The entire next day I had one thing on the brain.
Sawyer.
I might as well have written our names inside of a heart on my notebook, because I had it bad. I kept replaying how upset he got that the prime minster had smelled me, and how he couldn’t stand other men watching me dance, and finally then how we’d almost kissed. Was I insane to like a guy that the entire female campus was dating?
Yes, yes I was.
The urge to pee overwhelmed me, so I stood and slipped out of my class. Navigating the halls, I stepped into the bathroom and went pee while thinking of Sawyer and his top twenty list. What came after that? Another month or round of dating and then top ten? Did he date the final five girls for like six months? How was I going to handle that? Was he kissing other girls? Why the fuck did I have to fall for this guy? The one guy in the world who literally had to follow a set of rules in order to find his mate.
I needed to ask Sage all this stuff or dig back into the bylaws because I would probably go insane thinking of all of this stuff. I planned to head over to the library later and check out any books I could on split shifters or people who could separate from their wolf. Maybe while I was there I would find a book on how to handle dating a guy who was also dating forty-nine other chicks.
Not likely.
After washing my hands, I slipped back out into the hallway, my mind swirling with a thousand things. I was so trapped in my thoughts, I barely noticed the blur of dark hair. Sawyer slipped out from an alcove and grasped the sides of my face. My heart hammered in my chest as he stroked my bottom lip with his thumb and gave me a cocky grin. Those piercing blue eyes stared into my soul as my breath came out in ragged gasps.
One of his hands dropped to my lower back and he tucked me into him, pulling me into the alcove and pinning my back against the wall.
Holy fuck. He was going to kiss me.
Leaning in, he passed my lips and went right for my ear, nibbling the flesh there and causing a moan to rip from my throat.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he whispered, dragging his lips along my jawline. My breath shuddered as his lips stroked up my cheek. “The way you smell, the way you walk.” He pulled back and looked at me with blazing blue eyes. “The way you might taste.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, I was like a snake coiled and ready to strike. I yanked him forward and our lips crashed together in a hungry kiss. Warm soft lips melded with mine and an inferno exploded in my chest, traveling down my body. My lips opened as his tongue slipped inside and stroked mine, deepening the kiss. He growled, sexy and low, and I inhaled his breath as I clung to his neck, trying to press us closer together. His fingers slipped up the side of my neck as he tilted my head backward and took my bottom lip into his mouth, sucking.
Holy hell.
I’d never been this attracted to a guy, ever. If he pulled me in the janitor closet and asked me to go all the way, I would. He was like a drug and I couldn’t get enough. It all felt so right, so good. His lips were on mine again, giving me slow but powerful kisses, and that’s when the buzzing started—small vibrations at first, until it started to become more noticeable—my lips buzzing, and then my whole body, like I was made of electricity.
Sawyer moaned and then a white light sparked between us and he jumped backward, staring at me with wide eyes.
“What was that?” I asked, slightly scared but more turned on so my brain wasn’t thinking properly.
His eyes darkened as his brows drew together in a frown. “I knew it,” he muttered.
What? That made no sense to me. “Sawyer, what’s going on? What was that?”
The vibrations reminded me of when I’d shaken his dad’s hand, and also the prime minister’s, but the light was new.
The air smelled of hot wires … magic.
Sawyer sighed, looking off down the hallway, where I was sure Eugene and Sage and whatever other guards stood waiting for us to finish our make-out session. Finally, he met my eyes and his held such sadness; I wasn’t prepared for it. “I’m going to have to do something you don’t like, and you’re going to need to trust me.”
My eyes widened, but before I could ask him any more, he was gone, leaving me with swollen lips and a pounding heart.
Sawyer Hudson would be the death of me, that I was sure of.
I skipped lunch in the big dining hall and went right to the library with Walsh and Sage hot on my tail. They ate sandwiches and talked while I moved up to the counter to talk to the librarian. Sage said when she was on “shift” she needed to be all professional and couldn’t sit with me or act all buddy buddy, so I was on my own.
The freaking vibrating white light kiss with Sawyer had occupied my every thought, and I was determined to find out what it was. What I was.
Miss Lynch strode over to me once she saw me at the counter. “Can I help you, hun?”
I nodded, trying to figure out the best way to go about this. “So … I didn’t exactly grow up in Wolf City, but my mom told me this story and I was wondering if you had any books about it?”
Her brows drew together. “What’s the story called?”
Shit.
“I can’t remember … but it was about a … split shifter who could walk around in human form for a while and her wolf stayed beside her.”
Dawning shone on her face. “Yes. The Cursed One. I’m afraid that all the books on that creature have already been checked out.”
Cursed one.
Creature.
My heart knocked so loudly against the walls of my chest, I could barely hear her.
“Who checked them out?” I knew the answer even before she told me.
“Sawyer Hudson. He’s got them for…” She checked her tablet, swiping across the screen, “Oh. They’ve been removed from the library permanently.” Her brows drew together in concern while the room spun around me.
Was I cursed? Was I a fucking creature?
Why would Sawyer hide this from me? Did he know or was he just checking out the books to find out?
Holy shifter.
The adrenaline was coursing so fast through my veins that my wolf came to the surface.
“Miss Calloway?” The librarian waved a hand in front of my face as my teeth lengthened.
My wolf rattled against my skin until my whole body vibrated. Reaching my hands out, I hugged myself tightly, trying to keep her in. She sensed danger in my fearful reaction of what the librarian had said.
“Sorry, I don’t feel well,” I told her.
She nodded knowingly. “Full moon. Happens to all of us, dear.” I gave her a weak smile and turned around and ran. I ran past Sage and past Walsh, through two students trying to enter the library, and out into the garden. Students were lazing about, some of them in wolf form but most human.
‘Stop it,’ I told my wolf, as pelts of white fur ran down my arms.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The fact that my teeth could lengthen, I could howl and fur could grow on my arms, had to mean I was capable of a normal shift, of my human form shifting into a wolf … right?
As my shirt ripped, I realized I was out of time.
“Demi!” Sage called out from behind me as I took off into the woods. People turned to stare and I heard another seam of my shirt rip.
“Stop it!” I shouted out loud this time as I cleared the tree line. My eyes looked up to see that the moon was already out, faintly in the sky in the middle of the day. It had never affected me this badly, but then again I’d had magical cuffs on and never lived in a pack before. Now that I was in the privacy of the thick trees, I let go of holding her in; it hurt too much, so I just took a deep breath and let go.
I expected to shift; I was a quarter of the way there with furry arms, lengthened teeth, and a bulked-out chest, but then my wolf began to separate from my body, the fur pulling off of me as my wolf went transparent, like a ghost so that she wouldn’t tear my clothes, and then once she was out, she fully materialized.
What. The. Fuck?
How?
Why?
No!
“Demi!” Sage burst through the trees just as I slipped behind a giant boulder, crouching so that she and Walsh wouldn’t see me.
When she skipped to a stop before my wolf, I blinked and suddenly I was looking up at her from the view of my wolf.
Sage sighed in relief at the sight of my wolf. “You fucking scared me! I thought something was wrong. First full moon?”
My wolf nodded up and down and she grinned. Walsh burst into the bushes, gun drawn, and my wolf growled for a slight second until she realized who it was.
She trusted Walsh, and Sage too.
“It’s her first full moon. I’m gonna shift so we can run,” she told Walsh, and started to pull her top off.
His gaze flicked to her black bra for a millisecond before he nodded once and gave us his back. It was so weird to be in my human form hiding behind a rock but also feel myself as a wolf, looking at Sage as rust colored pelts of fur broke out on her skin. I could see from both realities and it made me feel a little insane. What if this wasn’t real and I was losing my mind?
Sage nipped at my tail, pulling me from my dark thoughts, and took off into the forest as my wolf bounded after her. The wind rushed through my fur as I jumped over damp earth and a fallen log. My paws pounded the mossy floor and tears lined my wolf’s eyes.
The feeling … it was…
‘I’m free,’ I thought. ‘I’m finally free.’
This was what my wolf had wanted all along. Every time one of those assholes at Delphi riled me up and poked my wolf, daring her to come out, this is what she wanted, to run free, no more cuffs, no more suppression; she could protect me when needed unlike that night with the vampires. It was weird to live with the guilt that you weren’t able to protect your own self during an attack. The night of my rape, I’d been so helpless without my wolf. Pinned down, beaten into submission, my wolf tried, but with the cuffs I was just human. No match for one vampire, never mind four.
This feeling, her being out and running with Sage like a real wolf … it was everything.
“I can hear your heartbeat, you know?” Walsh turned and faced the boulder I was hiding behind.
Fuck.
I froze, not even daring to breathe.
“Sawyer is my best friend. He told me about … your condition, so that I could better protect you.”
I slowly stood, and tentatively caught his gaze.
He took one look at me and shook his head. “I’m going to have to tell Sawyer what happened today.”
Unfortunately, I was not wearing my Snitches Get Stitches shirt, but I really wanted to say it.
“Come on? What am I, twelve? You gonna tell Daddy on me?” I crossed my arms and pinned him with a glare. I didn’t want Sawyer knowing I almost shifted in the library, not after our weird yet amazing kiss.
A slow grin pulled at his lips and I realized that he was pretty good looking when he wasn’t scowling. “I’m going to have to tell Sawyer you called him daddy too. He’ll like that.”
My eyes bugged. “Don’t you dare.”
He shrugged. “I have orders. Come on, let’s get you back to your dorm and I’ll have Sage bring your wolf there.”
“She doesn’t know?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Just me, Eugene, and Sawyer.”
Great.
Following him out of the tree line, I scanned the area with paranoia.
They know, they all know that I’m human and my wolf is out there with Sage…
Except no one spared us more than half a glance.
This is so weird.
I was walking with Walsh, but at the same time fully aware of chasing Sage to a creek and rolling around in the grassy moss. How far apart could we get? Hopefully far enough…
Walsh silently led me back to my dorm. When Meredith tried to engage in conversation with him as we passed the common area where she sat with her Barbie friends, he ignored her. Making it back to my dorm, I slipped inside while Walsh stood outside my door like a sentinel.
I sat on my bed, nervously drumming my fingers along the satin sheets. Being without my wolf felt … weird. I felt half empty, and I was due in my next class in like fifteen minutes.
‘Come back to my dorm. We need to get to class.’ I tried talking to myself which only increased the feeling that I was going crazy.
‘Coming,’ a voice huskier than mine but still mine answered back.
Holy shit. I ran my hands through my hair, trying not to think too much about it. Was I two people? How? Chewing off all my nails over the next three minutes, I jumped up a little when I heard Sage’s voice.
“She’s good I think, she’s just too shy to shift outside. I couldn’t find her clothes,” Sage said just outside the door.
“I got them. Torn to bits.” Walsh cleared his throat loudly and I slipped back into my bedroom, tossing off my clothes to find new ones. This was going to be a hard lie to keep. I knew he had opened the door and let my wolf in. I could see through my wolf, which I would never get used to. Then he closed the door as she padded down the hall and into the closet where I was. When I saw her, tongue lolled out of her mouth, tail wagging like a happy dog, tears sprang in my eyes.
“You liked that, huh?” I knelt down and she came to me, nuzzling my hand.
‘We need it. To be free,’ she told me, and I nodded.
We did.
“Well, Sawyer is coming to get us tonight to do it again with the whole pack.” I rubbed her behind the ear and she gave me a wolfish grin. I’d finished dressing and now stood.
“Come on, we gotta get to class.” I tapped my chest.
Jumping up onto her hind legs, she put her paws on my chest and went ghostly transparent as she melted into me. A slight painful zapping sensation crawled along my skin, but only for a second. It was getting less painful, but still weird as all hell.
“Demi? Ready?” Sage’s singsong voice called into the apartment.
I peeked out of my room and gave her a shy smile. “Ready.”
She grinned when she saw me. “Your wolf is fast. You’re going to give the boys a run for their money tonight.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
We stepped out into the hallway and she leaned into me. “Sawyer, Walsh, and Quan hold the record for fastest run in wolf form. It’s kind of an untold thing that every full moon run is actually a race.”
A race?
Okay, no pressure.
“Well, I don’t want to race anyone.” I laughed nervously.
“You should. Some of these boys need their egos knocked down a little. Including my cousin.”
I grinned. “Alright, see you tonight, then.”
She nodded and stepped back into line with Walsh behind me, back on guard duty.
Now that I’d shifted, I was feeling confident that Sawyer’s plan tonight would totally work. I would stay in my apartment while he took my wolf on a run with the pack. Maybe this freak creature that I was didn’t need to be a bad thing. Maybe I could have the best of both worlds…
