“Okay, I’ll come and sit with you,” Nico said.
“No.” I put a hand on his chest and kissed his cheek. “It’s fine, really. You go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He didn’t protest. Once he was in bed, I took my tea and went downstairs. As I walked down, I tried again to communicate with my wolf.
“You can’t try to come out in the middle of the night,” I whispered. “It freaked me out.”
That was a bit of a lie. Yes, it had freaked me out, but would it have been any different in the daytime? I didn’t think it would have been. I really was terrified of shifting the first time. Panic would have set in no matter where my wolf had tried to come out. I had no idea how to get beyond the fear of shifting. My wolf didn’t like that line of thought.
After sitting on the couch for a few hours, I finally managed to sleep for a few hours, curled up on the cushions. I woke to Nico heading out the door. I’m sure he hadn’t wanted to wake me. He’d done his best to close the front door quietly, but my new senses were much more sensitive. I rubbed my eyes and felt the strange, heavy exhaustion that came from sleeping but not sleeping enough. Like your body knew it had been screwed out of something and was gonna make you pay for it the moment you started moving.
I got dressed and grabbed a book. Nico had scheduled Javi’s guys to come over again for another training session. I didn’t know if this one would be an all-day affair like the last one, but I wanted to be prepared. My wolf stirred as I headed to the field. She was pissed at me. I couldn’t blame her. If the tables were turned, and I was stuck inside her and couldn’t get out, I was pretty sure I’d be angry as hell.
I continued my internal monologue with her as we walked, but I wasn’t sure it was getting through. I found my usual spot beneath a tree and read a few chapters before glancing up to watch the training.
It looked like Nico was working on defensive maneuvers. They were broken up into multiple smaller groups. Nico had one person trying to defend themselves against everyone else in the small groups. It was scary watching one lone shifter try to fend off three or four others. None of them were doing well and kept getting overrun. Was this how it would be when the fight with the royals finally happened? Would we be swarmed and destroyed?
Nico must have seen the same thing I did. He called for a pause and gathered everyone into a circle. “Okay,” he called. “Let’s get a better understanding. Javi, come here.” Nico waved to the leader of the other shifters, and he strolled into the circle. “I’m going to have Javi come for me. Most shifters think like a wolf when we go into battle. We go for the throat, the inner thighs, the balls. All the soft spots. That’s what you have to defend. Watch.” He motioned toward Javi. “Come at me.”
Javi shifted and circled Nico before lunging toward him. He snapped at Nico’s throat, but he was able to lunge to the side and made a motion with his hand toward Javi’s stomach. He straightened and pointed. “See? Be ready for the attack, know where they are going to go, and be prepared to counterattack. If I’d had a knife in my hand, I could have laid Javi’s guts open. We’ll do it a few more times so you can see what I mean.”
I watched as Javi and Nico sparred, going back and forth, shifting to wolf form and then back again. It was all pretend, nothing but a training session, but anger welled up inside me. The sight of someone attacking my mate made my wolf go crazy. She was gnashing her teeth and pacing inside my mind. I tried to ignore her and watch what was going on.
Javi circled Nico and managed to get inside his defenses, striking against Nico’s ribs. It was only at half-strength, and Nico didn’t even flinch. It was harmless, but my wolf couldn’t stand it. I blinked, and there was a blur, like looking out a window of a speeding car. There was rage too, a red, seething bubble of anger and indignation. It all happened so fast that I couldn’t process what was happening.
When my vision coalesced again, I was standing in the circle. There were screams and shouts of alarm and surprise all around me. I kept blinking, glancing around, and seeing all the looks of confusion and fear in everyone’s eyes. I looked over at Nico. “What… what happened?”
Nico held a hand up and looked wary. “Maddy? Can you put your… your hand, er, claw down?”
“What?” I turned to look at my hand. I froze. My entire right hand had morphed into the clawed hand of a werewolf. The longest claw was pressed right against Javi’s throat. A single drop of blood slid down toward his collarbone from where the skin had barely been pierced. “Oh shit,” I hissed.
“Yeah. That’s… well, that’s not good,” Javi said but didn’t sound terribly worried. “If I’m honest, I’d rather it be my neck than my nuts.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t… I didn’t realize-” I couldn’t figure out how I’d even gotten into this situation.
“Cool, cool, cool. Could you maybe put that thing away?” Javi asked.
I realized my claw was still at his throat. Pulling it away, the flesh immediately returned to human skin. My nails were mine again, no longer wickedly long. “I’m so sorry,” I said to Javi.
Javi raised his hands. “No big.” He smiled. “You did know we were only practicing, right?”
I slunk off in mortified embarrassment. Nico called my name, then ordered Luis to take over the training session. I tried to walk faster when I heard his footsteps behind me but gave up once we were back at the tree. I turned to face him; the skin of my cheeks must have been blood red. Heat was radiating off my face.
“I’m sorry, Nico.”
“Hey, it’s fine. Javi’s cool. No harm, no foul.”
I rolled my eyes. “I almost killed him, for God’s sake.”
“It’s all good. Everyone was a little… surprised, I guess.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, anger lacing every word. “I couldn’t control it. It came out of nowhere, and I didn’t even realize I was doing it until it was too late. It’s all my wolf. She got pissed that he was attacking you and took over.”
Nico put his hands on my shoulders. “Big deep breath. Calm down, Maddy.”
I tried slinging his hands away but only managed to flop my own arms around ineffectually. Tears started pouring across my cheeks. “I feel like I’m losing control. My wolf doesn’t understand my fear and hesitation. I’m having to deal with my own shit and all this crap going on in my head with this wolf. I’m worried I’m going to go crazy before I can get it under control.”
I was out of breath by the time I was done venting. Nico stood there, letting me finish my freak out. My body was exhausted, and I knew that each day would only get worse. Everything that had happened since I bought that damned DNA test had been a living hell-everything except Nico. It still made me wish I’d never bought the stupid fucking thing.
“Come with me,” Nico said.
“Where? The freaking psych ward?”
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