As the blood coated the foot of the totem, a wind whipped from out of nowhere. The howling sound whispered throughout the rows of the council, and I felt myself being caught up in its gust. It wasn’t strong enough to knock me off my feet, but was powerful enough for me to feel its lash against my skin.

I counted down, waiting for the wind to drop, and when it finally did, I ran toward my mother, who had crumpled against the totem. She fell to her knees, the bones colliding with the shiny pedestal with a cracking noise that made me wince on her behalf. As she slumped against the carved wolf I remembered stroking as a child during my first rite, I leaped forward and dragged her against me.

Tears wet my eyes, blurring my vision as I stared down at her, looked at her beloved face as she smiled at me. Smiled. I shuddered, missing her already as she bled out in my arms.

“He’s there, Eli,” she whispered. “Waiting on me. Oh, Mother, how I missed him.”

“Go to him, Mom,” I whispered back, holding her tighter in my grasp. “Be free and be happy.”

My cheeks were hot with trailing tears, and when she stiffened, I felt like howling out my rage and grief.

How long I rocked her, I couldn’t say, but when I heard my council shuffling around, when I was torn from the fog of my loss, I sought control, for an alpha couldn’t act without it, and carefully, with the utmost respect and all the love I felt for her, I placed her body back on the pedestal.

It was ruby red and glinting with her blood, but as I shuffled her limp form onto it, I waited for the Mother to accept her into her embrace.

When light flared at the tip of the totem, I braced myself for what was about to happen. I’d read the same tomes my mother had, knew of this only because of what she’d shown me. The totem wasn’t used for this anymore, wasn’t supposed to—

A gasp shot up around the council at my back as the totem burst into flames. It burned hotly, enough to sear my skin and melt it, but I didn’t fret. This was how it was supposed to be.

As wrong as it was, this was right.

My mother’s body was caught in the flames, and I watched her burn for a second before I could take no more and closed my eyes.

The scent revolted me—burning fat and roasting flesh. How I didn’t vomit, I’d never know, but when the wind whipped into being once more and the heat from the fire disappeared, I looked upon the totem.

She was no longer there. Not even the dust of her remains was left behind. And the totem? The fire was no more, but the wood was charred black, rich and gleaming with red hot embers. As though my mother’s death, the fire, had breathed new life into it.

Maybe it had, like vineyard owners set fire to vines every season to replenish the soil for the next year. All I knew was that the sacrifice was too great and my loss too huge for me to appreciate it.

Unable to take another moment of this pain, I shifted, turning into the baser creature who could mourn but whose nature was earthier.

The second I shifted, I howled my grief, the melancholic sound reverberating around the clearing. In response to my shift, the totem turbocharged my power, forcing the council to transform too.

I ran before they could follow.

Tonight was not the time for a pack run.

I needed space, I needed to hunt, I needed to shore my connection with this land.

Alone.

Two

Austin

“Did you hear that?”

Uneasily, I blinked at my brother. “Yeah. I heard it.”

“We can’t leave her,” he rasped, peering around us as though the alpha was in this very clearing with us.

“No. We can’t.” I bit my bottom lip. “He isn’t beckoning us.”

A sharp moan escaped the woman, forcing our attention her way. I stared down at her, at the rippling skin that looked as though she had worms under the top layer of epidermis, and at the sheer agony on her face.

I could only imagine what she’d gone through as she crossed over. I couldn’t begin to understand the pain she’d been in, but what I knew was this—that pain would be nothing compared to what she’d endure now.

“When do we shift?” I whispered over her low, agonized grunts.

“We shift when she does. Not a moment sooner,” Ethan muttered, then he reached up and rubbed his chest. “Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

He wriggled his shoulders. “Like something’s…”

When his words waned, I peered around the area, trying to figure out exactly what he was sensing. We were alone, and there was no one nearby except for trees and a few rabbits, potentially a couple of stags and some foxes. There were leaves everywhere, branches that had been torn from their trees, thanks to the high winds we’d been having the past few weeks, and that was pretty much it.

When I scented the area with purpose, not just mindlessly, I could smell the stench of a fungus that was flourishing nearby, some shit, and…mostly, the blue moon was what filtered through everything.

Just when my mouth popped open to ask him what was wrong, I felt it. My jaw clenched at the chasm inside me. It opened up from out of nowhere, slicing into my soul so quickly and so ferociously, that though I hadn’t been cut with a knife, it sure as hell felt like metal had torn into my skin, tearing me apart.

“What is it?” I demanded, gasping the words at him.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, and in his eyes, there was fear of the same chasm I was experiencing.

“It hurts,” I rasped.

“I know.”

Both of us dropped to our knees, in tune to the female’s agonized cries, our heads bowed as we processed what was happening to us. I had no idea what we must have looked like—I didn’t give a damn either.

This was a living nightmare. That was how it felt. Then, she screamed. A hoarse, horrified screech that morphed into a howl which snatched my attention away from my own personal misery and drew it to her.

She was half shifted, and I winced at the sight. That was always painful. We usually fell into a half shift at time of great duress or stress. It was like we were distracted during the shift, so we were tugged in both directions.

Her bones cracked and crunched as her back arched at an inhuman angle, and her fingers tore at the ground, ripping into the earth with claws that were pure beast.

Her skin had stopped writhing, but now, there was fur sprouting out of each pore, and with another howl, one that saw her jaw elongating, her nose morphing into a flatter, more angled snout, she popped out—the she-wolf.

From a noise that was loud enough to pierce anyone’s ear drums, to the sight of the prettiest she-wolf I’d seen in all my life. I gaped at her, aware that my brother was doing the same.

Unable to stop myself, I shifted too. When Ethan followed, I ignored him and moved closer, sniffing around her as she sat there panting, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as though she were utterly exhausted.

Nudging her with my snout, I was surprised when she didn’t snarl at me, when she only released a low keen that was loaded with her distress. Though the beast felt less in this form, we were still empathetic creatures, and I hurt for her. Truly, I did.

Softly, I nuzzled into her, trying to impart my sympathy, and when she nuzzled back, a feeling of elation whirled around inside me.