CHAPTER SIX - THE WAKING

His fingers were still wrapped around my wrist.

Not hard. But tight enough that I couldn't pull away. Tight enough that I could feel his pulse hammering against my palm, fast and uneven, nothing like the steady calm he had pretended to have since he found me in the rain.

His eyes were yellow. Full wolf yellow, glowing in the dim light of the cabin, and they were locked on my neck. On the place where Kaden's rejection burn had been smoking an hour ago.

The burn wasn't smoking anymore.

It was cold.

"Let go," I whispered, but my voice didn't sound like my voice. It was lower. Rougher at the edges.

Jax let go instantly, like my skin had burned him.

"What did you do?" he said. It wasn't angry. It was scared. He took a step back and hit the edge of the fireplace hearth. "Amelia, what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. You grabbed me."

My mom was behind me, both hands over her mouth. "Eliza, get back," Jax snapped at her, not looking away from me.

"Don't you tell her to get back," my mom snapped right back, but she did get back, pulling the quilt off the couch and holding it like a shield.

I looked down at my own hands. My nails... my nails were longer. Not claws. Not yet. But longer than they had been in the bathroom five minutes ago. And whiter. The tips almost translucent.

And I could hear everything.

The fire wasn't just crackling anymore. I could hear each log individually, the sap popping inside the wood. I could hear the rain hitting the north side of the roof differently than the south side. I could hear my mom's heart beating fast and Jax's heart beating faster and underneath it all, something else. Something low and constant, like a second heartbeat in my own chest that had never been there before.

Finally.

I didn't hear it with my ears. I heard it inside my head.

I stumbled back and hit the kitchen counter. The two mugs fell over. Cold tea spilled everywhere.

"What's happening to me?" I gasped. My chest was tight. That empty place where Kaden had ripped the bond out wasn't empty anymore. It was full. Too full. Like something huge was stretching inside me, pushing against my ribs.

"She is waking up," my mom whispered. "Mara said it would be like this. She said it would feel like drowning at first."

Jax swore under his breath. A real, low cowboy swear I had never heard him say in the twelve years I had known of him. He moved fast, grabbing the tin of silver salve off the mantle and the clean rag.

"Amelia, look at me. You have to breathe. Not like a human. Like a wolf. Through your nose. Deep. You have to let her come up or she will tear you up from the inside."

"Let who come up?" I was crying now but no tears were coming out. My eyes were dry and burning. "There is no one here, Jax. I am wolfless. I am nothing."

"You were never nothing!" He shouted it, and the windows rattled. His eyes flashed brighter yellow. "You are White Wolf. And your wolf has been asleep for eighteen years because everyone around you kept telling her she wasn't allowed to exist. Now she is awake and she is pissed. So you need to breathe, Luna. Right now."

Luna. He called me Luna again.

This time, something in my chest answered.

The sound that came out of my mouth was not a word. It was not a scream. It was a howl. But human. Broken. A half howl from a human throat that had never howled before.

The lights flickered.

My mom dropped to her knees. "Jax, do something. She is shifting. She is shifting without a moon."

"She is not shifting," Jax said, but his voice was strained. He was fighting his own wolf, I could see it. The veins in his neck were standing out, his hands were fists. "White Wolves don't shift. They reveal. There is a difference."

I fell to my knees. The gray sweatpants, my own sweatpants, felt too tight, too hot. My skin was on fire, but cold fire. Like snow burning.

"Make it stop," I begged, to anyone. To Mom. To Jax. To the Moon Goddess who had never answered me before.

Jax did something I didn't expect. He knelt again. Right in front of me, in the spilled tea, and he put both his hands on either side of my face. His hands were huge and warm and calloused and they were shaking.

"Listen to me. You are safe. This is my house. No one from Wolf Creek can come here without crossing my line. Your mom is here. You are safe. You are home, Amelia. Come home."

Home.

That word hit the thing in my chest like a bell.

The pressure broke.

It wasn't painful like the rejection burn. It was like being unzipped. Like a coat that was too small for eighteen years finally splitting down the back.

I felt hair. Not growing. Existing. Under my skin all along, now pushing through.

My hands hit the wooden floor and my nails clicked. White. Long, white claws, not nails.

I looked up at the window reflection.

My eyes.

My eyes had always been brown. Plain, boring brown, like my mom's.

Now they were white. Not white like blind. White like ice in sun, with a ring of silver around the pupil, and they were glowing.

I was still me. Same face. Same too short sweatpants. But something behind my face was looking out now.

We are awake, that voice inside said again, clearer this time. Female. My age. But older. Much older. We are awake and that boy hurt us.

Kaden.

I thought of Kaden and a low growl came out of my throat without me telling it to.

Jax's eyes went wide, but he smiled. A real smile this time, not that tight, angry one.

"There she is," he whispered. "There is my Luna."

My mom started crying loudly behind us. "Mara. Oh my god, Mara, she looks just like you."

From outside, far away through the rain and the trees, we all heard it.

Truck engines. More than one. Coming up the North Ridge road.

Wolf Creek trucks.

Harlan Stone's trucks.

Jax stood up in one smooth motion and his yellow eyes went hard. He pulled his black hat from the table and put it back on.

"They are coming for you," he said to me. "Because Harlan felt you wake up. Every Alpha within fifty miles just felt you wake up."

He looked down at me, on my knees in his kitchen, white eyed, white clawed, shaking.

And he held out his hand.

"Are you going to hide, little wolf? Or are you going to show them what a White Luna really looks like?"

I stared at his hand. At the scar on his neck that was still faintly glowing white from where I had touched it.

The trucks were getting closer. I could hear their tires in the mud now. I could hear Kaden's voice shouting my name through the rain.

My claws flexed against the wood floor.

I put my hand in Jax's.