004 - Ashina

“Ashina!”

The voice struck through my skull like lightning. I jerked back from Maya, with my heart slamming into my ribs as if trying to break free from my chest. My breath caught halfway at the aggression behind the growling at the door.

Nothing about whoever was there meant something good.

I didn’t even want to think about who it could possibly be, not when Maya slumped sideways with a groan, her eyelids fluttering. She was barely conscious now, and her body was twitching as if every nerve inside her had gone rogue.

“What the hell…” I whispered, taking a shaky step back as my heart beat spiked up.

Maya’s face twisted, contorting with pain. Her goody, drunken smile from earlier vanished and was replaced with something painful and almost terrified. Her brows pinched, and she clutched her stomach like it was tearing her apart from the inside out.

“Maya?” I rasped, clenching and unclenching my fists as panic bubbled to the surface. The familiar urge to fix things, to make it stop, rose like a bile. “Come on, stay with me.”

There was another knock that was louder and more urgent, making me jump out of my skin as I turned towards the door.

Can you just stop?!

“Ashhh, I don’t feel so good…” Maya groaned, her voice shaky and fragile.

The knocking behind me turned violent.

“Ashina Kai,” the voice behind the door growled my name with as much of venom as they could possibly muster. “Open this door, or so help me God.”

I rushed to the door and looked through the peephole.

Shit.

My boss. Dr. Cavanaugh.

No way. Not after the disaster at the restaurant. I was pretty sure Mr. Cormac had somehow contacted him, and now, he was raining down my door like that was going to happen.

And definitely not now, with Maya writhing on my floor and whatever the hell was happening to her.

More voices filtered through the door from outside.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Some of us actually like sleeping, you maniac!”

“Do you want me to call the cops?!”

“Oh fuck of! This bitch just cost me millions!”

Maya let out a sharp scream that made my blood freeze.

I turned, and what I saw knocked the breath clean out of my lungs.

What the…

Maya’s eyes weren’t brown anymore; and they shimmered with a liquid silver that was streaked with amber. The markings of a werewolf.

My knees went weak beneath me.

“No…” I whispered. “No, no, no…”

My brain sputtered, overloaded with trying to understand, process, or fix anything at all. The rational part of me, the scientist, was breaking beneath the weight of the raw panic that threatened to swallow me whole.

Maya’s skin shimmered with sweat, and her body convulsed again, jerking like a puppet caught in an invisible war.

“Maya!” I lunged for her, catching her just in time before her body hit the floor. I winced as her skin burned against mine. It was like holding onto a live wire.

I groaned as her weight collapsed onto me.

She was so heavy. Too heavy.

Heavier than a normal drunk human should be.

I didn’t have my full strength, thanks to the suppressants. And thanks to that, I was paying the price for trying to stay human.

I gritted my teeth and dragged her towards my room, even as my legs buckled and hands shook under the strain of her weight.

I half-lifted and half-dragged Maya down the narrow hallway in our apartment.

Her arm slammed into the wall with a sickening thud, and she cried out, sobbing in pain

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—just hold on. Please,” I gasped, trying to adjust my grip.

The door still thundered behind me, rattling on its hinges like it might give way, the sound blurring with the pounding in my ears.

Once I successfully got Maya in the room, I didn’t even stop to think. I sprinted to my lab, typing the code into the panel that hid it. The door slid open to reveal a cool white light bathing the cramped space.

My hands flew across the shelves until I found the portable blood test kit and clutched it tightly before running back to my room, barely registering the ache in my lungs as I dropped the kits beside Maya.

I needed answers before I lost my freaking mind. I needed control because none of this made any sense.

Growing up surrounded by werewolves and knowing our biology inside and out did nothing to prepare me for what was happening to Maya. There was never an incident of a wolf turning a human into a werewolf that I’d ever heard of or come in contact with.

And yet there I was.

I rushed to my closet, flung it open, and yanked down a heavy metal case that held the wolf chains I had gotten for myself. Just in case the wolf suppressants failed for whatever reason and my wolf broke loose. But that had never happened, and I’d never had to use them.

Until now.

I dropped the box beside Maya again, who was thrashing, and moaning with her skin shimmering with sweat.

My blood ran cold again as I saw black veins crawling from the point of the bite.

I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself down. One thing at a time, right?

“It hurts, Ash…” Maya whimpered, her voice slurring. It was so full of pain, it made my chest ache. “Why does it hurt so bad?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, the words catching in my throat. “I don’t know what’s happening to you. But I swear, Maya, I’m going to figure it out. I’m not leaving you.”

Her lip trembled. “Make it stop,” she grunted. “Please. Please, I—I didn’t mean to—he said it was just a mark—”

He?

I blinked, but there was no time to unpack that. My fingers worked on autopilot, clicking the restraints around her wrists. My hands trembled as I secured them to the bedframe.

I swallowed down my sob and secured the last of the chain in place.

 “I’m sorry,” I choked, not even sure if I was saying it to her or myself.

Maya screamed again, this time with a force that felt like it might tear her apart. The veins around the bite had turned blacker. And it was spreading, crawling higher, faster, down her neck, toward her heart.

“Maya?” I reached out, my voice shaking.

She turned.

Her eyes gleamed, amber glowing like twin flames. Her teeth had lengthened. Her fingers curled into claws.

“Ash!” she screamed before letting out a feral and wild growl, and her fingers curled like claws as she stared at me, eyes glowing amber.

She thrashed violently against the chains.

“Maya, you need to calm down!”

With a snarl, she thrashed violently, and the first chain snapped.

“No—no—Maya—fight it!”

But she didn’t hear me anymore.

“Maya!” I croaked, backing away.

Another scream tore from her lips, feral and wild, and the final chain burst free.

Chains dangled from her wrist as she bared her teeth and launched at me.

I barely had the time to scream.