Page 49 of Never Tamed
Nodding, she steps down between the wolves and tucks herself into their warmth without shifting.
I pause on the end of my own change and the skin on the back of my neck tightens. Something’s off. Something’s missing.
It takes half a second to realize Dax isn’t here. But when I turn, I find him not far off, standing near the creek, motionless except for the restless twitch of his fingers. He’s staring out into the woods while his eyes track something in the shadows.
Is he about to go feral again? My nerves prickle on my walk over to him.
He doesn’t flinch when I catch him in the shoulder. He only adjusts his weight and glances at me sideways. That’s when I see it.
Something fractured in him.
“Mathis.” His voice cracks. Because it’s just us now.
The way it’s always been.
“You okay?” I hold my breath and wait for the answer.
His jaw tightens. “Can you walk with me?”
I’ve never seen him like this, so fragile. Not like Dax at all. Like something or someone else.
It’s freaking me out.
Without waiting for an answer, he turns and heads toward the trees lining the creek, forcing me to follow.
The air is colder here, sharper, without the fire. The creek still trickles beside us, frosted over and glinting with sunlight. We walk for a while in silence until Dax suddenly stops near the water’s edge.
“You remember how you found me here? Practically in the water and half frozen?” he asks.
I stare at him and struggle to read his expression but he’s refusing to meet my eyes. “Yeah… When we were kids. You were stuck in your wolf form. It took us a long time to get you to shift back.”
“You said I couldn’t remember anything. Nothing. Like where I came from, my family, my pack. All I could remember—”
“Was your name.” My chest tightens. I don’t like where this is going. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Mathis, I—fuck. I remember,” he says, voice gravelly. “I finally remember something. I had a family. A sister… Gracie—”
Stopping suddenly, his head snaps toward me, and his gold eyes shine with raw emotion. With fear. With complete and utter grief. It takes me aback.
“Dax?”
“A family.” His voice cracks as he drops to his knees with his hands buried in his hair. His body shakes. “I had a family. And they’re all fucking dead.”
Chapter 12
Noble
We run as wolves.
The wind whips past my ears. Snow kicks up beneath my paws, the chill burning my lungs with each inhale. But it’s a familiar pain. It’s one I was afraid I might not feel again.
Thankfully, my leg is healed and the shift brought with it a sense of freedom and hope sorely lacking from the last few days.
I push for speed and test myself. The wolf’s strides eat up the ground and my tongue lolls from the side of my mouth.
Torin takes the lead, his dusky golden form weaving through the trees and sunbeams. Mathis runs steady beside him. Then me and Ren with Dax picking up the rear.
He hasn’t had another one of his episodes since yesterday when he returned to our fire sullen and distracted. Something’s changed in him though. Whatever cracked in his head upheaved him and turned him inside out.
