Maybe I’m crying for myself, because Kayos reminds me of me. Maybe I’m crying because we don’t know if she’s locked in confinement or if they killed her because of that power.
At this point, I don’t know why the empty tears linger damply in my eyes.
I just know that I want to scream. The emotions are building inside me to painful proportions and I don’t have a fucking outlet. If I were at home, I’d slather paint onto a canvas, onto a wall. I’d streak across it in violent brush strokes with wild music screaming in my ears. I’d jump from one canvas to the next, giving my emotions color and texture until I could make sense of it. Or maybe the point is to not make sense of it at all.
Maybe it’s just that need for release.
And if I can’t find paints, I have to do it some other way.
Storming into the woods I’d been in with Malek so long ago, I gather sticks and rocks, dig my fingers into the black earth to pull it out by clumps. I’m blind, with nothing but the soft moon lit rays of silver illumination to guide me from between thin branches. It’s enough. I pile dirt as if it were clay, I bend sticks, stack rocks. I make art in its basest, rawest form.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. How long my numb fingers bleed as I give form to my emotions. Hours into the night. Hours in which the tears slide down my cheeks. In which the pain loosens bit by painful bit.
Until the slapping sting of the wind brings the first howl of a wolf to me and tears through the haze of my emotions.
My gaze tears across the vacant woods. To the sound of branches snapping, of feet rushing towards me.
I blink up at the full shining light of the moon.
“Full Moon.”
Fuck.
Nineteen
Malek
Every month it was the same, and every month it never got any easier; the Change. It was always a phantom kernel inside… at first. But as the days close in to the full moon, the Prod rips violently from the confines I keep it locked behind.
It claws and bites, tearing through the very foundations of my soul only to arise bloody and gnashing, as if to say “I am here now. And now, it’s my turn.”
One day a month I let it reign free.
There are shifters who train themselves to shift at will, with or without the help of the moon. I prefer not to. Not when the risks of doing so are deadly. Not when giving yourself to the beast inside merges both entities. Mind of the beast and man collide until it’s impossible to tell one apart from the other.
It’s why some werewolves are so feral. So violent.
I want to be better.
So it’s on every full moon that I unleash my more violent self.
During the full moon, the Academy locks up the shifters with no control over themselves. They’re sent away to the lowest level of Dormitory J, locked up like dogs in a kennel. The better students like me are allowed to roam the grounds. It’s good for my Prod and it’s good for me. Being here in nature, it eases the control, makes everything calmer.
It has taken every ounce of self control I have to prove to them I’m not the same out-of-control beast that ripped through my stepfather. Not like it had been my fault. He had known what I was. Had been given a fair warning. That didn’t stop him from taunting my wolf until it tore an open wound in his neck, never mind the fact that he’d chained me up at the time.
I’m better than that.
I have to be better than that.
Maybe if I was, my mother, brothers, and pack wouldn’t fear me anymore. I’d have a family again. I could have a normal relationship with Izzy. One where I didn’t have to keep her at arm’s length out of fear. One where I didn’t have to hold back from pulling her close. From kissing her. From calling her mine.
It took me months to accept the feelings that my Prod had obsessed over from the very first second I laid eyes on Izara Castillo.
She’s my mate.
And someday, I’ll have enough control over my Prod to tell her that.
Thoughts of Izzy bring the beast hurtling forward.
Mine.
A growl rises painfully up my throat, more guttural than human.
I drop to my knees on the dirt. Twigs and rocks dig into my bare knees. When I fall to all fours, the rocks abrade my palms but that pain is nothing compared to the excruciating rippling of my skin as the Change takes over.
I dig my fingers into the cold earth. Nails crack and bleed, ripping from the quick while claws replace them. I feel my insides distorting, pushing at skin and bones with expanding force.
The air is frost kissed, and yet, my skin is burning up.
A violent tremor shudders through me. I arch, screaming into the night air only to have the sound transform into the howls of a beast.
Every muscle spasms. My skin bursts in red welts that melt from my body. Hair sprouts, bones and body elongate. The pain has me dry heaving into the dirt. There’s nothing more painful than this.
Nothing but the memory of my kills.
Thank God I told Izzy to stay inside. As long as she stays with Phoenix and Saint, she’s safe from me, safe from the beast that would claim her.
Mine.
His growl within my head is a demonic demand that rumbles through me.
In one shuddering explosion, my entire body changes in an instant. The skin rips from me in shreds until I’m a massive thing. A beast that stands on two back paws. A wolf that arches up and howls.
At long last.
It’s me, and yet it’s not. I know they say we are our Prods, that it is a part of us, so intricately woven into the fibers of our soul that we are one and the same. It is our DNA. It is us. I’ve said it to Izzy plenty of times. But every time I Change, the more logical part of me tries to reason with myself.
This is not me.
But it is.
These savage cravings, these wild instincts, they thrum inside me every fucking day. Every fucking day they beg for control. They beg for the tether to snap to make way for my more primitive instincts.
And tonight is the night they do.
Tonight is a night for running. For hunting. For fucking.
I drop to all fours and prowl the woods in hulking form. I start at a slow walk and then my paws move of their own volition. Soon, I am running and branches crack under my feet. This is freedom in its rawest form. It’s everything I crave, everything I long for.
The cold wind whistles through my fur just faintly. My ears pick up every delicate sound. From the hoot of night owls, to the soft padding of other shifters. I steer clear of them. I know they are as vicious as I am tonight and won’t hesitate to rip through me if I invade their territory. Though my body is itching for a fight, I’m still smart enough to avoid it. I listen to every sound like a song I’ve long forgotten.
The wind shifts direction, bringing me the scent of familiarity. Of ink and sweat. Of fear and sorrow. Of long dark hair and golden-brown eyes that hold friendship and love in equal measure.
Mine.
I scent her before I see her, before I hear her.
And it fills the primitive part of me with rage and satisfaction. She’s here, she came.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
I told her to stay away. Why didn’t she listen? Does she want to get killed?
Mine.
I told her what would happen. I told her it was the full moon. She knew, and she came anyway.
Mine.
And now the beast is ready to claim her.