Page 67 of Nearly Dead

Rhea stares at me.I sense her begrudging respect before she turns away to rejoin the others.

When she’s gone, Sully says, “This is the right choice, Tamara.You can’t control what you don’t understand.”

“I’m not doing this to control it,” I clarify.“I’m doing it to know it.”

“Same thing, different words.”He strides toward a side exit.“We leave in ten minutes.”

The thought of running with a pack sends a ripple of anxiety through me.I’ve fought so hard against the changes in my body, against the pull of both vampire and werewolf natures.Deliberately embracing one seems counterintuitive.

But maybe that’s been my mistake all along.Fighting against what I am instead of working with it.Balance doesn’t mean suppression.It means harmony.Every time I give up the inner fight, things seem to get better.

Until I black out and destroy the family library.

Well, nobody is perfect.

I draw my fingers across his motorcycle as I follow Sully outside toward the waiting pack.For so long, I’ve been defined by what others want me to be.The Devine’s human daughter.Conrad’s pawn.Draakmar’s keeper.The vampire’s progeny.The werewolves’ Alpha.

Tonight, I reject those imposed identities.I claim the right to define myself.

Sully takes his rightful place at the head of the pack.A feeling of relief comes over me to know that it’s settled.I have a feeling I’m not the only one feeling this way.There’s no resentment in me, no sense of missed opportunity.That role was never truly mine.

The wolves begin to shift.The air fills with the sounds of transformation.Bones crack.Bodies reshape.Groans turn into howls.

Peter comes up next to me, grinning in welcome.He doesn’t speak as he lets his body change.

I close my eyes, reaching inside myself for the wolf blood that now swells in my veins.I don’t try to suppress instinct.Instead, I invite it forward.

The change begins slowly, then accelerates.There’s pain, but also exhilaration as my body reshapes itself.I become attuned to the night around me.My senses sharpen beyond even their vampire-enhanced state.I can sense the excitement of the pack, smell the distant trees beyond the steel mill, hear the rapid heartbeats of tiny creatures in the woods, feel the cool night air against fur that now covers parts of my body.

When I open my eyes, the world looks more vivid.The pack is no longer a collection of individuals but a single living organism, bound by invisible ties of loyalty and shared purpose.

Sully, now in his massive half-wolf form, meets my gaze across the gravel drive.There’s approval in his golden eyes.He throws back his head and howls.The sound echoes off the metal building.The pack joins him, our voices blending into a primal chorus.

As the howl fades, Sully leads us toward the woods.I hesitate only briefly before sprinting alongside them.We move as one.

This is freedom.

I’ve rejected a destiny others tried to force upon me.I’ve chosen my own way.

And for the first time since my rebirth, that feels like enough.

ChapterFifteen

Dawn threatens the night sky with pale light along the horizon as I make my way back to the Devine estate.The vampire side urges me to seek shelter from its rays.My body aches from the night’s hunt, but it’s a good pain, the kind that comes from intense exercise.

The pack ran for hours through dense forest, tracking deer and small game.I didn’t kill anything, but I ran alongside them, feeling the wind in my fur, the earth beneath my paws.For the first time since my transformation, I had found peace.Or at least something close to it.

As the sun threatens to breach the horizon, the wolf in me is sated, tired but content.Vampire and wolf blood are no longer at war.They’re two sides of an ancient coin that somehow landed on its edge.

I slip through the magical protection surrounding the estate, feeling it shiver around me like chiffon drapes.My heightened senses catalog my surroundings as I run up the drive on all fours.There is the new scent of unfamiliar supernaturals.Someone has arrived at the estate.Tension hangs heavy in the air like pressure before a storm.It’s a palpable oppression.The wolf wants me to turn around and go back to the safety of the pack.I resist the instinct.

Beneath it all, a familiar presence pulls deep inside me.

Costin.

I latch on to the feeling, letting the vampire’s logic soothe the wild tendencies of the wolf.Changing course, I find him waiting in the shadow of an ancient oak that stands sentinel near the edge of the property.He doesn’t move to approach me, just watches with those ancient eyes that seem to see more than I want to reveal.

I stand on all fours, letting him see this hairy version of me.I wait for a repulsion that doesn’t come.If anything, he looks sad.

---