her side. Names faded. Words faded. There was only the moon, and the hunt.
* * * * *
Taylor sat up with a groan. She was naked, lying on a bed of pine needles. Cliff was already up, back in his human form. The morning air was cool, and off in the distance, the rising sun was a ball of yellow fire floating in a sea of red and orange haze on the horizon.
It was the strangest thing. Taylor remembered everything, even though when the night before, once she was fully in her wolf form, she had no longer been thinking as a human.
She and Cliff had run off, leaving the others behind. They’d hunted rabbits and eaten them. Raw power had coursed through her veins, and the wind had rushed through her fur. The world of scent had come alive for her.
A human’s sense of smell, compared to a wolf’s, was like seeing the world in black and white instead of vibrant, vivid, psychedelic, glorious Technicolor. She’d been able to smell not just pine, but the faint disturbance of the needles where the bunny’s flank had grazed against the bough in its flight. Slightly more pungent there – a darker shade of green, somehow – and brushed subtly with the musk of rabbit fur and panicky adrenaline. Where its paws had landed as it leaped over a fallen log, the prey animal had left spoor as distinct to her new senses as a flashing neon arrow.
And Cliff’s scent…it was a multi-hued thing, layered from strength and familiarity and touched with flashes of color from other members of the pack – Austin’s spiky belligerence and the cool, pale menthol of Anita’s healing powers.
It was like smell and color and texture and emotion all bundled up into a single sense.
Now she felt tired and invigorated at the same time. It was real. It had happened. She was a werewolf, but she was still herself.
She rubbed her face with her hands as Cliff walked over to her, yawning and stretching. “The helicopter will be here in a few minutes,” he told her. He grinned hugely. “You made it. We made it. You’re the prettiest wolf I ever saw. And you’re mine, by the way – have I mentioned that to you? Fuckingmine.”
“And you… Wait…Chantelle?” Taylor looked around frantically. She didn’t see Chantelle. Had she…?
