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From the strange look Rom gave me, he believed my words about as much as I did.

Chapter 10

Typhon

We could scent our human's anxiety swirling around him as he carefully cleaned our wing. It hurt, the shattered bone throbbing with every delicate touch, and he expected us to growl or bite like a wild animal would. The beast hated the scent, hated how our human thought we would hurt it.

He doesn't understand that he's ours.

The beast grumbled its discontent, but only in our head. We wouldn't scare the human more than he already was.

We will make him understand.

The more rational part of us, the part that was slowly, painstakingly coming back to the surface, knew it wouldn't be easy. We were a monster. We didn't belong in this world, but we would fight to the death to stay in it anyway.

Our human rubbed his wet cloth a little too close to the shard of bone poking through the skin, sending sharp pain shooting through the entire wing, and we instinctively flinched, hissing in pain.

"Sorry!" he quickly pulled away, eyes going wide. A shade of green similar to soft spring grass, they gave me something to focus on as I settled the beast. It would never hurt our human, but it didn't want to just lie here and be tended either. I had to take control to keep it from curling up and nursing the injuries on our own, like we always had before.

Once the worst of the pain settled back into the dull, aching throb we'd grown used to and I'd settled the beast, I relaxed, nodding for him to continue.

Let him help us, I chided the beast. He is willingly touching us. He wants to take care of us.

It didn't like that idea. It wanted to be the one taking care of the human, especially since we still couldn't identify the strange scent he'd come home carrying. Being touched, even in a setting like this, helped settle its irritation, but not much.

"I'm sorry," the human said quietly, his hands even more delicate as he wiped the blood and dirt from our wing. "I wish there were a way we could talk, so you could tell me what happened. It's hard to believe another animal would have the nerve to attack you."

The animals native to these woods kept a wide berth from us. They knew they wouldn't win if they tried to attack us. The coyotes that had destroyed our wing weren't natural, though. They were skin-changers, human and animal like us, but while we were one, they could be both.

Already weakened by the humans with their bullets, the skin-changers overwhelmed us, fighting with the intelligence of humans but the strength of their animals. It had taken every bit of my meager control of the beast to force it to flee.

I couldn't explain that to the human, though.

"This feels strange, but I feel like I should introduce myself," he went on. He smelled embarrassed, but I didn't know why.

His name. We want it.

In this, the beast and I were in agreement. I nodded in encouragement, leaning closer and nudging his shoulder with my nose when he hesitated. It also gave us an excuse to draw in a deep breath and bask in his natural scent.

The large dog that was our human's constant companion didn't like how close we got and rumbled a warning from where he lay by his master's feet, but he stayed put. I remembered dogs, somewhere in the jumbled haze of memories in our head, and this one was unusually smart. He smelled like a regular hound, though.

The human paused in his ministrations long enough to look up at me. "I'm Quinn Camden," he murmured, then immediately looked away again. "I guess you don't really need my last name, huh? Sorry. I don't know why this is so awkward."

He continued his rambling apology, but we heard none of it.

Quinn. Our human's name is Quinn.

No one had ever introduced themselves to us as a beast before. There was a vague tumble of memories, places and faces that felt oddly familiar, but if they had names, they were stuck behind the wall of Before in our head. The only clear memories were of what had come After, in the place we'd escaped, the place the hunters came from.

The beast tried to rise and take control at the thought of hunters, trying to bury the sudden, unexpected memories, but for once I was the more ruthless of us and held him back. Every time I tried to remember where we'd come from or who hunted us, the memories were disjointed, foggy, and the beast took over to bury them back down. It didn't want to remember. It only wanted to focus on what came next. I knew we couldn't do that, but I hadn't fought, because what good were memories right now?

Not important. We are free. We have Quinn. The beast fought my control, but I held on tight.

Quinn came home with a strange scent on him. What if it's the hunters? What if they find him while looking for us? Remembering will help us protect him.

The thought of a possible threat to our human quieted the beast's protests, allowing me to reach for the memories, but they were already flitting away. The moment of distraction, of fighting with the other part of myself, allowed the memories to slip through our claws, and no amount of force would bring them back.

Next time, let me try to remember. It will help us protect Quinn.