Chapter Twenty Two

  Lycanthropy aside, I’d be lying if I said the whole transforming into animals thing wasn’t at least a little cool

  And who of us hadn’t daydreamed about having magic powers at some point as a kid?

  I’d read .

  I was a fan. I'd spent an inordinate amount of time imagining what kind

  of Animagus I’d be, what my Patronus would look like. I'd always

  imagined myself as something more feline, like a tiger or a mountain

  lion.

  But one of my classmates suggested I was more of a Pallas Cat, and my other classmates all agreed.

  Something about the way I sat, and the fact I always looked angry—a case of childhood RBF.

  That

  said, being a hulking wolf was not at the top of the list. And while I

  liked Remus Lupin's character, he hadn't been my favorite (and David

  Thewlis was no Matthew Lewis).

  In

  those daydreams, when you were an animal, you always had full control

  over your shape—shifting at will, slipping in and out of your animal

  form without it disrupting your day-to-day life.

  All the pros, none of the cons.

  But

  lycanthropy didn't work like that. This wasn’t some fun little

  superpower. It was like being one of those comic book heroes who had to

  walk a fine line—balancing control over their power with the constant

  risk of being controlled by it.

  Or, in this case, going to jail because the wolf didn't understand the first thing about human decency.

  The good old monkey’s paw trade-off.

  The burden of power.

  Except I wasn’t a superhero with some arbitrary childhood trauma that gave me an iron will.

  Just

  an average Jane, trying—and failing—to live a normal life and achieve

  financial stability. And lycanthropy was just adding fuel to the fire.

  Still,

  progress was progress. Now that I could make myself bipedal at will,

  I’d at least be able to keep my clothes on. If only I’d figured that out

  before abandoning my second-to-last set.

  The

  logging trail thinned as night began to fall, shadows deepening in the

  forest. I had only a handful of minutes left, but I was almost home.

  Just a short stretch of trees between me and the train tracks. And just

  across those—Sandy’s property.

  If the wolf just stayed asleep, I’d be—

  There was a shift. A nudge in the back of my mind.

  The wolf stirred. Sluggish. Like she’d sensed my unease but wasn’t ready to wake. Instead, she rolled over, hitting snooze.

  But that was enough to set my nerves on edge.

  I tensed. That had been too close. I broke into a sprint—not to outrun anything physical but to stay ahead of the thing inside me. If she woke up fully, she’d know what I was planning.

  And then she’d fight me.

  . Just had to get home. Just keep moving.

  But

  not panicking was a paradox in and of itself. My pulse had spiked. I

  forced my breathing steady, knowing the wolf could taste the adrenaline

  on my tongue.

  The trees broke open onto the CSX line, the scent of steel and creosote burning into my nostrils.

  But despite my best efforts, urgency sent up a flare in my mind.

  When the wolf finally awoke, it was not from the moon.

  It was from me

  At

  first, she was lethargic, and slow to rise. She sensed my distress, but

  didn't understand it. Then the moon fed her strength, and awareness

  settled in.

  Her focus shifted outwards—scanning for threats and finding none. Then she shifted inwards

  To

  She knew something was happening. She just didn’t know what. Not yet.

  So, she started to search.

  I

  felt her pushing forward, nosing through my mind like a hound through

  underbrush. Slow, methodical. She sifted through my recent thoughts,

  piecing things together, clicking memories into place—

  Then she bristled.

  She’d figured it out. What I was trying to do to her. To the both of us.

  But now she was confused

  Last night, I’d called for her. I’d wanted her help. We’d even come to an understanding… of sorts.

  And just today, we’d worked together—took down a giant snake, shared a meal.

  Yet here I was, resisting her. Resenting her.

  She could feel it—my anxiety, my fear, my certainty that there would be no understanding between us tonight.

  The

  wolf pushed deeper. I couldn’t block her out. I barely even knew if I

  could hide my thoughts from her—from this part of myself. So, I kept my

  focus on running, as I couldn’t do both. She was catching up fast,

  skimming my mind, a hound in pursuit, flipping through memories from the

  moment she was last woken till now. Reliving the moments of my time

  searching from Boden, of the things I'd discovered.

  And then—she found what she was looking for.

  She knew what I knew.

  A

  thread pulled taut between us as she pieced it together—the cologned

  man, the dead dogs, the strange, foul scent that had lingered on them.

  Not just death. Not just rot.

  Though calling it a scent wasn’t quite right. It came to me like a smell—that was how my mind interpreted it—the scent of magic.

  A side effect of my heightened senses perhaps.

  I’d

  first noticed it on Sandy’s animals. Not all of them, but most of them:

  Coy, Cassie, Camellia, Boden, Monty, and so many others. Nevermore’s

  scent had been particularly strange. But at the time, I hadn’t been able

  to make sense of it.

  Not until Maggie and Coy had shared their senses with me.

  Maggie,

  sharp as her nose was, hadn’t been able to pick up on this smell.

  Because she wasn’t like the other dogs. Dogs like Boden or Coy. I knew

  that now. Knew that she was just a normal dog—a smart, well-trained dog,

  but still normal, without any magic.

  She couldn’t detect traces of magic, nor did she bear any of her own.

  But Coy could And he reeked of it.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  With

  them helping me together, I’d eventually figured out what it was that I

  was detecting. That I could sense the presence of magic.

  And I’d promptly ignored it.

  I’ve

  said it before—I wasn’t a hero. Nor was I a witch. I was an accountant

  for god's sake. One who had no business wading into whatever

  supernatural bullshit the cologned man had gotten himself tangled in.

  Magic, as far as I was concerned, was nothing but bad news.

  And the magic clinging to those dead dogs had been particularly foul

  But

  as the wolf sifted through the evidence, she came to a conclusion of

  her own. Her own predatory instincts allowed her to see things I could

  not.

  The cologned man was on a hunt.

  He’d been tracking someone—or something—across the city. Each depot had been a place where his quarry had been.

  But whatever he was hunting had struck back at him. Through the missing dogs.

  And Boden—happy-go-lucky, too sweet for his own good—had gotten himself caught in the middle.

  The wolf understood this. Understood why I didn't want to get involved.

  She just didn’t care.

  Dangers? Threats? They barely even registered.

  The only thing that mattered was her pack.

  Why

  should she—a wolf—cower from a pack of domesticated dogs, possessed or

  not? She would bring them to a swift end, hunt down the one who had

  cursed them, and be done with it.

  Then, she would find Boden.

  And she would bring him home.

  By force, if that’s what it took.

  And it didn’t matter that she’d only known Boden for barely a day. Or any of the other dogs for that matter.

  They were hers now.

  She had found a home, a forest, a pack to call her own, and she would be damned if she'd abandon them so easily.

  Or let this other self of hers stop her.

  The wolf snapped her focus to me. No anger. No betrayal. Just cold certainty. And an unbridled ferocity

  A pause. A shift, as if settling—readying for the strike.

  Then, a single thought, relayed with perfect clarity:

  Then she attacked.

  I stumbled into Sandy’s yard, half-tripping over my own feet as the wolf lunged—teeth sinking into my mind.

  She wasn’t subtle. She wasn’t careful.

  She wasn’t holding back.

  Pain erupted behind my eyes—white-hot, searing, real

  even though it wasn’t. My body spasmed. I staggered. I nearly went

  down. It didn’t matter that the wolf understood my reasoning. It didn’t

  matter that she wasn’t truly angry.

  She was still going to rip control away from me, and she wasn’t going to be gentle about it.

  And she had the advantage.

  Because she didn’t need to win.

  She only needed to stall me.

  Night

  had already fallen, and my grip on the wheel was slipping. She just had

  to wait—wait for my control to naturally erode and shove me back into

  our subconscious. Or, if I wanted to maintain some semblance of

  awareness, I could willingly concede and relegate myself to the

  passenger seat.

  Either way, she’d force my hand.

  I couldn’t move.

  It was like trying to drive while fending off an attacking dog.

  We were on the set of but instead of Donna Trenton, I’d been given the role of Sheriff Bannerman.

  The wolf was making me her chew toy, and I was running out of time.

  I commanded.

  She hesitated. Paused

  But it had only lasted a moment before the teeth returned.

  She

  knew I was smarter than her. More capable than her. But that didn’t

  matter. Not if she was more relentless than me. There would be no

  reasoning with her. No deception. No truce.

  She was a force of nature—inevitable. Unstoppable.

  If I wanted control, I’d have to fight her tooth and nail for it.

  I just needed an opening. A single moment to throw her off—to dig in, to turn her own tactics against her.

  Then again… I was still in control.

  For

  all her howling and thrashing, it was still just in my head. She was

  fighting me because I was still holding the reins. Night hadn't fallen

  just yet.

  And hell, I’d had hangovers that hurt worse than this.

  Well.

  While we were in the habit of sharing our thoughts, maybe she’d like to

  experience the worst headache I’d ever had—some self-inflicted brain

  freeze straight from the pits of hell.

  Sure, it would suck for me.

  But you know what they say—misery loves company.

  And I had a lot of experience to draw upon.

  The wolf reeled

  The sudden, overwhelming stimulus flooded our shared senses.

  I

  was no stranger to brain pain—it was the price of being human,

  especially one born to a family with a history of migraines. And

  alcoholism.

  And my initials weren't for nothing.

  But for the wolf?

  This was new.

  One moment, she was tearing into me with full force—

  And the next?

  Wolf.exe had gone offline.

  And I didn’t waste that second.

  I got to my feet and ran, vaulting the fence into Sandy's backyard.

  The

  wolf snapped back, lashing through my mind with a fresh burst of pain

  that made my knees buckle. But it lacked the same brutal precision as

  before—she was hesitant, unsure. Still discombobulated.

  She

  hadn't fully recovered from the headache I'd given her, but she was

  recovering fast, and I doubted she’d fall for the same trick twice.

  I gritted my teeth, locked my focus on the barn, and kept moving, even as she lashed out again.

  In a battle of sheer willpower and instinct, I would lose But why fight the wolf if I could just ignore her?

  All I needed was to reach the barn.

  The

  wolf could bite, claw, howl—but she was still only in my head. And as

  painful as she was making the process, I could keep her there, for just

  long enough.

  Pain

  lanced through my skull, sharp and blinding. My vision turned to

  static—like the auras that preceded a migraine, but worse. Mine usually

  made it hard to read black-and-white text.

  Hers left me nearly blind.

  Still, I found the door—a little human trick called spatial memory.

  I fumbled for the handle, claws scraping into the wood. The door opened inward, and I tumbled inside.

  The

  wolf howled—long and sharp, rattling through my skull like a bad case

  of tinnitus. She sank her teeth in one last time, desperate, furious,

  trying to drag me under.

  I had one last burst of fight left in me.

  I lurched to my feet, slamming the door shut with my shoulder, then I seized the handle with both hands—leveraged my weight—

  —and ripped it clean off.

  Nothing like a little property damage to end the day.

  The wolf went still

  No sulking, no seething, no last-ditch effort to push back.

  She simply stopped

  She understood that I’d won

  I

  slumped in the dark, breath coming fast, nerves still burning with the

  phantom ache of claws and teeth that had torn through my mind. The

  wolf’s howls still ringing in my ears, made deafening by the barn’s

  silence.

  I inhaled. Exhaled. Slowly, deliberately. The air smelled of old hay, dirt, and treated wood—a neutral, calming ambience .

  A

  sharp-edged laugh rasped out of me, half relief, half disbelief. I

  leaned forward, fumbling in the dark, my vision still flickering with

  static. My hands and snout traced over the floor until—

  My nose bumped cool metal. The handle.

  I

  picked it up, turning it over in my fingers. The spindle—the part that

  retracted the latch—had sheared clean off. Even if the wolf sprouted

  opposable thumbs of her own, and figured out how to fix the damn thing,

  it wouldn’t matter.

  The door wasn’t opening from the inside.

  Something

  small and spindly shifted at the nape of my neck, crawling toward the

  top of my head. I set down the handle and reached up, cupping Elmo in my

  hands.

  “Well, damn,” I muttered, holding him up. “You actually held on.”

  Elmo

  held onto my hands, cupping it like a glove. A huge, fuzzy red glove.

  Or, perhaps more like a mitten. With my other hand, I stroked his back,

  and he leaned into my touch.

  Almost cat-like—if you ignored the eight legs, four pairs of beady black eyes, and the mandibles sprouting inch long fangs.

  Still, JT had been right—this little guy was starting to grow on me.

  “Well,” I sighed, “looks like you’re spending the night with me, little guy.”

  At the edge of my thoughts, the wolf stirred. Not pushing. Just watching Her awareness brushed against mine—distant, indifferent.

  I sent her a firm thought.

  Her response: an offended huff, like I’d just accused her of chewing on drywall. Or something equally distasteful.

  I slid my bag from around my neck and let Elmo climb back atop my head, then leaned against the barn wall.

  The fight was over. The barn was secure.

  My

  gun—the one Carl had stolen the night before—was here with me now. So

  even if he got out, his capacity to rampage was minimal.

  There was nothing left to do but wait. And let go.

  Night had fallen. The wolf could take control whenever it wanted. Do whatever she wanted.

  All except leave

  In my mind, I sank into the backseat, relinquishing the reins.

  I told the wolf.

  The wolf hesitated—reluctant, almost annoyed by the task set before her—but subsumed control all the same.

  Our

  body shifted. Bones folded in on themselves, reshaping with eerie

  fluidity. No resistance, no hesitation. Just an effortless flow—like a

  river returning to its bed.

  It was strange, experiencing the change from the inside

  Being a passenger while something other than myself reshaped my body to

  its will. I was aware of everything—the cool press of the dirt floor,

  the stretch of lean muscle, the flick of ears attuned to every tiny

  sound. The wolf’s breath came steady and deep, pulling in the scents of

  straw, wood, damp earth.

  Shifting always felt clunky and painful when I forced it—like I had to break and bend myself into something I wasn’t.

  But the wolf?

  She just... became

  It

  was no wonder she’d refused to be present earlier, when I’d tried to

  shift back after my tangle with Monty. She would’ve had to suffer

  through my graceless attempt to transform right alongside me.

  The wolf moved.

  Prowling

  the barn, she investigated every corner, every crevice. She pushed at

  the shutters, scratched and gnawed at the doorframe, searching for

  something—anything—she could use. Any weakness she could exploit.

  She

  tried digging, but beneath the straw, the ground was compacted, too

  dense to burrow through easily. An endeavor that would take her all

  night.

  Bracing

  herself, she lunged at the side door, slamming into it with her full

  weight. The impact rattled the hinges, but the wood held firm. From this

  side, she wouldn’t just have to break the latch, but the whole frame.

  She tried the double doors.

  They didn’t so much as rattle.

  I felt the moment she realized the truth—coming to the same conclusion I had the day before.

  There was no breaking out of here by force.

  Whatever Sandy had built this barn for, it was meant to hold in something bigger than a wolf.

  She

  hesitated. And for the first time, I sensed something shift in her

  thoughts—a slow, begrudging transition from instinct to something more

  deliberate. More calculating

  She once again turned inward towards me

  It wasn’t a question. Not at first. Just an understanding we both now shared:

  She couldn’t break her way out.

  Not alone.

  The

  kind of strength we’d had with Monty—the raw, undeniable force that let

  us wrestle a Jurassic-sized python into submission—hadn’t just been her That had been us

  Working together.

  She sent the thought toward me. Probing. Questioning.

  I smirked, mentally, of course.