“So what’s going to happen? Can you feel anything now? Is your wolf, like, inside you or something?” Prisha asked, concern lacing her tone.
“Not that I know of, but I itch like a motherfucker, and I’ve eaten enough food today to feed a small country.”
She let out an aggrieved sound. “This is just so weird. I can’t even believe it.”
“I know, right? I keep hoping it’s all a bad dream.”
Prisha and I talked for another hour as I lamented and she listened, and when I finally turned our conversation around and asked what was going on in her life, she filled me in about her last couple of weeks.
Thankfully, nothing quite as epic had happened to her, but she was having issues again with one of the offices she ran for her family’s corporation, and she said Chicago was incredibly dull without me. But she was enjoying having our goldfish in her apartment. She’d picked them up for us when it became apparent we weren’t returning anytime soon.
“So Agent Orange and DJ Finster are still swimming happily?”
“They are,” she replied. “And I haven’t killed them, so I’m obviously an amazing goldfish-sitting aunt.”
I laughed, loving that we could joke around again. When I sobered, I said, “You know, it just hit me that we’ve never gone this long without speaking or seeing each other before.” Prish and I had been best friends since we were eight and had met at a supernatural community event. Of course, I’d been one of the poor kids who’d been dragged along by a social worker, and she’d been one of the volunteers helping the poor kids. But our connection had been instantaneous despite our opposite walks of life. Prisha’s mother was initially hesitant about welcoming me into her daughter’s circle, but Prisha’s begging had eventually won her over. And once Azad—Prisha’s father—had gotten a hint of my magic, well, I’d officially become part of their family.
Prisha sighed. “I know. I was thinking the same thing. I hate it. Chicago isn’t the same with you gone. I wish you could just come back here.”
“Me too. I’d take sixteen-hour work days every day at Practically Perfect instead of this.”
“Do you want me there with you?” she asked. “You know, when you shift or whatever?”
I glanced out the window. Afternoon had arrived, but the snow had stopped and it had warmed up enough that most of the flakes that had fallen this morning had melted. “I don’t think Kaillen would allow it, since that would involve disclosing his home’s location. He’s kinda secretive like that.”
“You could come to me and shift here at my home. It could be just you and me.”
I frowned as I tried to imagine going through whatever was going to happen to me tonight with a non-werewolf at my side while staying in a city as big as Chicago. Something told me that could end in disaster.
“I better stay here, just in case things don’t go well, and also ’cause Jakub’s still out there. I don’t need to be leading him to you.”
“I could take him.”
I laughed. “I know you could, but I would never do that to you.”
She let out a long breath. “Fine, only ’cause I know I can’t talk you out of it. But even though you and the Fire Wolf are in a difficult place at the moment, at least he can help or guide you, or whatever, when you shift tonight.”
“Hopefully.”
And I hoped he would, because I realized I would need it. Even though I’d dated Carlos—a werewolf—for years, had visited his pack on multiple occasions, and had generally considered myself somewhat educated in werewolf culture, I literally had no idea what to expect with a first shift. For one, they always happened when wolves were younger, around puberty. And since most wolves kept to their packs, it wasn’t like I’d gone to school with dozens of werewolves when I was in middle school. So I couldn’t even say I’d heard about the experience secondhand.
And two, shifting only happened to boys. Since it wasn’t something females ever experienced, I didn’t have any werewolf women friends I could call up to ask what they remembered of their first shift.
I was completely on my own here.
“How much longer will you have your phone?” Prisha asked.
“Probably not long. Klebus wants me to go to an SF safe house.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep, as long as Jakub’s still on the loose, I’m a sitting duck.” Anger burned through me again. I was so over all of this.
“Gods, this is all so incredibly unfair and sucks so much.”
“No shit,” I replied quietly. “Everything about this sucks.”
We talked for a few more minutes with promises to catch up again soon and talk as much as we could while I still had a phone.
After we hung up, for a moment I just sat there, staring forlornly at my mobile while feeling so incredibly isolated. I couldn’t remember ever feeling anything as bad as this.
A knock came on my door. I startled, not having heard the hunter approach on his silent footsteps.
“Yeah?” I called.
Kaillen cracked the door. “Mind if I come in?”
I shrugged. “It’s your house. I can’t really tell you where you can and can’t go.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and then a flicker of gold appeared in his amber eyes. “I’ll leave you alone if you want, but I wanted to discuss a few things with you, about what you can expect tonight.”
My throat bobbed, and I hastily nodded. “Okay, sure. Come in.”
He prowled into the room. Since his hair was clean, his face shaved, and he didn’t look quite so horrible, I figured he’d showered and had taken a catnap.
“You look a bit better,” I commented.
Instead of a sly jab or a preening swagger—a response he would have given when we’d first met—he merely sat down on the floor opposite me, his expression heavy and clouded in so many unsaid emotions that I hastily looked away.
I clutched my phone, then ran a finger over the smooth turquoise case.
The silence stretched around us, but then I became aware of his sounds—the steady lub-dub from Kaillen’s heart and his soft breathing. It seemed true silence was a thing of the past.
“How do you deal with this?” I brought my hands to my ears. “It’s all so much. The smells, the sounds. I’m okay with the sharper eyesight, but the other ones? No thanks. Klebus smelled like a damned corpse. It was nauseating.”
I thought that last comment would get a lip tug from him, or some kind of smile, but that aching pain was still etched on his face.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry again that I did this to you.” His scent shifted, and a new tang, almost like mandarins and honeysuckle, entered it. Some inner instinct told me that he was being genuine. He wasn’t lying. He meant that statement to the depths of his soul.
“What does it smell like when someone’s being truthful?”
He cocked his head. “It kinda smells like oranges, but it’s a bit different.”
Hence why I also thought of honeysuckle. My throat thickened. So Kaillen was sincere in his apology, and hearing him apologize again cracked something inside of me. Even though I wanted to stay mad at him and rage at him, that damned practical side of me knew that he never would have intentionally done this to me. I knew deep down that if he hadn’t been so consumed with fear and the mate bond in the throes of my death, that he never would have spelled his blood, and then all of this never would have happened.
“I know,” I finally replied. “I know you’re sorry.”
A long pause followed, his breathing and heartbeat the only sounds in the silence. “Does that mean you forgive me?” he finally asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far.”