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My eyes flew in the direction of a pitiful sound as we entered the infirmary. Wolves were holding my girls down on hospital beds as they fought and cried out.
“Brace,” Doc barked at his team. They obeyed and he straightened out Addy’s mangled leg with firm precision.
When she screamed, the sound went right through my soul. I fought to be free, but Silver held me tighter with a firm growl.
Ignoring the girl’s bloody promises to exact revenge, Doc moved on to stem the bleeding while Addy twisted and cussed the medic out. When I saw the flash of fangs, my brain stalled out.
“What’s the status, Doc?”
Silver nuzzled the top of my head distractedly while I stared at Addy’s face. Terrified of what I thought I had seen but somehow knowing I couldn’t look away.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Fuck.”
Silver’s curse was uttered so low I don’t think he meant me to hear it.
Before my eyes, Addy’s face was changing. Shifting. There was something—not human—underneath the skin, fighting to get out.
“Silver?” I breathed the question I didn’t want answered as a shudder passed through my body from head to toe.
My mind could guess what was happening but my heart begged it not to.
“They were bitten, weren’t they, Doc?” Silver’s voice heavy as his chest rose and fell. Like he was struggling to keep his cool. “They’re trying to change.”
“Trying?” I whispered.
No matter how loud I screamed silently at my eyes, urging them to look away—to focus on anything but the horror show playing out before me—they wouldn’t budge. They remained fixed to my youngest charge’s face as her body fought back against the magic taking over.
Addy’s face elongated, her pink skin stretching grotesquely to fit around a muzzle that was not her own.
New teeth—sharp and lethal—tore through her gums.
Blood and saliva dribbled down her face.
Claws punctured her nail beds as she writhed and howled, scratching at those who held her down.
Eyes, wild and shining, locked onto my own.
A beast was waging war inside my friend’s body, determined to find purchase in her soul.
“What do you mean trying, Silver?” I growled.
I tore my gaze from Addy’s ferocious countenance to Louise and my heart rolled. The girl was in agony. Addy was fighting, like her life depended on it, but Louise… Her soul was folding in on itself, crumbling at the edges.
My mate held me fast as I tried, once again, to rush to my charges’ sides. Needing to offer them some small comfort as their humanity fought against a magical compulsion their souls couldn’t possibly quench.
“Why?” I sobbed as Addy screamed again, her cry changing into a howl of despair.
Why were they fighting it so hard? Why weren’t they giving into the change? Going with it instead of resisting every step? The shifters around us had made it look so simple, so natural. Now I knew, from the terrible pain my friend was in, it was anything but.
I couldn’t get the words out. My heart was screaming. Silver sent comfort, as best he could, through the bond as he rocked me like a babe while I wept.
“I’m not going to lie, kitten. You can see the truth playing out in front of you. The wolf is trying to be born—fighting for her survival—but not every soul can handle a wolf clawing up their insides.”
He gave me one of those sad, broken smiles and for the first time I hated the sight of it as I sobbed all the harder. I was going to lose them. That’s what he was trying to tell me, to prepare me for. He wanted to ease me into the reality that my friends would probably die. From the bite of a wolf.
He sucked in a ragged breath and kissed my brow before he tucked me up under his chin and rubbed his face in my hair. “Most people just don't make it, love. I’m so, so sorry.”
