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“Something hormonal maybe,” he said. “Except me. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel the wolf with me. I wouldn’t have survived those days without the wolf, but I wouldn’t have survived the mad alpha either, so I kept my secret.”
“You sound so disconnected from it though.”
A frown creased the space between his eyebrows. “Sometimes it feels like it happened to somebody else. Or it was a bad dream.” Then he focused on me. “Why even ask these questions if you don’t really believe me, Margo?”
“I want to believe you,” I whispered. “But it’s terrifying, too. If I believe you, I have to believeeverything.”
“You can’t be scared of who you are. It makes you special.”
Or it made me dangerous.
“Can I show you what I am?” he asked. “Would that help?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It would be warmer for you,” he said. “All that fur and all.”
I was torn between fear of finding out he was lying and fear he was telling the truth. I desperately wanted to trust him, needed to know if the possible could be real. But if we opened that door, we couldn’t close it again.
“Don’t be scared.” But he looked scared, too. “I won’t hurt you.”
That, I believed. “Okay. I… I want to know.”
He stood, and I realised he was trembling, but he peeled off his shirt without a second thought. His lean body was surprisingly sinewy because in his baggy clothes that hung off him, he looked kind of scrawny. I sat up and inched back, unsure of what I wanted the outcome to be.
I covered my face to give him some privacy as he unbuckled his belt.
“You can look if you want,” he said teasingly. “I don’t care.”
He seemed entirely unconcerned by the nudity, so I peeked a little, my heart racing as his shoulders jerked as though trying to push through his skin. Horror swept through me as his collar bone appeared to snap out of place. He reached a hand toward it, his fingers actually lengthening before my eyes, and I squeaked, unable to form a coherent thought.
Dorian tried to say something, but his voice was hoarse and impossible to understand. I looked at him, at the eyes that didn’t change, and tried to keep watching through the panic, but then his body contorted into terrifyingly impossible positions. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to stop shaking. It was happening. It was real. Neither of us was crazy. And if a werewolf was true, then that meant… I wasn’t human either.
My breathing grew heavier with each snap and crack. Dorian withstood the rest of the shift in silence, but tears had begun to roll down my cheeks. It sounded so painful, and he’d gone through it as a child. Gone through it alone.
A wet nose nudged my hand. I gasped, opened my eyes, and suddenly found it harder to breathe. My breath came out in odd, panicked sounds until Dorian rested a heavy chin on my knee. The sensation brought me back into the real world, made me calm ever so slightly, and I tried my hardest to make my brain understand what I was seeing.
Dorian was a brunette wolf, but he looked more like a gigantic dog. He was broader than a wolf, and when I reached out to touch him, I found that his fur was ridiculously thick and heavy, curled in many places. He was likely a lot smaller than he appeared with all of that shaggy hair, but still absolutely enormous. His legs were long and thin, and his eyes were still Dorian’s, soft and kind.
“It’s still you,” I whispered, unsure what I’d even been expecting. I supposed I hadn’t let my mind take it that far.
His ears pricked up, making his appearance all the softer, more like a friendly dog.
I stared at him for a moment. He hadn’t lied. “This is real,” I said, the room eerily quiet bar the crackling of the fire. “And if this is real… I find the dead, Dorian.”
He whimpered as though in sympathy. I sank both hands into his fur, and he licked the tip of my nose.
He stood then, and I let out another gasp of alarm. He was massive. He immediately lay in front of the fire and curled up, his tail over his nose, trying to make himself look smaller. I crept over to him, reaching out to touch him. There was nothing intimidating about him bar his size. I doubted I could say the same about the others, especially Victor.
Once I got used to him, I slowly lay next to Dorian, and he repositioned, his body managing to touch all of mine. I held on tight to a living fur blanket that somehow made me feel secure, trying to come to terms with everything. I didn’t think less of Dorian because of his secret—and he certainly wasn’t judging me for mine. It was time to accept myself.
So I lay there next to a giant wolf, inhaling the scent of earth from him, a fire warming the hearth, and as the pieces slowly slotted together, I finally felt like myself again. I had answers to my questions at last. The truth might not have seemed impossible, but at least now I knew exactly what it was—and that I could trust him. He had been brave enough to show me his true self, and I had to find a way to be brave enough to purposely show mine.
Dorian might as well have been a hot water bottle because I didn’t shiver again that night.
Chapter 28
Dorian
