A panther screamed in the woods, a bear roared, and across the sky streaked two monstrous dragons. Perhaps she was dreaming. Perhaps she was still back in the motel and would wake up from this nightmare whole again.
Head spinning, she fell backward, but where she expected to hit the ground hard, Dustin's arms were there, cradling her back and head.
He was in his human form, but he looked like hell. Beautiful hell. Cut and bitten, covered in seeping crimson, his long hair matted and plastered to his blood-spattered face, his eyes glowing, Dustin looked like a warrior. No, he was a warrior.
"Beast," she murmured, her arms seizing with the fire in her veins.
"Fighting." Dustin looked up toward the sounds of yipping and whining and chaos. "All of the Blackwings are fighting but the dragons. They're waiting."
"For what?"
Dustin leveled her with a look. "For vengeance. They'll be eating ashes tonight."
"It hurts," she whispered.
Dustin's eyes rimmed with deep emotion, and he looked away. "I know, Em." He swallowed hard and looked sick. "This is all my fault."
"I don't want his wolf, Dustin. Not his."
He dragged his misty-eyed gaze back to her. "I can call your coven. My phone is in the car. Maybe they can get here in time."
She shook her head. Sweet wolf for trying to give her what she wanted. "That option has passed. I can feel it in me." She arched her back as she felt her bones breaking. Emma sobbed, "Dustin, I want a wolf from you. Please."
A tear streaked through the blood on his cheek. He pulled her against his chest. And right before he sank his teeth into her shoulder, he whispered, "I'm so sorry." And then there was deep, aching pain.
The fire blasted down her nerve endings, but she didn't fight this one. This wolf she wanted. Dustin was sorry, and so was she for how things had turned out, but right now it felt imperative that she was Turned by Dustin, not Axton. Some deep-rooted instinct told her she could be okay if Dustin Turned her. She didn't want to be a monster. Her entire torso was engulfed in pain now, but this was how it should've been. Dustin was rushing to take her shoes off, her shirt … her hearing aids. She would still need those. Emma sobbed harder as she curled in on the pain expanding like a sickening fog down through her stomach.
There was fire around them. Dual flames blasted into the clearing behind her. She could smell the smoke and more. She could smell the dragon's gas and hear the click of their firestarters. Agony rippled through her, warring with the pain in her arms until a new and brighter pain took over.
"Let her have you," Dustin murmured, rocking Emma's body and stroking her hair away from her face.
Winter was there, a black panther, pacing a few feet behind Dustin, her glowing eyes gold and trained on Emma.
Let her have you.
Massive and hollow-eyed, face and claws covered in blood, Logan's bear lumbered in behind Winter.
Let her have you.
And then Beast was there, human, bitten up, bleeding, eyes glowing gold still. He felt terrifying. Was this what Dustin was always talking about? Could she feel dominance now?
Let her have you.
Emma closed her eyes and reached for the wolf. The good one that was light and born willingly. The one Dustin had given her, not the dark creature that sat snarling within her and ready for violence. Not the monstrous creature Axton had tried to turn her into.
With a gasp, Emma held onto the good pieces of herself and ripped apart.
Chapter Seventeen
Emma was the most beautiful creature Dustin had ever seen. She stood there in the headlights, legs splayed like a newborn colt, eyes a fierce green and locked on him. Her coat was thick and striking with cream points and a light gray saddle. Her ears were erect, and her lips were drawn back over her teeth. She approached slowly, head down, steps unsteady as her massive paws flattened against the mud. She gave narrow-eyed looks to the D-Team, then trained those blazing green eyes back on Dustin.
Shit, she was about to maul him, and he was too devoted to her to lift a single fang to hurt her. She could gut him right now, and he would let it happen.
Axton's wolf had won. That much was clear from the snarl in her throat and the heaviness that wafted from her. Emma climbed over his legs, opened her jaws, and bit into his shoulder, shredded it. Dustin grunted and waited for her to move to his neck and end it all.
But she didn't.
Emma released him and did something that made no sense at all. She licked his wound over and over, cleaning it. Panting at the pain, he looked to Logan, but the bear huffed a deep breath and herded Winter into the woods. Beast stood suddenly and strode away into the shadows, and the dragons dipped this way and that into the woods, devouring ashes, devouring the packs that had joined forces to destroy Dustin.
Emma buried her massive face against his chest and whined, her tail wagging slowly, and it hit him. Axton's wolf hadn't won. Emma had.
Her first act as a werewolf wasn't violence. It wasn't vengeance for what had been done to her.
Instead, Emma-his beautiful, loyal, fearless Emma-had claimed him back.
Chapter Eighteen
This body didn't make sense yet, but it would. Her stance was too wide as she tried to keep her balance, especially with Dustin's grip in the scruff of her neck. His face was buried in her fur, and over and over again, he heaved breath. He'd been through hell tonight. They both had.
She'd already fallen in love with him, but here, in this body where all her senses were heightened and on alert, she became hopelessly devoted to him. He smelled so familiar. Fur and Dustin. Blood, too, but that was an afterthought. Perhaps it was the bite she'd given him that was causing the warm sensation in her chest right now, or perhaps it was that he smelled so sad and so happy all at once. Guilt for what had happened to her, but more potent than that, love. He'd chosen her without hesitation. She'd asked for his wolf, and there had been the barest flicker of a relieved smile there on his lips. He was her world now. Her pack, her crew, her mate.
Mine, she tried to say, but it came out a high-pitched whine that hurt her ears.
Everything was so loud in this body, so crisp. Every leaf rustling in the storm wind, every soft pattering rain drop, every hitched breath from Dustin.
"I heard the gunshot, and I thought I was going to lose you," he rumbled in a gravelly voice. "I thought I wasn't going to get to Axton in time. Why did you come for me, you crazy woman? I told you to be careful, not run into danger."
She whined again and licked his face. I would do anything for you, just like you would do anything for me.
A precise line of fire blasted the earth behind Dustin and ate up Axton's body. The wind grew to hurricane strength, and Dustin shielded her protectively. In a moment, it was done. All that was left was Kane's terrifying dragon arching upward with battered demon wings that stretched as wide as a mountain. Where Axton had lain, there was nothing but a deep divot of charred earth.
Dustin was free, but his eyes held a thousand ghosts as he looked at the burned earth. Emma's heart ached for him. He'd had to kill his own brother, and no matter that Axton deserved death, it would be a mark on Dustin's soul forever. Emma wished she could take that pain into herself so he wouldn't suffer.
Winter's panther screamed again from the woods. She was calling Emma, calling the crew. Above, the dragons were monstrous, lifting on the air currents until they disappeared into the thick, roiling storm. Lightning flashed and illuminated their dark silhouettes in the clouds. To Human Emma, it would've been a terrifying sight, but to Wolf Emma, it was beautiful. Those were her dragons. Beast had thought the crew failed them, but they had come. Breathe, bleed, and die for each other, no matter what. Perhaps this crew was more like a pride than the battle-hardened Beast had realized.
"Emma," Dustin murmured in the softest voice.
She ripped her gaze away from the sky and searched his eyes. What Dustin?
A slow smile transformed his face as he cocked his head. "You can hear me," he said in the barest whisper.
Emma perked her ears, flattened them, and perked them again. Winter, Logan, and Beast were moving through the woods, just beyond the shadows. She couldn't see them in the dark, but she could hear exactly where they were and smell that it was them. She could hear Dustin's breath and his racing heartbeat. She could hear her own.
She'd known her hearing would be improved in this body, but she hadn't realized it would be perfect. She wanted to cry and scream and laugh, and then cry some more. She spun a quick circle and blasted down onto her front paws, butt up in the air, tail wagging for her mate. You did good Dustin. Really good.