Page 51 of Savage Crown
“Oh, thank the Creator,” Kaelric gasped as he stared at me wide-eyed and then pulled me into his arms.
I winced, pain along my back and arms flaring to life as he loosened his hold. Heat radiated from every bite mark, throbbing like coals beneath my skin.
I looked down at my arms to see crusted bite marks, dried blood, and?—
“I died,” I said aloud, remembering my dream or whatever it was with the Creator.
‘Val?’I called out to her.
‘I’m here, dear.’
‘I met the Creator,’I told her.
‘Lucky you. Not many come back from a meeting with him. I’m glad you’re okay.’
I reached out to look at my wounds and gasped.
The crusted and bleeding wounds on my arms and legs were… healing, knitting right before my eyes, skin crawling and tugging as it reshaped itself. I felt something strange in my body, like my body was a suit, an itchy suit I wanted to take off. My bones felt too tight, like my skin no longer fit quite right.
‘I feel weird,’I told Val, panicked.
The words trembled in my mind. My skin prickled as if a thousand ants ran beneath it, and a restless heat built in my spine.
‘Don’t panic,’Kaelric spoke into my mind.‘You’re wolfkin now. I can smell it. You’re feeling the separation between your wolf and your body?—
“What!” I leaped to my feet on the bed, hyperventilating. The mattress squeaked under me as if startled, too.
Kaelric put his hands out to calm me. “Don’t. Panic. It makes your first shift worse. You’ve already been through a lot.”
Shift?I didn’t want to shift. I hadn’t thought that far when I decided to do this. My heart thrashed at my ribs, too big for my human chest.
‘Calm, child. It’s okay. I can feel the strength of your new form. It’s a much better vessel for my power.’
Val’s voice curled through me like warm smoke, but she sounded farther away.
“I don’t need to shift. I can stay like this forever,” I told Kaelric, eyes wide as I felt the strongest urge to shed my skin. It wasn’t just discomfort, it was instinct, something ancient pressing from beneath my bones, demanding release.
“My love… trust me. You need to calm down or?—”
I fell onto the bed on all fours as pain opened up across my back. The force of it knocked the breath from me. Kaelric dropped down beside me, holding my gaze with his orange eyes. I clung to that molten color like it was a lifeline.
‘Brynn, focus on me. Breathe deep.’
His voice was a command deep in my bones, that alpha pull wrapping around me like invisible arms.
I held that orange gaze as I drew slow, deep breaths, even though every inhale scraped like broken glass. The pain reached fever pitch. Heat rushed down my arms, crawling beneath my skin until my fingers curled like claws. When I saw black fur flicker along my arms, I screamed. When the scream ripped too deep, roughening and reshaping, it turned into a howl, startling me enough that I tried to scream again, which only forced another howl from my throat, my voice dissolving into something wild and raw.
Only when Kaelric placed a firm hand on the back of my wolf’s neck did I freeze.
‘Mine.’
The single word pulsed through me, ancient and overpowering, drenched in certainty. I felt it settle in my marrow, binding something inside me that had been coming apart.
It was physical and mental, and it encompassed everything that I was.
‘Alpha. Mate,’my wolf said, her voice within me deeper, instinct-thick. It was strange to hear her, knowing she was me, yet separate. Like a second heartbeat.
I knew in that moment that Kaelric was claiming me as one of his wolves. And I knew I couldn’t stop this shift. I’d just been through so much pain from Elia biting me so many times that I wasn’t sure I could take the snapping bones, burning flesh, and itchy fur.
