Chapter Fifty-Nine - Jessica

Everything unfolded in slow motion like in a movie.

From Joey attacking me as a lycan.

Jacob’s howl for us to shift.

Even Mason jerking me to my feet, his gaze settled on mine as I began to tremble.

I trembled, but my wolf didn’t.

She seemed excited, ready to fight when I had no true training. My one day of training had been ruined because of her need for power. Did she think she knew everything because she was royal? Apparently, so.

Seth shifted swiftly, causing people to scream in sheer terror. I didn’t blame them. I would have screamed too if I happened upon this nightmare. And that's what it looked like, an utter nightmare.

This was a family event. Something children could do in this godforsaken town. Now we were shifting and unleashing a war that I didn’t want to be a part of. I suddenly felt stupid for coming to Slade Springs when my dad told me not to. Though I'd never felt so alive in my life.

But what choice did I have? This was in my blood. The rush of excitement from my wolf flooded me like adrenaline. Mason stared at me with his emerald-colored eyes as people ran around us.

He was strong when I needed him and kind all the time. Now, he was giving me silent encouragement to shift.

It felt wrong, but lycans were chasing people.

Innocent people would die or be turned into monsters if I didn’t help them. Seth tore from his spot next to us toward a lycan chasing a child. A child that would endure pain that he didn't deserve. No child deserved this fate. No one at all.

The lycan screamed out in pain as Seth’s teeth sank into his neck.

I blinked, reality and the noise hitting me like a brick. Mason touched my face softly, his fingertips leaving my face as he stepped back and turned.

His gray wolf pawed at the dirt, shaking his fur and staring at me with those familiar eyes. Those eyes that could have lured me into a lion's den at one point. They belonged to the one person who would always mean more to me than myself.

I swallowed, only having turned twice before, I stepped back as people pushed and shoved against me and shifted.

Screams ripped through the air as I landed and pawed at the ground. My wolf felt in control, and I was glad enough to give it to her. There was too much going on.

Mason nudged me gently, bringing my wolf back to the present. She shot forward, around rides and carts of food toward a lycan in the far corner.

My thoughts mingled with my wolves, causing me to grow overwhelmed. I’d never been properly taught how to handle my wolf.

This was all new, so I left her go, because I didn't know what else to do. She tore through the crowd to the nearest lycan, gripped his neck within her teeth and pulled. The sound of tendons and bones breaking wrecked through me.

It was equal to the most grotesque horror movie I’d ever seen. Though, my wolf felt proud of it.

She tore one final time, separating the lycan’s head from its body. Jacob’s movement on top of the roof caught my attention. He stared down at me and jumped to land next to me.

My wolf submitted reluctantly as he walked over. “We have to save them. Only kill the ones that are attacking a person. We’ll spray the elixir on the others.”

Oddly enough, my wolf agreed. She shot up over Jacob’s head as he raced toward the open field. My wolf was fast, quicker than I remembered, and found her easily to the nearest human in distress.

Jumping onto the lycan's back, it stood upright and shrieked. I felt two seconds away from a busted eardrum.

The lycan turned swiftly and nipped at my shoulder. I maneuvered away, feeling blood dripping down my fur. My wolf didn’t like that. She howled in complete fury, lunged forward and took the lycan's head into our mouth.

The human beneath us, a teenage boy scurried toward the open field while my wolf dragged the lycan by its head. The lycan stopped moving a few seconds

later and my wolf spit him out like trash.

She stood up tall, looking over the empty festival, hearing the fighting in the distance. We barreled toward the rides, past the concession stand when she

stepped out from behind it.

Jamie looked at me with a soft smile and her hand outstretched in a gesture of peace. “Jessica,” she said softly. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

My wolf growled, lowering her head and baring her teeth. Jamie put both hands up in surrender, though her gaze didn’t look as if she surrendered.

No, she looked intrigued. Not by the fact that I was a giant white wolf but something else. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered.

My wolf never loosened her muscles. She sensed the same unease as I did. “We have so much to talk about. How about you shift back, huh?”

Her knowledge about the wolves didn’t sit right with me. My wolf growled and jumped at her.

When she didn’t budge, I knew.

Something wasn’t right. She wasn’t right. Her eyes glowed red and she sighed heavily. “If we must show our dominance, I’d be glad to put you on your ass.”

She shifted into a lycan in front of me.

As surprised as I was, my wolf didn’t seem surprised. She jumped at Jamie before she had a chance to settle and tore her arm from its socket.

Jamie howled in pain, slashing me across the face before I could blink. My mind raced. Would my body reject the lycan blood like Mason? By the burning, I figured it would.

My wolf rubbed our face against the gravel and patches of grass to get relief, while Jamie shifted back, and her arm regenerated almost instantly.

She bent down beside us, rubbing her fingers through our fur and cooing as if we were a kid.

Which I felt like at the moment.

Help me, I said into the mind link. Jamie is a lycan.

But I knew she was more than a lycan. She knew too much. Was she the lycan from the courthouse that night? The lycan that orchestrated all of this? Someone was in charge. Wouldn't it be the person who pretended to gather information about everyone when in reality she played what stories we wrote? And what was important for the town to know?

Everything pointed to yes. I trusted her, thankfully I didn’t tell her any more than I had, though it didn’t matter. She knew who I was before this. She knew about the pack, about Mason and I, and about my wolf.

How she knew it, I didn’t know.

My wolf shivered back into her spot, leaving me a naked mess on the ground. I grasped at the ground beneath my fingertips, fear and pain rushing my body.

I tried to call out, but nothing came out of my mouth but a gasping noise. The pain in my face felt like fire unleashed in my blood. This was what Mason went through that night?

Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I watched the sky above me. This wasn’t how I died, was it? I wanted to tell my dad bye and Mason. To tell Jacob he

was a great alpha, and to somehow keep the royal bloodline alive.

But I didn’t get a chance. Jamie bent down and picked me up with inhuman strength. What did she want from me? I didn’t try to ask. I would find out soon enough.

She ran me toward the neighboring woods, the same woods Mason and I had just admired because of the vastness of it.

My body felt like a wet noodle in her arms. Maybe my wolf could muster up the strength to come out and save me.

I wasn’t a damsel.

I could save myself.

I swallowed the pain in my face, and balled my fingers into fists. A long, lone howl echoed around me as Mason called out to me.

But my wolf couldn’t answer.

She was trying to regain strength.