Bronx
When we reach Storm Dawn, we’re tired, sweaty, covered in mud, and starving. We stop at the house Madison shares with Eva.
“Nice place,” I murmur, looking at the unusual décor. “Somebody likes wolves.”
“Apparently,” Madison glances over her shoulder at me. “It was destiny.”
I chuckle. Then the two of us get cleaned up, eat, drop off all of our supplies, and hurry to the small clinic where Eva is staying.
Storm Dawn isn’t exactly “on the map.” It’s a small mountain town just on the forest’s edge, so it’s surprising to me that there’s a small medical facility.
“It’s not much,” Madison says, as if reading my thoughts. “But it’s enough for now. I took her to a bigger hospital,” she explains. “A couple of months ago, actually. They didn’t know what was wrong with her, either.” She sniffles a little bit, and I give her a tight hug.
“Hey,” I lift her chin so she’s looking at me. “This isn’t your fault, Madison. Nothing that’s happened is your fault. Do you understand this?”
She nods. I hug her again and when I’m certain she’s really okay, I let her go. She steels herself and then we head inside. The staff members all seem to know Madison. She obviously spends a lot of time here because they just wave us in. When we reach the room where her guardian is staying, Madison pauses.
“My parents died a long time ago, Bronx. She’s all I have.”
I place my hand on Madison’s.
“We’re going to save her, baby. Don’t you worry.”
Madison pushes the door to the hospital room open and we enter. Instantly, I’m overwhelmed by the scent of a sick shifter. Yeah, Eva is a wolf all right. If there was any doubt before, it’s gone now.
Her eyes open when we enter. She’s lucid, at least for now. Madison told me it comes and goes.
“Hey,” Madison rushes to the woman’s side and takes her hand. “How’s the prettiest girl in Storm Dawn today?”
Eva forces a smile and squeezes Madison’s hand. Her eyes are glued to me, though.
“Eva,” Madison says softly. “There’s something I need to ask you. I think…we think…we might know what’s wrong with you.”
Now Eva turns and looks at Madison. Her eyes hold both fear and curiosity. She doesn’t speak. Instead, she waits patiently.
The sign of a true wolf.
The thing about shifters is that we’re patient as fuck. We can wait forever if it means getting what we want, and Eva? She wants to be healed from this sickness. I can see it in her eyes.
“Eva,” Madison starts again. “Is there, perhaps, even the slightest chance that you might…not be…human?” She coughs the words out, but Eva doesn’t say anything.
Instead, the shifter stares at Madison, unblinking. She doesn’t react for a very long time. Finally, just as I’m about to step forward and use my Alpha charm to get her talking, Eva sighs.
“I was different once,” she says. “Long ago.”
“Eva,” Madison whispers. “Why did you stop shifting?”
Eva smiles up at Madison. “I saved you,” she says. “You were just a little girl. You were lost and alone and I saved you. You didn’t need a pet, honey. You didn’t need a wolf. You needed a mother, so that’s what I became.”
“Eva, you stopped shifting because of me?” Now Madison is tearing up. Fuck.
“I just wanted to protect you,” Eva whispers. “People here…they don’t like outsiders. I couldn’t be an outsider if I was going to care for you. You really think they would have awarded custody to someone like me if they’d known?”
“But you’d lived here for years,” Madison says. “Surely someone knew you were a shifter.”
“I used to shift in the forest,” Eva whispers. “Started a bunch of rumors about it being haunted so people would stay away. Once you came into my life, though, well, suddenly it didn’t seem right to go off and shifting. I couldn’t leave you alone.”
“Eva,” Madison says. “This sickness…it’s because you haven’t shifted.”
Eva’s eyes look sad now, and she nods.
“Eva, aren’t you going to say anything?” Madison asks desperately.
“She’s not saying anything because she already knew. Didn’t you?” Now I speak up, and Eva’s eyes dart to mine.
“What? No. She couldn’t have known this.”
“Tell her,” I command. “Tell Madison.”
“I knew,” Eva whispered.
“Why didn’t you say anything? You could have just shifted and healed. Your body will heal itself once you shift. You’re only sick because you haven’t in so long.”
Again, Eva is silent, and now I realize what the problem is.
“You forgot,” I say simply.
Eva blushes.
“You forgot?” Madison asks.
Eva nods.
“Well, then, darling,” I reach for Eva and pull her carefully to her feet. “Let’s help you remember.”
I lift her into my arms and the frail woman wraps her arms around my neck. If this is an everyday occurrence in the medical center, I can’t tell, but no one says a word as I carry Eva out of the little clinic, down the road, and to a wooded area. It’s not the forest – we’d have to go through the mountain pass to reach that – but it’ll do for what we need.
Then I set Eva down and I take off my clothes.
“Madison, how did you meet this man?” Eva asks, staring at me.
“I, um…I sort of…tried to capture him…for good luck…and I tried to…steal a lock of his fur,” Madison mumbles.
“You did WHAT?!” Eva turns to Madison and shrieks. The sound is loud, coming from someone so sickly they can barely stand. “Madison, what!?”
Madison just shrugs.
“We’re mates now, Eva, so you’re basically my mother-in-law now. Don’t worry. There will be plenty of time to hear the story later. Come on, love. Let’s get you shifted. Close your eyes.”
Eva stands beside me and closes her eyes. She’s wearing a thin hospital gown, but that’s fine. It won’t restrict her movements and it’ll tear once she shifts.
“Clear your mind.”
Madison watches as I take Eva’s hands in mine and help her start breathing deeply.
“You’re a wolf, Eva. You’re a big, beautiful wolf. You can run and you can be free. You are a wolf.”
“I am a wolf,” Eva whispers, but nothing happens. She breathes, relaxing her body, but she doesn’t shift. I walk her through some meditations and help her focus on relaxing herself, but soon Eva seems to grow tired, and eventually I do, too.
This was supposed to be simple.
I had an idea that we would show up and I would simply save the day.
That isn’t happening.
“Wait,” Madison says. “I have an idea. Bronx, shift.”
“What?”
“Just do it,” she says, and I shift, obeying my mate. I trust Madison completely. If she tells me she has an idea, well, then she has an idea. Suddenly, I’m in wolf form, standing in front of her and Eva.
Madison turns to face Eva.
“Eva,” she whispers. “Touch the wolf.”
Eva nods and I move so I’m directly in front of her. Then Eva reaches for me and begins to stroke my fur softly. She pets me for a long time. So long, in fact, that I’m certain I might fall asleep before she actually shifts, but then Eva starts to sing slowly. She hums a song my mother used to sing to me when I was little. And then she speaks.
“The luck of the wolves,” Eva whispers. “I remember.”
And suddenly, she the hospital gown is tearing.
Suddenly, her long, grey hair is disappearing.
Suddenly, her pale skin is replaced with a deep, dark mane.
Suddenly, Eva is a wolf, and she’s staring right at me.
Madison starts shrieking and jumping up and down, and Eva just stares at me. She did it. She fucking did it. After all of this time, after all of this pain, after all of this sickness, she fucking remembered.
And she did it.
Eva looks at me and nods, ever-so-slightly, as if to thank me for helping her find herself again. That’s the thing about wolves. We are all one pack. It doesn’t matter if someone grew up with different wolves. It doesn’t matter if they’ve gotten lost along the way. The only thing that matters is that we help each other when there is a need. We reach out to one another when times are tough.
I watch Eva walk around. Slowly, she moves her legs, stepping with each paw. She pauses frequently, sitting and then standing again. She looks at just everything. I don’t know how long it’s going to take for her to fully heal. I don’t know if she’s going to shift back and be instantly perfect.
I don’t know any of that.
What I do know is that Eva is going to be just fine and me? I’ve got Madison by my side. I’m going to be more than fine. I’m going to be fucking incredible. I may have had trouble with my pack, but I also have a group of wolves who love and protect me just as I love and protect them. Without Betty’s razor-sharp instincts, Alyssa and Jed would have killed both me and Madison. They would have slaughtered us and then not only would I have lost the pack, I would have lost my mate, and my mate’s guardian would have died, too.
Now, we’re all safe.
We’re all going to be fine.
I look over at Madison and see her watching us with tears in her eyes. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say the little human is happy. Her idea for making a healing potion may have been way off. Her method of going about it may have been all wrong, but she got one thing right. She believed in herself and she believed in Eva.
I feel a bop on my nose and I look over to see Eva standing in front of me. Once more she pats my nose with her paw.
Bop.
So that’s how this is going to go?
The little wolf wants to play?
Well, then, it’s time to play. With a backwards glance at Madison, I take off running, and Eva follows close at my heels. Together, we race. Together, we experience what it truly means to be a shifter, and when we come back from our run, we find Madison sitting in the grass waiting for us. We both hurry to her, licking her cheeks and nuzzling her and then we take off running once more.
Over and over we run.
Over and over we experience what it truly means to be shifters.
By the time we stop for the night, we’re both exhausted, sweaty, and hungry. We shift back, and Madison smiles.
“How are you feeling?” She asks Eva.
Eva looks at me, and then she stares at the stars for a minute. Finally, she turns back to Madison.
“How do I feel?” She whispers. “I feel like I’m finally home, Madison. I feel like I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.”
Madison gets up and wraps her arms around Eva.
“You saved me,” Eva whispered.
“You saved yourself,” Madison corrects. “I just believed in you, Eva. I will always believe in you: just as you have believed in me.”
“And Bronx?” Eva whispers, but I can hear a bit of a smile in her voice. “What about him?”
“Oh,” Madison looks over Eva’s shoulder at me and winks. “Bronx isn’t half bad. I think I’ll keep him around.”
“Oh, good,” Eva says, pulling back. “You could use a sweet man like that to keep you in line.”
“Hey, I’m not sweet,” I insist. “I’m the pack Alpha. I’m kind of a badass over here. Sweet. Pfft.” I roll my eyes.
For some reason, the girls think that’s incredible funny, and they laugh and laugh and laugh. Finally, we decide we need to take Eva back to the clinic. She’s ready to check out of the medical center and check back into her life. When we reach the door to the center, Eva pauses.
“You go on ahead,” Madison tells her. “We’ll be right in.” Eva nods and disappears, but Madison turns back to me.
“Madison?”
“Thank you, Bronx.”
“For what?”
“For everything,” she whispers. Tears are streaming down her face. “You saved me, Bronx. You didn’t have to, but you saved me. You rescued me over and over, and then you risked your life to help me save my friend. I will never forget this, Bronx, and I will never stop loving you.”
She leans up on her tip-toes then, and Madison kisses me sweetly.
She kisses me like it’s the first time and the last time. She kisses me like she means it. She kisses me like she really does believe in the luck of the wolves, and right now, I’d have to say that I am very lucky indeed.