Page 16 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

Yet when our eyes met, I felt the same connection I’d felt to Wolfie. That same understanding soul was still there, except now his eyes were green instead of amber.

How was that possible?

It wasn’t—that was the long and short of it. It felt like the world had suddenly turned inside out without any warning, leaving me free-falling into an abyss, where animals could suddenly be… not animals.

I should have been biking myself to the nearest psychiatric hospital, but I opened the window. Did I really think a dialogue was going to rationalize the fact that my wolf friend had exploded into a beefcake of a stranger.

“Who the hell are you?” I called, trying to sound intimidating and not like a single woman alone, far from anyone else, with a stranger in my yard—a fairly muscled stranger at that.

The man’s eyes went wide as if he was startled by my words, but when he opened his mouth to answer, his voice was more of a croak than anything intelligible. Concern stirred in my gut as he tried several more times before finally eking out something I could understand.

“I… don’t… know.”

What?

I didn’t understand how he couldn’t know that, but then again, the man looked like he had been through some shit. For example: having been a massive wolf mere minutes ago.

“Do you remember where you come from?”

“I…” Another long pause. His mouth moved strangely, like he wasn’t used to it doing that. “No.”

“Were, uh… were you my wolf friend?”

His eyes softened, and this time he didn’t speak but nodded. I didn’t know what to say to that. Normally, if someone claimed they could change into a wolf, I’d tell them to hit up aTwilightfan page on Facebook. Except, I’d seen him transform right in front of me.

So, where did that leave us?

“What—”

“Leo!” he blurted, his voice steadier than it had been before. When I frowned at him, he cleared his throat and tried again. “I remembered. My name is Leo.”

Goodness. Despite the shock coursing through me, I couldn’t help but feel my heart sting a little at the joy and sorrow that crossed his features when he remembered his name and realized he had forgotten it in the first place.

My mind was so full, it nauseated me. I had to be dreaming, because surely I wasn’t actually trying to rationalize some sort of werewolf standing in my backyard looking like a wounded heartthrob from a romcom. Yet what other explanation was there? I’d had a wolf resting his head in my lap, had kissed his snout, and then a man had appeared right where he’d been.

Now that I thought about it, I’d felt the crackle of…somethingin the air when it had happened. An ancient and unknown force that called to something deep within me that I couldn’t name.

“Well, then, Leo,” I said cautiously, putting my thoughts together one by one. “Do you need help?”

Another long,longpause while those green eyes studied me, as if he were just as confused as I was. Maybe he was.

When he finally answered, there was so much weight to the single syllable that my knees nearly buckled.

“Yes.”

I had sincerely and fully lost my damn mind, because I closed the window and opened the back door, gesturing for him to come in.

“How can I help?”

9

LEO

Iwas eating.

Not with my muzzle and sharp canines, but with an entirely different mouth and blunt teeth. My stomach was smaller, too, and it craved things I didn’t understand.

I was confused.

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