Changed (6 page)

No. We don’t read minds. Your thoughts are your own; I can only catch the ones you direct my way.

Interesting
, I said, grateful.

So, how was the change? Did it hurt as badly as you’d expected?
Jace asked, his concern ringing clearly in my mind.

No—but it definitely didn’t tickle either.

Jace shook in front of me again, and I heard his laugh echo loudly in my mind once more.
There it is again, that little attitude. God, you crack me up!

I laughed with him and tossed my awkward arms around his fur-covered neck. Jace leaned into me and I closed my eyes.

Are you ready for your first hunting lesson?
he asked and my stomach grumbled loudly at the mere mention of food.
I’ll take that as a yes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Before I was able to respond, my ears picked up tiny footsteps coming from somewhere toward my right. Cocking my head to the side and listening carefully I was able to distinguish that it was a small animal I was hearing.

There you go; you’re a natural. Now, use your nose and tell me what type of animal it is
, Jace insisted.

As I inhaled deeply my nose suddenly became bombarded by all of the tantalizing scents of the woods—damp earth, moles, squirrels, disintegrating leaves, and
rabbit
.

It’s a rabbit!
I shouted victoriously, amazed by my new sense of smell.

Good, now go get it.
Jace chuckled in my mind.

Acting on animal instinct alone, I darted off in the direction of the tiny hopping feet. After moving within five feet of the rabbit, I slowed myself down to a predatory prowl. Every move I made was cautious and with an extreme amount of thought put into any noise my steps would make. With each step my hunger grew.

I could hear its tiny heart beating at a quick-paced rhythm and smell its musky earthlike scent.

Once I was two arm lengths behind it, I noticed its body visibly stiffen as it sensed my approaching presence. I watched as its white fur rose and fell while its breathing became faster. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of fear surrounding the fragile little rabbit and enjoyed it immensely. Without any hesitation I lunged forward, gripping the rabbit between my front paws.

I did it!
I triumphantly shouted.

Yes, you did—now watch the master
, Jace boasted.

I clutched the squirming rabbit against my chest firmly and watched as Jace cocked his head to one side. His ears pricked, listening to something I couldn’t hear. With a twitch of his body, Jace dashed past me and disappeared into the darkened woods in a flash.

My attention dropped to the tiny heartbeat pounding away between my paws. I stared into its beady little eyes, and my mouth began to fill with saliva. Hunger consumed me—not an emotion I’d expected to feel looking at its tiny fur-covered face.

With one deliberate twist, the fragile rabbit dangled lifeless in my paws and in the next instant I was eating, feeding the hunger that now controlled me. My teeth tore through it just as easily as if it were a roast my mother had cooked. The taste was more wonderful than anything I’d ate in a while. It was warm and juicy, satisfying beyond belief.

A rustling of leaves coming my way made me pause mid-chew. I glanced behind me; Jace stood near a large tree a few feet away with a glassy-eyed doe lying in front of him.

Dinner for two
, Jace said.

At the sight of the doe lying motionless in front of him, blood dripping from the wound in its throat, all of the animal instincts that had compelled me moments ago vanished without warning. My gaze dropped to my paws and sickness began to ripple through me. I was no longer holding the frail, white rabbit—I was holding its bloody carcass.

Gagging, I tossed it as far away from me as I could and frantically began to wipe my paws against the damp leaves, trying desperately to get rid of the blood on them. It smeared all around me and matted itself into the patches of my fur and streaked across the smooth areas of my skin.

The salty, metallic stench filled my nose and the coppery taste lined my mouth. I spat out a chunk of bloody fur that had lodged between my teeth just as the woods around me began to spin.

Tessa, it’s okay. Calm down. You’re going to be okay. You just have to breathe
, I heard Jace’s warm voice say in my mind.

I couldn’t answer him; I was too busy trying to fight against the overwhelming urge I had to vomit. Tears pricked my eyes as my breathing heightened just before I felt my head hit the ground. Then I was gone, floating into a bottomless sea of blackness.

* * *

“
Tessa? Tessa—wake up!” an urgent, but familiar voice shouted from directly above me.

The only response I gave was a muffled moan because something hurt—my head, I realized instantly once I was able to pinpoint where the pain radiated from. My eyes fluttered open, and Jace’s blurred face came into view.

“
Are you okay? You hit your head pretty hard. Can you sit up?” he asked, gripping my shoulder firmly in an attempt to help me sit up.

“
I think I’m okay,” I mumbled. “But, ouch, my head does hurt a little.”

I raised my hand to touch the spot of throbbing pain and winced once my fingers brushed over a large bump. Everything hit me then, like flashes of lightning shooting down from the sky, the realization of where I was and what I’d been doing filled my mind entirely.

I glanced down at my body and noticed there were no more irregular patches of blond fur covering me. There was nothing besides my bare skin glistening in the early light. I had been lying on damp leaves completely naked for I didn’t know how long.

Reaching for Jace’s T-shirt lying on the ground beside me, I covered myself up as best I could, then stared at the flaky coating on my hands. Dried blood. Bringing my fingertips to my face I could feel the same coating surrounding my mouth and taste its coppery aftertaste on my tongue.

Panic shot through my chest, and I struggled to gain control over myself yet again, not wanting to pass out for a second time from another panic attack.

“
You’re okay. What you did was natural; all you were doing was exactly what you’re supposed to. You were simply following your animal instincts,” Jace coaxed me.

I looked at him and could clearly see the desperation for me to believe his reassuring words hiding in the depth of his amber-colored eyes.

“
Right,” I whispered, still fighting to control my breathing.

Jace squatted down to his knees in front of me and took both of my hands in his, a gesture I was sure was meant to calm me, but all it did was make my heart race even more. I felt the dried blood crumbling off my skin in flakes and onto his where our palms touched and our fingers interlaced. My chest tightened more.

“
It’s okay; this is all something that’s going to take some time to get used to,” he insisted, rubbing his thumbs across the backs of my hands.

Anxiety surged through me and I ripped my hands from his. “I just—I need to get this off me right now.”

“
Hold on. I’ll be right back,” Jace said, before sprinting toward my house.

It was then, watching him jog away, that I realized he’d already changed back into his pants. I drew my knees up to my chest and held my hands out in front of me, wondering how long I’d been out and what time it was.

My eyes fell back to my blood-coated hands, and I scolded myself for abandoning all of my human instincts so quickly and giving into such monstrous tendencies. I closed my eyes as Jace’s words popped into my head—
what you did was natural, all you were doing was exactly what you’re supposed to. You were simply following your animal instincts.
I replayed it repeatedly in my mind as I tried to convince myself that what I had done to that poor rabbit was all right.

With my eyes still closed I began to focus on the fast footsteps that were rapidly approaching me—Jace’s footsteps.

“
Here, I got a bottle of water. Hold your hands out.”

“
Bottled water? Where did you get that?” I asked, doing as I was told.

With a slight twist of his lips, Jace smirked. “From your fridge.”

Panic jolted through me as I rubbed my hands together, rinsing off all of the blood. “From my fridge? Weren’t my parents awake?”

“
No, it’s only about 4:00 a.m. It only looks bright out because of your keen eyesight,” he answered, slowly continuing to pour water from the bottle over my hands.

I glanced up, looking at the sky. “I can still see the moon. Why are we not still wolves?”

“
Because technically, it’s now morning. We only change on the
night
of a full moon, not the morning,” he answered. “Now turn this way so I can get it off your face.”

I turned my face toward him and cringed on the inside at what I knew I must look like to him right now. A gross mess. Once Jace’s wet fingertips touched the crust that had dried around my lips, my heart began to race again as the potent smell of it filled my nose. Saliva pooled in my mouth and bile began to rise up the back of my throat. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes tightly as they began to water.

“
This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” Jace asked, a trace of humor lining his every word.

“
Yes, it is,” I answered quickly, the words flying from my mouth sounding harsh and irritable. “I’m sorry I can’t be the perfect werewolf like you.”

“
Nobody’s perfect… and especially not werewolves,” Jace whispered, the strokes of his fingers against my skin becoming tender. “But you’re pretty damn close.”

I opened my eyes to glare at him. “Ha, sure. If you want a good laugh at every full moon, then I’m your girl.”

“
Why do you say that?” Jace asked, putting the cap back on the bottle and walking over toward my pile of clothes. He carefully picked them up and placed them in my lap before taking away his T-shirt and using it to wipe my face.

“
Seriously? I changed into some patchy, grotesque beast and then passed out after I mutilated some poor, harmless rabbit. I’d say I pretty much sucked.”

Jace laughed that deep, rich, contagious laugh of his that I loved while he wiped off his hands. “You’ll get the hang of it. This was only your first night, and I’ve already told you that by the next full moon you’ll be fully changed. Besides, I thought your instincts with the rabbit were freaking amazing!”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, until I barfed all over.”

“
It’s okay; don’t worry about it.” Jace chuckled.

The embarrassment I had been feeling from the entire situation died out and burst into tiny little flames of anger. “Why are you laughing at me? This isn’t funny, Jace. I’m supposed to be some kind of freaking Queen Werewolf beside you or something, and I can’t even change fully or eat an animal without feeling like I’m going to vomit all over the place and pass out! How the hell am I going to do any of this?”

Tears pricked my eyes and in that instant the horror of my situation hit me, hard, and I began to feel like the weight of the world was now resting on my shoulders. I bit my bottom lip and raised my eyes to the sky while blinking rapidly, fighting to hold in my tears because I didn’t want Jace to see me cry.

He dropped down to his knees and wrapped his arms around me. I buried my faced against his warm chest and the floodgates opened. All the tears I had fought so hard to keep in came streaming down my cheeks like twin rivers.

We remained that way, locked in an embrace underneath the fading darkness, until my tears ran dry.

“
I’m so sorry, Tessa,” Jace whispered into my hair after a few moments of silence had passed. The amount of heavy guilt I heard etched into each of his words was enough to break my heart all over again.

“
Don’t be,” I mumbled into his warm skin, barely loud enough for me to even hear myself, but I knew he’d heard me.

Jace pulled himself away from me so that he could stare into my eyes. “But I am, I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. And I’m promising you right now that I will do everything in my power from here until the end of our forever to make it up to you. I love you, Tessa.”

Jace’s last four words sent the only remaining tear left in my eye sliding down my cheek. Cupping my face between his hands, with his thumb he gently wiped it away and smiled at me.

“
I love you, too,” I whispered.

The second the words came from my lips, Jace’s were pressed against mine. Wrapping my arms around his neck, the shirt of mine I had been holding against my bare chest fell free, allowing our skin to touch in places it never had before. Shivers of excitement flowed through my body as our kisses became more heated.

“
No—wait,” Jace whispered against my lips as he pulled himself back.

Keeping his face a few inches away from mine, he stared at me with eyes hooded by lust and desire. I stared back, unblinking, wishing for just a moment that he would not think and allow himself to get just as lost in me as I did in him.

“
We can’t do this right now. Your parents are going to be up soon, and they might notice you sneaking back in.”

Rejection shattered through my body as reason rung clearly in my mind. Jace was right, we couldn’t risk doing what I desperately wanted to do right now. I let out a deep breath and picked through the crumpled clothes in my lap, searching for my underwear.