I snorted as I opened it. It took a bit of deciphering, but I got the gist—he went to a party last night. The send time said three AM. Poor guy would be hurting when he woke up. I turned on the latest from BBC Radio One’s Essential Mix—a totally sweet set from Sasha and Pete Tong at a club in Manchester—and started replying to Axel’s email.

I was about to hit send when the smell hit me. I paused the music.

“Meredith?” I asked through the door.

She gagged, and my blood went cold. Meredith hadn’t been lying when she said that werewolves didn’t get sick. They could heal broken bones in a few hours.

So, why was Meredith puking in our bathroom?

My chest tightened. Something was seriously wrong with my best friend.

I knocked on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”

More noises followed that I wished I hadn’t heard. Especially not with my new super sensitive hearing. Yuck.

I took a deep breath and fully cursed my werewolf senses. I could smell her half-digested food—the fried pork chops weren’t so appealing on the way out. There was something metallic in the air, too. Willing myself not to barf, I cracked open the door.

Meredith’s hair blocked her face from my view as she hovered over the toilet. I glanced around the bathroom, trying to figure out what I could do to help as she heaved. The mirrored medicine cabinet didn’t have anything even remotely medicine-like in it. Werewolves didn’t need it.

What was I even looking for?

Right. Hair band. I searched one of my carefully organized drawers beneath the sink, not caring that I was messing it up, and grabbed a black elastic. I quickly tied her hair back.

A chill ripped through me. “Umm…Meredith? Is there blood in your puke?”

“What the hell is happening to me?” Her voice was soft, and shook with fear. “I’ve never been sick like this before. I’ve never thrown up in my life. During the day of the full moon I get weak, but not this…”

“I don’t know what’s going on.” I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead. It was still clammy. “I’m gonna get help.”

Before I got to my cell, it was ringing. Dastien’s photo lit up my screen.

“Hey,” he said as soon as I answered. I could hear the leaves crunching under his feet as he ran. “What’s wrong? Why are you panicking?” He’d no doubt felt my freak out through our bond. My fear for Meredith definitely qualified as a strong emotion.

“Meredith’s puking blood.”

“Merde. Watch her. If she starts seizing, call me back. I’m grabbing Dr. Gonzales on my way.”

“What do you mean if she starts seizing? What the hell’s going on?”

The line was silent. He’d hung up?

Shit. He’d totally hung up on me.

Seizing? I ran through the little bit of first aid training I was forced to do in health class back in Los Angeles. Move them away from anything that could hurt them. Cushion their head. Loosen constrictive clothing around their neck.

Meredith was curled up on her side, hopefully done with puking. She was far enough away from the tub that she probably wouldn’t hit her head.

Her clothing—a hot pink tank top that matched the dyed sections in her hair and a pair of black sleep shorts—wasn’t constrictive at all. I grabbed a towel from our rack and folded it to put under her head.

“I feel horrible,” Meredith said. I ran a washcloth under hot water and handed it to her. She wiped her face before quickly sitting up, barely making it back to the toilet as she dry heaved.

“Take slow, deep breaths. It might help.” I sat on the edge of the tub next to her, rubbing my hand up and down her back.

She closed her eyes, following my advice. “Have you ever puked before?”

“Uh, yeah. I used to be human.”

She started puking again. If possible, Meredith turned even paler. I tried not to look—I didn’t want to—but it was like a train wreck. I couldn’t turn away as a little bit of blood dribbled from her mouth.

“How do you get used to it?” She said when she got back under control.

I snorted. Meredith had grown up a Were and had never been sick before. I was the only wolf in a very long while to be turned from a human. “No one gets used to it. Throwing up sucks.” It especially sucks when you’re puking blood. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew that something was majorly wrong with her.

“Yeah. No shit.”

I smiled, but it felt strained.

Where the hell was Dastien? I rubbed my sweating palms on my T-shirt.