Page 70 of Cold Foot Revenge
She could help. The others were Changing back to their human forms, and she knew she could help Dylan. She closedher eyes and pushed her Change as hard as she could, groaning with the pain of her aching body. With a gasp, she fell to the floor on her knees in front of him.
“You’re Dylan,” she whispered. Roxy cupped his bleeding face. “You’re my Dylan.” Tears burned her eyes. What had he done? How had this come to be? “You just relax, okay? You ask the bear for the Change, don’t force it. Just close your eyes and imagine yourself as a man.”
He did, but oh it looked painful. It was a dragged-out Change that sometimes happened to new Turns. He lay there for minutes while she murmured nonsensical things to him.
He’d done this for her.
She knew that without the shadow of a doubt.
“I need to know which ones to save,” Wreck said from beside her as Dylan curled in on himself and slammed his hand against the floor hard.
“Which ones to save,” she repeated softly, not understanding.
Wreck gestured to the room. “Were any good?”
There was a somberness to his tone that drew her up. “You can bring them back?” she asked, standing slowly.
“If they are worth the effort.”
And this was power, wasn’t it? Roxy looked around at the carnage and destruction. “Him,” she said, pointing to Nick’s bear. His eyes were staring straight ahead and glazed over. “He has a kid. He wasn’t all bad.”
Green fire poured from Wreck’s open palm and consumed Nick’s bear. “Who else,” Wreck gritted out.
“Him and him,” she said, pointing to a couple of the newer Turns. They hadn’t asked to be here. Grave had Turned them like he had her.
“What about them?” he asked, nodding toward Leech and Grave.
“No.” There was grit to Dylan’s voice. “Those two stay dead.”
Wreck nodded once and focused on the ones submerged in the green flames.
“I did something awful,” she whispered to Dylan.
He pushed up to a sitting position, his knees bent under him. “What is it?”
“I…” She choked on the word Turn. Roxy tried again. “I… fuck,” she whispered thickly. Her eyes burned as she pointed to the coyote that had returned to the mouth of the hallway. She was scooting closer to them on her belly, eyes full of fear, tail tucked. “She’s new.”
“You Turned her?” Dylan asked.
Perhaps she was still in shock? Roxy felt completely overwhelmed. A few years ago, a bad day was missing a ride, or getting fired from a job, but this…she looked around the insane scene before her as Crystal came to rest right beside her on her belly. She rested her hand on the coyote’s back. “She’s my Turn. Grave had already given her the first part of the dose. If I didn’t do it, she would’ve died.”
Dylan’s eyes filled with renewed fury, and he glared at still form of Grave. His nostrils flared slightly with his breath, and Roxy could feel the heaviness coming off Dylan. Oh, his bear was very dominant. More dominant than Grave, or Leech, or any other animal she’d been around before.
Dylan was a monster now, like she was.
“You’ll teach her,” he gritted out. “It won’t be like it was for you.”
And something about those two simple statements made her feel a little better. She could teach her? She’d never in her existence as a shifter thought of Turning another, so this role wasn’t something she had ever considered. If she could make it up to Crystal by teaching her though? By explaining, and helpingher understand her new life, and supporting her, maybe it would take a fraction of the guilt away from Roxy.
“You’ll be good at it,” Dylan promised, gripping the back of her neck and drawing her in. He kissed her lips, just a quick, soft peck to connect them before he stood and helped her up.
He was cut up and injured. It looked bad, but he was checking her cuts and the bruises that were forming across her ribs from hitting the wall. He was on his first day of being a shifter, had just battled for their lives, and he was worried about her.
That struck her right in the heart.
“You’re the good,” she whispered. She didn’t know why she’d said it like that, but it felt just perfectly right.
He drew her in and hand cupping the back of her head, he rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “Why were you fighting Grave.”
