Page 76 of The Reveal
Like a goddamn horse.
Maybe it’s lucky that the pain in my head is so intense that I can’t really concentrate on that. Not for long.
I grip his thick fur in my fists as he begins to move. I wonder if a headache can actually make a whole head implode from the inside out or if I only wish it would so the pain would stop. I try to ignore the complaints from my stomach, a parade of queasy uncertainties that movement certainly doesn’t help.
But riding a werewolf is a whole lot better than trudging up this mountainside by myself. Step by brutal step, each one a new stabbing pain that only builds on the one before.
I hold on and hope that not forcing myself to keep climbing will soothe the pain even a little.
I’m not sure it does. It just shifts. Or time flattens out.
Maybe it’s me that’s gone flat. I notice things and file them away, but I can’t seem to lace them together to make any kind of sense. It’s like a drawn-out fever dream, though I don’t think there’s anything going on inside me tonight but this killer headache.
Maddox, back in her wolf form, is quick and capable, keeping up with Ty’s pace with what looks like not much effort. Sometimes she loops ahead or roams off to check things on either side of the trail. Once or twice I see her tipping her head back, like she’s taking in whatever secrets the trees want to tell her.
I don’t know how werewolves communicate in their wolf forms, but I can see that they’re doing it. It even looks like they make an excellent team. There’s no doubt Ty is in charge, but he looks to Maddox all the time and seems to pay attention to her suggestions.
Or maybe I’m making all this up to entertain myself as my brain eats itself alive, hard to tell.
The moon gets higher. The air gets thinner. Eventually, we stop, so far up the mountain that I can taste snowstorms in the air. I can hear wolf paws against the earth, meaning there’s something to crunch on. Ice. Frost. Whatever it is, it’s cold.
Maddox shifts, then smiles at me. “You good?”
I nod, then wince because the movement makes my head feel swimmy and sick. The pain doesn’t even throb anymore—it’s constant. An endless piercing, lacerating me straight through andexpandingas it goes.
Like it wants to consume me whole.
But in the tendrils of it, I see different views of that same damn clearing.
Like Google Images has resurrected itself in my head.
When I realize that Ty is glaring over his furry shoulder at me, I mutter something like an apology and slide off. My knees don’t do theirwork, so I topple onto the ground, but it’s a slow-motion topple, and I’m so boneless already that I can’t really bring myself to care.
Then I decide I’ll just lie there a minute, my face in the frigid dirt.
This is as close as I’ve been to feeling good in quite a while, so I stay there.
I feel that thunderclap again, all through me, and I don’t have to look up to know that Ty has changed again.
“She’s wearing his fucking mark,” he growls.
“She sure is.” Maddox’s response, though I didn’t sense her shifting, is so bland that even in my state I can tell it’s pointedly so.
“This is bullshit,” he growls at her. “Running around on Mount McLoughlin under a full moon like assholes. Just more of your stupid games.”
“You calling my legitimate feelings aboutmy life‘stupid games’ is a real good way to make sure I keep playing them,” she drawls, like he’s not the least bit scary at all.
But then, I know now that scary andscarydepend a whole lot on a body’s response to the person in question. I know that better than I’d like.
“Keep it up,” he suggests, his voice a soft threat. “You think I don’t know that you keep shifting into human form because you think I’ll behave better when your oracle buddy can understand me?”
“Not everything is about you,” Maddox retorts loftily. “It’s rude to talk about things that affect someone in languages they don’t speak. Common courtesy, babe.”
“Babe,” he repeats, as if he can’t believe she dared call him that.
I decide that at this point, the two of them squabbling is like a lullaby. Even if it’s not, there’s nothing I can do about it when even listening hurts.
I let my eyes drift shut. I let my face stay in the dirt, because it’s cold and that feels fantastic against my aching head. It’s like an ice pack provided by the earth itself, and I am eternally grateful.
