Page 64 of Vicious Luna

“Mmm, yeah, liquor dulls your inner wolf,” Avery muses, chewing on her lower lip. “Also, shifters metabolize alcohol differently than humans do, since our bodies heal themselves. It takes us a whole lot more to get drunk.”

I snort a laugh. “Well, that explains some things.”

“You clearly still managed it just fine,” she remarks.

“I was going through something.”

She narrows her eyes on me assessingly. “Who did you lose?”

My pulse falters, my throat tightening. “I’ve lost a lot of people in my life,” I grumble.

“That may be true, but the night of the full moon, when the hunters attacked… you lost someone important, didn’t you?” She keeps her stare trained on me, clearly not giving up this line of questioning until I give her a straight answer.

I swallow thickly.

“Who was it?” she presses.

I’m not sure when exactly we started veering into personal territory with these questions rather than sticking to ageneralized exchange of information, but I’m not opposed to answering her. I’m just having trouble choking back my emotion to get the words out.

“My best friend,” I rasp, averting my gaze. “Ben.”

Avery nods slowly. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and I glance up to meet her eyes again, finding them rounded in sympathy. “For your loss,” she clarifies. “I wasn’t there during the attack, and I’m not sorry that the hunters were taken out.Theyattackedus, and we did what we had to in defending ourselves. We lost people, too. I’m not sorry the threat was eliminated before they could do more damage, but I’m sorry you lost your friend.”

“I’m not,” I murmur, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “At least now I can remember him as he was. If he was still around when I turned into this...” I trail off, shaking my head.

“You don't think he would've accepted you?”

“No,” I admit, swallowing past the growing lump in my throat. “Ben was all Guild, all the way. He helped me get my head on straight whenever I strayed from the mission statement or started second-guessing things. He believed in the cause. If he knew what I was, he wouldn’t have been able to get past it.”

“Butyoudid.”

I tip my head forward, burying my hands in my hair. “I’m still working on it.”

She clucks her tongue. “So even though you’re a shifter, you still hate them.”

“I was taught to,” I mumble, lifting my head to meet her eyes. “But honestly, I don't know how to feel anymore.”

For someone who devoted their life to hunting werewolves, I never actually spent much time around them, until Avery. It seems ridiculous now that I spent so many years bent on exterminating a species that I never even tried to understand. I could probably count on my hands how manytimes I conversed with one of them, because the truth is, I didn’t care to. I didn’t consider or accept their humanity. I only saw them as monstrous beasts that needed to be destroyed, choosing to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Becoming Avery’s handler changed things. The more time I spent around her, the less I could rationalize her being more monster than human. Especially when the other hunters around me started acting a whole lot more monstrous than she ever did. Even now,Istill feel human, and I’m technically a werewolf.

I heave a sigh, shifting my weight on the chair as I lean back. “Alright, my question.”

She nods, gesturing to me with an open palm.

“Does it always hurt when you...change?” I ask tentatively.

“No.” Her lips curve into the ghost of a smile, like she’s reflecting on fond memories of her own experience. “There are definitely some growing pains with the first few times you shift, but once you start integrating with your wolf, it gets easier.”

“And how do I do that?”

“Like I said, you have to accept him. Open your mind and let him in. Acknowledge that he exists.” She leans forward, leveling me with a hard stare. “You're struggling with your wolf right now because you’re clearly still in denial. Once you accept who you really are, things will go a lot smoother for you.”

“Easy for you to say,” I grumble. “You’ve always known what you are.”

Even though I’ve spent days trying to wrap my head around this whole thing, it feels like I’m no closer now than I was when I started. Every answer has just given way to more questions.

Honestly, it’s a wonder I haven’t just snapped and gone insane. My whole world was just flipped upside down. I’ve found myself on the other end of the extermination agenda Ihelped start, and now I’m seeking help from the person I kept imprisoned solely because of what she is; what webothare.

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