I shook my head, and my vision cleared up a bit. Gabriel and Talbot stood at either side of the bed, looking fuzzy in my vision—but almost like brothers—and also quite concerned. They weren’t the only ones in the room with us. Five teenage boys sat on the floor just beyond the foot of the bed. They bowed their heads almost to the ground when I looked at them.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Why did my ankle throb so badly and a knot in my back feel like it was on fire? Why were my dress ripped open and my abdomen wrapped in what looked like makeshift bandages torn from bedsheets?
“You gave us quite a scare there,” Talbot said. “We weren’t sure you were going to make it.” He took a step toward me, but suddenly, my pillow growled and Talbot took two paces back. “Whoa, easy there,” he said, with his hands up, as if afraid my pillow might bite him. I knew I wasn’t completely with it, but this whole situation seemed incredibly surreal.
“What happened?”
“You’d better get to work healing yourself. Your body can only do so much with wounds this bad without your help—especially with how much werewolf venom you’ve probably got in your system. We tried to use our own powers to help speed up your healing, but I’m afraid that kind of transfer only works on superficial injuries.”
I squinted at Talbot, noting the genuinely concerned look on his face. I didn’t understand him at all. He was evil, yet he wasn’t? And had he said something about being in love with me?
“He’s right, Grace.” Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed. Apparently, my pillow didn’t have a problem with that. “There will be time for explanations later. Right now we need to make sure you’re okay.” His arm was supported in a sling made of scraps from his monk’s robes.
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I lifted my arm. A bandage around it was soaked with reddish-brown sticky, congealing liquid. Blood. My blood. Then the fight with the wolves suddenly came back to me. “What happened? Where’s Caleb? Where’s Jude?” I scanned all the vaguely familiar faces in the room. “Where’s Daniel?” I practically shouted.
My pillow whined and pushed me up as it shifted. I turned, kneeling on the bed, and discovered the pillow was actually a white wolf. He whined with agitation, shaking his head back and forth. It almost seemed like he was trying to tell me something.
“Caleb got away,” Gabriel said.
“But you fought him?” I shook my head. “I thought you didn’t fight, no matter the cause.”
“Let’s just say someone inspired me. Showed me it was possible to fight for what’s important without losing yourself. You’re a very brave girl.” He patted his arm through its sling. “Not sure I’ll be doing anything like that again soon, though.”
I tried to smile at him, but I think it came across as a grimace.
Talbot cleared his throat. “Jude’s here.”
He pointed to the alcove where Caleb had been lurking the first time we’d been brought to this room. I blinked, and my eyes focused on Jude, who sat in a high-backed chair, staring at his empty hands.
“He says he wants to come home,” Gabriel said.
“Really?” Finally? A pressure I’d felt in my heart for the last ten months suddenly eased. “Jude, I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”
Jude shook his head and looked up at me. I was surprised at how blank his face appeared—even more stoic and stonelike than I’d ever seen him look before. His eyes weren’t rimmed with concern like those of everyone else who stared at me in this room. No, Jude’s eyes seemed completely empty.
Suddenly, the memory of Jude’s helping Caleb escape flashed in my mind. Then the sight of his falling to his knees in front of the angry wolf pack, begging to come home. Was that really what he wanted, or was it the only way he could think to get out of the situation alive?
That heavy pressure settled back in my chest. My brother sat here right in front of me—but it was like he wasn’t my brother at all.
But at least he’s coming home, I told myself. He’d been lost, but now he was found. And we’d figure out how to help him, whether he knew he wanted help or not.
“As for Daniel,” Gabriel said, grabbing my attention again, “he’s …” Gabriel indicated the large white wolf.
I stared into the beast’s eyes. Yes, those were Daniel’s eyes. The wolf started to rock back and forth, yipping and whining, growing more and more agitated. I didn’t sense any malice in him like any other newly turned werewolf, but he was definitely troubled. I petted his back, trying to calm him.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How long has it been? How long was I out?”
“A long time.”
I glanced back at the teens at the foot of the bed. They’d shifted to their knees, their heads still bowed in what seemed like reverence.
“I don’t get it. Are these the wolves … the boys … who bowed to Daniel and then turned on Caleb? Why would they do that? I thought they wanted to kill me.”
“Daniel is their alpha now,” Gabriel said. “Although their devotion to him is greater than I’ve usually seen. It must be his true alpha nature. He saved you by exerting his dominance over them—choosing to embrace his true alpha essence—and, in turn, became their new leader.”
But why were they all changed back to human form, and not Daniel?
“I don’t get it,” I said, growing as frantic as the white wolf. “Why hasn’t he changed back? Why hasn’t Daniel changed back into a human?”
The white wolf yelped and shook his large head. I wrapped my arms around his neck. My blood had matted in his white fur. I leaned my head against his chest. I could hear only one heart beating—not two, like when he’d been a werewolf before. Did his true alpha-ness do something to him?
“What the hell is going on?” I asked Daniel.
“I think …,” said Gabriel. “I think he’s stuck.”
“No,” I said, clinging to the white wolf’s neck. “No, that can’t be.”
The wolf arched his head back and let out the most mournful howl I’d ever heard. It sounded almost like a scream.
So many people deserve my immense gratitude for helping make this book a reality—and for keeping me from losing it during the process:
You, my awesome readers, because without your enthusiasm this book wouldn’t have had a chance to exist. Thank you for all the love.
The agents at Upstart Crow Literary, namely Ted Malawer and Michael Stearns. Thank you for believing in me and helping to share my books with the world.
The amazing folks at Egmont USA. I am often surprised by how many people think I’m responsible for everything that goes into creating my books, from the cover design, the editing, and even all the way down to the choice of the typeface. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I write the stories, but an entire team helps turn those stories into books: Doug Pocock, Elizabeth Law, Mary Albi, Regina Griffin, Nico Medina, Robert Guzman, Alison Weiss, Katie Halata. And especially my intrepid editor Greg Ferguson, who not only puts up with, but embraces, my crazy antics and the
“Jimmy Olsen” nickname I’ve inflicted upon him. And who also isn’t afraid to push me until things are as great as they can be—or to whip out his super-editor cape and come to the rescue of a hopelessly stranded author on the streets of NYC. This one’s for you, Greg: Spunkgate! (Yep, I just worked that reference into a book.)
JDRIFT DESIGN, I didn’t know it was possible to create a cover even more beautiful than the one for The Dark Divine. Wow, just, wow.
My enthusiastic publicist, Virginia Anagnos.
Noreen Gibbons, for never failing to offer help—even when it’s completely inconvenient to her.
