They don’t explain further even though there’s a hell of a lot of difference between a propellant bite and a mate claim bite. Maybe they think it’s too much for Noah to handle. Maybe it is.
Noah stares at the cup in her hands and shakes her head as though she wants to argue, to disagree, to cling to human reality instead of accepting this strange new world. Who could blame her?
The seconds tick by with painful slowness.
Each moment makes me more certain she’s powerful. She’s holding off her shift and resisting what I’m certain are mental commands from Ellery and Alpha Morgan to drink the potion in her hand. Plus, I’ve never heard of a wolf recovering this quickly from a bite, whether it came from a mate claim Hunt or not. It took me eight days to recover from mine. Whatever bloodline she has, it must be strong.
I’m about to mindspeak that tidbit to Alpha Morgan when the door behind me opens right into my tail.
Dammit!
The smack makes a sting crawl all the way up my spine as I scurry to one side to make space for the newcomer.
I notice Noah sliding farther behind Ellery, using his body as a physical shield to avoid me. She doesn’t trust me, but clearly—on some level—she trusts him.
A bitter feeling crashes into me, the kind I thought I’d set aside a long time ago. Jealousy makes my lip curl and reveal a fang, though as soon as I realize what I’m doing, I tamp down on the instinctive wolf response. I don’t want to scare Noah any further. But screw Ellery for making me the monster in her eyes.
Fuck. I need to leave.
She’s scared and I can tell I’m only making it worse.
Fife pokes his head in and looks at Ellery. “Sheriff, the rest of your den is blowing up our phones.”
“On it,” I mindspeak to Ellery before he can say anything. It’s the perfect excuse to get the hell out of here.
I turn and nose past Fife, who steps aside to let me out. The scents of the hallway come flooding in, a million different little strings of scent that pull at my wolf senses. But all I really smell is relief.
I don’t want to be in there.
I don’t want to see what happens next.
I know exactly what Noah is going to do—tell them all to go to hell—and I don’t need to witness it.
Stepping out into the hall, I weigh my options. I could shift back to my skin. There’s a locker room on the other side of the precinct where I grabbed a T-shirt and jeans when I first got here. There are always extra uniforms and back-up clothes available, but I don’t head there. I don’t want to have to put on a calm face and fake smile at Ellery’s deputies as I pass. And Bucky would try to talk my ear off. The urge to punch him might be too strong to resist.
So, instead, I run down the hallway, skirting around people. I bolt past Karen’s office and the sharp scent of nail polish. The break room smells like a microwaved lunch and regret.
And damn if I don’t have some fucking regrets right now too.
My nails scrape against the polished cement floor, clicking as I speed toward the massive flap cut into the door at the end of the hall for deputies who return to work in shifted form. I crash through it.
The breeze outside slaps against my fur, ruffling it, clearing away all the muddled scents from indoors and quelling some of the jumbled feelings in my gut. I smell the electric buzz of an incoming storm in the air, the refreshing scent of the clouds building up their arsenal of water droplets, crisp grass, the whiff of clay from the earth.
I start to run.
All my worries and fears stream out behind me and fall away as I put on a burst of speed. I get into a rhythm, where the tightening of my muscles is the only thing I concentrate on. I avoid people and head deeper into the forest, letting the run wipe away my confusion and concerns. The faster I go, the deeper into the woods, the better I feel. But I should’ve known where I’d end up.
I stand on the patio in front of our double front door, panting as I stare at it, my heart pounding a steady rhythm in my chest from my long hard run. Giving myself a moment to catch my breath, I take in the massive, modern cabin.
The doors before me are twice as tall as normal doors and covered in raised rectangular wooden panels. I lift my paw and press the panel near the base. It slides over and a camera lens appears, scanning my face. Thank fuck facial recognition software can be programmed to work on wolves. I stand perfectly still and seconds later, I hear the slide of the bolt and the snick of the latch as the lock disengages. I use my forehead to nudge it open and walk inside.
All the smells of home accost me as I make my way up to my room. I would normally find the combined scents of my denmates and the things we love to do inside the walls of our space comforting, almost like an embrace every time I walk through the door. The kitchen always has some lingering scent from Ruger’s concoctions. Perth’s plants under the living room windows and in the dining room always smell like a friendly hello. Ellery is always tracking in different scents from the cars and toys he tinkers with in the garage. Those are the smells of home. The smells of my den.
On another day, I’d enjoy them. Today, everything feels suffocating. It’s all gone wrong so fast. and I’m reeling, trying to determine what this means for us.
After I bound up the stairs and through my doorway, I pass the hunter green comforter on my bed, noting that some of my dresser drawers are haphazardly cracked open, a pair of sweatpants spilling halfway out of one. My nose twitches, not liking things to be out of order, but I realize quickly what happened. Noah had on my favorite pair of sweats.
Well, this is just great. I’ll probably never see those again.
My eyes close for a second against that painful reality and open again, staring at the dresser my denmates felt comfortable enough to rifle through.
We’re so fucked. Losing Noah is going to destroy everything. And we are going to lose her. The ice-cold fear and revulsion in her eyes told me everything I need to know.
Shifting back into my skin, I try not to think about how Noah’s face would look if she were here to watch the transformation from monster to man. I try to clear away the scent of her anxiety, the tang of which still burns my nose, as I head for my shower. I need to scrub her alarm and torment from my skin, banish the despair that flooded her gaze from my mind.
I’m halfway through my shower when Perth and Ruger push through the door.
Shit. I forgot I was supposed to update them.
Perth’s freckled fist pounds on the glass shower door, and I don’t react other than to roll my eyes at the redhead as I continue soaping up my legs.
Perth pays absolutely zero mind to his invasion of my privacy as he yanks open the door and rubs his beard in a distressed manner while he asks, “What the hell’s going on? I thought you were meeting Ellery? Is Noah okay?” Though he’s asking questions, they come out as barked demands as I step under the spray and wash soap from my hair and body.
“What’s going on is our mate is a naif. She has no fucking clue about shifters or eeries or anything.”
“Yeah, we kind of gathered that,” Ruger snarks, and I shoot him a glare.
“She tried to shift but couldn’t,” I tell them, and I watch their frustration bleed into dismay. “She has a magical block on her somehow. Which means there’s more going on than any of us knows. But none of that probably matters because Noah is freaked the fuck out and she’s going to bolt the first chance she gets.”