Page 52 of Savage Crown
But I did.
My spine bowed, every vertebra popping like embers bursting. Heat rushed beneath my ribs, my muscles twisting, stretching, rearranging until I barely recognized the vessel I lived in.
Kaelric crouched next to me on the bed, whispering words of encouragement, telling me to breathe, until I was fully in wolf form.
He grinned, standing.
“Your wolf is beautiful. Go look.”
His voice was awed, softer than I’d ever heard.
He pointed to the mirror at the end of my bed. I leaped off the bed like it was nothing, paws landing silently on the floorboards, and padded over to the mirror. An ink-black wolf stared back at me, with white-dipped paws, and a tail like it was dusted in snow. My reflection moved when I did, head tilting. I felt powerful, heavy with strength.
The door flew open then, and I snapped my head in that direction to see Elia. Her eyes were red-rimmed like she’d been crying all night. She fell to her knees, weeping at the sight of me.
A whine rose low in my throat, and I trotted over to her, resting my wolfish head in the crook of her neck as she held on to me. Her arms trembled around my fur.
“I thought you were dead,” she said. Her voice broke on the last word.
‘Can I talk to her?’I asked Kaelric.
I could feel my wolf wanting to press closer, to comfort her with warmth and presence.
‘No, but I can,’he told me without moving his lips.
‘Tell her thank you and that I’m going to save her mother now.’
Kaelric raised one eyebrow as if he wanted to talk about that first, but he repeated my words to her.
“Brynnie?” Sable’s voice came from the hallway, and I froze. My wolf went utterly still. Elia wiped her eyes, and I stepped off her lap as she stood and turned around, shielding my wolf with her body.
“Honey, Brynn is doing better, but she needs to change before she comes out to see you,” Elia told my little sister.
I had no idea what my family had been told, but clearly, my becoming a wolf had not been relayed to the littles.
My mom slipped into sight then, and I backed deeper into the room as Elia stepped outside to pick up Sable.
When my mom came into the room, she shut the door behind her and looked from me to the bed, to Kaelric. She, too, had red-rimmed eyes and messy hair, like she hadn’t slept since I left.
“Is that my daughter?” Her voice was like sandpaper, scraped raw.
Kaelric cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am.”
My mom kneeled and held out her hand as if to call me, and Kaelric stepped in front of me. “Human smell can be enticing to new wolves who have not yet had their first hunt. I’ll take her to catch some rabbits and train her wolf first before?—”
“Nonsense!” my mother scolded the alpha with the confidence of someone who had raised twelve children and feared nothing. “My daughter would never hurt me.”
I sidestepped Kaelric and nuzzled my nose into her palm as she stroked my back like you would pet a dog. Her touch grounded me, a familiar warmth.
‘Tell her I love her, and she is right. I would never hurt her.
He did. But he was also right, because as I was smelling her hand, a deep hunger bloomed inside my stomach. It hit fast and sharp, like something primal waking for the first time.
‘I’m hungry,’I told him.
The words came out more like a growl in my mind, my new instincts clawing forward.
He reached out and took my mother’s hands in his, guiding her to the door. “I’m going to take Brynn for a run. Then we’ll come back, shift into her human form, and we can all hang out, okay?”
