Page 132 of A Wolfe in the Woods

And then I heard a strange voice, faint and slithery, almost lost in the endless void around me. It felt…ancient.

“Whooo…are…you…?”

Great. Just my luck. I was dead and now being fucking interrogated. Not really what I expected.

The light pulsed brighter, then the voice came again, louder this time.

“Whooo…are…you…?”

I wasn’t even sure how to answer. I couldn’t feel my body anymore. No breath in my lungs. No tongue in my mouth. Just thoughts drifting through the dark like loose broken sparks.

Did it expect me to speak? Could I even speak? The silence stretched, heavy and waiting. Then the thought slipped free before I could stop it.

Jonathan…Wolfe.

The light flickered.

“Whyy…are you heere…?”

Panic stirred in my chest.

I didn’t know what it wanted. I didn’t know what the right answer was. Hell, I didn’t even know if I was actually dead. My thoughts scrambled uselessly for something that sounded meaningful. Noble. Worthy…but nothing came. All that remained was the truth.

I…I don’t know.

The voice came again. “Taaake…or…proteect…?”

My thoughts drifted to Blanchette.

I wished I could see her again. Wished I could tell her?—

No.

Wished I couldprotecther.

The light changed.

The faint, cold star hovering in the void began to glow warmer, its pale silver deepening into something brighter.The glow spread outward as it seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting in a slow rhythm like a living thing.

And then the world began to return.

Sound only at first. Faint at the edges of my awareness—the rush of wind whipping through the circle, the low growl of wolves, and finally…Erik’s voice.

My eyes opened.

Power surged through me like a second heartbeat. It rolled through every muscle, every bone, burning away the weakness that had pinned me to the stone moments ago. My lungs dragged in a full breath as my body rose from the ground almost mechanically.

The shift tore through me.

My bones cracked, out of control. Something deeper surged within me, older than instinct or memory. Voices were trapped inside of my skull. A pull. A command. A hunger that felt insatiable. I staggered, teeth bared, claws digging into the earth.

I’d always been Lycan, but this…this was something else entirely.

My limbs were heavy, dense. Claws flexed against the stone beneath my hands, longer and darker than before, and the world sharpened into an unnaturally narrow focus. My vision tunneled forward as though I were looking through the slit of a visor. Everything beyond the center faded into dim peripheral shadows.

What had been a chaotic fight only moments earlier now played out in slow motion. I watched one of Erik’s men lunge toward me, his claws extended, his mouth open in a snarl that had barely finished forming.

He never reached me.