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“I’ll help my friends, for whatever good it’ll do.”
“And the wolves?”
“What about them?”
“If you get more power, it could put you beyond Sabine’s abilities. Make you strong enough that you could challenge her.” She looked at him seriously. “You might be able to end Sabine’s tyranny, Ithan.”
“I …” He couldn’t find the right words. “I didn’t really think about what we’d do next.”
She wasn’t impressed. “You need to. All of us do.”
He stiffened. “I’m not a planner. I’m a sunball player, for fuck’s sake—”
“You were a sunball player,” she said. “And I suspect you haven’t thought about the implications of having the most power among the wolves because you’re avoiding thinking about what you really want.”
He glared at her. “And what is that?”
“You want Sabine gone. No one but you is going to come along and do it.”
He felt sick. “I don’t want to lead anyone.”
She gave him a look, as if seeing through him. But she said, with a disappointment that cut right to his heart, “All this arguing’s of no use. We don’t even know if the antidote works.” She eyed the vial.
She would do it, he knew. She’d try it, risk herself—
Ithan didn’t broadcast his moves before he snatched up the vial. Before he lifted it to his mouth and swallowed.
Hypaxia whirled toward him, eyes wide with apprehension—
Then there was only black.
* * *
There was his body … and more than his body.
His wolf, and him, and power, like he could leap between entire continents in one bound—
Ithan’s eyes flew open. Had the world always been so sharp, so clear? Had the morgue smelled so strongly of antiseptic? Was there a body rotting away in one of the boxes? When had that arrived? Or had it been lying there all along?
And that smell, of lavender and eucalyptus …
Hypaxia was kneeling over him, breathing hard. “Ithan—”
A blink, and a flash, and he shifted. She staggered back at the wolf that appeared, faster than he’d ever changed before.
Another blink and flash, and he was back in his humanoid body.
As easy as breathing. Fast as the wind. Something was different, something was …
His blood howled toward an unseen moon. His fingers curled on the floor as he sat up, claws scraping.
“Ithan?” The witch’s voice was a whisper.
“It worked.” The words echoed through the room, the world. “It’s gone—I can tell.”
Somehow, a barrier had been removed. One that had ordered him to stand down, to obey … It was nothing but ashes now. Only dominance remained. Untethered.
But filling the void of that barrier with a rising, raging force—
