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“Kasha, you don’t…” he leaned forward, his hands hovering just above mine, as if he wanted to grab them, but he pulled away at the last moment.
“No, I really have to explain,” My heart pounded in my ears, my palms sweating. This was the moment. My mind was screaming at me to run, to forget this dumb idea, but I pushed through; I listened to the whisper instead. “What I’m about to tell you is a big secret of mine. A terrible, shameful secret, and a part of me still can’t believe I am about to tell you.”
He sat up straight in his chair. “What is it?”
“Seriously, Nolan, I’m about to trust you,” I said, my tone lowering, my fingers curling around my knees. “Please don’t make me regret it.”
“Never,” he said, his eyes staring into mine with sincerity.
“I told you before that something happened about a year ago, a few months before my…hospitalization.” He nodded intently, gesturing for me to continue. “Well, that was the last time I went to a Full Moon Camp.”
“I had guessed that.”
“What you don’t know is…that was also the last time I had been able to shift to any part of my wolf form.”
He blinked rapidly a few times. “What?”
“Something about that night forced my wolf to retreat inside, and I haven’t been able to feel it since.” My skin crawled like it was trying to shrink around my bones and muscles, suffocating me. But I persevered through it. “I haven’t even been able to shift my eyes to their golden form.”
Understanding began to sweep across his face. “So yesterday…”
“That was the first time my wolf had appeared to me in a year.” Now that the truth was spilling out of me, it was like a tidal wave that I couldn’t control. “It had just been so long since I had even slightly shifted, and everything was overwhelming me. The freedom, the wildness, the adrenaline. I needed to get it out somehow. So, I did something I’d been doubting for so long: I listened to my instinct, I let it tell me the first thing I needed to do.”
He bit his lower lip. “And that was to kiss me?”
I couldn’t look at him anymore, my eyes misting over. I stared down at my lap, nodding gently.
I didn’t have a reason or an explanation. I still had no idea why, in my first moment of freedom, all I had wanted was to know what his lips felt like. None of it made sense to me, and I wondered if it ever would.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
My hands twisted in my lap, my gaze lingering there. I didn’t know how to answer.
“Kasha,” his voice was tender, so soft and alluring. “Please look at me.”
I didn’t know what compelled me, although it wasn’t him giving me a command. His voice just called to me, drawing me to look at him. It felt like safety whispering against my skin, beckoning me to come toward it. So, I listened, and I looked up into those beautiful forest-green eyes that were so full of concern and admiration. My heart skipped a beat before slowing to a normal pace.
“Are you alright?” he whispered again.
“I’m trying to be, you have no idea how hard I’ve been trying to get my wolf to come out this past…” My words were rushed, just as they felt stumbling through my mind.
“No, Kas, that’s not what I mean.” He shook his head, leaning forward. I caught a whiff of cinnamon as his hair fell gently into his eyes. “You just had some form of transformation for the first time in a year. How are you feeling after that?”
His clarification shocked me; even Liv and Eden hadn’t asked me that.
“I—I don’t know, to be honest.” He reached out again, this time not hesitating as he laid his hands over mine. I don’t know what came over me, but I flipped mine around, weaving them with his. Another wave of calm rushed through me, his touch bringing me strength to continue. “It enthralled me and gave me hope. It made me feel like myself again, alive. But it was over so quickly, a part of me is even wondering if I just dreamed it up.”
“You didn’t.” He shook his head, his hands squeezing mine. “I saw them. Your eyes glowed, bright and beautiful and perfect.”
“It was probably just a fluke.” A tear finally slipped from my eye, my own words slicing through me like my Amalgam Blade pierced my chest. “It’s been a year and that’s all I’ve been able to accomplish. Maybe it’s just time I start accepting that my wolf has abandoned me.”
“You’re looking at this all wrong,” he said. “You shouldn’t be thinking this is all that happened, you should be celebrating that it did happen.”
I sniffed. “What do you mean?”
He brushed a piece of hair behind my ear. Apparently, me kissing him had dropped a bit of a physical barrier for us. I was surprised it didn’t scare me, having a man touch me again, but it didn’t—not with Nolan.
“Your wolf eyes came back to you. Maybe just for a moment, but they did.” His own eyes lit up, the green illuminating in the light. “That means that your wolf is still inside of you, it’s still a part of you. It may not be completely ready to come out yet, but it’s trying, just like you are. It’s giving you a sign, letting you know that you aren’t alone.”
