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The truth was, I didn’t want to scare Emily and Cassian with the possibility I was too afraid to admit aloud—the one that lingered in the back of my mind, silently tormenting me. I was turning feral.
I told them I’d see them later and headed out of the warehouse, but Emily jogged up behind me. For the first time in over a week, we were finally standing face-to-face. Alone. She stared at me with her big, blue eyes, and without saying anything, grabbed me into a hug.
My arms instinctually wrapped around her, and I rested my chin on the top of her head as she leaned into me. “You better be back later,” she mumbled, her voice muffled by my chest. I kissed her head, assuring her I would be.
I wanted to invite her back to my apartment so we could spend time together. We hadn’t really talked in a while, and I missed her. Not to mention the aggressive hunger from my wolf made me want to grab Emily and pull her lips to mine, claiming her as my own.
And I would have, had Cassian not appeared right then, looking both annoyed and uncomfortable at our moment. I noticed the frown on his face that he quickly replaced with a smile. “You’re not going to get far without a car,” he said, holding up a set of keys. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
Damn. Moment ruined. At least Cassian didn’t attack me like he would have a year ago. Emily gave my hand a gentle squeeze and told me she’d see me at the bonfire. I couldn’t wait. If only I could get that damn headache to go away.
But I had to admit, it did feel nice to be on good terms with Cassian again. He was one of the only true friends I’d ever had and knowing that we were growing close again brought a smile to my face.
* * *
GRIFFIN
Morgan walked into my apartment and asked if I had any plans for the night. When I told her about possibly attending a bonfire with Emily and Cassian, she gave me a look of pure annoyance. “What?” I asked her, wondering what had pissed her off this time.
“I can’t believe you would think about hanging out with those mutts again, especially after what happened last time. Are you trying to get yourself killed? Because if you become one of their pack, that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” she stated rudely.
I huffed at her statement, shocked that she would bother to say something like that to my face. So what if I wanted to spend time with someone other than her? Morgan was starting to sound more like a jealous girlfriend rather than a worried friend, and I was not in the mood to deal with her attitude at the moment.
“If you are so worried about my ability to handle me in the event of an attack, then why don’t you just come with me?” I asked in an off-handed manner.
Morgan’s entire attitude changed dramatically from distant and cold to vulnerable, removing the crossed arms from in front of her body and placing them by her sides. Maybe that was why she was so angry about me going; she just wanted to be invited. “Do you think Emily will mind if I join you?” she asked sheepishly.
I pulled out my phone and texted Emily, and before I could put my phone back in my pocket, my phone buzzed with a notification. “I just asked her, and she said of course, you could come. Maybe you should be nicer to her every once in a while, and you wouldn’t have to worry about people excluding you.”
Reminding Morgan about how rude she can be to other people wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but sometimes she needed to be told about her brutal nature. She was always polite to the patrons in the bar, but anyone that wasn’t paying her bills tended to get the darker side of her temper.
Morgan looked down at her feet and nodded her head. “I know, Grif. I’ll try to do better. But we need to talk about your appearance. If you go to the bonfire looking like that, everyone is going to worry about you and avoid you like the plague. What is going on with you? You look like literal shit.”
“I swear if one more person says that to me today,” I whispered, more to myself than to her. Tired of hearing about my sickly appearance, I tried to figure out what I could do so I didn’t look so contagious. “Do you have anything that could help me? I have no idea what’s wrong with me. All I know is that I keep sweating and feel constantly exhausted.”
She stood there for a moment, looking me over and thinking about what she could brew up. “I might have something that could help you. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
She ran into the kitchen and came back into the living room 10 minutes later, handing me a cup of hot tea. The steam coming off of the beverage went right into my nose and I immediately got a whiff of a sweet, gingery scent. “What is this?”
“Just drink it, will you? I swear you will feel better afterward, and if you don’t, then we’ll figure out something else.” Morgan mockingly motioned me with her hand, showing me how to take a drink in case I had forgotten.
After taking another sniff of the boiling hot drink, I chugged it down in a couple of swigs. The taste of honey and ginger tap danced across my tongue as the hot tea warmed my body, and I could feel it travel from my throat to my stomach. I licked my lips to lap up the remaining sweet flavor from my mouth. “Wow! That was really good. What’s in it?”
“Oh, just some raw honey, ginger root, lemon juice, and water. All I did was boil it together and say a healing spell over it. It doesn’t matter what’s in it, though; all that matters is if it worked. How do you feel?” Morgan stepped closer to get a better look at my face, waiting to see if it worked.
I stood still for a couple of minutes, waiting for the tea to literally work its magic. Suddenly, it was as if someone pulled a veil off of my eyes, and I could think straight. I wasn’t sweating anymore, and I finally felt wide awake, more alert than I had been in days. “I think it worked, Morgan. What does that mean? What was wrong with me?”
“You aren’t taking care of yourself, Griffin. I’m guessing the stress from the pack’s attack really took a toll on you and was making you sick. See what happens when you keep a witch around?” she joked with a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, yeah.” I laughed off her lame attempt at a joke. “Do I look better?”
Morgan grabbed my chin and turned my face from side to side. “You definitely don’t look like death warmed over. It’s a major improvement from what you looked like a few minutes ago. Now that you look alive, you need to look presentable. Get out of those old raggedy clothes, and wear something nice.”
“Since when do you care how I look when I hang out with Emily?” I asked curiously.
With a scoff, Morgan responded to my question with her own question. “What makes you think that I care how you look when you hang out with Emily? I’m only saying that I’m pretty sure that you have been wearing the same sweatpants for two days, so you might want to change them. If you want to appear healthier, you might want to look the part. Now, go get changed.”
“Yes, drill sergeant!” I gave her a salute and marched enthusiastically to my room.
After a quick shower, I started looking through my closet; I had no idea what to wear. Instead of piecing together a whole new outfit, I went with my usual look consisting of a black T-shirt, gray jeans, and my jet-black leather coat. My reflection in my full-length mirror looked just as I expected: badass.
I definitely looked a lot better than I did this morning. My face looked less gaunt, and some of the color had returned. My skin was naturally pale, but when I was woken up by Cassian earlier, my skin was practically gray. I ran some gel through my hair and spiked up my white hair. Within 15 minutes, I was ready to head over to the bonfire, heart racing at the thought of spending some quality time with Emily.
