Page 16 of The Alpha’s Chosen Mate

“You’re just going to let her shift into her wolf in the classroom? She needs to be in the forest. She’ll need to run.”

“Would you rather carry her through the halls like this and risk humans catching her mid-shift?”

As much as I hate to admit it, he’s got a point. “But why is her wolf coming forward right now?”

“Command,” Emily growls. Even with her pain tearing through her body, her fury is intense. Palpable.

And it feeds mine.

“That bastard suppressed your wolf with an alpha command?” I’m seething. This goes beyond mistreatment. This is pure, diabolical, calculated abuse. “Is that possible?” I ask my dad.

“Possible? Yes. But no alpha worth their title would ever stoop to something as low as that.”

Emily’s fingers flex. She cries out in pain again, and her knees buckle.

“Breathe, Em.” I stroke her hair, taking all her weight against me. “I know it hurts, but you have to breathe.”

Dad and Mr. Martin push the desks against the walls, leaving an opening for me to lower Emily to the floor. Her fingertips curl against the tile as she scratches at it. The cries and tears of anguish rip into my heart, as sharp as the claws trying to force their way out of Emily’s hands. Sweat pours from her skin. Her eyelids flutter until she can’t hold them open anymore. With each pulse of pain rippling through her, she weakens until her sobs and grunts are whimpers, and she shivers uncontrollably while barely conscious.

“What’s happening?” I pull her into my lap, cupping her cheek with one hand and checking her pulse with the other. It’s too fast, and her body temperature is too high, yet she’s shivering with the force of an earthquake. “Why is it taking so long? She should be in her wolf form by now.”

“Her body is too weak to handle a shift.” Dad sighs. “I don’t think she’s had any training, and her wolf’s been suppressed for too long.”

Goddess, this is all such a mess. “I should have helped her sooner.”

“Even if she’d joined our pack on her birthday like you wanted, this failed shift still would have happened.”

His response doesn’t ease my guilt.

“What do we do now?”

“Get her to Crescent Lake. She needs rest so her wolf can heal her bruises and so she can build her strength and eventually shift.” Dad grabs my shoulder so I meet his eyes. “And more than anything, she’ll need a friend. Someone she can trust.”

“She has me.”

“It won’t happen overnight.”

“I know.”

“You’ll need to be patient.”

I grimace. Patience. I’ve never been good at patience. Except…

I think back to our day picking blackberries, when I played along with her vast imagination and protected her from the troll, and when I taught her to catch the berries I tossed at her.

Maybe she’s the missing piece. Maybe she is my patience.

I gaze up at my dad with newfound determination. “I think I can be patient with her.”