Page 12 of Hungry Like the Wolf

She returned to his side and nudged him.

“Robbie, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I think you’re about to shift for the first time. And you can’t shift here. Do you understand? You can’t shift here.”

Shift? Shift what? His skin was too small. He wanted to take it off. He wanted to run. Not away from her, never from her, but to just… run.

“Oh, fuck. Stay with me, Robbie. Can you follow me? This way? Come on. That’s good. That’s good. Keep coming.”

She was talking to him like a dog. But he was the one who had risen with nothing but the gentle tug of her hands in his and was now following her out the front door.

“Stay,” she said, and he stood motionless beside her while she locked the door.

“Keys?” she asked. He fumbled with his pants pockets before pulling out the small fob with nothing else but the cabin key on the ring. But as he pulled out the key fob, something large came out of his pocket and fell to the ground with a crack.

“Shit, your phone,” Nadja hissed. He stepped toward the car to lean his forehead against the cold window of the door and stepped on something that crunched beneath his boot.

“No, no, no,” she said. “You stepped on it.” There was a long pause, rustling and more crunching. “The screen is completely shattered. Godsdamnit, today was supposed to be an easy day.”

He cracked his eyes open. Her face was red, her mouth set in a tight line. She looked really cute, almost like a cartoon character.

“You’re very pretty,” he said, his voice slurred.

“Get in,” she said, holding open the back door. Robbie crawled in, unsure of everything. Why were they leaving? Surely his time wasn’t up? He’d only just arrived. Why was he lying down in the backseat? Why was she so agitated? Where were they going? And had climate change really gotten so bad that he was sweating in a T-shirt in February? Or was that a fever? He remembered one of his sisters having a seizure when she got a fever of 105. Was that what was happening? He needed help. He needed?—

“Call Callum MacLeod,” he said, before she closed the door behind him.

“Who?” She asked, climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Call Callum MacLeod. He’s my?—”

He stopped talking as he hissed in a breath against knifing agony. Suddenly, everything hurt.

“Your roommate? Your friend? What’s his number? Your phone is busted, remember?”

“I only have my mama’s number memorized,” he said.

“Is she local?”

Robbie couldn’t help but giggle. “She’s local to Kentucky.”

“Well, does she have any numbers for anyone out here?”

Robbie could hear Nadja getting frustrated. He didn’t like it because he was certain that he was the cause. In the midst of the haze, he felt embarrassed for not memorizing any other numbers. It had been such a thing as kid growing up, knowing your friend’s numbers so you could call them. But now, the phone made it so easy. He didn’t need to memorize them anymore.

He needed to help her, though, and he knew that there was only one person who might be able to.

“Call Magda. She’ll know?—”

But he never got to finish that thought. A surge of pain racked his body, and his vision went black.

CHAPTER 5

The only thing that would be worse than Robbie shifting in her office would be Robbie shifting in the backseat of his crossover SUV while she drove like a bat out of hell up the state highway. He’d climbed into the backseat willingly enough but was now groaning and writhing around.

“Why do you have the heat on so high?” he whined. His thick twang would have been adorable if she hadn’t been racing against a literal biological clock. She shivered as the cold air from the vents blasted against her.

“I don’t have the heat on. You’ve got the damn temp as low as it gets and turned it up full blast.”

“It’s too hot,” he panted.