No, I didn’t like that one bit.
Trust him, said the wolf voice in my mind.
That didn’t help. I didn’t trust it, whatever the monster inside of me was.
My heartbeat kept accelerating.
“It’ll be okay,” Jaxson said as he placed his hands on my shoulders. “You
can’t be afraid of your wolf. You need to work together.”
I shivered under his touch. “Work together? Aren’t we the same?”
Well, I’m cuter, faster, and smarter.
My eyes went wide with surprise. It wasn’t a part of me. It was like a
completely different being. “I don’t think I can deal with this right now.”
“This is important. You need to be ready.”
My palms felt as clammy as a dead fish, and my gut knotted even as I
nodded consent. “All right, fine. What do I do?”
He unslung a small bag from his shoulder and laid it at my feet. “For your
clothes.”
My stomach plunged, and I gave him an apprehensive look.
“I’ll turn away, but you’ll need to take my hand when you’re ready so
that I can help guide you through the transition.” He turned his back to me to
give me privacy.
My mouth was as parched as the Arizona desert, and my heartbeat
pounded in my chest. Unable to speak, I nodded, then tentatively began
unbuttoning my shirt and listened for any sound of movement.
All was still.
Jacket, boots, jeans, bra, and panties—I dropped them one by one into a
pile until I was clothed only in shadow and soft moonlight.
I crouched down and unzipped the bag. There was a pistol with a silencer
packed in there, plus three clips of ammunition. Water. A few snacks. The
oddity of the situation made me almost laugh. I was completely naked,
crouching in a garden of stone monsters, prepping to turn into a wolf, and
then, if I got lucky, find and murder a blood sorcerer. My life had gotten so