Page 66 of Blood and Trouble

My forearms split open, the flesh peeling away from the muscles, and I clenched my eyes shut, unable to bear the horror of it. But the pressure in my skull…it was worse than any splitting migraine I’d had, like someone had rammed a sword straight through my third eye and out the back of my head. I opened my eyes, only to scream as my eyeballs pushed out of their sockets. I blinked again, certain I’d gone blind, but no. I could still see.

“Give,” said a voice inside my head. My inner animal. The one I’d heard but hadn’t officially met. “Give over to me.”

My face split apart, my nose bursting open to make way for something to grow out of it, something huge and black, covered in fur. I tried to wrap my mind around that, but the agony in my fingertips drew my focus. My nails broke and fell away, long spikes sprouting in their place, and my spine cracked in a sickening chorus of splintering bones. My hips shifted under my weight, my legs reforming under them. When I looked down, I didn’t have feet. I had paws. Giant, black, furry paws with claws the size of one of my hands.

“Let me in,” the voice said again. “Let me out.”

Unable to take it any longer, I fell to one side and twisted into myself, hoping the torture would end soon. Metal coated my tongue, and my teeth loosened from my jaw. I spat them out and tried to block out the sensation of sharp, pointy canines taking their place.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I told myself to breathe through it, to let it pass, to give in to it like Lycan said. Fighting it would only make it worse. Just when I’d been certain I was going to die, when I’d resigned myself to a certain end, a different sensation took hold in my gut. It started as a warm flood, almost like descending into a hot bath, and gradually faded into a delicious ecstasy that made me moan. The pain subsided, my bones stopped cracking, and when I took another breath, I smelled the ethereal presence of the entire woods.

A small creek bubbled to my right, a few hundred feet away. The frogs’ chorus now chanted louder. My world had grown so much clearer, and I could see every blade of grass, every buzzing insect, every speck of displaced dust.

A cool nose nudged my head, and I lifted my gaze to the massive white wolf standing in front of me with pale gray eyes.

Lycan.

“Get up, Trouble,” he said. “You’re alright. You’re through it now.”

I lifted my upper body enough to put my weight on my forelegs…my paws!…and tried to stand, only to stumble on my face.

“Give her a minute,” Poe said, trotting over to stand next to Lycan. He was a massive brown wolf, his coat almost as dark as his hair in human form. His eyes glowed the same amber I’d seen in him before.

“I can do it.” I put my legs under me again, using my back pair this time, and grumbled as I pushed up. Now standing, I didn’t know what to do, and a weight on the back of my body shifted side to side. Glancing over my massive shoulder, I widened my eyes at my bushy black tail.

I have a tail!

“What am I?” I had an idea based on the paws and massive torso, but I wanted confirmation. I needed them to tell me.

“You’re a wolf, Trouble. Like me.” Lycan’s tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. Such a goofy expression to see on a massive beast.

“A giant black wolf,” Poe added. “Your eyes are blue like your human form.”

My human side beamed with pride, but my wolf, this new creature I’d barely begun to discover, had no time for that. In this form, she had control. The human retreated far inside my mind as I took a step forward, nearly stumbled but righted myself, and took another. It took a few moments to figure out how to work all four legs together, especially with the tail. I was massive, much bigger than I anticipated, and balancing my new weight took some practice.

Lycan came closer and nuzzled his face against mine, running his snout down to my neck and back again before doing the other side. When he got to my neck, he paused and opened his mouth, taking my throat between his massive teeth for a taunting hold. Ava, the human, wouldn’t have known what this was, but my wolf instinctively tilted her head to the side to let him. In this form, his scent hit a million different notes—male and shifter and primal dominance, but also something so attractive, it nearly bowled me over. I wanted to savor it. Coat myself in it. Let it permeate every pore. When Lycan released me, I rubbed my head under his chin, brushing up against his throat like the touch alone could ground me.

Poe circled us, eyeing the interaction with a dangerous hunger and wariness. A moment of agitation vibrated from Lycan, like he was debating whether to assert his dominance over his packmate or do the same thing to him. But like everything else about the evening, my wolf knew what to do. She took over, forcing me to bow down on my front legs and stick my butt up in the air, wagging my tail in an invitation to play.

Lycan barked, and I yipped, and Poe trotted forward. His scent hit me between the eyes, as strong and as enticing as Lycan’s. It slithered down my new form and settled into my stomach, causing me to whimper. Poe ran his snout along mine before stopping at my neck to nip at my tender skin. He didn’t take my entire throat into his mouth like Lycan. Instead, he gave me playful bites and nudged his head into mine like he was goading me to do it back to him. I did.

Their combined aromas settled into my veins, my bones, my atoms. The wolf knew something about this that my human side had been shoving down for weeks. This wasn’t simply attraction or infatuation. This was something ancient, something the human could never guess at. And the wolf reveled in it. The uneasiness that had been twisting in my chest for weeks dissipated, dissolving into whatever formed this new connection. For the first time, perhaps in my life, everything felt…complete. The human briefly wondered what that meant before the animal dismissed it.

After that, my wolf grew restless and wanted to explore. I took off, stretching my legs in a run that made me free in a way I’d never been before. I sped through the open forest, the ground soft under my paws, the wind coasting through my fur. Lycan and Poe drew up on either side of me, and together, we explored what it meant to be pack. We sniffed rotten logs and rolled in wet, dewy grass. I drew up on my back legs and batted at Poe with my front, causing him to bark and tackle me to the ground. Wrestling and snarling, we coaxed Lycan into our antics, all three of us delighting in this wonderfully sensuous experience.

It went on for an eternity, and yet, seemed to end far too soon. When the moon dropped below the horizon and the sky started to brighten, we made our way to the spot where we’d left our clothes. The shift back hurt as much as changing in the first place, even more so because of the sense of loss that came with it. As a wolf, we’d been carefree and wild. We’d lost the restrictions of the human world and the baggage that came with it. We weren’t three people with complicated histories. We simply existed. Now, reality blared back. My bones broke and reformed. My fur fell out, and my skin split apart to make way for the human to reemerge. My wolf retreated far inside my mind, and the person stepped forward again.

When it was over, I lay between Lycan and Poe, panting and breathing in the early morning air. The cool night lingered on my sensitive, sweaty skin, and I shivered as I rolled on my side to hold myself tighter.

Gradually, I stood and grabbed my clothes, following Lycan and Poe as we headed back toward the cabin. No one said anything, and I was thankful. No words needed to be said. Magic hummed in my veins, the bond tethering me to both of them ringing like a siren.

Underneath it, fainter, something I’d noticed my whole life without having a word for it. That low thrum I’d always chalked up to sharing DNA. Maeve. An ocean and a continent away, thin as spider silk and stretched to nothing, but undeniably there.

Not only her, but others as well. Dimmer. In a direction I couldn’t point to. I didn’t have an explanation for it, and my wolf didn’t seem to think one was necessary.