33. Cherish

When I finally woke, I was terrified I har somehow been transported back home. The dark, musty surroundings, the smell of too many bodies in a small bleak space made it all flood back. For a second I panicked that everything had been in a dream, until my vision cleared and I realised the dark, windowless room was unfamiliar and the woman gently dousing my head with a soaked sponge was Martha.

“You made it,” she whispered, a sad smile on her creased face. Her brown eyes scoured mine, though I had no idea what she was searching for. “I have no idea how, but you did.”

“My wolf,” I whispered weakly, “we met,” as I sipped from a cup of water. Martha clasped her hand to her chest.

“Now if that is not the hand of Fate, the very Moon Goddess herself in action I do not know what is! To bond with your wolf, to gain shifter healing in the very instant you needed it to survive? Blessings indeed!”

It was too much to think about right now. All I knew was I had never felt such hunger. My stomac