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I stilled, feeling her tangled emotions in my chest—worry, fear, insecurity, confusion, and suspicion. I cupped her cheek and coaxed her to look up at me. “Marley,” I said quietly. “Just tell me what you want to do.”
Reluctantly, she looked up at me. Her stern expression crumpled into one of worry and uncertainty.
“Just tell me,” I said. “I won’t be mad.”
I felt her emotions build before they played out on her face. Her lower lip quivered, and she bit down on it. She inhaled shakily and squared her shoulders, gearing up to say what she was thinking.
Panic sliced through me, a flash of a thought that she might tell me this wasn’t working out with me. That she’d realized after seeing how things were done that she was in over her head.
Feeling like I might implode, I almost wanted to flee from her. Then she finally opened her mouth and spoke.
“I...” she said. “I want you to let me become a shifter.”
Chapter 5
Marley
“Absolutely not,” Cole said through gritted teeth. “No, Marley. I’m not going to let you make a choice like that based on insecurity. I’m not going to let you change everything about your life over some stupid woman who can’t keep her hands to herself.”
“That’s not why,” I insisted. “Cole, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
“You can’t have been thinking about it for a long time. We’ve only been together for a few months.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Be honest—if it weren’t for me, would you even be considering it?”
“Why shouldn’t you be the reason I consider it?” I asked. “Cole, I love you, and I want to spend my entire life with you. Is it really so strange for me to want to change for someone I’m in love with?”
“It is when there’s nothing wrong with you just the way you are.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have left you alone with my grandfather and River. I knew it was risky, but I didn’t think they’d fill your head with this bullshit.”
“Cole, I’m more than capable of drawing my own conclusions based on the information I have.” My anger and desperation mixed and twined together, threatening to bubble over. “And frankly, if I decide to do this, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
Cole took a step back from me. “So, that’s it?” he asked. “You’re going to do whatever you want, and fuck what I think about it?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Marley, why are you suddenly so obsessed with changing? Why can’t you just stay the way you are? Why can’t you accept that you’re perfect and beautiful and strong?”
“I’m not strong,” I protested.
“You are—”
“Not in the way that matters!” The hold I’d had on my temper snapped. “Not in the way that would have mattered when Wyatt showed up at my house with a gun. Not in the way that could have protected Noah, that could have kept me from getting choked so hard, the doctors weren’t sure if I’d ever talk properly again.”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Not because they weren’t true, but because Cole’s expression shifted to abject misery and guilt.
We had talked about the day on top of the parking structure a few times. Not at length—things were still too raw, too hard to dig into. I couldn’t find it in myself to tell him how close I’d been to surrendering to death. I wasn’t ready to hear what he thought as he watched Wyatt plummet to the ground below. But I knew he felt guilty for not being there. I knew he felt he’d failed me—failed us—by not being there when we were in danger.
“Marley.” Cole’s voice broke. “Marley, I promise I can do better. I promise I can protect you—I will protect you. I’ll never let something like that happen to you ever again.”
My heart broke at the sadness in his voice. I stepped forward and reached up to place my palms on his cheeks. “Cole, it’s not realistic for you to think you can protect me from anything that would ever try to harm me.”
“You keep saying that,” he said, his expression cracking as he put his hands over mine. “Do you not think I can do it? Do you think I’m too weak? Too incapable?”
“No! Cole, no. I know you would make every effort. And I know you’d put your life on the line for me if it came down to it. But it shouldn’t come down to it.”
“But I want to protect you,” he said. “It’s my job to protect you. To protect everyone in the pack.”
“You’re only one person, Cole. And you don’t deserve to take on all that stress alone.”
“Marley, don’t you realize that if you go through with it, it could kill you?” he asked. “I’ve been reading up on it. The rate of failure is low, but it’s not zero. And the risk factors increase if you’ve been bitten before. And you have been.”
