Book Five, Chapter 95: A Test of Hustle

~Antoine~

The wind carried away my shame, my weakness.

It whispered through the trees, filling me with the strength and joy of the pack. The wolf reveled in it, delighted to belong, to run, to protect. I felt the pull of Serena—no, the pack leader—like a thread in my chest, binding me to her will.

There was another force in the distance, but Serena shielded me from it. I hardly noticed as other wolves fled or defected. They were weak. I was not.

She was the storm, and I was a part of it. A vital part.

She leads, and we follow.

The pack surged around Kimberly, and my wolf heart soared at the sight of her. She will join us, it thought. Serena’s jaws would mark her, and Kimberly would belong to the pack, just as I did. Just as we all did. It was exhilarating.

It was perfect.

It could be this way forever.

But beneath that joy, a pang of something else stirred. A shadow of pain, guilt, fear. It wasn’t the wolf’s. It was mine.

It was my weakness, and the wind couldn’t take it all. Please, please take it all, I prayed to the wolf god, to the packleader.

For a moment, I hesitated.

I looked at Kimberly—bleeding, defiant—and the pang grew sharper. I was supposed to protect her, wasn’t I? That was what I had always done.

I was the Knight in Shining Armor, wasn’t I?

My claws twitched in the dirt, and the wolf growled, restless and annoyed. Protect her? She doesn’t need protection. She needs the pack. She needs this.

The pang faded, swallowed by the wind and the wolf’s certainty. It was easier that way. Easier to let go. Easier to belong. Easier to forget.

Isn’t that what I always did? Forget?

All of the bad things were just a nightmare, right? The endless wandering in the trees, the sickly certainty that I could find the exit at any moment, and then the abject terror as all I ever found were more trees.

Just a nightmare. Don’t think about it.

The wolf ran, leaping across the field, its muscles thrumming with energy. Around me, the pack howled, their voices weaving into the night. Everything was as it should be. Everything except…

The blue orbs.

They hung in the trees like unholy stars, their glow pulsing faintly, painfully. The wolf recoiled at the sight of them, instincts screaming a warning I couldn’t fully understand. I tried to focus on them, to make sense of the blur, but my vision faltered, twisting and dimming. The light wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right. I veered away, skirting the edges of their reach.

The wolf pushed the fear aside, its focus narrowing. The orbs didn’t matter. Kimberly mattered. The pack leader mattered. The pack mattered.

Serena shifted back into her wolf form, her powerful body sleek and dark beneath the moonlight.

She was magnificent.

She moved like a force of nature, bashing away Kimberly’s gun in a flash, her jaws clamping down on Kimberly’s leg. Kimberly screamed, her voice slicing through the air.

A small choked voice from the shadows deep inside screamed, Help Kimberly, you idiot. Help her. Save her!

The wind became stronger until I couldn’t hear that voice. I was the wolf. The weak voice was gone.

And then, the man appeared.

He charged through the chaos, his military gear dark and angular. A mercenary. The pack descended on him before he could aim his rifle, and he went down in a blur of fur and blood. But behind him came another—a tall, intelligent man carrying one of the glowing blue orbs. His face was sharp, familiar.

Andrew, the name came to me, a memory clawing its way through the haze. Andrew, please save Kimberly!

Andrew’s gaze locked on Serena, his expression calm but determined. The orb pulsed in his hand, its light searing through the air, through me. He was going to throw the orb at her.

The wolf’s growl deepened, low and guttural. Danger. Protect the pack leader.

I didn’t hesitate.

I, a loyal wolf, leapt, claws slicing through the air, and tackled Andrew to the ground. My claws tore into his side, hot blood spilling across the dirt. But the blue orb—it reacted. Its light flared, burning through my chest like fire.

Pain erupted, sudden and overwhelming.

It wasn’t the sharp sting of a wound or the ache of exhaustion. It was deeper, heavier. The light pulled at me, draining something vital. The wind, the power, the joy—it was all being sucked into the orb, leaving nothing but raw, empty me.

The wolf whimpered, retreating into the shadows of my mind. And suddenly, I was me. I was Antoine again.

My claws twitched against the ground, and I staggered back, breathless. The connection was gone. The thread tying me to the pack, to Serena, had snapped. The air felt cold, hollow, and wrong. I could still feel Serena, but I also felt the call of another, a stronger wolf.

Where was that coming from? As much as the wolf in me wanted to reconnect with Serena, the wolf also wanted to heed this other call, this other wolf. It was confused.

Kimberly’s screams cut through the numbness, raw and desperate.

I turned, my hind legs trembling beneath me.

Serena was on her, biting, clawing, teasing, her massive jaws nipping into Kimberly’s arm. She wasn’t supposed to kill her; that wasn’t the plan. She was supposed to curse her. She couldn’t risk eating Kimberly’s heart; no, the curse must be applied delicately, or Kimberly might die uncursed.

Gentle bites, that was the way to do it.

But she wasn’t being gentle. Not anymore. Her bites were getting deeper; she was losing control, tearing flesh.

The pack leader’s movements were becoming more wild and unhinged. She had promised to pass the curse to Kimberly, but her wolf only wanted to eat.

She was going to kill her.

“Stop!” I tried to scream, but my jaws only emitted a pained bark.

Serena didn’t stop. She didn’t even hear me. Kimberly writhed beneath her, blood pooling around them. My claws dug into the ground, and I clenched my teeth, fighting the urge to sink back into the wolf.

The wolf whispered, coaxing me. Wait. Just wait. The light will fade. The connection will return. Everything will be fine again. Just wait.

The wolf was too distracted to take control. He kept thinking about this other powerful wolf in the distance.

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Just wait, he whispered, just wait, and it will all be okay.

But Kimberly’s screams shattered that lie.

I couldn’t wait. Not this time.

The embrace of the wind, the wonderful nothingness of all my flaws disappearing, all my pain fading. It was so tempting.

The loss of my sense of self and my very sense of reality. Surviving something no man was meant to, surviving so many things. The pressure, the shame.

They really were a nightmare.

But I couldn’t forget them.

Tears rolled down my wolf face, wetting my fur as I watched Kimberly fighting, trying to stab Serena with a long silver knife.

Just wait, the wolf sang to me from his hiding place in the dark. It will all go away. The nightmare will fade, and the wind will take us freely.

I wanted to listen.

I wanted the Game at Carousel to end. I wanted the wolf to take back over and let me hide.

“Save her,” a voice whispered too quiet for any but my wolf ears to hear.

It was the man. Andrew.

I looked down at the evil my wolf had done to his broken and shredded body.

Andrew.

The wolf laughed at him.

It laughed at me.

The wind seemed to join in.

Laughing at one man’s pathetic, dying attempt.

If I win, the wolf promised, we will win forever. Just a few more minutes.

Minutes.

I suddenly remembered the timer that ticked down in my mind.

At sunrise, we would lose forever. Minutes. Eternity would be here in a few minutes.

Suddenly, the wolf’s words took a new meaning.

If the wolf won, it would win forever.

If the wolf won at all, it would win forever.

If the wolf won at all, it would win forever.

If the wolf won at all, it would win forever.

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t let it win.

I didn’t want to live forever, hiding from what I had done or what had been done to me.

Forever was a long time in or out of the forest.

The wolf was afraid of the glowing blue light. I didn’t have the strength to fight the wolf or the wind, but the light did.

Where was it?

The little jar of blue light had rolled a distance.

With every fiber of my strength, I jumped on it and let the light peel the very hide off the wolf inside, to force the wolf deep inside the shadows it had built for me.

The pain was beyond anything I had felt before, and soon, I had to run from it or I risked collapsing.