Page 15 of Ravaged Wolf
“Be patient, pup,” Dad tosses over his shoulder. Self-satisfaction and condescension ooze from every word. “You’re getting much more than you deserve. You can wait.”
Trevor’s wolf howls and mine claws at the border between us, scrabbling to stay with her mate, but I let Uncle Howell guide me to the elevator, embarrassed and torn and scared.
“You didn’t have a choice,” Uncle Howell murmurs to me as the elevator door shuts. “You’re outranked.” I think he means it as a comfort.
But that night, after Mom presses a little white pill in my hand and watches until I swallow, the words circle in my brain until it knocks me out.
You didn’t have a choice.
It’s not a comfort. Not at all.
3
IZZY
The next morning,when I wake up fuzzy-brained and shaky with fever, Mom and Dad sit me down at the kitchen table, and Uncle Howell lays down the law.
Dad’s promotion isn’t just a big deal to him. Uncle Howell tries to explain, but it’s hard to follow pack politics. I know some people want Alban Hughes to be the heir apparent instead of Cadoc Collins, and they think Madog is some kind of usurper, but I have no idea what that has to do with Dad’s promotion.
Apparently, though, it’s important that someone on Team Collins is in the role, and that would be Dad. The Council decides who gets the job, the vote is close, and there are enough rank supremacists among the elders that the news about me and Trevor might push the undecideds to go for Geralt Powell because he’s shown everyone his distaste for “diluting the blood” by abandoning his own pups by a scavenger female.
The whole thing makes my brain spin, but Uncle Howell makes the bottom-line crystal clear. He’s the head of our family, and he says I can’t mate with Trevor until Dad gets confirmed by the Council. I’m not allowed to go to school ormy internship, and they’re going to tell everyone that I’m sick. This is about supporting the alpha, so I will comply. No arguments. Period.
Uncle Howell finishes up by clasping my shoulder and saying, “You’ve always been a good girl, Izzy. It’s only thirteen days.”
It doesn’t feel like thirteen days. Alone in the apartment except for Mom—who’s been posted to keep an eye on me—every minute feels like an hour. If anyone saw me, they’d have no trouble believing I’m sick. My skin is rubbery and gray, and I can’t seem to catch my breath.
I move from cold water baths to my bed, back and forth, and since I can’t bear the feel of fabric on my skin, on the walk to the bathroom, I drape a cotton flat sheet over my shoulders like a cape.
My bed is all wrong. I tear the linens off and pile them in the corner between my bureau and my desk, but I can’t get it right. I fuss and fuss, but my sad little nest is lumpy and too hot, and I don’t have enough blankets, so I can smell the carpet, and it smells like a chemical approximation of lavender, which somehow reminds me of a decomposing raccoon I stumbled on once during a hike on the far side of the lake.
Mom won’t let me take anything else from the linen closet. She tells me to resist the heat. How do you do that? You can’t resist a fever. Or your period. And that’s what this feels like, the world’s worst period stacked on top of food poisoning, minus the barfing.
This is supposed to be sexy? My brain is as foggy as the bogs. I can’t focus on books, and Mom took my phone, so I “wouldn’t be tempted.” I can only stare at the wall, and think about Trevor and his curls and his eyes and how his lips feel and his tongue tastes, and then my stomach cramps and my nipples pucker, and I start thinking dirty, dirtythoughts until Mom bangs a cabinet in the kitchen and embarrassment crawls across my skin like ants.
Then, Dad comes home. The scent of dinner filters in under my bedroom door, but those are wrong, too. Mom knocks, but she doesn’t hassle me when I say I’m not hungry.
Night passes. I sleep. I must because hours tick by, and I don’t move, don’t think, but still, I feel like I’ve somehow been aware the entire time.
My wolf huddles, sweat drenched and whimpering. She’s confused. She expects Trevor, and he doesn’t come, and every few hours, she realizes he isn’t here yet, and he should be, and she reads this as terrible danger. He’s been attacked. She wants us to hide in the back of the closet, but I haven’t done that since I was a pup, and I won’t. Not ever again, no matter what. She doesn’t understand, though, so she cries and quivers in a ball.
The sun rises. I drag myself to the tub, but it’s no comfort. My body heats the cold water in minutes, and I can’t stand the feeling of it lapping at my sides. After my bath, I rearrange my pile on the floor, curl up into a ball of my own, and force myself to think.
I can’t do twelve more days like this. Or is it eleven?
Why can’t I mate Trevor in secret? We could leave, go camping in the foothills, and come back once everything is settled.
People would talk if we both disappeared. Shifters gossip. What are they saying about me now? That I have moon sickness? Or maybe Dad’s allies are spreading the truth around. If Geralt Powell gets credit for abandoning his pups, maybe Dad gets credit for forbidding me from mating a low ranker.
Why is this happening to me? I’ve always done what I was told. I keep my head down and do my work. I alwaysarrive on time and stay late if I’m asked. I was always told if I worked hard, if I went above and beyond, everything would be okay, but it never has been, and it isn’t now. My wolf is hurting. She’s scared.
I drift off, and sometime later, I wake up to the doorbell buzzing. I hear my mother, and then another female. I don’t recognize her. I can’t make out her words, but she’s pleading. My mother is sharp and short.
I try to untangle my legs from the sheets and scrub the bleariness from my eyes.
The female raises her voice, more urgent, beseeching. My mother’s wolf snarls, and the door slams. There is a sudden silence. I’ve only managed to push myself up on my shaky arms.
My wolf wants me to stand and investigate, but I don’t trust my legs. They’re as numb as my brain.
