Untamed Fate (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 2)

Savannah

“Oh, my God, no.” My heart rate and breathing skyrocketed as I braced myself against the sink and studied my reflection in the mirror.

My eyes had gone amber. Auburn hair had sprouted along my forearms, and claws extended from my bloody fingertips, still aching from their release.

This wasn’t PTSD or a trick of the mind. This was real.

My heart hammered against my ribs, but I couldn’t move. The horror of the truth had rendered my body immobile.

There was no pretending anymore. I was turning into a werewolf.

I dug my clawed fingers into the side of the sink as I turned every scenario over in my head. How had this happened?

Jaxson had told me that it was practically impossible to catch lycanthropy from a bite, and while I’d been scratched and clawed and knocked around by werewolves, I hadn’t ever been bitten.

I closed my eyes, recalling the events of the past two weeks. The rogue wolves had hauled me off to an old sanitorium and drained my blood. They’d also injected me with something. I’d thought it was designed to repress my magic, but what if it was something worse?

Had those bastards done this to me? Had they tried to turn a LaSalle into a werewolf?

Fuck.

Trembling, I leaned forward and bared my teeth in the mirror. They looked normal, despite the deep ache in my upper and lower jaw. I used my knuckle to push aside my lip so I could inspect my gums, and…fucking hell. They were swollen and red, and touching them made the pain worse.

This isn’t happening, this isn’t happen—

A jarring noise shook me from my thoughts, and I looked around wildly.

The door handle rattled again as someone tried to get in. I covered my ears as they started pounding on the door. The sound was almost deafening.

“This one’s taken,” I croaked, my throat suddenly drier than a bone. “Use the other!”

I had to find a way to fight this.

Agony exploded through my stomach, and I doubled forward, leaning my weight on the sink. Tears streamed from my eyes, mixing with the blood on the porcelain. I could smell the blood—just one of a hundred scents filtering through my mind, most of them revolting.

I gasped as a sharp pain erupted through my jaw, and I looked up in horror. Blood ran from my lips. I’d sprouted fangs. Fuck!

I had to get out of here, away from these people. If anyone at the party saw this, they’d crucify me. But where could I go? I had no one to turn to. Casey would never understand, and if Laurel found out, she’d kick me out or worse.

Run.

I could hide in the shadows. I just had to slip into the park without being noticed, then I could disappear into the woods and wait for this to pass. It would pass, right?

Of course it would. I’d seen my eyes turn this color before.

Having a plan gave me courage. Gut throbbing, I staggered over to the door and listened, but I could barely make sense of what I heard. My ears were drowning in noise. The light above buzzed incessantly, and the music sounded like someone had parked a loudspeaker right outside.

Even with all that, I could still hear the conversations of people by the bonfire.

The bathroom door beside mine opened and slammed with a reverberating thud as someone left. I could hear the soft padding of footsteps crossing the grass, though it was like the walker was stomping through hay right next to my head.

I shouldn’t be able to hear that.

Gripping the handle, I unlocked the door and slipped outside and around the building. Casey was talking to some people, his back turned to me. Hopefully, he’d assume I’d left and wouldn’t come looking.

I tried pulling the darkness around me, but my magic didn’t flow. Too much noise. Too much pain. I gasped and shuddered as a piercing ache shot through my shoulder blades.

It was now or never. This wasn’t going to stop.

I scrambled frantically for the deep shadows of the park, fear biting at my heels. My feet thundered over the ground, but when I looked back, no one had turned around.

Another bout of sickening pain hit me, and my vision skewed. When I looked up, the shapes of the trees and the leaves on the ground were brighter and clearer than they should have been. I could make out details of things that should have been impossible to see at night.

The scents of the forest were so overwhelming, I nearly gagged. Hundreds of plants and animals that I could barely identify. Traces of creatures and people that had passed by hours or days ago. The aroma of ripe berries and dead animals and rotting vegetation.

Mind whirling, I pushed deeper into the woods with no idea of where I was headed, just that I had to get as far away from the bonfire and those people as possible.

The moon peeked through the leaves above. I ran and ran, stumbling every time the agony returned. My skin felt raw, and even the lightest breeze was too much.

This couldn’t be how Sam and Jaxson experienced the world, could it? They’d go mad.

A wave of nausea hit me, and I doubled over and choked.

Deep breaths, Savy. You’re a badass bitch, and you’ll get through this.

Would I?

Gasping, I pushed forward into the trees, but the chafing of my clothes against my skin became unbearable. I yanked off my shirt and shimmied out of my jeans, cursing as they rubbed like sandpaper. My breathing came in huffs, and tears streamed down my face. I slowed, too exhausted to continue.

The buzzing of cicadas, the scurrying of an animal in the underbrush, and the creaking of branches—it was all deafening. I cupped my hands over my ears and craned my head upward, silently praying for this all to be a nightmare.

But it wasn’t.

A gut-wrenching force exploded inside me, snapping my spine like a twig. I shrieked and dropped to the ground, my vision blurring from the pain.

When I opened my eyes, the moon was no longer visible through the trees. My body felt broken and wasted, like I’d been beaten to a pulp. I rolled onto my hands and knees, panting as sweat poured down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

Everything was wrong.

I’d seen werewolves transform. It happened in seconds, not minutes or hours. Had those bastards turned me into a freakish aberration? A half-human science experiment doomed to tear itself apart and die?

Agony struck again, and my back arched as my insides rearranged themselves, my ribs popping. A scream tore from my throat, stealing all the air from my lungs. Then the bones in my fingers cracked and shortened. My wrists couldn’t bear my weight, so I rolled onto my side, wincing at the stabs in my chest.

Another snap, this time my thigh bone. And then the other one. I cried out, my voice sounding distant and feral. The pain was too much. My knees were next, and then my ankles. I didn’t have the strength to scream, so I whimpered, my tears soaking the ground beneath me. Through my streaming eyes, I saw that my legs were twisted and covered in fur. My body quaked with fear and pain.

What had I become?