Page 3 of Enspelled

A blast of memory hits without warning. In it, Dad grips the scruff of my neck after I nearly ran into the Madden Grove Wood parking lot, repeating identical words to mine.

Keane, you are not ruled by instinct alone. You need to learn control. You can’t chase down anything and everything that smells good to you.

A quiet chuff drags me back to the present, followed by a nudge against my shoulder.

I blink, and large blue eyes—Briar’s eyes—stare at me with apology. She whines softly.

She’s like a pup. You should’ve known that when she got distracted by a butterfly.

“I know you’re sorry,” I tell her. “But just because Diana Calla is dead, doesn’t mean this is over. Those wolves are going to report back to Liam, and hewillcome after us.”

If I could be sure that Diana had been the one responsible for wiping out my pack, I’d drive out of town and not look back. But I need to know one-hundred percent. So I need to get Briar to communicate with Dad—but first, I need her to shift.

“Try to shift now,” I tell her. “Reach for the human side of you. Think of your human legs and arms. Picture yourself staring into a mirror and Briar Fenix staring back. Remember what it felt like to be you.”

It’s all too easy for me to bring up her human shape in my mind.

Petite and curvy figure, waves of red-gold hair, long lashes, the sexiest ass I’ve—

I wrench my mind back on track as my cock stirs. Thankfully, I have no place to call home, so my usual uniform of black jeans, t-shirts, and everything else lives in my truck with me. And it’s a good thing too, because Briar doesn’t need to see what’s going on in my pants.

If I’d known how determined she was to chase that mole down, I’d have shifted and avoided wasting nearly twenty minutes dodging trees and bushes. That stupid fucking mole. No wonder Briar couldn’t help herself.

I stare into her eyes, and she stares back.

“Go on,” I tell her. “Shift.”

Her eyes narrow in concentration. Her expression so serious that part of me wants to laugh—even though none of this is funny. There’s a real possibility she might be stuck like this.

She strains so hard that I start worrying about my truck seat. “You’re not trying to take a shit, Briar. Stop straining.”

Her head ducks, but not before I glimpse the embarrassment in her eyes. If she were human, her peachy-gold skin would be flushed red. Definitely.

As I gaze down at her bent head, I struggle to understand how two hours ago, a woman with little to no control of her explosive power shoved me out of the way of an attack by an elemental coven leader.

If that wasn’t enough, she took the hit and didn’t explode into flames the way Jonas, the Wolfe pack’s beta, did.

Nope, she shook it off like it was nothing—right before she lunged at said elemental coven leader, shifting into a small red wolf and tore her throat out.

The look of utter surprise on Diana Calla’s face will live on in my memories forever. Second only to the disbelief on Briar’s face when she realized she was a wolf.

This day has been absolutely fucking insane. And it still isn’t even close to being over yet.

I sigh. “We might as well go back to my cabin, at least until we figure out what to do next. Get on the floor, because I have no idea what I’m going to tell anyone if they see a wolf sitting in the passenger seat.”

She growls softly, lifting her head to reveal narrowed eyes.

“Yes, you have to do it.”

She growls a little more.

“Briar, now is not the time to be stubborn. It’s daylight. On the floor, or you can get in the trunk.”

The second the words leave my mouth, I realize it’s a threat I can’t even carry out, since I have an exposed truck bed.

Yes, Keane, throw the wolf in the trunk you don’t have.

Briar must realize it’s an empty threat because she doesn’t move.

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