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I frowned, looking down at my palms. My skin felt like it was pulsing with energy, but that might just as easily have been adrenaline. If I was ever going to be able to shift, it seemed like it would be now. The thing was, I had no fucking idea what that would even feel like. Of all the shit I had learned about shifters, that wasn't on the list.
Just as I was about to give up, I felt a strange sensation like fire burning beneath my skin. One moment, I was standing on two feet and the next, my knees were buckling as a cry of agony tore from my throat. It felt like a thousand knives were slicing me apart from within, and that probably wasn't far from the truth.
My bones broke and my skin tore itself to shreds as the beast exploded from my veins. I felt myself ceding to the madness that closed in around my conscious mind like the dark shadows of a coming storm. It was all I could do to hold onto that last tendril of consciousness as the world around me seemed to dull into a meaningless mash-up of sensory information.
I had all but forgotten Arrow was even there until I heard him breathe, "Holy shit."
I looked up, still just myself enough to be afraid I was going to turn on him. When I saw the look of surprise on his face, I realized there had to be something about my wolf form that had caused it.
I rose up on my two hind paws, which confirmed that I was indeed an alpha. Not that there had really been any doubt, but knowing and experiencing it were two different things. I looked down at my massive hands, claws as long and sharp as daggers protruding from the tips of my fingers.
My paws were even larger than a normal alpha’s, and they somehow seemed more human. My fur was jet black, but that was all I had time to observe before I felt it again—the strange tugging sensation in the center of my chest, as if an invisible string connecting me to Eddie was being pulled. I wasn't even sure how I knew what it was, but I did.
"Hey!" Arrow called after me as I took off running. "Wait for me!"
I ignored him, and I wasn't going to be disappointed if he couldn’t manage to catch up with me. Part of me hoped he wouldn't. This was my battle to fight, and my mate to claim. When I heard the sound of his motorcycle rumbling along the path to my right, I realized there was no such luck.
The fact that I was still human enough to care about whether Arrow got killed on my behalf was probably a good sign that at least some of my humanity had survived the shift. For years, I had avoided the infusion of wolf's blood for fear that it would change me. Now that it had, that was what I was counting on.
I ran for what felt like hours, even though it might've been less. Or more. My concept of time was a bit shaky, all things considered. My thought patterns had changed, becoming simple and focused on one predominant goal—find him and bring him home.
It became my mantra, syncing up to the steady, rhythmic beats of my paws against the earth. I was drawing closer. I could feel it. I could feelhim.
I was never letting him out of my fucking sight again. Hell, he'd be lucky if he could take a damn shower without supervision after the shit he’d pulled.
If there had been any doubt in my mind that I had successfully marked Eddie as my mate, the fact that I could hone in on him like a homing beacon would've dissolved it. The real question was, how the hell had he even found this place? Then again, I knew the moment we were in wolf territory. I could feel it like electricity crackling in the air.
Hatred surged through me when I thought of any other wolf laying a hand on him. I had thought I despised their kind before, and becoming one had done nothing to change that. If anything, it had only magnified it.
Eddie was different. He was mine, for one thing—my reckless, foolish, beautiful, self-sacrificing mate. The only thing keeping me from losing my mind completely was the knowledge that even wolves as monstrous as these were unlikely to seriously harm an omega. Eddie’s encounter with the alpha at the Abbey had been proof enough of that. Of course, it had probably also been part of the reason he was confident enough to think he could just go off on his own.
Who was I kidding? If he thought it would protect the rest of us, he would've walked into hell itself.
Of course, walking into wolf territory as a foreign alpha was even more suicidal, but I never claimed to be anything less than a hypocrite.
I smelled the first wolf before I caught sight of him. It was another alpha, and when its golden eyes locked on mine, they widened in the same dismay that Arrow had shown earlier, so I knew whatever the hell my wolf form looked like, I certainly wasn't a typical alpha.
Good. I was going to need every advantage I could get.
Without hesitation, I lunged for the other alpha before it had time to react. I took it down easily, tearing into its throat, and the spray of its blood coated my fur. The scent of it was enough to drive me half mad, although it was a very different response from the one Eddie’s blood elicited. I was starting to understand the frenzy that overcame Arrow when he hunted. Red was all I could see, feel, and taste.
The moment the first wolf was down, I heard the howls of others in the distance, calling in reinforcements. I took off running in that direction, meeting the first wolf who had sounded the alarm halfway. It was a regular shifter, and I grabbed it by the throat with my teeth, shaking my head until its neck snapped and its body went limp.
The satisfaction of each kill lasted only for an instant, and in its wake left a bloodlust deeper than I had ever known. I lost track of myself and the number I had slain. The gunfire in the distance told me Arrow had caught up to me, and if he was choosing such an impersonal method of execution, we were definitely outnumbered. That did nothing to stop the thrill of madness coursing through my veins, though.
While I recognized a few of the members of the hunting party who had killed my family, eventually, I stopped even keeping track. The one blended into the next just as easily. Every wolf who fell to my jaws was another victory, and the blood on my tongue had barely even whet my appetite.
When I finally reached the front of the mansion that served as the pack’s lavish den, judging from the scent leading up to it, there were bodies littering the grass around me. I had given myself over to the hunger completely, and there was nothing else left.
Nothing but the hole that remained where my soul had been carved out, and I had only recently come to realize it was in the shape of Eddie.
I grabbed the handle on the front of the door and tore it off its hinges, pine and plaster exploding outward. The moment I made it inside, I was greeted by the welcoming committee, and Arrow wasn’t far behind me. He leapt on the alpha to my right, digging his blade into the beast's chest. Another satisfying thump as another body hit the floor.
A particularly bold wolf lunged at me from the corner of the hallway, but I grabbed it by the throat in midair and flung it across the hall, where Arrow was waiting with his twin daggers to pierce the beast through the heart and lungs.
With the hallway empty in a momentary reprieve, Arrow looked over at me, panting. "Remind me not to get on your bad side from now on."
I blew a puff of air through my nostrils, looking around for any sign of where they had taken Eddie. He was here, that much I knew. I could pick up on his scent, even through the blood and the musk of the other wolves.
