Page 1 of Enspelled

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BRIAR

"Briar, stop chasing your tail and hurry the fuck up!" Keane snarls.

“I'm not chasing my tail," I lie. But just like all the times I've said anything during our trek through the Madden Grove Wood, the only thing to emerge from my mouth is a series of wolf growls.

I stop chasing my fluffy reddish-brown tail and consider following my nose to the squirrel hiding from me in the bush to my right, but then hurry to catch up.

Keane won't be happy if he has to come after me.

Again.

Having him snarl at me for chasing one squirrel was bad enough, but two?

The instinct to hunt is a little easier to ignore this time—or maybe it’s because I still remember Keane’s fury.

It could even be the fear of what I’ll do if I catch the squirrel, because something tells me it will leave me with the same coppery taste in my mouth that I had when I was standing over Diana Calla’s body.

My stomach tightens and a sick feeling churns in my belly.

Don’t think of it, Briar. That is one memory you should be repressing.

Keane is walking too slowly, so I race ahead and then rush back again, amazed at how limber and fast I am as a wolf. He’s still naked, but his lack of clothes isn’t as interesting to the wolf me as it was to the human me.

Now he’s just Keane. Naked. But still just Keane.

I sprint to the tree further ahead to see if I can run any faster—and I do, before I dash back to Keane again and again, until I glimpse the rage building in his amber eyes and stop before he threatens to bite my nose.

Again.

Why he would want to do that, I have no idea, but it doesn't sound like fun.

“Can you change back yet?” Keane asks once I’m walking alongside him.

I shake my head.

“You’re not trying.”

He’s right, I’m not. I haven’t put any serious effort into it since Keane snarled at the two wolves gaping at the new wolf me outside the cave a few miles back. Those wolves presumably ran off while I was busy retching from the foul taste in my mouth.

Blood, Briar. It was blood.

Diana Calla’s blood, to be exact, because someone had to bite the elemental coven leader’s throat, and since I was the one standing over her with a strange taste in my mouth, it could only have been me.

When Keane snapped at me that it was time to go, the only things in the clearing outside the cave were the smoking remains of Jonas, the beta from the Wolfe pack, and Diana Calla’s dead body. Oh, and the other wolves Keane must have killed while I was being chased out of the cave by Diana’s elemental earth magic.

So I killed her…with teeth so sharp I’m amazed I haven’t bitten my tongue off yet. But I guess I must have an instinct for being a wolf, because walking with four legs is surprisingly easy—not that I ever believed I’d ever have more than two. Now that I have them, I want to run and r—

“Briar…”

Stopping, I angle my head to face him.

A moment later, a large blue butterfly lazily drifts by just behind his blond head, and my eyes snag on it. It’s so pretty that the last thing I should want to do is savage it, but that’s what I want. To leap up and snap my teeth at it until it stops moving. And it would be soeasy. It’s moving so slow that I could do it.

“Briar!” Keane snaps.

I jerk my face away from the butterfly.

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