Shouts joined the pounding footfalls outside the door, and then Cass and Molly catapulted into the room, out of breath.
Cass’ red-rimmed eyes were wide, as he brought a hand to his heaving chest. “Evie, oh thank goodness you’re okay.”
My memories from the night before were hazy, but I nodded. With a shaky hand, I reached up to stroke where the wolf had bitten me. My flesh was scarred but… healed.
“You scared the living daylights out of us,” Molly added.
“Yeah, well, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Can I get some water?”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Molly reached for the nightstand, and poured water from a crystalline pitcher, then handed me the glass. “Wait, let me help you sit up so you can drink better.” She returned the glass to the night table, propping pillows beneath me. There were enough pillows on this bed to make the Ritz jealous.
“Evie,” Cass called, drawing right next to me, and handing me the glass so Molly could use both hands to hold me.
They were treating me like a fragile baby. Normally I’d complain, but I didn’t say a word. I was extremely fatigued, and my muscles were weak. I tipped the cup back and drank the water, which was like heaven to my parched throat. Chugging it down, I extended my hand in the universal signal for more.
Cass kicked off his shiny gold astronaut boots, batted his wings a couple of times, while pulling the fluffy comforter askew, and landed on the bed. Padding across it, he plopped right next to me and grabbed my free hand. I had a prime view of his favorite matching gold Speedo and all the impy bits it struggled to contain, so I cast my gaze to the ceiling.
But my friend wasn’t having it. “Don’t you dare look away from me, Evie Black. Tell me everything.”
“What do you mean?” I huffed as I met his blazing black eyes.
His brow dipped in confusion. “What do you remember about last night?”
The imp looked concerned, beside himself really, and it made me nervous. What the hell happened last night? Other than the obvious?
Then the details of last night’s attack came back, flooding my mind. Nathan, the werewolf. My neck, nearly ripped in half. Brock jumping in to save me. Molly, a badass on the porch with a shotgun. And then pain, the worst pain ever.
“He bit me, then the alpha… I was in a lot of pain. I don’t really remember anything after that,” I admitted. I was witchborn. I should not have had that reaction.
“That damn wolf nearly chewed your whole head off,” Cass seethed, anger dripping from his voice. I knew that if I said the word, Cass would tear Nathan’s head from his body.
“It’s a good thing Gran wasn’t here to see this,” Cass went on, clearly distraught. It was one of his things; he wouldn’t shut up when he was nervous. “If she’d seen what we saw last night...” He whistled. “Well, it probably would’ve sent her to an early grave. I tell you, it was bad. It was so bad, girl, be glad you didn’t see yourself.”
“Uh, Cass?” Molly said, her eyes wide in warning.
“What?”
“She clearly doesn’t remember everything. Maybe we should, you know, ask her how she’s feeling, that kind of thing.”
My oldest friend looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “Do you really not remember all the crazy shit from last night?”
I slumped back into the pillows, frightened. “What do you mean? What crazy shit?” He didn’t answer right away and I really started to freak out, hard. “Cass, what happened to me?” My voice cracked as fear won.
Cass looked to Molly, clearly uncomfortable, and I pinned him with a glare that made my head hurt.
“What are you looking at her for? Tell me what the hell’s going on here!” I shouted, then winced at the pain it caused my body.
Cass, who never fidgeted, squirmed on his golden ass, his little pot belly jiggling as he did. What could be so terrible that would make him afraid to tell me, after all we’d been through together?
Oh my God. Was I werewolf?
I turned my attention to Molly. “What happened to me? Tell me, please. I’ll go crazy if you don’t tell me right now.”
“You nearly got your throat torn out by a werewolf.” Well, that was obvious. “Then the alpha wolf charged in to protect you.” She gestured, pouncing with her hands, totally animated, her face alight. “They tore at each other.” She bared her teeth and bent her fingers into claws, swiping left and right. “The black one was bleeding, and the alpha might’ve been about to rip his throat out for what he did to you, but that’s when I remembered the shotgun you left me, and hauled ass to get it. I shot a round into the air and they both stopped.”
I rolled my eyes internally. Was I going to be cursed with two motor-mouths for friends? “Breathe, Molly, breathe. I mean after that, what happened to me after? What’s the big deal here?”
She nodded, eyes feverish with excitement, and I realized right then that she was a supernatural junkie. She was Croft’s blood mistress not because she needed the money, or maybe she did, but that wasn’t the main reason. She was with him because vampires were one of the few supernatural races that had any need for humans. Molly was a supe groupie, which would explain how she’d find a werewolf attack exciting, and not terrifying like a normal human being.
They were scared to tell me something, and that definitely didn’t bode well. I could smell the fear coming off Cass in waves, one of my lame witch gifts.
I wiggled in the bed and noticed something. Fast as a flash, I lifted the covers. Yep, I was buck naked.
“It couldn’t be helped,” Molly explained, watching my every move. “Your clothes kind of... fell apart when you, uh”—she played with the hem of her shirt—“shifted.” After she dropped the bombshell, the tasteful eggshell walls of the bedroom suddenly held all her attention.
My eyes bulged, and I sat up straighter, wondering if I’d heard her correctly. I was really hoping I hadn’t. “What do you mean, shifted?”
Oh my God. I was a werewolf.
My pink friend sighed a long-suffering sigh, and brought a dramatic hand to his forehead, as if this were somehow about him, and all he’d been through while I was... shifting.
“Cass,” I warned, “you have exactly ten seconds to tell me what the hell is going on, before I traipse right out of this room to find my own answers. And I don’t give a rat’s ass who sees me naked.”
“Don’t worry. I think we’ll all survive the show,” Brock stated as he waltzed in the room with an entourage behind him.
My nostrils flared, but dammit, they pulled in the earthy scent of him, so I stopped breathing for a few seconds to compose myself. Molly scurried out of Brock’s way as he shot an annoyed look at Cass, sprawled out on the comforter.
The alpha stopped right next to the bed and peered down at me, his face a mask that concealed all emotion. I tightened the sheet around my naked body.
“What your friends were trying to tell you in the most roundabout way possible, is that you are in fact not a dud witch, and there’s no chance on this green earth you’re human.” Brock spoke without his usual restraint, and I sensed mild fascination in his voice.
“Spit it out already, wolf,” I growled. “Am I one of you?”
I didn’t have time for his games. I was freaking out right now. What would scare Cass so much that he was afraid to tell me?
“You’re a fox,” Brock answered bluntly.
“What? You mean I’m foxy, right? I get it. Wink, wink.” My sanity left the building with his comment. This had to be a joke. Cass was probably twisted enough to go along with a joke like this.
A tall, distinguished-looking woman, with more class than I’d ever have, stepped forward from behind the alpha. She looked down her perfect straight nose and assessed me. “Brock brought you to me last night. I’m the pack doctor, Sabine,” she offered.
Oh, so she’s on a first-name basis with Brock the Cock, is she? I shot the biggest cock in the room a glare, and the hint of a smirk tipped his mouth upward. Fucker. I scowled and his smirk grew bigger.
I glared at the lady as she spoke again, hoping for some real answers this time. “You were bitten on the neck by one of the pack’s new wolves. It was his first time shifting, and that’s when they’re always most ferocious. He nearly gnawed your head off.”
The hand Cass wasn’t holding flew to my neck for the second time, where I juggled the glass in my attempt to verify that my head was, indeed, still attached.
“But then you started shifting on my table,” she continued, as if what she was saying was completely normal. I guess for a doctor to werewolves, it would be. But not for me. I was starting to feel the itching need to check out of crazy town.
“You must be mistaken,” I replied, though the grim expressions, all except for Molly’s, suggested otherwise. My purple-haired friend just looked fascinated. Still, they couldn’t be right. There was no way I shifted.
“I know a shifter when I see one, trust me.” Sabine smiled, but it was clinical.
“I’m not a shifter. Promise.” I chuckled uncomfortably.
“Then how do you explain turning into a fox last night?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Fox shifters aren’t even a thing. I would know, I’ve been hunting supes for a decade.”
And that’s when the elephant entered the room, sucking all air from my lungs.
Brock shoved a phone in my face with a video already playing. The image showed me lying on a medical bed. I was half naked, white as the moon, and covered in blood. But the longer I watched, the more my stomach dropped.
Rust-colored pelts of fur rippled down my arms, and I started to wail in pain. Brock muted the phone that instant as the whole room, including myself, flinched at the sound. Even muted, it was a horror show.
My body arched and writhed as Brock held my ankles, the doc held my shoulders, and Cass screamed while he held my face. Within a minute, I’d fully shifted into a two-foot tall fox, a sight that held the entire room captive.
I registered my own piercing violet eyes staring back at me—from the face of a fox—before Brock clicked a button and the phone went black.
My mouth dropped open. I shut it, then opened it again and tried to form words. What the ever-living fuck? In the end, I just sighed and closed my eyes.
Maybe if I fell asleep I’d wake up in a world where I hadn’t just seen myself shift into an animal that shouldn’t even exist.
8 Denial Is A Town I’d Like To Move To
Funny thing, it turns out that nothing changes when you close your eyes to escape. The world is still a clusterfuck when you open them again.
Cass, Molly, Brock, Sabine, and a wolf I didn’t know still stared at me.
Cass narrowed his eyes while he studied me, and scooched his butt closer across the comforter. “How are you taking the news, hon?”