Page 69 of Ruined Wolfsbane

I’ve always thought her death seemed suspicious.

If he’s telling the truth, my mom would still be alive if it weren’t for me. My legs threaten to give out under the crushing weight of that possibility. I desperately try to get a breath in through the vice grip on my chest. Tears gather in my eyes, but I blink them back. I don’t deserve to cry over my mom if I’m the reason she’s dead.

As black spots encroach on my vision, I’m finally able to draw in a ragged breath. I gasp at the sudden influx of air. A sob tries to make its way out, but I press my lips into a thin line to keep it inside.

Part of me wants to let Patrick kill me as penance. The other part is screaming that Ava needs me. I can’t be selfish and die to escape the guilt that’s threatening to drown me. I need to buck the hell up and find a way to get through this for Ava’s sake. I can fall apart later. Shoving every shred of emotion into the biggest steel box I can find in my mind, I lock it all up tight.

A familiar blanket of apathy settles comfortably around my shoulders. With all my emotions locked up, I don’t feel anything other than a determination to get through this for Ava.

“Am I?” he taunts, enjoying my distress.

I just stare at him with dead eyes and a blank face. He frowns at my lack of further reaction.

With a shake of his head, he just stands still for a second. His eyes are vacant and sort of creepy.

Suddenly, I hear the snap of bones breaking and rearranging.

Patrick groans and drops to all fours. Fur ripples across his body, and his face elongates into a muzzle. His fingers clench and unclench before they turn into claws. With his back arched at an unnatural angle, his arms and legs transform into front and hind legs.

The process takes only a minute at most. After what looks like a painful transformation, Patrick’s no longer standing in front of me. Instead, there’s a large brown wolf with Patrick’s beady brown eyes staring back at me.

CHAPTER 28

BRIAR

Oh, holy shit.

Patrick’s a motherfucking wolf! A massive, snarling, way-larger-than-normal wolf. This wolf probably comes up to my shoulders it’s so huge.

What in the good goddamn is going on here?

People can’t change into wolves. Right?

Well, apparently, they can because I just watched it with my own two eyes.

Fucking hell on a stick with Mary on the handlebars. What have I gotten myself into?

In shock, I plop myself back down on the rickety metal folding chair I woke up in. I go to scrub my hands over my face when a burning pain in my shoulder stops me.

That’s right. In the craziness of seeing someone magically poof into a wolf, I forgot that I’ve been shot. Blood is still sluggishly pumping out of the wound. I’m starting to feel lightheaded, but I don’t know if that’s blood loss or drinking wolfsbane.

Shaking my head to clear it, I tell the wolf in front of me, “I hate to break it to you, buddy, but I’ve never shifted into a fucking wolf. I’d think I’d remember if I had.”

The wolf is kinda cute, honestly, if you ignore the soulless eyes that are all Patrick.

Patrick the not-so-friendly wolf chuffs at me and rolls his eyes. He shakes out his coat before stalking toward me. I brace myself to get eaten, squeezing my eyes shut. When nothing happens, I open my lids to find him simply circling my chair a few times.

Once he’s satisfied with whatever he sees on my face, the wolf pads back to Patrick’s neatly folded clothes. With another series of painful-sounding bones breaking and reforming, a naked Patrick stands in front of me. I avert my eyes while he puts on clothes because I don’t need to see that.

“Of course you haven’t,” Patrick says like I’m the stupidest person he’s ever encountered. “We can only shift into wolves after drinking ritual wolfsbane. It’s a rite of passage for eighteen-year-old wolves to drink and shift.”

I cautiously look up and am relieved to see Patrick is fully dressed. “I’m twenty, twenty-one in a month. If I’m a wolf like you say I am, why didn’t I drink and shift years ago?” I ask, feeling smug about pointing out a hole in his theory.

“I’ve waited to give you the potion until now in the hopes you’d get stronger and have a better chance of surviving the wolfsbane. Why do you think I beat you? To toughen up your wolf so you can survive the change, unlike other females. No female wolves have been able to shift in centuries. The wolfsbane kills them instead of unlocking their wolves. Females not shifting is weakening our species. If this goes on much longer, we’ll either go extinct or be eliminated by vampires, fae, the Knights of Aeneas, or someone else.”

My poor little overwhelmed brain snags on the fact that wolves aren’t the only magical creature out there. If I am a wolf, I apparently need to be worried about being offed by Edward or Tinkerbell.

Fantastic.

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