A mate.
Like a husband.
Rejection washed over me.
I would never get normal.
Never have a family.
And most likely never have the type of love I'd always secretly wanted — it had all been stripped away from me the day I'd walked into that room. And a part of me hated my family for not telling me the truth about what I was about to do.
My mom had smiled.
And she'd probably known it was a death sentence.
I tried not to dwell on it — tried to stay positive — so I focused on what Alex said.
Survival.
I counted the seconds, the minutes as they turned into hours, and when the clock struck midnight out in the hall, I thought that maybe I would be different, maybe whatever was happening to me wasn't going to be as bad as both Alex and Ethan had warned.
Then the heat started in my toes.
I welcomed it because I'd been so cold all day.
It spread from my toes up my legs, warming me up like a blanket; by the time it reached my thighs, it was uncomfortable. I started throwing covers off me, but it didn't help.
Fire reached my chest, making it hard to breathe.
And when it touched my lips, it was like someone had placed coal in my mouth.
I cried out.
But no sound came.
I pounded my chest; the motion made the heat worse. I didn't think it could get more painful.
But it did. I glanced at the clock again.
It was two minutes past midnight.
And I already wanted to die.
The pain skyrocketed; I reared back, hitting my head on the headboard. Another surge of scorching heat flared.
The door opened, but my vision was blurred. It was hard to see who had come in.
It wasn't until he lay down on the bed next to me and grabbed my hand that I could focus on the form.
Mason.
As a werewolf.
Or a very large dog.
His eyes were sad.
And when I cried out again, he pulled me into his arms and squeezed while my body convulsed.