Page 123 of Ice Rebel

The transformation always started the same with scents becoming stronger, my eyesight even keener. Within seconds, there were new scents, stronger ones including the coppery odor of blood from other animals in the forest. I could sense their fear, but this wasn’t about hunting for food.

Allowing my wolf to run free was merely about embracing a missing part of myself.

After taking another deep breath, the physical transformation began. Skin stretching, the slight snapping of bones. Ribs cracking and muscles tearing, rebuilding into hyper-dense wolf sinews.

The trauma of the change was no longer frightening as it had once been, the agony experienced little more than a blip in time. In a way shifting could be described as a twisted pleasure or a euphoric adrenaline-fueled shedding of human weakness.

With my jaw breaking, another flash of anguish tore through me and I dropped onto all fours. There was such an emotional moment of knowing my brothers were shifting in unison. Their breaths had already fallen into the same rhythmic huff, their bodies dropping beside mine.

Within seconds, claws replaced fingers, the sense of being human tossed aside as more primal needs took hold. There was nothing like the full freedom of having my wolf exposed.

As the last moments of transformation took place, I threw my head back, gulping air as if it was my first time breathing in a decade. In a way, it was. There was nothing like the feeling.

I pawed the ground, digging up entirely different scents, smells that had furrowed into the earth for months, even years. Every sound was amplified, every color more vivid.

Beck issued a stark howl, a warning to all the creatures within the forest to run and hide. Although if we wanted, we would find them. No one could escape the wolves. We were our own pack, determined to protect the other if necessary.

And we were free.

As we took off running, my stride was effortless, easily bounding over fallen logs and low-hanging branches. The light breeze carried scents to my snout, creating a different level of hunger.

Ford excelled at racing through the forest, always the frontrunner. My claws dug into the earth for traction, allowing me sharp turns and sudden bursts of speed. The heavy, rhythmic thud of paws contrasted with the silent, ghost-like weaving through tight trees.

The moment was sheer joy, a well-deserved release of rage and frustration, but at the same time I remained in agony missing my mate. Dear God, the pain was entirely different than anything else I’d ever experienced.

The constant chatter of animals warning of our approach and the rustle of leaves couldn’t dull the echo of hearing her voice in my mind.

And nothing would help dull the ache of knowing she was no longer mine. I ran mile after mile, feeling my brothers’ presence, yet I’d never felt so alone in my life.

Even the celebration of pack unity couldn’t mask the need. For her. For the one person I couldn’t have. My heart was ready to explode, pain unlike any transformation settling inside knowing that in shunning my mate, I’d never find happiness.

As we raced back to where we’d started, a sense of humanity returned at the most unwelcome time. Instead of remaining in the forest, the thought of forever feeling the same pain was too much to bear. I veered to the side, lunging toward the waterfall and when I reached the edge leading straight down to the lagoon below, I allowed my wolf to fly.

CHAPTER 25

Chelsea

There was no greater hell than what I was suffering.

Every emotion possible weighed heavily on my heart and soul.

Sadness. Frustration. Heartache.

But mostly rage.

Fury that my father had dared attempt to destroy a community. I had no doubt in my mind he was doing everything in his power to skirt laws while playing hardball with the shifters of North Bend.

Maybe I deserved to feel as if my entire world had fallen apart in front of my eyes. Maybe I should always be forced to live with my stomach churning, threatening to launch nasty projectiles from my gut if I dared consume any food or liquid.

Maybe I did deserve the accusations Cole had thrown at me. I’d been a stupid, stupid girl not to pay attention to what my father was doing. What had bothered me over the past couple of days was that I hadn’t heard a word from my father.

Not one.

There’d been enough fake stories tossed out that someone in my father’s employ had at least asked if his prized possession daughter was engaged or involved with a hockey player. You couldn’t go anywhere in Seattle without someone talking about the Seattle Wild.

The pain churning in my stomach was almost being drowned out by rage. Such blinding rage I couldn’t think straight. It was a damn good thing I wasn’t driving.

Reality hit me once again. I’d lost Cole. The one man who’d awakened the woman inside and the one I’d already begun to fall in love with hated me.