Page 208 of Shifting Hearts 1
They were right.
Hot fireplace stones seared my back through my cloak, a meager barrier between skin and rock. But with the dose of adrenaline the terror doused me in, I barely felt anything at all.
“How long have you been doing this?” I whispered, gripping my cloak tighter.
“All your life,” Gran smiled, a toothy smile. Her eyes widened, her wolf form larger than ever.
My, what big teeth you have, Grandma.
“Why didn’t I know?” I hissed, sliding along the fireplace wall.
They followed me, their wolf pads silent in their pursuit. Gran didn’t answer, her humanity waning with every muted step.
All the better to hunt you with.
A shadow flashed by one of the windows, and a branch slammed into the frame, rattling it. A crack formed, letting in a deluge of sleet that reduced the cloying temperature in the room, not that any of us much noticed or cared.
My back hit a chair, and I stumbled over it. My timing couldn’t have been worse. The monstrous black wolfman lunged forward, His mangled lips were drawn back in a horrific snarl. I threw up an arm, still wrapped beneath my cloak, and waited for teeth to rip through my flesh.
But the pain never came.
The wolf gurgled. I peered over my red wrapped arm as the black and broken object that protruded from his chest. Blood and tatty fur dripped from its end, and when the branch retracted from the house it took its victim with it, tearing them both through the remnants of the locked door. Sleet whipped past the exit in Dagan’s wake, cold air entering the cottage, stealing the warmth that had only ever been a facade.
Gran growled, a sound that grated at my bones with the wrongness of it.
“You loved them, cared for them,” I whispered. Tears stung my eyes. Somehow I was still waiting like a child for someone to tell me I got it all wrong and this nightmare was just that. I’d wake in a moment, in my lumpy bed at the starlight cottage, and be back in my normal life or too many children in the house I didn’t know, my grandmother directing them all and being terribly, horribly alone in a mass of moving bodies, not belonging anywhere.
But it was all a facade of the darkness that wound its way through an illusion of pretty mirrors and precious things that came crashing down the moment that veil was pierced.
The illusion I lived in for so long.
Gran stalked toward me, a wolfish smile twisting her lips. One claw slashed at my cloak, shredding it as Wolf had my dress. Cold air iced my body as she raised her giant, deadly paw a second time.
“Goodbye,” a voice whispered.
Then Gran was gone, too. In her place stood a different shadow, one of gray fur and dark markings. Swirls changed the patterns beneath his fur, and around his eyes. Perfect lips glistened, but I didn’t stop to study the dark trails matting his fur, or look at the body slumped on the floor at his human feet.
“Wolf!” I shrieked, launching at him. My arms wrapped around his shoulders that changed beneath my hands, smoothing out. I squeezed the hard planes of muscle, burying my face in the crook of his neck as he held me to him too tight. Breaths came hard, but I didn't care. “I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I should have trusted you.”
“And what baseline did we give you for that?” he demanded, cupping my face in one large hand. He lifted my chin so I couldn't avoid his eyes if I tried. Their blackness swirled, shot through with slivers of hypnotic gray. “How could you trust us when fear was all we offered you?”
“But last night—” I whimpered, twisting to look over my shoulder.
A different hand caught my cheek and turned my face away.
“Best not,” whispered Dagan. His skin softened at the contact, his patterns forming something slightly more human. He stood a head above me. Chestnut hair tumbled over his face. High cheekbones set off rough lips that called to me.
I leaned into his touch, stretching on my toes, and tipped my head back. Wolf growled his approval as Dagan watched me through impossible eyes that told the history of the world in a single glance. All the truths I didn't want to see, all the lives that passed beneath his forest. Even as I watched, his skin hardened and he cursed in his whispery, dry voice, dropping his mouth to mine in a tearing, desperate kiss.
“I cannot stay here,” he whispered. “I need my trees.”
I nodded, resting my cheek to his. “Then we go to your trees,” I said simply.
Wolf huffed and let me go, passing me regretfully into Dagan’s arms. “I ‘spose I’m on clean-up crew, then,” he muttered, the slightest hint of annoyance tainting his voice. He gripped the back of my neck, squeezing hard enough for a whimper to slip from my lips, his cruel smile was back in place.It looked beautiful on him. “I’ll be a little while. Then I’ll have an offering for your new house.”
“My house?” I frowned, staring between them.
“Dagan will explain,” Wolf murmured, pressing his mouth gently over mine.
