Forty

"Well, he should have shut the hell up," Zara said, completely unbothered. "And what do you care about? He's useless to me and it's not as if he's close to you."

“Oh fuck. For God's sake Zara you don't just kill people for the sake of killing!!” I screamed inwardly and felt blood rise up my throat with the effort, coughing it out before I could stop it.

"Speak for yourself," she said flatly. "I do whatever I want, when I want. And you should be on your knees begging me to save your life right now instead of lecturing me." She paused a bit, as if thinking before she continued speaking.

"But you know what? You're not the one whose body I had been in." Her voice dropped into something quieter and more deliberate. "You just got lucky."

I didn't fully understand what that meant. I didn't have time to ask either because the venom — which had gone quiet under the force of her surfacing, as if it had been waiting, regrouping, biding its time — suddenly pulsed back through my veins harder than before. Spreading further and reaching deeper inside my body. The venom was moving with the specific urgency of something that had been patient long enough.

But something was different now though.

Five somethings, to be exact. It was the five wolves inside me, I could feel them but it was only three that were active, which I could sense.

And every single one of three wolves turned toward the venom with the energy of things that had been waiting a very long time for something worth fighting and had finally, finally found it.

“Three of you, stay back and do nothing”, Zara said, then she paused and said one final shocking word, one I didn't expect “Let her die.”

Immediately I heard the words my blood ran cold.

The cold that went through me had nothing to do with the venom.

She meant it. She actually meant it. My own wolf — the thing I had spent twenty two years desperately wanting — was sitting inside my body and genuinely considering letting me die in it.

I had never felt more alone in my life.

“Zara—” I pushed forward desperately. You're my wolf — you can't let me die. Please. Don't let me die—”

"Geez." She exhaled, and the sound was deeply, genuinely irritated. "Just why in the bloody hell did you wake me up?"

\

The voice wasn't outside me. It was me, and also entirely separate from me, and both things were true at the same time in a way that made no sense and also made perfect sense.

"I had no idea I even had a wolf," I said out loud, the words coming out before I could decide to keep them inside, raw and angry and breaking at the edges. "I was called wolfless my entire life. I was dying — I had to try everything possible!"

Aiden and Nathan exchanged a glance as they realized I had spoken out loud — half the conversation happening somewhere they couldn't see or hear.

"Hey kid," Zara said, unmoved. "I don't care about any of that. I'm asking you why you woke me up."

"I just told you—"

"I heard you and all I'm hearing are useless excuses" Her tone was dry as old bone. "I was comfortable. Staying asleep. Watching your miserable life from the inside like a very boring show. Centuries of peace across different bodies and then you — you managed to wake me up, break the seal, nearly die on a rogue's couch." A pause that carried genuine displeasure in it.

"You have terrible timing."

The rage that came up in me had nowhere to go and went everywhere at once.

"Comfortable?" The word came out like something I was spitting out. "You wanted to be comfortable while I was slowly dying? While I was being called wolfless and cursed and broken for twenty two years? You were just — sitting there — watching?"

"I did save you a bit while you were drowning," she offered. "Watching you struggle was entertaining, I won't lie. Raya was rooting for you the whole time." A beat. "Liya wanted it to end there. She was very disappointed."

Then I guessed out of the three wolves that was trying to help me fight the venom before Zara had given a command.

Liya and Zara were two that were dormant and refused to help.

IS THIS FUNNY TO YOU?!

"Correct," she said, completely unbothered. "Now calm down. You're making the venom spread faster. Keep going like this and you'll be dead in minutes."

I shut my mouth with tremendous effort that cost me more than it should have. My hands were shaking. Somewhere in the room Nathan looked like he desperately wanted to be somewhere else entirely.