Clawing at the asphalt, I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes as tight as they would go. “I’m sorry,” I bit out, fending off my wolf long enough to speak. “I just had to see you.”
“But I thought… they said—”
“I?
??m sorry,” I said again, gasping when something sharp hit my heart. “I have to go.”
I didn’t wait for an answer, running as fast as I could back to the boundary of the city. I only made it so far.
My muscles burned, my eyes blurred, and when I tried to breathe, no air reached my lungs. This was it. I was going to die in front of my sister, far from her arms. It wasn’t how I expected my night to end, but at least now she’d know the truth. At least now she’d know—
“No,” I said, fighting my wolf back. “Not now.” Please, not now.
Still exhausted from the night before, my wolf only saw Val as a threat, throwing me into a shift as the sounds of footsteps approached me.
I tried to fight her back. I tried to ease her mind, but no amount of promises could stop her from taking full control. I was a passenger in my wolf’s mind, watching through her eyes with no way to stop what followed.
“Jo?” Val called again, the same uncertainty in her voice as I’d heard before. “Please don’t run. I’m not angry. I just… I need to see you. I need to know you’re okay.”
She was looking for me in the wrong spot, searching the back of a building on the edge of the city as my wolf silently prowled in the shadows not far from her.
“I know I’m overprotective,” she said when I didn’t say anything, “and I’m sorry for all of the handholding, but if this is what you want, if you want me to leave, I…” A sob stole her words away, the bitter scent from outside her apartment complex stronger than before. “Please. I just… please.”
Don’t do this, I begged my wolf, her eyes never leaving Val. She isn’t here to hurt us. If you’d just let me talk to her—
Pain hit my temples, causing my wolf to whimper a response. Not knowing if her reaction was because of me or something else, I continued to send her my thoughts, doing whatever I could to calm her down.
The other wolves will never forgive us, I warned. They’ll track us down. Of that I was sure. The amount of discomfort Fallen and Ash both showed when it came to humans was hard to miss and yet easy to understand. They might not have said as much but their time in the city was mainly limited to emergencies, ones they never hoped to have.
My wolf growled back at me, mentally barring her teeth in my direction.
That time Val heard her, turning to face the wolf that was slowly hunting her down.
Val gasped, holding a hand to her mouth even though the scream I sensed in her chest never made it through her lips.
You don’t have to do this, I told my wolf. Just run to the woods. All will be forgiven if we leave now.
I actually had no idea how Ash would react, but leaving a human alive was a lot better than the humans finding one of their own dead from an attack.
One of their own. It was the first time I’d actually referred to myself as a wolf, as part of a pack. Not human.
My heart dipped into the pit of my stomach, but the pain I felt for the loss of my own humanity never reached my wolf.
Hungry from our journey and intoxicated with the hunt, she pushed me to the furthest recesses of her mind until I was no more than an afterthought. It was something Fallen suggested I do back in the manor, but I clearly wasn’t as skilled as my wolf.
Trapped in my wolf’s subconscious, time ceased to exist.
As soon as her instincts kicked in, I cried for my sister, her safety, and the life I’d never be able to share with Val ever again.
Chapter Ten
Panic gripped me as soon as my wolf lunged away from the ground. Powerful legs carried her, trapping Val against the building. My wolf’s deep growls vibrated through the ground, her fur bristling as the smell of fear filled her nose.
Again, I begged my wolf to reconsider, but any thoughts I might’ve had ceased as soon as another smell reached my mind. This one was sweet like Val but belonged to the pack.
Before I could warn my wolf and hold her back, it was too late.
The taste of iron filled my wolf’s maw, the shift of muscle and bone responding to her powerful jaws. She had less than a second to react to her own attacker, letting out a surprised yelp when someone bit hard against the back of her neck. Her skin didn’t break.