JESSICA
His skin gives. The blood hits my tongue hot, faster than I expect, and I push him off me before it settles–before instinct drags me deeper. He stumbles, hard, crashing sideways into a tree, breath knocked out, hands scrambling for something solid, something
that isn’t me.
Fuck.
What did I do?
My eyes widen and my breath catches while watching him stumble like his body’s been pulled loose from itself, knees folding hard and fast as his spine convulses once, then locks.
“Look at me,” I hiss, but i don’t even know if he can hear me, pupils blown wide, sweat slick across his cheekbones, lips pulled back in a half–snarl that he’s not even aware of.
His heartbeat is wrong. I can feel it. Fast, yes–but uneven. Staggering. I’ve been thinking of doing this for so long and now, it’s satisfying. Theo won’t die for it but he’ll be something else.
I’m not sure what but it’s for us to figure out. If we want to win against Riot, we need to be something. We need to have leverage for us to fight and this is it.
His chest jerks again, ribs straining like they’re about to split. It fascinates me how fast his body is changing and how fast I need him. to survive this before the two dumbasses come here and discover what I did.
“You’re going to survive this,” I tell him—not soft, not as comfort, but as command–because I didn’t bite him to break him, I bit him to build something, to drag him into the same sharp place I’ve been living in since Riot sank his fangs into me and rewrote my instincts like they were his to own.
His eyes roll for a second, lids fluttering, pulse surging beneath the thin skin of his neck, and I press harder, fingers splayed, breathing with him now, one beat off, syncing as his blood tries to sort what it is–human, wolf, infection, me.
Because it’s mine now.
Theo’s breath comes in shorter bursts, throat tight, muscles clenching, and the sound of it scratches down the inside of my skull like static, something between pain and fury and change, and it doesn’t scare me, not anymore–it calls to me, feeds that part of me I’ve been pretending to choke out for the sake of keeping the others calm.
Grayson’s voice calls out in the distance.
Shit.
For a second, I don’t move.
For a second, we just breathe.
I glance over my shoulder, sharp, automatic, tracking distance, sound, threat–he’s near, maybe thirty feet, less–and if he gets close enough to see Theo like this, twitching in the dirt, eyes gone black and body caught mid–shift, he’ll know.
He’ll know I did something.
Chapter 117
92%
He’ll know Theo isn’t theirs anymore.
I turn back fast, hand pressing harder into Theo’s chest like I can force the change to wait. It will take a few more seconds now. The sound of boots is getting nearer and the wind shifts, carrying Grayson’s scent toward us.
Suddenly, Theo’s breath punches out of him in short bursts, every exhale laced with a rumble like he’s trying not to growl and failing, and then-
He snaps.
Head jerks. Shoulders heave. The growl tears loose from deep in his chest, raw and grinding and not human anymore, and I barely flinch before he’s lunging–half up, half falling into me, teeth bared, mouth open wide enough to catch my throat.
I move.
Hard to the side, hand slamming up under his jaw, forcing it closed with a crack, my knee sliding into the dirt as his full weight crashes against me.
He snarls again–louder this time, breath breaking over my cheek–and I grab the back of his neck, fingers digging into soaked hair, yanking his head down, wrestling him lower, spine bending under my grip like he’s seconds from snapping in either direction.
Bootsteps crash through the underbrush–closer, louder, too fast to lie–and without thinking, without giving it time to look deliberate, I throw my voice hard through the trees, sharp and ripped with edge-
“GRAYSON! HELP!”
Theo freezes.
One breath.
Two.
Then he snarls again–different this time, louder, broken open–and before I can brace, he slams his palm into my chest and
shoves.
Hard.
My body hits the dirt, spine cracking against rock, lungs emptying on impact, and I see nothing but branches and sky for half a second before I twist up, coughing, ready to chase-
-but he’s already gone.
Fuck. That was close.
I took a deep breath watching him get lost in the woods. I hear him tearing through the woods, fast, wild, the snap of branches and the burn of brush underfoot. He’s going to come back to me. When the change finishes, when the poison settles into his bones and he realizes what he is now, who did this to him–he’ll follow it straight back to me.
Obedience always does.
I push to my feet, slow, knees stiff, back aching from the fall, and swipe a hand across my face to clear the sweat clinging to my brow, smear a little dirt over my cheek while I’m at it. My hair sticks to the side of my neck, tangled and damp, heartbeat thumping low and hard in my throat like it doesn’t know whether to calm down or keep racing.
09:02 Tue, 2 Sept 0
Chapter 117
I’ve turned Theo into mine and soon after he completed his transformation, he’ll come look for me for obedience.
Somehow, I feel bad for all of this but it’s their fault doing this to me. They’ve kept it a secret enough for me to discover everything about this. Theo is the experimental shift. And soon, I’ll have to turn them one by one so I’ll have a pack of wolves that are willing
to die for me.
“Jess!”
I quickly mask my plans and stagger back another step, dragging in a sharp breath through my teeth, twisting my face into something that looks more like shock than satisfaction.
“Jess, what the fuck happened?” he demands, voice snapping like a whip, but I don’t answer right away. I flinch.
“–“I choke it, soft, almost soundless. “I didn’t see it coming.”
Let him fill the rest in himself.
I let my breathing stay rough, shallow, broken in the middle like I’ve been crying when really I haven’t blinked in minutes. My shirt’s ripped at the shoulder where Theo threw me off, and I tug it tighter, curl an arm around my ribs like I’m trying to hold something in.
“I tried to help,” I say, voice catching like it hurts to speak, and I don’t look him in the eye. “He shifted too fast.”
Grayson moves closer, eyes darting past me, scanning the treeline.“What do you mean he shifted fast?”
“I–I don’t know!”
“His eyes were red, Grayson. Red. Not gold, not even close. He didn’t look like Theo.”
I back up a step and grab a tree trunk for balance, fingers digging into bark like the memory’s rattling through me again.
“He grabbed me,” I whisper, barely getting the words out. “I thought he was going to rip my face off. He wasn’t… he wasn’t shifting like us.”
Grayson’s jaw tightens and I know he has his doubts. I need him to let go of those doubts.
“I think he’s turning feral,” I add, quieter, eyes wide like I’m trying to convince myself it’s true, “I tried to stop him. I tried to hold him down, but he was too strong.”
I reach up slowly and touch the corner of my mouth, trace the dried smear of blood that’s still there like I just noticed it, then look at Grayson with wide eyes, lips parted, barely breathing.
“He bit me,” I say, and the lie tastes good.
Grayson quickly went closer, touching my face as if he’s too afraid he’ll lose me again.. “Where? Jess–where did he bite you?”
I lift my sleeve, show him the bruised scrape on my arm from when Theo shoved me. “I think it was the infection,” I murmur, barely audible. “Riot’s blood… what if it’s still in rhe? What if I passed it to him somehow?”
His face hardens.
And I know he’s already trying to blame someone.
Anyone but me.
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