Chapter 24

Clammy-skinned, I unbutton my shirt. My vision wavers, my head feels light.

Let’s do this. Let’s find out what it means to be a wolf.

But that’s the last thing I want to do. I have no idea what I will become, or where my mind will go. What will I do when I’m not human? Will I even remember? Hell, I might not even survive the transformation. Chris didn’t.

Randall groans and falls to his hands and knees. He clutches the grass in his claws.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know if I can.”

Randall looks up at me with golden eyes. “You have to.” He slurs his words, already more wolf than man. Soon he won’t be able to speak.

Another shudder washes over me as I bathe in moonlight. Not as insistent as the full moon’s pull, but still a harsh craving, digging at my insides like I swallowed barbed wire. Slowly, I reach for my fly, but my fingers are too clumsy for the zipper.

“Brock.” Randall’s mouth bulges outward into a muzzle.

I watch as he yanks off his jeans, as his limbs ripple into lean wolf legs. His tail arcs from his spine, already plumed. He shuts his eyes for the last convulsion of transformation, then opens them, staring at me as a silver wolf.

I am only half naked. I am wholly human.

See, I know it already. An ember of hate has been sitting inside me, smoldering, lodged somewhere near my rib cage. Because I know this silver wolf is the one who bit me, turned me, and the one who killed my brother.

It’s easier to forget when he has a human face. But I still know who he is.

Randall pads to me, his head held low as if he’s going to nudge my hand with his nose. I yank back. Bile rises in my throat as I remember the blood on his muzzle. He tore into my flesh with those teeth. I grab the scar on my biceps.

Get away from me, gick.

Randall whines softly, urgently, his eyes locked on mine.

“No.” I force out the words. “I can’t.”

Before he can try to touch me again, I whirl from him and run. I know he can run faster than me—I don’t care—I’m getting out of here, just try to stop me. My breath comes ragged from my burning throat. My legs feel liquid. I stumble and fall and roll, spitting dirt from my mouth, then scramble to my feet and keep running. He’s going to chase me—bite me—and this seizes me with a new terror.

Even though I’m already bitten. Already bloodborn.

The burning in my throat infects my eyes, and I blink hard so I can see. Still, I’m as good as blind. I can’t see in the night. Not like him.

Behind me, I hear a long, low howl that sends lightning down my spine.

Come back. Run with me.

“No!” I shout.

“Brock?”

I skid to a stop. Cyn perches on a boulder, staring at me with moon-glossy eyes.

Panting, I crouch beside her. “What’re you doing alone?”

“Oh, Jessie’s around here somewhere, acting pissed off because she doesn’t get to run with the pack.” Cyn’s voice sounds falsely bright. “Guess it’s not too entertaining to play human babysitter all the time.”

I lower myself onto the boulder. My heartbeat seems to be slowing from its gallop.

“Who howled back there?” she says.

“Randall.”

She nods. Her face looks unmoving but brittle, like a glass doll.

“Cyn.” I weave my fingers together to stop their shaking. “Are you okay?”

“I should be asking you that question.” She touches the back of my hand. “What happened?”

“Randall.”

“You already said that.”

“He tried to get me to change. I couldn’t.” I swallow hard. “Cyn, I know you’re not okay, either. I should have kept that bastard Frost from hurting you.”

“Well, you did punch him in the head.” She smiles thinly. “I don’t think you could have stopped him. We were in his territory.”

“God, I hate werewolves.”

“But you are one.”

“I know.”

Cyn won’t look at me now, her gaze fixed on the dirt. “So you hate yourself?”

That sets my teeth on edge. “It’s not that simple.”

“When you told me you were bitten, I had this crazy, stupid hope that maybe being a werewolf would change you for the better.”

My face tightens. “You want me to be a werewolf?”

“No.” She meets my eyes, her own fierce. “I want you back the way you were, the Brock I loved, but I know that’s impossible.”

Loved. Before, not now that I’m a beast.

“Cyn,” I say. My voice sounds rough. “I’m sorry.”

She tucks her hair behind her ears, her hands trembling slightly. “I don’t need your apologies. I can forgive you for what you’ve done, but I could never forgive you if you threw away your second chance.”

“Second chance?”

“You were bitten, but you survived.” A tear slides down her nose. “You can’t die now.”

My ribs feel like steel claws tightening around my lungs and heart. “I don’t want to die. But I don’t know how to live like this.”

She wipes her tears away with the back of her hand, and stares at me with glittering eyes. “I know you have it in you to fight through this and come out even stronger. You need to move forward. You need to change, Brock.”

I close my eyes and nod. “I could do that for you.”

Cyn touches my cheek, lightly, her fingertips skimming the days-old stubble. I open my eyes to see her looking up at me, her cheeks smudged with tear-streaked mascara, her eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Let me help you,” she says.

“I have to do this myself,” I say.

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to be alone.”

“But I—”

“Brock?” she says. “Stop talking.”

And then she kisses me. My heart stops beating, I swear. Her lips are so soft. I inhale her bittersweet almond-vanilla scent and slide my hands behind her neck, gently, but she slinks her fingers into my hair and grips tight with a moan. My skin flushes, feverish hot, and I feel the wolf inside me uncurl.

I pull back. “Cyn,” I say, my lips against hers. “Cynthia, stop.”

She withdraws to look into my eyes, her own full of stars. “Do you not want—?”

“No, I do.” I run my tongue along my teeth, feeling their sharp points. “Let’s take it slow though, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Brock, I’ve missed you.”

I bend to kiss her again, this time on the forehead. She sighs and leans against my chest.

“We should go now,” I whisper. “Together.”

Cyn looks up at me. “Now? You mean, really try to escape?”

I can barely hear her quiet voice, but I nod. “If we don’t go now, we might never make it back to Washington. And after that Paradise Pack…”

She shudders and presses closer against me. “I don’t want to think about that right now.”

“Then come with me. Most of the pack is out running in the hills now.”

“Jessie and Randall aren’t.”

I glance around. “Do you see them anywhere? Jessie’s bored and tired. She probably just wants you to think she’s watching.”

“Go without me.” She says it in such a flat way that all the warmth I felt from kissing her fades away. “You can move faster than me, and they won’t miss you as quickly.”

“There has to be a better—”

She looks me straight in the eye. “Go.”

“I’ll get help,” I say. “I promise.”

I’m already backing away from her, distancing myself from the temptation to stay.

Cyn makes no move to stop me, says nothing, just stands there and watches me go. At least, that’s what I think happens, since I don’t look back. Not even once. Because I know that if I stay with her, we might never escape.

And God, it hurts, but I don’t know what else to do.