Page 19 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

“Into what?”

“I assume a wolf, but it could’ve been something else. There are a few different species of weres that have been written about, although I’m not sure that anyone has ever confirmed the existence of those besides wolves.”

I stared at him for a moment. “Are you suggesting that I’m a werewolf?”

“It’s not a suggestion, dear,” he said. “That’s just the reality. Your reality.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’m afraid so. I saw it in your palm, and I can see it even more clearly in your eyes this morning. You turned last night, and you’re going to do so again when the next full moon rolls around. That’s why I’m hoping this time you’ll actually stick around long enough to look through some of the items I tried to send you home with yesterday. They’ll help you stay in control a little better. And keep others safe.”

“Hold on,” I said, putting a hand in the air. “Back up. This is insane. I can’t be a werewolf! This—this has never happened to me before!”

He smiled. “I know. That’s what makes it so fascinating. You’re not a shifter because otherwise, you would’ve been born with this ability. Instead, you’re cursed. Which is very different and much more dangerous.”

“Cursed? But who would curse me?”

“If you don’t know the answer to that question, then I’m going to have to look at your palm again.”

I didn’t give him my hand right away. I was frozen in place as a memory of a night just three weeks back resurfaced.

“Remember when I asked you if you had any mortal enemies?” the man said as I fell halfway back into my past, hearing his voice as a far-away echo. “This is why I wanted to know. Because someone has done this to you.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It wasn’t someone. It was a group of people.”

He raised a brow. “Is that why you’re on the run? Are you hiding from these people?”

“Not them. They may have been the ones who did this to me, but they didn’t do it on purpose. Truthfully—this is all my fault.”

CHAPTER 8

KATRINA

Three Weeks Ago

The boy spoke Spanish with a thick Guatemalan accent, but I was able to pick up on enough words to understand the gist of what he was saying. He was a teenager from the English class I taught the summer before, and it was no secret that he had a crush on me. While taking my class, he would often bring me presents, and he blushed every time I said something to him directly. He lived with his mom in a small house a few blocks from the one I was sharing with my family, and even after he left my class, he would find excuses to walk by the school sometimes and wave.

Only this time, he didn’t come visit me at the school.

I had run into him on my way out of town. It was late at night, and I’d been working so hard to ensure that nobody in my family caught me leaving that I didn’t even think about staying hidden from the locals. None of them really paid me much mind anyway.

Well—besides Santos.

He spotted me walking down the path towards the bus station and pulled over in his dad’s old pickup truck. He asked if I was okay, and I told him I was fine—that I had just gone out for a walk to clear my head.

Santos pointed to my duffle bag. “¿Qué es eso?”

“Es nada,” I said, but he clearly didn’t believe me.

He asked if I was leaving town, and since lying in a language I didn’t speak fluently was very hard, I ended up just coming clean. I told him that I was leaving the country and begged him not to say anything until the next day. At that point, I would be far enough away that neither the rumors nor my family could catch up with me. Santos argued with me at first but then must’ve realized he wasn’t getting anywhere because he changed his tactic. He said he would come with me, that he would protect me on my way out of the country. There was a gleam in his eye that told me he was hungry for adventure, but I couldn’t possibly do that to Santos’s mother. He was her only child and the love of her life.

“That’s very sweet,” I said in Spanish. “But you’re still just a kid. Your place is here. At home with your loved ones.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but then his cell phone rang. He answered it and spoke in such quick and slangy Spanish that I wasn’t able to follow along in the slightest. He hung up a few seconds later with a huff and announced that he had to go.

“Go ahead. Está bien.”

“No.” He shook his head. He didn’t want to leave me there on the side of the road in the middle of the night. We were at a standstill, and the kid’s eyes were filling up with tears. After some more back and forth, I finally agreed to let him drive me to the bus station. He had one little errand he had to run on the way, which I said was fine, and I climbed into the passenger seat. We drove in silence until he pulled off on a side road, and I asked where we were going.

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