Page 63 of Wanted

“I need more time,” Dr. Drake declares.

A sniff of the air ignites and every sense in my body tingles with a calling I’ve never experienced. The scent is coming from Emery. The wolf smell is even more potent than days ago when I first scented her.

Dr. Drake is now only confirming what I and my wolf sensed from the moment we met Emery.

She belongs to us.

Emery pulls back, placing her hand against her stomach. “I’m sorry.” She peers down at her abdomen with uncertainty and then back up at me. “I-I don’t know what’s happening. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”

With Emery still in my arms I turn back to Dr. Drake. Our eyes meet in a silent knowing.

“It’s time for lunch,” I tell Emery. The others should have something prepared by now.

“I can’t. Not yet. We’re not done here,” she says.

“You need to eat,” I tell her in no uncertain terms. “We’ll come back if we need to.”

“But I don’t have my prescription for the iron pills.”

She glances over my shoulder which alerts me that Dr. Drake is saying something.

“How about we hold off on that prescription for a few days. From the bloodwork it looks like your iron is above that of a normal human being’s. Thus, I think you can go a little longer without the pills.”

Emery’s lips tighten.

“Those weren’t iron pills,” I blurt out. My anger gets the better of me.

“What?”

“Whatever it is you’ve been taking for years now, it wasn’t iron.”

She blinks, her mouth ajar. I can see the wheels of her mind turning as she pieces things together in the silence.

“That can’t be…”

She peers up at me. “What were they then?”

“Some sort of drug to keep you from being what you truly are.”

Emery

From what I truly am…

I can’t get those words out of my mind. Even as my stomach rumbles and growls incessantly. I swear it feels as if it’s been weeks since I’ve last eaten. Although I had a very hefty breakfast.

I ate the entire stack of pancakes, ham and vegetable omelet and three sausage links that Ms. Elsie put on my plate. Only minutes after telling her I didn’t need such a large serving for breakfast.

Now, only a few hours later, I’m hungering for more.

“I remember being this hungry,” I say as I stare into the distance from the passenger seat of Chance’s truck.

“It was right before I started taking the pills. I sometimes was so hungry that I woke up in the middle of the night. The hunger wouldn’t let me sleep. A few times I snuck downstairs to find something in the refrigerator.

“One night my mother caught me eating a turkey leg that was left over from dinner.”

I push out a heavy breath.

“She looked mortified as I stood there with a half-eaten turkey leg in my hand and grease all around my lips. ‘A young woman should never eat like a pig!’ she insisted.”

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