“Make it stop,” Eva begged. “Please, make it stop.”
“Evaline!” John fell to his knees, took her head in his hands. “Baby, you need to stop fighting it.”
“I can’t,” she sobbed, crying out as another bone snapped and reshaped. “I can’t!”
“Eva,” John growled, his tone rumbling across her skin and commanding parts of Eva she didn’t yet know. “This is who you are now. Give in. Let the wolf out.”
“I’m scared,” Eva whimpered as her fight began to fade.
He rubbed at her tears, caressed her skin. “Do you trust me?”
She met his yellow wolf gaze, and despite her fear, despite the agony ripping her body apart and the wolf taking over all that she was, she knew in her heart her answer would always be yes.
“Yes,” she breathed as the pain faded and morphed into something beyond pleasure, beyond anything her human mind could ever grasp.
Eva let go.
Giving herself over to the wolf, Eva shifted, her world becoming far simpler and greater than she could ever have imagined. Fear did not exist inside the mind of a wolf. Eva was free for the first time in her life.
“Run, baby,” John whispered, the smile on his face wide. “Run.”
Taking off, it took Eva a moment to get the hang of her legs. They stumbled beneath her, wobbling as if she was a newborn standing for the first time, and then she was flying. Trees blurred by, the wind cutting through her fur as the crisp winter filled her lungs and carried her to places she’d never be able to go on two feet.
The freedom, the power, the utter joy of it all… it was a gift beyond imagination. And as John raced past her, nipping playfully as he did, she let it all burst from her chest in a howl that carried on the breeze, her melody joined seconds after by John’s, and in the distance, the sound carried on. Wolf after wolf, Dark Shadow and River Run… the song of two packs becoming one.
Chapter 63
Katalina
It was nice to be able to walk freely from River Run to Dark Shadow without a guard, yet the feeling didn’t quite sit right on her chest. Katalina was struggling to shake the gloom that had followed her from seeing her family, to the bedside of her friend. Cage hadn’t woken since he’d been rushed from the battleground, nearing death. He’d slipped into a coma the day after and seemed to be slowly fading from this life before their eyes. But Anna refused to believe her mate wasn’t coming back to her.
Katalina wished she had the woman’s faith and hoped Anna’s wasn’t in vain. Too many had been lost, and Katalina wasn’t sure she could take another, and neither could River Run. The pack had lost William—Jackson’s second. Add Holly and Avery to the list, and it left River Run with a big hole in their hierarchy. Not to mention the fact Mia was out of action for the foreseeable future, regrowing the bottom half of her leg. If she’d have been human, she’d have lost the limb, but the shifter gene was slowly but surely regrowing muscle and cartilage. Something Mia had told Katalina “hurt like a bitch.” Katalina didn’t think the bedrest was helping Mia’s mindset either, but the main thing was that Mia would survive, and for that, Katalina would always be grateful.
Her relationship with the remainder of her human family wasn’t as hopeful though. Her gran was trying, despite Katalina not being able to ignore the stench of fear coming from her grandmother every time she visited. It was her uncle she worried the most about though—a man who’d not taken to his new life as well as Eva had. His first shift had left his room in shreds, destroyed furniture, smashed objects, and torn bedding, and her aunt’s psyche hadn’t fared much better. Katalina’s cousin, Dillon, had taken to pack life far better, wowed by the wonder of children being able to turn into wolves and declaring Katalina was actually a real-life superhero.
It would take time, she knew. Not everyone took the news of her existence in their stride, and the fact they’d been kidnapped by a mad man and dragged into a war hadn’t helped. Bass assured her that her uncle would be fine once he let go of his anger, something he’d employed Zackary to help with.
All in all, it was a mess Katalina had chosen to take a step back from. She had enough on her mind without adding her family’s anger and fear into the mix and could only hope in time they’d see her as the person she’d always been, and all become family again.
Crossing the stream, she lifted a hand in greeting as she walked by Regan and Tyler’s home. The pair were on their deck, having a well-earned rest. Others, too, were beginning to unwind, enjoying the newfound freedom being on red alert for months had taken away from them, yet the gloom hovered over all of them. Heartache a fire in many hearts.
Her own burned fiercely, leaving her nothing but ash at times. Coming to a stop, Katalina struggled to draw breath past the overwhelming pressure in her chest.
“Hey, boy,” she murmured, dropping to her knees before Arne’s grave.
Someone had left a stuffed bear propped against the simple wooden cross they’d put at the head of where her dog had been buried. Picking it up, she hugged the toy to her chest, inhaling the scent of Toby as she did.
Smiling through her tears, Katalina put the bear back. “You’re a popular boy,” she whispered. He’d been more than just
